John Hewett - "The Spirit and the Forms of Freedom" (June 7, 1987)

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-	Grace and peace to you	0:09
	in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.	0:10
	We welcome you to this service of worship	0:12
	at Duke University Chapel on this Pentecost Sunday.	0:14
	On this birthday of the church,	0:18
	we celebrate this gathering of Christians	0:19
	representing many cities and states	0:21
	throughout our country.	0:24
	If it is your first visit to the Duke campus,	0:25
	we wish you a pleasant stay	0:27
	and we offer our assistance to you in any way	0:29
	that we may be helpful.	0:31
	We also extend greetings	0:33
	to our radio and television audiences.	0:35
	Our preacher for today's service	0:38
	is the Reverend Dr. John Hewett,	0:39
	pastor of the First Baptist Church	0:42
	in Asheville, North Carolina.	0:44
	Experienced both as a parish pastor and seminary professor,	0:46
	Dr. Hewett brings to us an important word.	0:50
	He is a well-known leader	0:53
	throughout Southern Baptist circles as well.	0:54
	We are indeed privileged to be able to welcome him	0:57
	and his wife, June, to our service today.	1:00
	Please note the other announcements	1:04
	as they are printed in your bulletins.	1:05
	And now, let us continue our worship.	1:08
	(choir music)	1:23
	(organ music)	2:30
	(hymnal music)	3:21
	Almighty God, on this day you opened the way	7:05
	to eternal life to every race and nation	7:09
	by the promised gift of your holy spirit.	7:13
	Shed abroad this gift throughout the world	7:16
	by the preaching of the gospel	7:19
	that it may reach to the ends of the Earth	7:21
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord,	7:24
	who lives and reigns with you	7:26
	in the unity of the Holy Spirit,	7:28
	one god forever and ever.	7:30
	Amen.	7:33
-	Let us pray.	7:47
	Open our hearts and minds, O God,	7:50
	by the power of your Holy Spirit,	7:53
	so that as word is read and proclaimed,	7:56
	we might hear with joy what you say to us this day.	8:00
	Amen.	8:04
	The epistle is taken from Paul's first letter	8:07
	to the Corinthians.	8:10
	And no one can say, "Jesus is Lord,"	8:14
	except by the Holy Spirit.	8:18
	Now there are varieties of gifts,	8:21
	but the same spirit.	8:23
	And there are varieties of service,	8:25
	but the same Lord.	8:27
	And there are varieties of working,	8:29
	but it is the same god who inspires them all and every one.	8:32
	To each is given the manifestation of the spirit	8:37
	for the common good.	8:40
	To one is given through the Spirit,	8:42
	the utterance of wisdom.	8:45
	And to another, the utterance of knowledge	8:47
	according to the same Spirit.	8:49
	To another, faith by the same Spirit.	8:52
	To another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit.	8:56
	To another, the working of miracles.	9:00
	To another, prophecy.	9:03
	To another, the ability to distinguish between spirits.	9:05
	To another, various kinds of tongues.	9:10
	And to another, the interpretation of tongues.	9:13
	All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit	9:17
	who apportions to each one, individually,	9:21
	as the Spirit wills.	9:25
	For justice, the body is one and has many members	9:27
	and all the members of the body, though many, are one body.	9:31
	So it is with Christ.	9:35
	For by one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body,	9:39
	Jews or Greeks, slaves or free,	9:43
	and all were made to drink of one Spirit.	9:47
	This ends the reading of the epistle.	9:52
Rev. Clark	Let us stand	10:00
	as we read the psalter responsively.	10:01
	Praise the Lord,	10:11
	I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart.	10:12
Congregation	In the company of the upright,	10:16
	in the congregation.	10:18
-	Great are the works of the Lord.	10:20
Congregation	Studied by all who delight in them.	10:22
-	Full of honor and majesty is his work.	10:25
Congregation	And his righteousness endures forever.	10:29
-	He has caused his wonderful works to be remembered.	10:32
Congregation	The Lord is gracious and merciful.	10:35
-	He provides food for those who fear him.	10:38
Congregation	He remembers his covenant forever.	10:42
-	He has shown his people the power of his works.	10:45
Congregation	In giving them the inheritance	10:48
	of the nations.	10:50
-	The works of his hands are faithful and just.	10:51
Congregation	All his precepts are trustworthy.	10:55
-	They are established forever and ever.	10:58
Congregation	To be performed	11:02
	with faithfulness and uprightness.	11:02
-	He sent redemption to his people.	11:05
Congregation	He has commanded his covenant forever.	11:08
	(hymnal music)	11:12
-	The gospel lesson is taken from John.	12:23
