William H. Willimon - "Imagine" (April 30, 1989)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| (choir singing) | 0:00 | |
| - | We have been led in worship | 1:18 |
| by the University of North Carolina | 1:20 | |
| at Greensboro Choral, Richard Cox director. | 1:22 | |
| They're always honored guest here at the chapel | 1:27 | |
| and we thank them for sharing their gifts with us this day. | 1:30 | |
| We also thank Dean Caroline Lattimore and Dean Paula Gilbert | 1:35 | |
| for their leadership in the service today. | 1:40 | |
| We know that this may be the last Sunday | 1:44 | |
| before the summer for many of our students | 1:48 | |
| and we wish you well in exams and wish you a good summer | 1:51 | |
| and look forward to welcoming you back | 1:54 | |
| to the chapel in the fall. | 1:56 | |
| Up to about 20 minutes ago, we were in total darkness | 2:00 | |
| here in the chapel with the power outage | 2:03 | |
| on this part of the campus, that accounts for the candles. | 2:05 | |
| We're leaving the candles illuminated | 2:09 | |
| just in case the power goes out again. | 2:12 | |
| John says that humanity loves darkness better than light | 2:15 | |
| but he never tried to worship in the chapel with no power | 2:19 | |
| but we will continue | 2:24 | |
| and we are definitely glad that you're with us today. | 2:25 | |
| Let us continue our worship as we praise the Lord. | 2:30 | |
| Stand. | 2:34 | |
| (organ plays) | 2:36 | |
| (everybody singing) | 3:06 | |
| - | Let us pray. | 5:18 |
| Oh God, who through the resurrection of Jesus Christ | 5:22 | |
| has freed us from the power of darkness | 5:26 | |
| and brought us into the kingdom of Thy love. | 5:29 | |
| Grant, we beseech Thee, that as by His death, | 5:33 | |
| He has recalled us into life so by His abiding presence | 5:36 | |
| He may bring us to the joys eternal. | 5:41 | |
| Through Him who for our sakes died and rose again | 5:45 | |
| and is ever with us in power | 5:49 | |
| the same Thy son Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. | 5:51 | |
| - | Let us pray. | 6:11 |
| Open our hearts and minds oh God | 6:15 | |
| by the power of your Holy Spirit | 6:18 | |
| so that as the word is read and proclaimed | 6:21 | |
| we might hear with joy what you say to us this day, amen. | 6:25 | |
| I'm reading from the Revelation to St. John the Divine. | 6:39 | |
| And in the spirit, | 6:45 | |
| the angel carried me away to a great, high mountain, | 6:47 | |
| and showed me the holy city Jerusalem | 6:52 | |
| coming down out of heaven from God | 6:56 | |
| and I saw no temple in the city | 7:00 | |
| for its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb. | 7:03 | |
| And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it. | 7:10 | |
| For the glory of God is its light and its lamp is the Lamb. | 7:16 | |
| By its light shall the nations walk | 7:24 | |
| and the rulers of the earth shall bring their glory into it | 7:27 | |
| and its gate shall never be shut by day | 7:31 | |
| and there shall be no night there. | 7:35 | |
| They shall bring into it the glory | 7:38 | |
| and the honor of the nations. | 7:43 | |
| - | Our Psalter lesson this morning is Psalm 67 | 7:56 |
| found as number 576 in the back of your hymnal. | 8:01 | |
| Will you please stand and join me in this reading. | 8:05 | |
| May God be gracious to us and bless us. | 8:14 | |
| Congregation | (murmuring) | 8:18 |
| Woman | That Thy way may be known upon earth. | 8:21 |
| Everyone | Thy saving power among all nations. | 8:25 |
| - | That the peoples praise Thee oh God. | 8:28 |
| Everyone | Let all the peoples praise Thee. | 8:31 |
| - | Let the nations be glad and sing for joy. | 8:34 |
| Everyone | For Thou dost judge the peoples | 8:38 |
| with equity and guide the nations upon earth. | 8:40 | |
| - | Let the peoples praise Thee oh God. | 8:44 |
| Everyone | Let all the peoples praise Thee. | 8:47 |
| - | The earth has yielded its increase. | 8:49 |
| Everyone | God, our God has blessed us. | 8:53 |
| - | God has blessed us. | 8:56 |
| Everyone | Let all the ends of the earth fear Him. | 8:58 |
