Donald J. Welch - "Dormez Vous?" (November 27, 1966)
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| - | Gifts which return to thee in Thanksgiving | 0:03 |
| for thy manifold and great mercies, | 0:05 | |
| realizing that thy loving hand | 0:08 | |
| hath given us all that we possess. | 0:10 | |
| grant that we may always be faithful stewards | 0:13 | |
| of thy bounty, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. | 0:16 | |
| (quiet shuffling) | 0:29 | |
| - | Grace be unto you and peace from God our father | 0:34 |
| and the Lord Jesus Christ, amen. | 0:39 | |
| you know what time it is? | 0:45 | |
| it is full time now, for you to wake from sleep. | 0:50 | |
| for salvation is nearer to us now | 0:55 | |
| than when we first believed. | 0:58 | |
| I first remember hearing these words | 1:03 | |
| when I was present with several hundred college students | 1:08 | |
| in a required chapel service | 1:12 | |
| on a small church related college campus. | 1:14 | |
| now those of you here who have | 1:18 | |
| never had the great privilege | 1:20 | |
| of being required to attend chapel | 1:22 | |
| on a small church related college campus, | 1:25 | |
| have missed a great experience and worship. | 1:29 | |
| I too, was a student who went rather reluctantly | 1:34 | |
| to the chapel on a dreary Monday morning. | 1:38 | |
| the first day of school, | 1:42 | |
| following the Thanksgiving recess. | 1:44 | |
| having no knowledge then of the church calendar | 1:47 | |
| and caring less, | 1:50 | |
| I was completely unaware | 1:52 | |
| that this day fell in the first week of advent. | 1:54 | |
| I only knew that I had been riding a | 1:58 | |
| greyhound bus all night | 2:01 | |
| in order to make an | 2:03 | |
| eight o'clock class that morning. | 2:04 | |
| And I had met two classes and now | 2:07 | |
| with the 10 o'clock hour, | 2:09 | |
| I was ready to settle in for a much needed nap. | 2:10 | |
| The organist very kindly played a | 2:15 | |
| lullaby type prelude, | 2:18 | |
| and then the president of the college in a booming voice | 2:21 | |
| over a much too loud public address system | 2:24 | |
| read the opening scripture sentences taken from the epistle, | 2:28 | |
| so for the first Sunday in advent, | 2:33 | |
| and I, and my dozing neighbors were startled to hear, | 2:36 | |
| "It is full time now for you to wake from sleep | 2:41 | |
| for salvation is nearer to us now | 2:45 | |
| than when we first believe." | 2:48 | |
| now I have yet to be convinced | 2:51 | |
| that these words of Saint Paul, | 2:54 | |
| were not addressed to me personally. | 2:57 | |
| and now some 18 years later I still hear them | 3:01 | |
| as some personal address, | 3:04 | |
| calling me by name and inquiring | 3:07 | |
| about my state of dormancy. | 3:11 | |
| I am the Friar Jacques to whom is asked | 3:15 | |
| "Dormez vous," | 3:19 | |
| I am the Brother, John, and | 3:22 | |
| at least once a year on this first Sunday in advent | 3:24 | |
| I hear the question, Brother John, Are you sleeping? | 3:28 | |
| and so in the light of this lesson, from the epistle | 3:35 | |
| to the Romans, I turn to you and ask the same question | 3:37 | |
| "Dormez Vous?" | 3:42 | |
| our immediate response I think is to look | 3:46 | |
| upon ourselves as anything but sleeping, | 3:49 | |
| but rather | 3:53 | |
| wide awake persons | 3:54 | |
| for we are the man of the 20th century | 3:55 | |
| the participants in the new awakening | 3:59 | |
| living in a world, come of age. | 4:01 | |
| we may justly be accused of many sins, | 4:06 | |
| but certainly not that of sleeping. | 4:11 | |
| and yet I wonder in my house, | 4:16 | |
| we live by certain little ground rules. | 4:20 | |
| most of which I did not make. | 4:24 | |
| one of them is this: | 4:28 | |
| that no adult is allowed to fall asleep | 4:30 | |
| watching television. | 4:33 | |
| now, those of you who have been sampling | 4:37 | |
| the fair of this year, | 4:38 | |
| realize what a difficult rule | 4:40 | |
| this is to live by. | 4:41 | |
| no matter how sleepy one is, | 4:44 | |
| or how dreary the program, | 4:46 | |
| the commandment remains thou shall not fall asleep | 4:48 | |
| before the television set. | 4:52 | |
| now for 12 years, I have been working on a way to | 4:55 | |
| catch a little nap during the Sunday afternoon | 4:58 | |
| professional football game. | 5:00 | |