	On the evening of that day, the first day of the week,	12:28
	the doors being shut where the disciples were	12:32
	for fear of the Jewish authorities,	12:34
	Jesus came and stood among them	12:37
	and said to them,	12:40
	"Peace be with you."	12:42
	Having said this, Jesus showed them his hands and side.	12:45
	Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.	12:49
	Jesus said to them again,	12:53
	"Peace be with you.	12:55
	"As God, the father, has sent me	12:58
	"even so, I send you."	13:01
	Having said this, Jesus breathed on them	13:04
	and said to them,	13:07
	"Receive the Holy Spirit.	13:09
	"If you forgive the sins of any,	13:11
	"they are forgiven.	13:14
	"If you retain the sins of any,	13:15
	"they are retained."	13:18
	This ends the reading of the gospel.	13:21
	(choir music)	13:31
-	The scripture lesson is taken from Acts.	15:40
	When the day of Pentecost had come,	15:46
	they were all together in one place.	15:49
	And suddenly, a sound came from heaven	15:52
	like the rush of a mighty wind	15:54
	and it filled all the house where they were sitting.	15:56
	And there appeared to them tongues as a fire	16:00
	distributed and resting on each one of them.	16:03
	And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit	16:07
	and began to speak in other tongues	16:10
	as the Spirit gave them utterance.	16:12
	Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem,	16:16
	devout Jews from every nation under heaven.	16:17
	And, at this sound, the multitude came together	16:21
	and they were bewildered because they heard them speaking	16:25
	in their own language and they were amazed	16:27
	and wondered, saying,	16:31
	"Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?	16:32
	"And how is it that we hear, each of us,	16:36
	"in our own native language?	16:39
	"Parthians and Medes and Elamites	16:42
	"and residents of Mesopotamia,	16:45
	"Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,	16:47
	"Phrygia and Pamphylia,	16:51
	"Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene,	16:52
	"and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,	16:56
	"Cretans and Arabians.	17:00
	"We hear them telling in our own tongues,	17:03
	"the mighty works of God."	17:05
	And all were amazed and perplexed,	17:08
	saying to one another,	17:10
	"What does this mean?"	17:12
	But others mocking said,	17:14
	"They are filled with new wine."	17:17
	But Peter, standing with the 11,	17:20
	lifted up his voice and addressed them:	17:22
	"People of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem,	17:25
	"let this be known to you, and give ear to my words.	17:29
	"For these people are not drunk, as you suppose,	17:34
	"since it is only the third hour of the day.	17:36
	"But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:	17:40
	"'And in the last days it shall be, God declares,	17:44
	"'that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,	17:47
	"'and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,	17:50
	"'and the young shall see visions,	17:54
	"'and your old men shall dream dreams;	17:56
	"'yeah, and on my men servants and maid servants	17:59
	"'in those days I will pour out my Spirit,	18:01
	"'and they shall prophesy.	18:05
	"'And I will show wonders in the heavens above	18:07
	"'and signs on the earth beneath,	18:09
	"'blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;	18:13
	"'the sun shall be turned to darkness	18:17
	"'and the moon to blood,	18:19
	"'before the day of the sovereign one comes,	18:21
	"'the great and manifest day.	18:23
	"'And it shall be that whoever calls on the name	18:27
	"'of the sovereign one shall be saved.'"	18:30
	This ends the reading of the scripture lesson.	18:35
-	In the name of the Father, and the Son,	18:50
	and the Holy Spirit, Amen.	18:51
	It's an occasion of pure delight	18:56
	to consort in the worship of God this morning	18:57
	with my fellow pilgrims among the Duke University family.	19:01
	I feel the same sense of awe in this place	19:06
	which must of gripped the young James Buchanan Duke	19:09
	when he arrived in New York City a hundred years ago.	19:14
	A country boy straight from Durham.	19:17
	In his latter years, he liked to tell the story	19:21
	of the first time he rode down Fifth Avenue	19:23
	on a horse-drawn tourist wagon.	19:27
	The spieler called attention to the palatial new homes	19:31
	that had been built along the way.	19:34
	"There's the Morgan place," he announced.	19:37
	"Pierpont?" asked Duke.	19:40
	"No, Junius," replied the announcer.	19:42
	"And, here's the home of the Vanderbilts."	19:47
	"Cornelius?" suggested Duke.	19:50
	"Wrong again," snapped the announcer.	19:52
	"William Henry."	19:55
