William H. Willimon - "God's Little Acre" (July 26, 1987)

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	(baby crying)	0:00
-	Good morning and welcome to our service of worship	0:10
	here at Duke University Chapel.	0:13
	We especially welcome our visitors.	0:16
	If you're here with the Olympic Festival	0:18
	or with the Duke Talent Identification Program,	0:20
	we give you a special welcome here today in the chapel.	0:25
	We're pleased also to welcome as our presiding minister	0:32
	a new arrival on the Duke campus, Dr. James Travis	0:36
	who comes as the new director of Duke Chaplaincy Services.	0:41
	Jim, it's good to have you with us.	0:45
	He comes to us from a position	0:47
	with the Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.	0:50
	He is a graduate of the Southern Baptist Seminary	0:53
	in Louisville and also holds advanced degrees from there	0:57
	and from Emory University	1:01
	and we welcome him to the campus	1:03
	and to the important chaplaincy work at the hospital	1:07
	and also to Duke Chapel.	1:11
	We're pleased that this service	1:13
	is broadcast every Sunday morning	1:14
	into the patient rooms of the Duke Hospital	1:16
	and we thank the Duke Medical Center	1:19
	for making this service possible.	1:21
	And now let us continue our worship.	1:25
	(choir singing)	1:38
	(lively organ music)	2:19
	(congregation singing)	2:55
	(lively organ music)	4:37
	(congregation singing)	5:31
-	Oh God, the protector of all who trust in you,	6:09
	without whom nothing is strong,	6:14
	nothing is holy,	6:16
	increase and multiply upon us your mercy,	6:19
	that with you as our ruler and guide	6:23
	we may so pass through things temporal,	6:27
	that we lose not the things eternal	6:31
	through Jesus Christ our Lord	6:35
	who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,	6:37
	one God, forever and ever.	6:41
	Amen.	6:45
-	Let us pray.	6:59
All	Open our hearts and minds, oh God,	7:01
	by the power of your Holy Spirit	7:05
	so that as the word is read and proclaimed,	7:07
	we might hear with joy what you say to us.	7:11
	Amen.	7:15
-	The first lesson is taken from the book of Isaiah.	7:18
	Thus says the Lord, the king of Israel and his redeemer,	7:21
	the Lord of hosts,	7:27
	I am the first and I am the last,	7:29
	besides me there is no God.	7:32
	Who is like me?	7:35
	Let him proclaim it, let him declare	7:37
	and set it forth before me.	7:40
	Who has announced from of old the things to come?	7:42
	Let them tell us what is yet to be.	7:47
	Fear not nor be afraid,	7:51
	have I not told you from of old	7:54
	and declared it?	7:56
	And you are my witnesses.	7:59
	Is there a God besides me?	8:01
	There is no rock.	8:04
	I know not any.	8:06
	This ends the reading of the first lesson.	8:08
-	Let us join together in the shared reading of the Psalm.	8:19
	Oh give thanks to the Lord.	8:29
	Call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples.	8:32
Congregation	Sing to him, sing praises to him,	8:38
	tell of all his wonderful works!	8:41
Minister	Glory in his holy name	8:44
	that the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.	8:47
Congregation	Seek the Lord and his strength,	8:51
	seek his presence continually!	8:54
Minister	Remember the wonderful works	8:57
	that he has done, his miracles	8:58
	and the judgments he uttered.	9:01
Congregation	O offspring of Abraham his servant,	9:04
	sons of Jacob, his chosen ones!	9:07
Minister	He is the Lord our God,	9:11
	his judgments are in all the Earth.	9:14
All	He is mindful of his covenant forever,	9:17
	of the word that he commanded	9:21
	for 1,000 generations.	9:23
	(lively organ music)	9:27
	(congregation singing)	9:34
-	The second lesson is taken from Paul's letter	10:29
	to the Romans.	10:32
	Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness	10:34
	for we do not know how to pray as we ought	10:38
	but the spirit himself intercedes for us	10:41
	with signs too deep for words.	10:44
	And he who searches the hearts of men	10:47
	knows what is the mind of the spirit	10:50
	because the spirit intercedes for the saints,	10:53
	according to the will of God.	10:57
	This ends the reading of the second lesson.	10:59
	(choir singing)	11:18
-	Hear the gospel lesson today	13:36