| I brace myself in chair, | 5:03 | |
| lean back my head and doze | 5:05 | |
| and when on the outer limits of my auditory | 5:08 | |
| consciousness I hear footsteps approach, | 5:10 | |
| I fling open my eyelids, look straight ahead | 5:14 | |
| and prepare myself for the inevitable question. | 5:17 | |
| "Are you asleep?" | 5:20 | |
| to which I answer, | 5:22 | |
| "No, I'm not asleep. | 5:23 | |
| the score is 32 to 19." | 5:24 | |
| I have managed to escape on a few occasions | 5:28 | |
| but not too long ago, I was caught by the reply | 5:31 | |
| "How could you know the score? | 5:35 | |
| I turned the TV off 30 minutes ago." | 5:38 | |
| (laughter) | 5:41 | |
| this may very well be our situation | 5:43 | |
| in this enlightened age. | 5:48 | |
| We no longer live in a world of | 5:50 | |
| myth and superstition. | 5:52 | |
| We are a mature people of | 5:55 | |
| people according to Bonhoeffer | 5:56 | |
| for whom God is no longer a necessary hypothesis. | 5:59 | |
| We deal daily with the problems, | 6:03 | |
| grace and revolution. | 6:05 | |
| We have replaced our puritan and ethical codes | 6:07 | |
| with the responsible love | 6:09 | |
| and the existential situation. | 6:11 | |
| we're on the verge of abolishing | 6:14 | |
| poverty and unwanted pregnancies. | 6:16 | |
| and we live in a world which is ruled out war. | 6:19 | |
| that is just as soon as we clear up this little mess | 6:22 | |
| in Vietnam and the other one on the Jordan-Israeli border. | 6:25 | |
| we live in a world | 6:29 | |
| in which we intend to live in law and peace. | 6:30 | |
| we no longer fight urbanization and secularization | 6:34 | |
| but we welcome as the promise new age, | 6:38 | |
| which may soon usher in the kingdom itself. | 6:42 | |
| our scientific knowledge, | 6:45 | |
| our technical skills are bursting, | 6:48 | |
| with the possibility of abundant life | 6:50 | |
| for all mankind. | 6:53 | |
| The great society is upon us, and it's a probability. | 6:55 | |
| are we asleep? | 7:01 | |
| of course not. | 7:04 | |
| we know the score. | 7:06 | |
| How much of this sounds so similar to the slogans | 7:10 | |
| of the 1920s | 7:14 | |
| when following the war to end all wars | 7:16 | |
| we would rise each morning | 7:20 | |
| and look in the mirror and say every day | 7:21 | |
| in every way, | 7:25 | |
| "I'm getting better and better." and believe it. | 7:27 | |
| And do you remember | 7:33 | |
| four or five years ago at the most? | 7:34 | |
| how worried and concerned we were | 7:38 | |
| about the church | 7:40 | |
| that the church was irrelevant. | 7:42 | |
| it was not dealing with social issues | 7:44 | |
| it was captive to suburbanite, middle class mentality | 7:47 | |
| and that we were hopelessly divided | 7:51 | |
| and the body of Christ was badly broken. | 7:53 | |
| and that this was the scandal of Christendom | 7:56 | |
| and that the church as an institution was dead. | 7:59 | |
| but I no longer hear these accusations | 8:03 | |
| indeed I no longer make them. | 8:07 | |
| I now find that I'm going from campus to campus | 8:09 | |
| from church to church, proclaiming | 8:12 | |
| the Church is being renewed. | 8:14 | |
| the Church is being renewed, | 8:16 | |
| I cry out. | 8:18 | |
| look around you and see what is happening in the church. | 8:20 | |
| ministers are marching in the streets | 8:25 | |
| witnessing the churches at work in the inner city. | 8:27 | |
| again, priests are performing in nightclubs and unity. | 8:31 | |
| a man you have never seen such a ecumenism. | 8:35 | |
| Vatican two has opened up avenues, | 8:40 | |
| never believed possible. | 8:42 | |
| the council on church union has agreed | 8:45 | |
| on preliminary working papers. | 8:47 | |
| and the Methodist church | 8:49 | |
| has ushered in the new day | 8:52 | |
| by uniting with the evangelical United brethren to | 8:53 | |
| form the largest Protestant communion in America. | 8:56 | |
| and so the question comes to the church. | 9:02 | |
| "Are you asleep?" | 9:04 | |
| and we answer, "no we're not asleep. | 9:06 | |
| we know what the score is" | 9:09 | |
| how similar this sounds to the 1920 optimism | 9:13 | |
| in the church when we could boldly proclaim | 9:18 | |
| and believe the evangelization | 9:22 | |
| of the world in our generation. | 9:24 | |
| and we sang its theme song, you win the one next | 9:28 | |