	A moment later, he pointed to a new cathedral	19:57
	and announced, "Christ church."	20:01
	And when Buck Duke said nothing, replied,	20:04
	"Come on, kid, take a chance."	20:06
	Since it has pleased God to save those who believe	20:12
	through the foolishness of preaching,	20:15
	we take a chance this morning with this story	20:18
	which gave birth to this moment,	20:21
	the story of Pentecost.	20:23
	Pentecost is a red letter day on Christian calendars	20:26
	which marks the morning 50 days after Easter	20:30
	when the Spirit of God swept through	20:34
	that expectant company of 12	20:36
	and transformed them into the officer corps	20:39
	of a mighty, faithful army.	20:42
	That day, the active church of Jesus Christ	20:45
	was constituted.	20:48
	For believers, Pentecost is charged with the sacred fire	20:50
	and the mighty wind of God's grandeur.	20:54
	The place wherein we stand today	20:58
	is holy ground.	21:01
	My presence here this morning is personally significant	21:03
	because I met Jesus Christ and continue to serve him	21:06
	amid those free church folk known as Southern Baptists.	21:10
	And Baptists are already too impoverished	21:15
	for our neglect of the calendar of Christian liturgy.	21:17
	We dare not ignore Pentecost,	21:20
	especially since, for all those years,	21:22
	we've been singing Lord, Send the Old Time Power	21:25
	that Pentecostal Power.	21:28
	I realize that the pursuit of this theme	21:32
	is open to some misinterpretation.	21:33
	If the front page of tomorrow's paper reads,	21:36
	"Duke goes Pentecostal,"	21:38
	we will know we have ripped our ecclesiastical britches	21:41
	and I will be looking for work in a theme park	21:44
	somewhere south of here.	21:47
	(congregation laughs)	21:48
	Every Baptist preacher in the current theological climate	21:53
	must have a text and preferably several of them.	21:57
	This morning, I will build upon the story recounted	22:01
	by the missionary physician, Luke,	22:05
	found in the second chapter of Acts,	22:08
	using as the constitutive theme Paul's clarion call	22:09
	to Christian liberty found in his second epistle	22:13
	to the Corinthians, chapter 3, verse 17,	22:16
	"Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."	22:19
	Now look with me to that morning on the day of Pentecost.	22:24
	Here is a symbol for the spiritual	22:27
	and the intellectual life.	22:29
	With a little assistance from my Baptist forebear,	22:32
	E.Y. Mullins, I have discovered	22:34
	in this story six dramatic forms of freedom and the spirit.	22:37
	Each form embodies release from the ties	22:43
	that would bind us to something less than spiritual	22:47
	and each contains an openness to embrace the life	22:50
	of the one who is making all things new.	22:54
	The miracle of Pentecost, whether you interpret it	22:58
	as a miracle of speaking or a miracle of hearing,	23:01
	totally frustrated the religious establishment	23:04
	which thought it had God in a box.	23:07
	The hierarchy of Judean Judaism quickly concluded	23:12
	that since they did not understand	23:15
	and had not granted prior approval	23:17
	for this early morning phenomenon,	23:20
	it could not possibly be authentic.	23:22
	And so they did what religious fundamentalists	23:26
	and doctrinal idolaters have always done	23:28
	to those who experience God in different ways,	23:32
	they mocked them and called them liberals	23:35
	and accused them of tying one on at 9:00 a.m.	23:39
	Their God, they were sure,	23:44
	would have cleared something this important	23:46
	through the Temple first.	23:47
	The priest would have received a sign	23:49
	or a memo or some other divine directive.	23:51
	They were convinced on the basis of their interpretation	23:55
	of their book that God's behavior	23:58
	was totally predictable.	24:02
	And the notion of the predictability of God	24:05
	was the cornerstone of their well-ordered,	24:07
	uniform, calcified faith.	24:09
	Until that morning, the Spirit blew into Jerusalem	24:13
	and crashed their exclusive piety,	24:16
	granting the church freedom from religious rigidity	24:19
	and freedom to serve the sovereign God	24:23
	who reveals himself as he chooses.	24:25
	That freedom would characterize every major decision	24:29
	made in early Christianity.	24:32
	As Paul told the hard-headed Galatians	24:34
	who were more entranced by law than by gospel,	24:36
	"It was for freedom that Christ set us free;	24:40
	"therefore, keep standing firm	24:45
	"and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery."	24:47
	And still the fresh wind blows on Pentecost today.	24:52
	It frees the church from the brown-shirted troops	24:56
	of religious fascism,	25:00