	from Matthew's gospel.	13:38
	Another parable he put before them saying,	13:43
	the kingdom of heaven may be compared	13:47
	to a man who sowed good seed in his field.	13:49
	But while he was sleeping his enemy came	13:53
	and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.	13:56
	And so, when the plants came up and bore grain,	14:00
	then the weeds appeared also	14:02
	and the servants of the householder came and said to him,	14:05
	sir, did you not sow good seed in your field?	14:09
	How then has it weeds?	14:12
	He said to them, an enemy has done this.	14:15
	The servants said to him,	14:20
	then do you want us to go and gather them?	14:21
	But he said no lest in gathering the weeds	14:25
	you root up the wheat along with them.	14:28
	Let them grow together	14:31
	until the harvest and at the harvest time,	14:33
	I will tell the reapers gather the weeds first	14:37
	and bind them in bundles	14:40
	to be burned buy gather the wheat into my barn.	14:42
	Then he left the crowds, went into the house	14:48
	and his disciples came to him saying,	14:52
	explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.	14:54
	He answered, he who sows the good seed	14:58
	is the son of man, the field is the world	15:02
	and the good seed means the sons of the kingdom	15:05
	and the weeds the sons of the evil one.	15:08
	And the enemy who sowed them is the devil.	15:12
	The harvest is the close of the age	15:15
	and the reapers are angels	15:17
	and just as weeds are gathered and burned with fire,	15:19
	so it will be at the close of the age.	15:22
	The son of man will send his angels	15:25
	and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin	15:28
	and all evil doers	15:32
	and throw them into the furnace of fire	15:34
	and there men will weep and gnash their teeth.	15:36
	Then the righteous will shine like the sun	15:41
	in the kingdom of their father.	15:45
	He who has ears to hear,	15:48
	let him hear.	15:52
	I know that many of you are on vacation.	16:00
	And one of the joys of vacation sometimes	16:04
	is going to some exclusive resort	16:08
	where for one week and a good deal of money	16:11
	we can live in a manner that we're not accustomed living	16:14
	through the rest of the year.	16:19
	It's the exclusiveness	16:21
	that makes it part of the fun.	16:23
	Last week my associate, Miss Free Clark came	16:26
	and she's a musician	16:30
	and she had discovered a hymn	16:32
	that I had never seen before	16:34
	which I think speaks in a way	16:37
	to the sermon and the scripture for the day	16:38
	and also for the context	16:42
	in which we find ourselves.	16:43
	This hymn, unknown to me	16:45
	is called When I Take My Vacation in Heaven.	16:47
	I've never heard of this hymn.	16:51
	Dr. Travis from Mississippi you may have heard of this hymn,	16:54
	I don't know.	16:56
	(congregation laughing)	16:58
	I'd like to read relevant passages to you.	17:00
	It begins: "Here so many are taking vacation	17:03
	"to the mountains, the lakes or the sea	17:07
	"where they rest from their cares and their worries,	17:10
	"what a wonderful time that must be.	17:12
	"But it seems not my lot to be like them.	17:15
	"I must toil through the heat and the cold,	17:18
	"seeking out the lost sheep on the mountains,	17:21
	"bringing wanderers back to the fold."	17:24
	Second verse: "Now some day I will take my vacation	17:27
	"to the city John tells about	17:30
	"with its foundation walls so precious	17:33
	"where from gladness of heart I shall shout."	17:35
	And then the third verse of particular relevance,	17:38
	"There will no space be given to smokers,	17:43
	"and no card parties there are allowed.	17:47
	"All the back biters, you liars and gossips	17:50
	"could not stand such a wonderful crowd."	17:54
	A picture of heaven, a dream	17:59
	of what it will be like in heaven	18:04
	will be like an exclusive resort	18:07
	for the religious.	18:10
	And of course our dreams do tell a great deal about us.	18:13
	When Mike Krzyzewski dreams, I suppose he dreams	18:17
	of the perfect starting five,	18:20
	everybody over seven feet.	18:21
	When Oli North dreams,	18:24
	he must dream of the perfect covert operation	18:26
	where Congress knows nothing about it.	18:29