| (organ plays) | 9:02 | |
| (everyone sings) | 9:10 | |
| - | Today's lesson speaks of the new Jerusalem, | 10:11 |
| the heavenly city. | 10:16 | |
| Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth | 10:20 | |
| for the first had passed away. | 10:24 | |
| When God gets finished with Durham, | 10:30 | |
| there will be no more moon or stars to shine | 10:33 | |
| because the glory of the Lord present among his people | 10:38 | |
| will provide all the light that's needed. | 10:43 | |
| In God's new city, the gates will never be shut | 10:48 | |
| so there's no need for street lights or police | 10:54 | |
| because in this heavenly town, | 10:58 | |
| everything that's wrong with our cities shall be set right. | 11:01 | |
| Imagine that, imagine no more soup kitchens. | 11:08 | |
| No more homes needed for the homeless on cold winter nights. | 11:15 | |
| No more muggers or corner drug pushers | 11:22 | |
| or criminals who stalk the night because in God's new city, | 11:26 | |
| there will be No more night to stalk. | 11:30 | |
| In that new world, says John, | 11:36 | |
| we will not only be delivered of criminals and psychopaths | 11:40 | |
| but also preachers, did you hear that? | 11:43 | |
| John says there will be no more temple in that city, | 11:49 | |
| no more Duke Chapels, no more sermons, no more preachers, | 11:52 | |
| because we'll be so close to God. | 11:56 | |
| God will be so close to us that you won't need | 11:58 | |
| a neo-Gothic chapel or a choir or a preacher | 12:01 | |
| to make God seem close to you, God will be among us. | 12:04 | |
| I don't know what I will do for a living there | 12:11 | |
| but you'll love it. | 12:15 | |
| It sounds good, doesn't it? | 12:18 | |
| A little too good? | 12:20 | |
| A little too good to be true? | 12:23 | |
| Well it's just a dream. | 12:26 | |
| It's a vision, John had this dream | 12:29 | |
| while he was on the island of Patmos. | 12:32 | |
| And we know that desperate people | 12:36 | |
| often dream wild desperate dreams, | 12:38 | |
| and John was desperate. | 12:42 | |
| And most of us here today are not that desperate. | 12:48 | |
| Oh I had a bout with a bad back last week, | 12:52 | |
| something related to an upcoming and unwelcome birthday | 12:54 | |
| but you can hardly call me desperate. | 12:57 | |
| Some of you are facing exams | 13:00 | |
| but you're not really desperate. | 13:03 | |
| And people like us who are fairly well accommodated | 13:07 | |
| to things as they are | 13:12 | |
| do not dream wild dreams, | 13:15 | |
| wild utopian dreams of a new heaven and a new earth. | 13:19 | |
| We dream not of what will be | 13:28 | |
| because we're fairly well contented with what is. | 13:30 | |
| Pie in the sky by and by. | 13:39 | |
| Isn't that how we mostly categorize eschatological theology | 13:42 | |
| such as represented by Revelation 21? | 13:47 | |
| Are you in pain, well come to church. | 13:51 | |
| We'll give you a little opiate | 13:53 | |
| called pie in the sky by and by. | 13:55 | |
| John was in jail, he was on the island of Patmos, | 13:59 | |
| the Alcatraz of the Roman world, | 14:02 | |
| his church was being decimated by the emperor, | 14:05 | |
| and in his desperation, he dreamed. | 14:08 | |
| His imagination got the best of him we might say. | 14:15 | |
| Pearly gates, streets of gold, eternal light | 14:18 | |
| but we don't blame John for dreaming such wild dreams, | 14:22 | |
| after all, he was desperate. | 14:26 | |
| We don't blame him for dreaming such dreams | 14:31 | |
| anymore than we blame those American slaves | 14:33 | |
| who sang those spirituals. | 14:39 | |
| Soon, very soon, | 14:40 | |
| we will go to meet the King. | 14:45 | |
| I got shoes, you got shoes, all God's chillun got shoes. | 14:48 | |
| And when I get to heaven, | 14:52 | |
| I'm gonna put on my shoes and walk. | 14:53 | |
| Of course, the people who sang those songs had no shoes. | 14:56 | |
| They were desperate and we say, | 15:01 | |
| in their desperation, they dreamed. | 15:05 | |