	these inerrant defenders of the right faith	25:02
	who know infallibly what God will do	25:06
	and who tolerate no difference opinion.	25:08
	And it frees us for the exhilarating journey of faith	25:12
	through an open future whose destination	25:16
	is the kingdom of God.	25:18
	Here is spiritual freedom in its theological form.	25:20
	The freedom to speak the truth as the Spirit	25:25
	gives us utterance,	25:27
	un-intimidated by the gaping mockers	25:29
	who don't know the difference	25:32
	between drunken babbling	25:33
	and the life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ	25:34
	and encouraged by the response of those	25:38
	who hear it in a language they know	25:41
	and who, for the first time, understand,	25:43
	where the Spirit of the Lord is,	25:47
	there is freedom.	25:49
	The freedom announced at Pentecost	25:52
	was not newly spoken,	25:54
	just newly experienced.	25:56
	For the prophet Joel had longed for the day	25:59
	when the Spirit of God would remove the barriers	26:02
	of provincial and cultural exclusivism	26:05
	and blow freely through the people of God.	26:07
	It was a dramatic reversal of the Hebrew saga	26:11
	of the Tower of Babel.	26:14
	For Pentecost brought not chaos into order,	26:17
	but order out of chaos.	26:20
	At Pentecost, everyone was understood,	26:23
	regardless of national origin or racial background.	26:26
	As Joel had hoped, the Spirit was poured out upon all flesh,	26:29
	and the inspired proclamation of God's power	26:36
	became the gift of the son's and the daughter's	26:38
	of the faithful.	26:42
	It was a new era of spiritual grace,	26:44
	an era where walls came tumbling down	26:46
	and everyone stood before the Lord on level ground.	26:49
	And we are finally hearing that mighty rush	26:53
	of wind again.	26:55
	Our lily-white gospel for the Southern middle class	26:58
	is being transfigured.	27:01
	In this global village we call Earth,	27:03
	the church of Jesus Christ	27:06
	is becoming more like the prophetic song	27:07
	of our infancy, "Red and yellow, black and white,	27:10
	"all are precious in his sight."	27:14
	Why, in our Baptist churches,	27:19
	we're even catching up to the Rotary Club.	27:20
	We are learning to declare in a fit of liberation	27:23
	what the prophet Joel had announced centuries before,	27:27
	"Your sons and your daughters shall preach."	27:30
	Spiritual freedom in its religious form	27:34
	proclaims the dismantling of all our human barriers	27:37
	for the sake of Jesus Christ.	27:41
	Christian education, at its best,	27:45
	appropriates this same freedom.	27:47
	What better metaphor for the Christian university exists	27:49
	than the Pentecostal community	27:53
	for each student who arrived on this campus	27:56
	came speaking a different language	27:58
	and carrying different baggage,	28:01
	each an unknown quantity.	28:03
	An in the mystery of God's spirit,	28:05
	you have become a fellowship of learners	28:07
	on the road from confusion to understanding.	28:10
	Infused from outside yourself	28:14
	with the truth you have come to know personally.	28:16
	Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.	28:19
	Pentecost teaches us something about how to be the church.	28:25
	Given the radical equality of that experience at 9:00 a.m.	28:29
	and the liberating openness of the prophecy from Joel,	28:33
	it is not surprising that we read in the Book of Acts	28:37
	of a church still charged with the grandeur of God	28:40
	and the power of the Spirit to bring freedom.	28:44
	Listen to Luke's description of these early Christians,	28:48
	"They were continually devoting themselves	28:53
	"to the apostle's teaching and to fellowship,	28:55
	"to the breaking of bread and to prayer.	28:58
	"And everyone kept feeling a sense of awe	29:01
	"and many wonders and signs were taking place	29:04
	"through the apostles.	29:07
	"And all those who believed were together	29:09
	"and had all things in common.	29:12
	"And they began selling their property and possessions	29:15
	"and were sharing them with all	29:18
	"as anyone had need.	29:20
	"And day by day, continuing with one mind in the Temple,	29:22
	"and breaking bread from house to house,	29:26
	"they were taking their meals together	29:29
	"with gladness and sincerity of heart,	29:31
	"praising God and having favor with all the people.	29:34
	"And the Lord was adding to their number day by day,	29:38
	"those who were being saved."	29:42
	Spiritual freedom in its ecclesiastical form	29:45
	is freedom from a repressive hierarchy	29:48
	and freedom to live as equals in the church,	29:51
	fellow members of the body of Christ.	29:55
	I am a Baptist because I believe that.	29:57