	Well when preachers dream,	18:32
	sometimes they dream about the perfect church,	18:35
	the perfect church	18:40
	where attendance always runs about 90%	18:42
	and those 10% who aren't there would be there	18:45
	but they're deathly ill.	18:48
	The church where you don't even have to ask who will teach	18:51
	the third grade Sunday class,	18:54
	people just come right up and volunteer.	18:56
	A church where there are no bitter disagreements	19:01
	at the administrative board meeting.	19:03
	In this church, nobody gets their feelings hurt	19:06
	no matter what somebody says to them.	19:09
	But eventually you come back to reality.	19:15
	The reality of the church as it is	19:21
	rather than as we would dream it to be.	19:25
	Oh one day I think, one day	19:30
	if we could just get our act together,	19:32
	if we could just get the church purified,	19:35
	cleaned up, clean the rolls of all	19:39
	that accumulated dead wood	19:42
	and remove those rotten apples from the barrel.	19:43
	Wouldn't it be a lovely little church?	19:49
	Of course it would be a very little church.	19:52
	Person I know is fond of quoting	19:59
	the alleged puritan saying	20:01
	that there are only two perfect people in this world,	20:04
	me and thee, and sometimes I have my doubts about thee.	20:06
	If we could just clean up, straighten out,	20:13
	clear up, purify,	20:16
	because it's embarrassing for the church.	20:19
	People on the rolls that we rarely see,	20:22
	people on the rolls who were there more	20:26
	for a sense of social convention	20:28
	than Christian commitment.	20:31
	It's embarrassing.	20:33
	If we could just get the church clean	20:34
	and a more exclusive club,	20:37
	even Rotary or Kiwanis vote in their members	20:40
	but it seems like anybody can be a member	20:44
	of the average church.	20:47
	And thus we come to a little story	20:51
	that Jesus tells in the gospel of Matthew.	20:54
	For some verses Jesus talks	20:59
	using analogies from agriculture,	21:02
	a few verses before the thing	21:05
	that impresses Jesus	21:07
	is that sometimes the weeds	21:08
	choke out the good seed.	21:13
	But in this story he tells	21:16
	about an occasion where weeds and wheat grow together	21:18
	in the same field	21:24
	until, when you're looking at the field,	21:26
	when it's in full flower,	21:27
	you can't tell the wheat from the weeds.	21:28
	What's to be done about it?	21:34
	Jesus tells this little story.	21:37
	God's kingdom, God's kingdom	21:40
	is like a farmer that sows some wheat	21:44
	and while he's sleeping an enemy comes	21:48
	and sows weeds, dandelions and bitter weed,	21:50
	wild onions, slips away.	21:55
	When the plants grow up,	21:59
	the weeds are discovered amidst the wheat,	22:01
	the servants come to the master	22:03
	and say what should we do about it?	22:05
	You want us to go out and try	22:07
	to pull up those weeds?	22:08
	The master says no, in doing so you might disturb the wheat,	22:12
	let them grow together	22:17
	until the harvest	22:19
	and then we'll make the separation.	22:21
	Let them grow together until harvest.	22:26
	I've seen it with soybeans in the eastern part	22:31
	of the state.	22:33
	I'm told by farmers there's two ways	22:35
	to go at this matter of growing soybeans,	22:36
	one way is to plant your soybeans	22:39
	and then put powerful herbicides on them,	22:41
	the herbicides will generally take care of the weeds	22:45
	but they also lessen your overall yield of the soybeans.	22:47
	Another way is to let the weeds	22:53
	and the soybean grow together,	22:55
	let them mature and dry	22:57
	and then when they are harvested,	22:59
	it is quite easy to separate out the dried beans	23:01
	from the chaff, the trash.	23:04
	Let them grow together until the harvest.	23:08
	We wonder what was the first setting of this parable.	23:13
	Jesus is criticized for fraternizing with sinners.	23:18
	This man receives sinners and he eats with them they say.	23:23
	If he were really religious,	23:27
	he would be able to tell the good	23:30
	from the bad, the righteous form the unrighteous.	23:31
	After all isn't that the purpose of religion,	23:33
	to help one make proper discrimination?	23:36
	And Jesus answers by telling them this story.	23:41