| to you and I'll win the one next to me. | 9:32 | |
| and in no time at all | 9:35 | |
| we'll have them all | 9:36 | |
| and win them one by one. | 9:39 | |
| do you know what time it is? | 9:43 | |
| it is full time to wake out of sleep. | 9:47 | |
| is this word of Paul to the church | 9:53 | |
| drawn a word to us in our day? | 9:56 | |
| or do we really believe that we are wide awake? | 10:01 | |
| this is not to say that things are not happening | 10:07 | |
| in the church and in the world. | 10:10 | |
| if one wants to go where the action is | 10:12 | |
| there are plenty of floating crap games around | 10:15 | |
| and this is an exciting time | 10:18 | |
| to be a part of the church no doubt. | 10:20 | |
| but perhaps, just perhaps | 10:24 | |
| perhaps we do not have the real answer to our situation. | 10:28 | |
| perhaps we are not even close. | 10:33 | |
| maybe we are not awake to what is happening at all. | 10:35 | |
| when I was a boy, | 10:42 | |
| I shared a room with three of my brothers. | 10:42 | |
| there were nights when I did not sleep well. | 10:46 | |
| and during these waking hours | 10:48 | |
| I observed a strange phenomenon. | 10:50 | |
| one of my brothers would cry | 10:54 | |
| out in his sleep | 10:55 | |
| and another one would answer. | 10:57 | |
| and for five or 10 minutes at a time | 11:01 | |
| they would carry on a conversation, | 11:03 | |
| yet both were asleep. | 11:06 | |
| this was dialogue. | 11:09 | |
| and it may be descriptive of the dialogue | 11:13 | |
| now being carried on | 11:16 | |
| between the church and the world. | 11:17 | |
| we may be having a conversation. | 11:19 | |
| but perhaps when we wake up, we may discover | 11:23 | |
| that we didn't know what we were talking | 11:27 | |
| about and that no communication has really taken place, | 11:29 | |
| because we were both asleep. | 11:34 | |
| advent is the season of the year that, | 11:37 | |
| that bothers me. | 11:40 | |
| oh, it doesn't bother me. | 11:42 | |
| that Christmas has become commercialized. | 11:44 | |
| I actually worry about the people who run around worrying | 11:46 | |
| about Christmas, becoming commercialized. | 11:49 | |
| I heard recently of a department store | 11:53 | |
| a department store that said shop at the store | 11:56 | |
| which keeps Christ in Christmas. | 12:01 | |
| see our huge nativity scene on the ground floor | 12:03 | |
| (laughter) | 12:08 | |
| and in pulpits all over America today | 12:09 | |
| on this first Sunday of Advent, | 12:12 | |
| ministers are crying out about | 12:13 | |
| the commercialization of this holy season. | 12:16 | |
| what am I bothered that | 12:21 | |
| on a college and university campuses that we | 12:23 | |
| can't keep advent as a penitential season. | 12:26 | |
| looking forward to the celebration of the birth of Christ. | 12:29 | |
| if we celebrate Christmas on campus at all, | 12:33 | |
| we must squeeze it in between the Thanksgiving | 12:36 | |
| and Christmas recesses, | 12:38 | |
| for God knows that there is no time | 12:40 | |
| for Christmas when we come back preparing for exam. | 12:43 | |
| what bothers me really about advent is this. | 12:48 | |
| just when I think that we've got a good | 12:52 | |
| thing going, | 12:55 | |
| just when I've worked out the | 12:58 | |
| the proper system and related in my own mind | 12:59 | |
| belief and action and theology and ethics and | 13:02 | |
| the church and the world. | 13:06 | |
| and it is at this point every year | 13:08 | |
| that advent comes | 13:12 | |
| and I am reminded | 13:15 | |
| of the incarnation that God broke into history | 13:17 | |
| over 1900 years ago | 13:21 | |
| in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. | 13:24 | |
| and I have to deal with this event. | 13:28 | |
| I cannot ignore it. | 13:32 | |
| oh I can accept it, | 13:34 | |
| and often do from year to year | 13:35 | |
| with all of its mythological | 13:37 | |
| trappings and become right, pious and | 13:38 | |
| sentimental about it all. | 13:40 | |
| I light my advent candles and glow right along with them. | 13:43 | |
| or on occasions I | 13:49 | |
| I can muster up the courage to reject the whole | 13:51 | |
| thing altogether as not really being relevant | 13:54 | |
| to the system that I've worked out in my own mind. | 13:57 | |
| but one thing I cannot do | 14:01 | |