	But not all my Baptist brothers and sisters believe it.	30:02
	There is infecting the body of Christ at the present moment,	30:07
	especially in the free church tradition,	30:10
	a virulent disease which kills the freedom of believers.	30:13
	In my own denomination, we have a new hierarchy,	30:19
	a Southern Baptist College of Cardinals	30:22
	which is systematically codifying a new law	30:26
	which will make Pharisaic Jerusalem	30:29
	look like Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.	30:31
	They say, "Lay persons may not know what it is	30:34
	"to be led by the Spirit, but we know."	30:37
	And they say, "I'm not telling you how to vote,	30:41
	"but if you're listening to God,	30:45
	"you'll vote the way I vote.	30:46
	"God's not going to tell you one thing and me another."	30:49
	And they say, "If we believe that a pickle	30:54
	"has a soul, our seminary professors	30:57
	"had better teach that or go."	31:00
	Nearly 500 years ago, a German monk named Martin Luther	31:05
	nailed his future to the door	31:09
	of the Castle Church at Wittenberg	31:11
	because God being his helper,	31:12
	he could do no other.	31:14
	And he spoke into the faces of the corruption of Rome,	31:17
	"Here I stand, only the Spirit can move me."	31:20
	He recovered the truth of the gospel	31:26
	from the vaulted fortresses of those who would hoard it	31:28
	for themselves.	31:31
	Let it be said today, in this place	31:33
	where mental discipline and spiritual discipline	31:35
	are one piece of cloth,	31:38
	that some of us still stand on the reformation principles	31:41
	of soul competency and soul liberty	31:44
	and the priesthood of every believer.	31:47
	And no denominational or political machine	31:50
	can every move us.	31:53
	We will not burn books or stop our ears	31:56
	or close our eyes to any portion of God's light	32:00
	because we know that all truth	32:06
	is God's and his truth alone can make us free.	32:07
	Let those who would devise the ecclesiastical	32:13
	and academic inquisition which now appears	32:16
	on my horizon and on yours,	32:19
	hear this clearly and unmistakably,	32:21
	"Here we stand and only the Spirit can move us,	32:23
	"and, where the Spirit of the Lord is,	32:27
	"there is freedom."	32:30
	And now a few words about politics	32:34
	which, in North Carolina, are also a few words	32:36
	about religion.	32:38
	The advent of the Spirit's power	32:42
	that Pentecost Sunday did strange things	32:44
	to those first apostles.	32:46
	The same Peter who quavered in the courtyard,	32:48
	chickening out while the rooster crowed,	32:51
	was transformed into a valiant stalwart of the faith.	32:54
	"You killed Jesus," he said	32:58
	to the amazed crowd that morning,	33:00
	"but God raised him up again."	33:02
	Two days later, when he was thrown into jail,	33:06
	the big fisherman remembered what the master had said	33:09
	about what was Caesar's and what was God's.	33:12
	And when they brought him and John into the center	33:17
	of the council of their own people,	33:19
	they proclaimed, "Whether it is right	33:21
	"in the sight of God to listen to you	33:23
	"rather than to God, you be the judge.	33:25
	"But, we cannot stop speaking	33:29
	"what we have seen and heard."	33:31
	Soon, all 12 of them were in jail	33:34
	under orders to cease and desist.	33:37
	And the high priest issued this indictment,	33:40
	"We gave you strict orders	33:43
	"not to continue teaching in this name.	33:45
	"And, behold, you have filled Jerusalem	33:48
	"with your teaching and intend	33:50
	"to bring this man's blood upon us."	33:52
	But Peter and the others answered and said,	33:55
	"We must obey God, not you."	33:58
	The political form of Pentecostal freedom	34:03
	emancipates us from civil infringement	34:06
	upon the free exercise of our faith	34:09
	and liberates us for the open, fearless service of God.	34:11
	We Baptists love to call that the separation	34:18
	of church and state.	34:20
	We learn to cherish it when our ministers	34:21
	were being thrown in jail	34:24
	in colonial America.	34:27
	We cherish it even more in these days	34:29
	of great trivialization	34:32
	when the self-anointed hucksters	34:34
	of electronic faith flock to the praetorium	34:36
	to a hear a word from the Lord.	34:40
	We must defend this freedom	34:44
	or we will lose it.	34:46
	We will not lose it to the conspiracy of straw	34:49
	called secular humanism.	34:52
	We will lose it to those	34:55
	who would fuse together the cross and the flag,	34:56
	who would weave together the Bill of Rights	35:00
	and the Sermon on the Mount,	35:02
	who would blur the distinction	35:04
	between a lady lifting a torch in the harbor	35:06
	and a man crowned with thorns on a lonely hill.	35:09