	God knows those who are truly of the kingdom	23:46
	and those who are not.	23:49
	God knows.	23:51
	And God is a patient judge.	23:54
	We must wait for God to do the sorting.	23:59
	When I was in high school,	24:04
	Greenville had its first Billy Graham crusade.	24:06
	Everyone in town was excited	24:10
	except the president of the local fundamentalist university.	24:13
	He told his students,	24:17
	if I catch any of you down there	24:19
	at that Billy Graham crusade, you'll be expelled.	24:20
	Why?	24:24
	Because, he told the paper, Billy Graham is known	24:26
	to fraternize with notorious sinners.	24:29
	Well of course Billy Graham is too polite,	24:35
	but he could have said they made	24:38
	the same charge against Jesus.	24:40
	There were people in his day	24:44
	who stayed away from his revivals	24:45
	because it was a mixed crowd.	24:48
	But what is the purpose of religion	24:55
	if not to be able to tell right from wrong,	24:57
	righteous from unrighteous	25:00
	and to keep the two apart.	25:01
	Later, later when the church was formed,	25:04
	later when the church was formed	25:11
	and the gospel of Matthew was being written,	25:13
	this parable must have been seen in a new context.	25:18
	Here is the church of Christ.	25:22
	Here is God's new holy people,	25:25
	his new Israel.	25:27
	But would you look at it?	25:30
	You've got backsliders and bitter controversy	25:32
	right from the beginning	25:34
	and in-fighting and troubles.	25:36
	Oh sure, God we believe will some day come	25:41
	and judge everyone	25:44
	but how about a little judgment right now?	25:45
	What are we to do in the meantime?	25:50
	Perhaps a little house cleaning is in order.	25:53
	And then this story of the weeds	25:57
	and the wheat was remembered and retold.	25:59
	The urge to clean up the church is not new.	26:05
	Throughout the history of the church,	26:09
	various movements have sought to get the church looking more	26:12
	like the church.	26:15
	Enough of this laxity they said.	26:18
	Enough of this open door policy	26:20
	and all things being permitted,	26:22
	let us purify the church beginning with you.	26:24
	The English puritans are one example.	26:28
	They came to America to escape the Church of England	26:30
	which they considered to be no church	26:35
	because of its laxity, they were puritans,	26:38
	they sought to purify.	26:41
	Jerry Falwell being interviewed recently,	26:46
	at Liberty Baptist we don't fool around	26:49
	with anybody who's not born again.	26:52
	We don't have the problems a lot of places have.	26:55
	She said to me on the way out the door	27:02
	of my church one day,	27:04
	you probably won't be seeing me much anymore,	27:07
	you see, I'm Charismatic	27:09
	and I find that I just have difficulty putting up	27:13
	with the church now that I'm filled with the spirit.	27:19
	Why, you got people down there at your church	27:23
	don't even know what the Holy Spirit is,	27:25
	much less can they claim to receive the gifts.	27:28
	And so, she stayed in her small prayer group	27:33
	where she felt much more comfortable.	27:36
	A person walked out of Duke Chapel one Sunday morning	27:44
	last summer and said I've had it,	27:47
	I'm sick and tired of the masculine language	27:51
	of the hymns, the monarchial,	27:55
	hierarchical male-dominated tone of the whole service.	27:58
	Time and again we've seen the rise	28:06
	of exclusivistic enlightened groups	28:09
	within the church	28:11
	who have said we are the one true	28:14
	Bible-believing, spirit-filled apostolically-succeeded,	28:19
	fire-baptized, pre-millennial missionary,	28:22
	four square, pure church, not you.	28:24
	We're the good seed, we are God's wheat	28:29
	in this garden gotten out of hand with weeds.	28:32
	I know in the three short years	28:37
	I've been at this chapel,	28:39
	I've heard the following charges	28:42
	of impurity leveled against you.	28:44
	I don't like to worship at Duke Chapel	28:49
	because and you can fill in the blanks,	28:52
	because they have too many women preachers	28:53
	or because they use masculine, sexist language	28:57
	in the prayers	29:00
	or because they fail to use orthodox Trinitarian language	29:02
	in the prayers	29:06