| I cannot make it fit into my scheme of things. | 14:03 | |
| for it is a reminder, | 14:07 | |
| always a reminder, that God is at work in the world in a way | 14:09 | |
| which I do not readily comprehend. | 14:16 | |
| Alfred Tennyson expressed it some years ago | 14:20 | |
| and we sang it as a little noticed | 14:23 | |
| fourth stanza of a familiar hymn | 14:25 | |
| and he said, our little systems have their day. | 14:28 | |
| they have their day and cease to be. | 14:32 | |
| they are, but broken lights of thee | 14:36 | |
| and thou oh Lord | 14:39 | |
| art more than they. | 14:42 | |
| and this in a sense | 14:45 | |
| is what the Christian Church proclaims | 14:48 | |
| that advent had been. | 14:50 | |
| that 1,970 years ago were there about that | 14:51 | |
| the Roman world had a lot going for it | 14:56 | |
| that Judaism at that time and other religions | 14:59 | |
| with all of their faults were dealing | 15:02 | |
| rather realistically | 15:04 | |
| with their culture and then bang. | 15:05 | |
| that unknown to any in the power structures | 15:09 | |
| God entered the world in Jesus of Nazareth, | 15:13 | |
| and nothing could remain the same. | 15:18 | |
| this is what bothers me | 15:23 | |
| about the proclamation of the church and advent. | 15:25 | |
| this is what bothers me | 15:28 | |
| about our sophisticated faith and world come of age. | 15:30 | |
| it is full time now for, | 15:36 | |
| for us to wake | 15:38 | |
| out of sleep for salvation is nearer to us now | 15:39 | |
| than when we first believe. | 15:43 | |
| this last part of the text too. | 15:46 | |
| I remember, and so do you, I think. | 15:50 | |
| when we first believe the gospel | 15:53 | |
| the good news life was simple then. | 15:57 | |
| faith was beautiful. | 16:02 | |
| everything could be reduced to a personal basis. | 16:04 | |
| I had sin, God forgives sin | 16:07 | |
| God forgives me and our eschatology had little | 16:09 | |
| in it of bombs and wars of grace and poverty. | 16:13 | |
| all we needed and know was that if we were to dock | 16:17 | |
| we would surely go to heaven. | 16:21 | |
| choices were black and white. | 16:25 | |
| there were things one should do, | 16:27 | |
| and there were things one should avoid. | 16:29 | |
| now, there are still those | 16:32 | |
| who present this simple solution to our dilemma. | 16:34 | |
| Billy Graham and others exhort us to simply | 16:38 | |
| make a decision for Christ. | 16:40 | |
| moral re armament says have a quiet time every day | 16:44 | |
| and live pure lives | 16:47 | |
| without great concern over what's going on around you. | 16:49 | |
| and there are organizations that urge us to go back | 16:53 | |
| to God and others say, go to church, this sunday | 16:57 | |
| and take someone with you. | 17:01 | |
| you'll both feel better for it. | 17:02 | |
| I wake up each morning to a clock radio. | 17:06 | |
| and on weekdays, I wake up | 17:10 | |
| to a very soft voice talking sentimentally | 17:12 | |
| about the simple faith for five minutes. | 17:15 | |
| and then I get up and face the world. | 17:19 | |
| and on Sundays, I wake | 17:21 | |
| up to the old fashioned revival | 17:23 | |
| and nostalgically look back | 17:26 | |
| to a simple faith that I could affirm all of these | 17:29 | |
| are attempts to get back to the time | 17:34 | |
| when we first believed | 17:37 | |
| that somehow this just doesn't work. | 17:40 | |
| it's like seeing an old girlfriend | 17:43 | |
| after 10 or 12 years, it just isn't there anymore. | 17:44 | |
| now we can no longer live in a world which does | 17:50 | |
| not deal seriously with radical secularization | 17:54 | |
| the death of God's situation, ethics. | 17:58 | |
| and yet the message of advent is this, | 18:02 | |
| that in the midst of all of these systems | 18:06 | |
| and explanations and schemes and proclamations, | 18:08 | |
| that God may be preparing away | 18:13 | |
| and that God may be | 18:15 | |
| at work in ways strange and unknown to us. | 18:17 | |
| and we are not aware | 18:21 | |
| of God's continued incarnation because we are lulled | 18:22 | |
| into sleep by all the prophets crying out to be heard | 18:26 | |
| and in following, | 18:30 | |
| we think that we are a wide awake | 18:31 | |
| to what God is speaking. | 18:33 | |
| it is full time now to wake | 18:36 | |
| from sleep for salvation is nearer to us now | 18:38 | |