	These may not be expedient politics in 1987,	35:15
	but we must obey God rather than men.	35:21
	He has given us a great commission,	35:25
	greater than any government's charter,	35:27
	more permanent than our own fleeting national history.	35:30
	We are citizens of the commonwealth of heaven first.	35:34
	That's where the Spirit of the Lord dwells.	35:38
	And where the Spirit of the Lord is,	35:42
	there is freedom indeed.	35:43
	The paradigm of Pentecost gives shape	35:49
	also to the moral life.	35:52
	The Spirit of God brought freedom from coerced behavior	35:55
	and freedom to choose freely a moral future.	35:59
	The prophetic word from Joel surely inspired my forebears	36:02
	and yours who staked their theological lives	36:06
	on free will and free grace.	36:09
	Joel announced, "it shall be that everyone	36:11
	"who calls upon the name of the Lord,	36:14
	"will be saved."	36:17
	Salvation was not concomitant with racial	36:20
	or tribal birth.	36:23
	Membership in the family of God	36:25
	could not be a matter of lineage.	36:27
	In the new age, God would have many children,	36:29
	but no grandchildren.	36:33
	The righteous life would have to be freely chosen	36:36
	in cross-bearing discipleship	36:39
	or the gate to the kingdom could not be entered at all.	36:41
	So it was important for Luke	36:45
	to include in his story of Pentecost,	36:48
	this brief description of the crowd's response that morning	36:51
	when Peter preached his inspired sermon	36:54
	and Luke writes, "So then,	36:57
	"those who had received his word were baptized	36:59
	"and they were added that day about 3,000 souls	37:02
	"and all those who had believed were together."	37:06
	The mockers did not believe.	37:12
	They were not baptized.	37:15
	They reappeared a few days later	37:17
	and threw Peter and John into jail.	37:19
	The outpouring of the Spirit continued the risky pattern	37:22
	of Jesus himself who understood	37:25
	that not all those with ears to hear	37:28
	would understand.	37:31
	And who also knew that some of those	37:33
	with especially big ears had long tails and big teeth	37:35
	under their sheep's clothing	37:39
	as they walked the road to his father's house.	37:40
	Those who spend their lives on this campus	37:45
	who don't endure the agony and the ecstasy	37:48
	of leaving it every four years	37:50
	know the pain in the words of Jesus,	37:52
	for they teach a multitude too.	37:56
	And they wonder whether the seed they broadcast	37:59
	has fallen on fertile soil	38:01
	or the rocky footpath of common travel.	38:03
	They have no guarantees of success.	38:07
	College and seminary diplomas	38:09
	are imprecise predictors at best.	38:11
	Students have to choose what kind of persons they will be	38:15
	and whether it might be said in truth	38:19
	that their spirits grew here as well as their minds.	38:21
	What a risk, this business of faith	38:25
	seeking understanding.	38:29
	And how precious the fact that in the providence of God,	38:32
	some do not bury their minds in the ground	38:36
	but invest them here with the possibility	38:39
	of great interest.	38:42
	That is to risk much,	38:44
	but it is to gain far more.	38:47
	Where the Spirit of the Lord is,	38:50
	there is freedom.	38:53
	According to the truth of holy scripture,	38:56
	the Spirit is never given in isolation	38:59
	as an individual phenomenon of faith.	39:02
	God's spirit always comes to the community	39:05
	for gifts of the Spirit are granted to the church.	39:09
	The fruits of the Spirit are lived out corporately.	39:12
	So we turn to the final form of Pentecostal freedom,	39:16
	the social form in which God liberates us	39:19
	from selfishness and sets us free	39:22
	to love each other as we love ourselves.	39:25
	The clue to the apostles' experience of spiritual power	39:29
	is found in Luke's introduction to the whole story,	39:32
	"They were all together in one place."	39:35
	Luke was a gifted writer.	39:39
	He knew exactly how that would sound	39:42
	and he meant it to sound just like it does.	39:45
	He used the same expression later	39:48
	in the 44th verse, "All those	39:50
	"who had believed were together."	39:52
	Not to describe their physical proximity,	39:55
	but their spiritual camaraderie.	39:59
	The Spirit came as the risen Christ had announced to the 11	40:03
	before his departure,	40:07
	"You shall be flooded with the Holy Spirit,	40:09
	"not many days from now.	40:11
	"And you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit	40:14
	"has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses,	40:16
	"both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria,	40:19
	"and even to the remotest part of the Earth."	40:23