	or because they don't talk enough about sin	29:08
	or people who go there go there	29:12
	because they're irresponsible	29:14
	or I once heard the preacher criticize Daniel Ortega.	29:16
	I once heard the preacher make a snide remark	29:22
	about Ronald Reagan.	29:24
	And I could go on and I'm sure	29:26
	whatever church you come from,	29:27
	the same could be said of your church as well,	29:29
	and I bet that it was at a similar moment	29:35
	that somebody remembered this little story of the weeds	29:39
	and the wheat.	29:43
	This little story addressed to the church.	29:47
	Sure there are those who lack commitment,	29:51
	those who don't care, those who are nice people	29:54
	but not Christian,	29:57
	those who don't live their faith	29:59
	and don't care even though their names	30:01
	are on the roll,	30:02
	who are ideologically impure,	30:05
	who are unenlightened.	30:07
	But this is God's little acre,	30:13
	not yours and not mine.	30:17
	God is the Lord of the harvest,	30:21
	and God will bring this harvest home	30:27
	in God's own good time.	30:29
	The time of judgment, of separation, isn't now.	30:34
	This is the time for things	30:39
	to come to fruit.	30:43
	This is a time for the word to be preached,	30:45
	that more might be reached,	30:49
	and patience is an essential Christian virtue.	30:52
	It's not time,	30:56
	it is not up to us to do the harvesting and the judging,	31:00
	not you and not me.	31:05
	I think patience is the fruit of humility.	31:08
	Against all holier than thou exclusivism,	31:14
	that would turn the church into a kind	31:16
	of upper crust country club for super saints,	31:19
	against all smug, arrogant views of the church,	31:23
	our Lord says this.	31:27
	This is the way it is.	31:32
	The church isn't some manicured, formal,	31:35
	pristine, perfect garden of pruned shrubs and AstroTurf.	31:38
	The church is a rough field	31:44
	in the world,	31:48
	and it is the church's difficult calling	31:50
	to bear witness in the world,	31:54
	to bear witness to the kingdom of God	31:58
	in a divided, unbelieving, half-hearted world	32:01
	and to separate ourselves prematurely out	32:05
	of that world is to separate ourselves	32:08
	from the very thing Jesus has called us to do.	32:12
	The very reason we got planted here	32:19
	in the first place.	32:21
	I just don't think there's any way for a church	32:25
	to be faithful	32:27
	and at the same time be smug.	32:29
	All efforts rigidly to purify the church	32:32
	and make a premature separation of the saved	32:36
	and the unsaved, history tells us,	32:39
	end in the disaster of smug,	32:43
	self-satisfied religious aristocrats	32:45
	who more closely resemble those who crucified Jesus	32:50
	than those who are committed to Jesus.	32:55
	In the church of Jesus,	32:59
	any church that's ever been,	33:01
	you got weeds and you got wheat	33:04
	and they grow together.	33:06
	Jesus said it was so, and it shouldn't surprise us	33:08
	to find that it is still so today.	33:11
	But note this would you, note this:	33:13
	If there's anybody on whom this story	33:16
	is the toughest,	33:19
	it's not so much on the weeds,	33:24
	those who are willfully unbelieving	33:27
	but it's on those of us	33:30
	who are apt to regard ourselves as wheat, believers	33:32
	who sometimes get smug.	33:37
	Remember another parable in Matthew	33:41
	about the last judgment.	33:43
	At the harvest, at the judgment Jesus said	33:46
	there gonna be sheep and goats.	33:48
	Using another agricultural analogy	33:51
	but switching the metaphor.	33:53
	There are gonna be sheep and goats to be separated.	33:56
	There will be those who serve Christ	34:00
	and there will be those who didn't	34:02
	and of course that doesn't come as a surprise to anybody.	34:03
	But the surprise is, the amazing thing	34:08
	according to that story	34:11
	is you won't know which one you are	34:12
	until you get there.	34:14
	Is it I, Lord, both groups will ask.	34:17
	Lord, when did we see you,	34:22
	both the sheep and the goats ask.	34:25
	There'll be surprises in store for everybody	34:29
	at the final reckoning.	34:32
	Sheep may be surprised that God	34:35
	has found a place in his heart even for the goats.	34:37