| than when we first believe. | 18:42 | |
| when Paul wrote this letter | 18:46 | |
| to the church, to Rome, there was an | 18:48 | |
| eschatological hope present | 18:50 | |
| in the faith of all Christians at this time. | 18:52 | |
| and it went like this that no matter what kind | 18:55 | |
| of situation we find ourselves in behold, | 18:58 | |
| our God will come and save us. | 19:01 | |
| it is difficult now to speak | 19:05 | |
| of such a hope for very few believe, even in | 19:07 | |
| in their best moments | 19:12 | |
| that God will break into history to save us. | 19:14 | |
| I am troubled by the conclusion I seem to reach the sun. | 19:19 | |
| you see, I have this great temptation to say | 19:24 | |
| you want to see God at work in the world, | 19:27 | |
| now look! Here He is here in east Harlem or | 19:28 | |
| in west side Chicago or in Watts or in the Delta ministry | 19:33 | |
| in Mississippi or in the Edgemont community center. | 19:36 | |
| now maybe he is, but I don't know. | 19:40 | |
| what I do wish to proclaim is probably as nebulous | 19:46 | |
| as it is naive. | 19:48 | |
| it is a simple message of hope | 19:51 | |
| that something is happening in our presence in our own age. | 19:54 | |
| and that God is being born. | 19:59 | |
| I must believe this. | 20:03 | |
| I do believe it. | 20:05 | |
| if I do not, there is no advent message for me. | 20:06 | |
| a number of you, I hope, viewed the gospel | 20:10 | |
| according to Saint Matthew this past week, | 20:13 | |
| all of us I think were impressed | 20:18 | |
| by the frugality of the production | 20:19 | |
| by the simpleness of the message. | 20:21 | |
| but there is one scene that sort of sticks with me. | 20:25 | |
| when Jesus came out of the wilderness | 20:29 | |
| after the temptation and was walking | 20:32 | |
| along the fields, and there he met a group of peasants. | 20:33 | |
| and as he passed by | 20:38 | |
| he seemed to whisper to them and say, | 20:41 | |
| "Repent. The kingdom of heaven is at hand," | 20:44 | |
| and all week I've been tempted | 20:50 | |
| to pass this word along in the corridors | 20:51 | |
| of the divinity school, on the streets of the city, | 20:54 | |
| repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. | 20:58 | |
| this is the message of advent. | 21:03 | |
| the season, looking forward to that, which is coming. | 21:06 | |
| that is, that there is more to come | 21:11 | |
| that this is not the last chapter and that we must wake | 21:14 | |
| up and be prepared for what is to come. | 21:18 | |
| an old advent hymn which we don't sing states, | 21:23 | |
| this very positively. | 21:26 | |
| hark, a thrilling voice is sounding Christ | 21:29 | |
| is nigh it seems to say. | 21:32 | |
| cast away the dreams of darkness | 21:35 | |
| all ye children of the day. | 21:39 | |
| you know what hour it is. | 21:43 | |
| It is full time for us to wake from sleep. | 21:46 | |
| the night is far gone. | 21:50 | |
| the day is at hand and salvation is nearer | 21:53 | |
| to us now | 21:58 | |
| than when | 22:00 | |
| we first believe. | 22:02 | |
| in the name of the father, | 22:05 | |
| and of the son and of the holy spirit. | 22:06 | |
| amen. | 22:10 | |
| even in this enlightened day | 22:12 | |
| there may still be a prayer for us in the advent collect | 22:14 | |
| from the book of common prayer, | 22:18 | |
| let us stand. | 22:20 | |
| let us pray. | 22:24 | |
| almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works | 22:28 | |
| of darkness and put upon us the armor of light. | 22:34 | |
| now in the time of this mortal life | 22:40 | |
| in which thy son Jesus Christ came to visit us | 22:43 | |
| in great humility. | 22:47 | |
| that in the last day | 22:50 | |
| when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge | 22:52 | |
| both the quick and the dead, | 22:55 | |
| we may rise to the life | 22:59 | |
| immortal through him who liveth and reignith with thee | 23:00 | |
| and the holy ghost now and ever, amen. | 23:04 | |
| may the peace of God, which passeth | 23:10 | |
| to all understanding, abide in your hearts and minds | 23:12 | |
| and keep you always in the knowledge and love of God | 23:16 | |
| and of his son Jesus Christ are our Lord may the blessing | 23:19 | |
| of God, the father, son, and holy spirit be | 23:23 | |
| with you and abide with you now and evermore. | 23:27 |