	That commissioning fulfilled at nine o'clock	40:28
	on Sunday morning, not many days later,	40:30
	denied any one person the opportunity	40:33
	to claim a private exclusive revelation of God's purpose.	40:37
	It forced each apostle	40:41
	to check his ego at the door.	40:43
	It was fleshed out in an Easter people	40:47
	who came to be known by their communal ownership,	40:50
	their corporate worship,	40:53
	their cooperative ministry,	40:56
	and their consistent evangelism.	40:59
	That's what the Spirit of God does.	41:01
	This is why we must reclaim the biblical mandate	41:06
	for Pentecostal power.	41:10
	These modern movements which claim an esoteric path	41:13
	to the spiritual life	41:16
	and a mysterious hierarchy of blessings,	41:18
	an exclusive approach to fellowship,	41:22
	they are Corinthian, not Pentecostal.	41:25
	When they spoke in tongues at Corinth,	41:29
	nobody understood.	41:31
	At Pentecost, everyone did.	41:33
	At Corinth, the snooty Christians	41:36
	started the Lord's supper before the poor folk arrived.	41:39
	But, not at Pentecost.	41:42
	At Pentecost, they were breaking bread daily,	41:44
	from house to house, taking their meals together	41:46
	with gladness and sincerity of heart.	41:49
	The freedom of the Spirit shoos hermits	41:54
	out of private caves into the marriage feast of the lamb.	41:57
	It orders us out into highways and hedges	42:02
	looking for family.	42:04
	It opens our compartmentalized hearts	42:07
	and dares us to experience life together.	42:10
	It makes real Christians out of us,	42:15
	the kind who are more concerned with those we can love	42:17
	than with those we think we ought to purge.	42:22
	It shatters our spiritual pride	42:26
	as we look into the eyes of brothers and sisters	42:28
	for whom Christ died.	42:31
	And when the heavy loads come,	42:34
	the truly onerous burdens which crush lesser mortals,	42:37
	we shoulder them together after the example	42:42
	of one whose yolk is easy and whose burden is light.	42:46
	Where the Spirit of the Lord is,	42:52
	there is freedom.	42:55
	Now it is time to stop preaching	42:59
	and start celebrating the enabling presence	43:02
	of the Spirit of God this Pentecost.	43:04
	Time to move a bit farther on the journey	43:08
	toward blessing empowered by the mighty wind of faith.	43:10
	For look around you, each person here	43:16
	has a story, a message, a gospel, to proclaim.	43:20
	Each came today hoping to hear the very voice	43:25
	of God in his or her own language.	43:27
	Each needs to be set free from sin and separation	43:32
	and set forth on the pilgrimage	43:35
	toward God's own future.	43:37
	"You shall receive power," the Lord had told them,	43:40
	"when the Spirit comes upon you.	43:44
	"And you shall be my witnesses	43:47
	"to the end of the Earth."	43:50
	Freedom always means a march toward something.	43:52
	And now it is time	43:58
	for this Pentecostal community to move.	44:00
	As you go, do not be surprised	44:05
	if you hear echoing around you that anthem	44:08
	of human liberation.	44:10
	Some, a generation ago,	44:12
	by some latter day children of God,	44:14
	who marched around their Jerichos	44:17
	with the trumpets of righteousness	44:19
	and watched the walls of disorder	44:21
	and repression and chaos and discrimination	44:23
	come tumbling down.	44:27
	Their song was sealed forever in the soul	44:29
	of our nation when another Martin Luther,	44:32
	this time a Baptist preacher named King,	44:34
	stood up in front of a monument	44:38
	and became one and sang forth his dream	44:41
	which was both graduation and commencement.	44:45
	Crying out with the voice of the archangel	44:49
	and the trumpet of God,	44:51
	"Free at last, free at last,	44:52
	"thank God Almighty, we are free at last."	44:55
	That's the song to sing today	45:01
	for it is Pentecost	45:04
	and the Spirit of the Lord is here.	45:07
	And you are free indeed.	45:10
	(organ music)	45:22
-	The Lord be with you.	48:33
Congregation	And also with you.	48:35
-	Let us pray.	48:36
	How can we pray to thee, thou holy and hidden God,	48:48
	whose ways are not our ways,	48:52
	who reignest in mystery beyond the realm of time and space?	48:55
	Yet how can we not pray to thee, Eternal God,	49:01
	who knowest what it is to be human	49:05
	because thou hast walked among us,	49:07
	breaking with us the bread of our affliction	49:10
	and drinking deep of the cup of despair?	49:13
	How can we not pray to thee	49:17
	when it is thy very Spirit within us	49:19
	that moves our lips in prayer?	49:23
	Hear us, O God, both in our words and in our silence,	49:27
	for it is often the silence that speaks better of our need.	49:32