	The wheat may be surprised that God has allowed	34:41
	a few weeds to flourish among good seed.	34:43
	It's not for us to make the judgment,	34:47
	that's for Christ.	34:52
	And so, here you've got the church,	34:56
	and it's a mixed bag to be sure,	34:57
	a dandelion, crab grass-infested lawn to be sure.	34:59
	But in God's little acre,	35:06
	some flourish and bear fruit, some wither,	35:09
	but it's up to us to be patient,	35:14
	because God has been so patient with us.	35:18
	Patient with the strong and the weak,	35:24
	patient with the strong who are apt to get smug	35:28
	in their strength	35:31
	and patient with the weak	35:33
	who don't bear fruit.	35:35
	As Jesus noted elsewhere,	35:38
	he sends his son to shine on the good and the bad	35:39
	and his rain to fall on the just and the unjust.	35:42
	God's love is so patiently indiscriminate.	35:48
	Thank God.	35:54
	Because for all of us who grow here today,	35:57
	we grow here not because of something that we've done,	36:02
	or earned or achieved or believed,	36:06
	but because of something God has done.	36:09
	It is God who planted you here.	36:13
	And if you sit here as someone this morning	36:17
	who believes and serves and hopes in faithfulness, fine,	36:19
	but just remember it's only because God put you there.	36:25
	As Jesus says,	36:30
	you didn't choose me, I chose you	36:32
	that you should go and bear fruit.	36:34
	And any good fruit that we may bear	36:38
	is fruit that God nurtured in us.	36:41
	The same God who in his own good time	36:45
	shall bring his harvest home,	36:49
	judging us by his own forbearing,	36:53
	quite amazingly patient love.	36:58
	(lively organ music)	37:11
	(congregation singing)	37:35
-	The Lord be with you.	39:55
	(congregation mumbles)	39:57
	Let us pray.	39:59
	Oh God of mercy,	40:10
	what a wondrously strange mix we bring	40:13
	to this hour of worship.	40:16
	We come with our fears	40:19
	and our failures	40:21
	and with our ambitions and our accomplishments,	40:24
	driven by both, we pray for deliverance	40:29
	from the fear which erodes our sense of worth,	40:34
	from the ambition which consumes us	40:38
	and we do not pray for these powers and passions	40:43
	to disappear for that is unrealistic and short sighted.	40:45
	Rather we pray for the transformation.	40:50
	Transform our fear into courage,	40:54
	not that fear will ever be gone	40:58
	but it would exist in a context of honesty	40:59
	and openness and a willingness to face it	41:03
	rather than shrink back.	41:06
	Transform our ambitions into intentional involvement	41:09
	in our world, passions which take shape in creative striving	41:12
	to use our energies not only for our good	41:18
	but for the wellbeing of others.	41:21
	Transform our failures into places of learning.	41:24
	There is so much to learn from our dead ends	41:28
	and our disappointments as well as from our successes.	41:31
	Transform our accomplishments	41:36
	and reassuring reminders of grace.	41:37
	That nothing we successfully do	41:41
	is removed from that loving and accepting presence	41:44
	of yours in our lives.	41:48
	So, here we are today,	41:51
	a mix of who we brought to this place	41:54
	and who we may become.	41:58
	By your grace and your love	42:00
	and there is a world beyond this place	42:04
	also of sorrow and joy,	42:06
	of challenge and strength,	42:09
	enlarge our vision to move from these walls	42:12
	to that world about us.	42:16
	May we behold the needs that are there.	42:18
	The needs in those who lead us	42:22
	from the very pinnacle of our government on down	42:25
	to the everyday routines of our lives.	42:29
	The millions of people for whom this day has dawned,	42:35
	in burden and in care.	42:39
	Deliver us from a private form of religion	42:44
	which can ask only for ourselves	42:48
	but extend us into a world	42:52
	which needs you as well.	42:55
	In your name and for all our sake,	42:59
	we pray, amen.	43:03
	Let us now offer our gifts to God,	43:07
	some of what we have, all of who we are.	43:10
	(lively organ music)	43:18
	(choir singing)	44:52
	(lively organ music)	49:14
	(congregation singing)	49:28
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	49:40
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	49:42