	Speak thy joy into our silence.	49:37
	Breathe thy life into our less than life.	49:41
	Not for our sakes only, but for the sake	49:46
	of those to whom with thy life in us	49:50
	we may ourselves bring life.	49:54
	Hear now gracious God the prayers	49:58
	of all thy children everywhere:	50:01
	for forgiveness and healing,	50:04
	for courage, for faith, for hope in times of despair,	50:06
	for endurance in the midst of trial.	50:13
	Hear our prayers for the needs of others this day:	50:18
	for the homeless, the destitute, the sick and the dying,	50:22
	for the hungry and for those	50:29
	who seek to battle the causes of hunger,	50:30
	for victims of violence everywhere	50:34
	and for those who know no other way than violence,	50:38
	for those who govern the nations of the world,	50:43
	especially those which are conflict-torn,	50:46
	for women and men who suffer for the sake of conscience,	50:50
	for the entire human family	50:55
	that the walls that separate us may be broken down,	50:57
	and that, in thy good time,	51:01
	all nations and races may serve thee in harmony	51:03
	around thy heavenly throne.	51:07
	Deep beneath all our asking, O God,	51:11
	hear the secret song of every human heart,	51:14
	this Pentecost Sunday,	51:17
	lauding and magnifying thy name for being what thou art.	51:20
	Make strong and clear this song of praise	51:25
	within each of us 'til it bursts forth at last	51:28
	to thy glory and our salvation.	51:32
	Through Jesus Christ, the giver of perfect freedom,	51:37
	we pray, Amen.	51:40
	As a forgiven and reconciled people,	51:47
	let us offer our gifts and ourselves unto God.	51:50
	(organ music)	51:57
	(choir music)	53:47
	(organ music)	57:01
-	Almighty God, whose mercy is over all thy works,	59:16
	we praise thee for the blessings	59:20
	which have been brought to humankind	59:22
	by thy holy church throughout the world.	59:24
	We bless thee for the grace of thy sacraments,	59:27
	for our fellowship in Christ with thee	59:30
	and with one another,	59:33
	for the teaching of the scriptures	59:35
	and the preaching of thy world.	59:36
	We thank thee for the holy example of thy saints	59:39
	in all ages for thy servants departed this life	59:42
	in thy faith and fear and for the memory and example	59:46
	of all that has been true and good in their lives.	59:50
	And we humbly beseech thee that we may be numbered with them	59:55
	and the great company of the redeemed in heaven.	59:58
	This we pray in the name of Jesus Christ	1:00:02
	who taught us boldly to pray,	1:00:04
	Our Father, who art in heaven,	1:00:07
	hallowed be thy name,	1:00:09
	thy kingdom come,	1:00:12
	thy will be done,	1:00:13
	on Earth as it is in heaven.	1:00:15
	Give us this day our daily bread.	1:00:17
	And forgive us our trespasses,	1:00:20
	as we forgive those	1:00:22
	who trespass against us.	1:00:23
	And lead us not into temptation,	1:00:25
	but deliver us from evil.	1:00:28
	For thine is the kingdom, the power,	1:00:30
	and the glory, forever, Amen.	1:00:33
	(organ music)	1:00:39
	(hymnal music)	1:01:21
	And now go forth in peace	1:04:23
	and be of good courage.	1:04:25
	Hold fast to that which is good,	1:04:27
	rejoicing the power of the Holy Spirit.	1:04:30
	And may the blessings of God,	1:04:33
	creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit	1:04:35
	be with you all	1:04:37
	now and forever more.	1:04:39
	(hymnal music)	1:04:44
	(organ music)	1:05:22

Item Info

Title:

John Hewett - "The Spirit and the Forms of Freedom" (June 7, 1987)

Description:

With the coming of the Spirit on Pentecost, God opened up to God's people several forms of freedom: religious freedom, theological freedom, ecclesiastical freedom, and political freedom. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Sermon start time: (Part 1) 18:56. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 45:15.
Key quotation: “Spiritual freedom in its religious form proclaims the dismantling of all our human barriers for the sake of Jesus Christ.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4dn40b0b

Date:

June 7, 1987

Speaker:

Hewett, John

Liturgical Calendar:

Pentecost

Biblical Book:

Chapter and Verse:

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 VHS-0035
ref8353_tzf
uachapelsermaud
duke:321758
dcrmv001035
ark:/87924/r4dn40b0b
ac099191-4845-4949-86a3-3cb827104624

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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English

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United States
North Carolina
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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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