	(congregation singing)	49:47
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	50:00
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	50:02
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	50:05
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	50:09
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	50:12
-	Creator of all that is.	50:31
	We can never be as grateful as we should	50:34
	for all your gifts	50:37
	but deliver us from using that as an excuse	50:39
	for not being grateful at all.	50:42
	Enable us to be as grateful as we can	50:45
	knowing that on any given day our gratitude	50:48
	will be pitifully little	50:51
	but nourish even that,	50:53
	open our eyes to its significance,	50:56
	blessed that our gratitude for all your gifts may grow,	50:59
	and what gifts there are.	51:03
	Friends to whom we are special and who bring much joy	51:07
	to our lives,	51:11
	the challenge or task to which we are called	51:13
	to make sure of our abilities	51:16
	and skills and the abiding sense	51:17
	of your presence and our place in your love,	51:21
	for these and countless other gifts, thank you.	51:26
	And so, with our giving,	51:30
	affirm even the little that we give,	51:33
	let that affirmation be the growth force that leads us	51:35
	to give what we really can.	51:39
	Then perhaps we may then even be willing to give beyond that	51:42
	and the recognition that all of life	51:47
	and its resources are abrupt in our stewardship,	51:50
	not in our possession.	51:55
	Accept these our gifts to you this day.	51:58
	And now even as Jesus taught us we pray.	52:02
All	Our father, who art in heaven,	52:06
	hallowed be thy name,	52:08
	thy kingdom come, thy will be done	52:11
	on Earth as it is in heaven,	52:14
	give us this day our daily bread	52:17
	and forgive us our trespasses	52:20
	as we forgive those who trespass against us	52:23
	and lead us not into temptation	52:27
	but deliver us from evil.	52:29
	For thine is the kingdom, the power	52:32
	and the glory forever.	52:35
	Amen.	52:38
	(lively organ music)	52:40
	(congregation singing)	53:20
-	Now the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ	56:50
	and the love of God	56:53
	and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you	56:55
	and remain with you now and always.	56:58
	♪ Amen ♪	57:08
	♪ Amen ♪	57:17
	♪ Amen ♪	57:22
	♪ Amen ♪	57:32
	(lively organ music)	57:45

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "God's Little Acre" (July 26, 1987)

Description:

Sermon start time: 16:00. Sermon end time: 37:03.
Engaging the parable of Wheat and Weeds, the preacher argues that the church is like God’s little acre of farmland where the good and bad co-exist. It’s not the church’s job to judge humanity. The present work of the church is to continue do good works and bear witness to the gospel while waiting for God’s harvest and judgement. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “This is God’s little acre, not yours and mine. God is Lord of the harvest, and God will bring this harvest home in God’s own good time. The time of judgment, of separation, isn’t now. This is the time for things to come to fruit.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r44t6fj4b

Date:

July 26, 1987

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Ordinary Time

Biblical Book:

Matthew

Chapter and Verse:

Matthew 13:24-30

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 VHS-0041
ref8373_ito
uachapelsermaud
duke:321714
dcrmv001041
ark:/87924/r44t6fj4b
f86fcd0f-0c86-40d9-a38d-2ef47229833a

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Related Resources:

See below

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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William H. Willimon - "God's Little Acre" (July 26, 1987)

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Item Info

1. William H. Willimon - "God's Little Acre" (July 26, 1987)

Duke University Archives

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William H. Willimon - "God's Little Acre" (July 26, 1987)

Transcript

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Duke University Archives

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