| And perhaps it made them feel better for a little while | 15:09 | |
| but only for a little while. | 15:13 | |
| But we generally don't care for such scripture | 15:18 | |
| and we don't care for such singing. | 15:20 | |
| Because we fear that such talk may result | 15:24 | |
| in an abdication of ethical responsibility for the present. | 15:29 | |
| You do too much talk about the future | 15:36 | |
| and you won't feel responsible for the present. | 15:39 | |
| Too must talk about what God's going to do | 15:43 | |
| and the future results in the abandonment | 15:45 | |
| of human action now, | 15:48 | |
| eschatology leads to quietism. | 15:51 | |
| Don't worry, be happy, God will work it out, some day. | 15:57 | |
| Why worry about the deserted streets | 16:04 | |
| of downtown Durham after dark when some day, | 16:06 | |
| God is going to turn Durham asphalt into pure gold. | 16:10 | |
| Talk of the end, the last things, the future, | 16:16 | |
| leads to inaction in the present. | 16:23 | |
| How many sermons have you heard about heaven | 16:29 | |
| or Revelation 21? | 16:32 | |
| Not many I say, because after all, | 16:35 | |
| we are gifted, talented, able, resourceful, Duke-type people | 16:38 | |
| who know that we must take responsibility for the present. | 16:45 | |
| If Durham or Detroit is broken, | 16:50 | |
| then it's up to us to fix it. | 16:53 | |
| We have an ethical duty to do something now. | 16:56 | |
| So most of the sermons that you hear from a pulpit like this | 17:02 | |
| are exhortations to live up to your potential | 17:05 | |
| for action now | 17:10 | |
| rather than invitations to wild dreaming about the future. | 17:13 | |
| Yet here's what I wonder. | 17:20 | |
| I wonder if some of our preoccupation | 17:23 | |
| with the ethical demands of the present | 17:29 | |
| also is the engine that drives modern despair, | 17:33 | |
| despair and cynicism which are the true sources | 17:39 | |
| of modern ethical paralysis. | 17:43 | |
| Sermons so full of should and ought and must, | 17:48 | |
| at best, | 17:53 | |
| simply urge you to do more of what you're already doing. | 17:56 | |
| At worst, such sermons lead to an increasing | 18:02 | |
| burden of guilt. | 18:05 | |
| Because if you really do try to something fundamental | 18:09 | |
| about the desperation of the present, | 18:12 | |
| there's a good chance that you will discover | 18:16 | |
| not your great human potential | 18:18 | |
| but your awesome human impotence. | 18:20 | |
| I know a man who at 21 left college | 18:25 | |
| to go work with the poor in Alabama. | 18:29 | |
| At 40, he is selling exclusive real estate in Burmingham. | 18:35 | |
| Be honest, even if you are a relatively activist, | 18:42 | |
| altruistic person, isn't there a part of you | 18:45 | |
| that has become cynical that | 18:49 | |
| there is something we can do about our city? | 18:52 | |
| Well, more fundamentally, why should you do anything? | 19:00 | |
| Well, I'm your preacher, I'll tell you. | 19:05 | |
| You should do something about the situation | 19:08 | |
| of downtown Durham or downtown Rio or downtown Nairobi | 19:10 | |
| or downtown Singapore because after all, | 19:14 | |
| it's your fault. | 19:19 | |
| You have either done something, over consumed, | 19:21 | |
| eaten red meat, use aerosol spray, | 19:24 | |
| or you have not done something, | 19:26 | |
| you have not voted democratic, you've not given to charity. | 19:28 | |
| Something which makes it your fault | 19:33 | |
| for the mess things are in. | 19:35 | |
| I mean, listen to your preacher | 19:37 | |
| and I think this is the content of about 90% of my sermons. | 19:40 | |
| It's your fault. | 19:45 | |
| And the funny thing is it's a sermon | 19:48 | |
| which most people just love to hear. | 19:50 | |
| After all, we are intelligent resourceful able people, | 19:54 | |
| and it is true that the world would be a better place | 19:58 | |
| if I did good and stopped doing bad, | 20:01 | |
| but how much better place would the world be? | 20:07 | |
| Is it true that the abundant human misery in the world | 20:13 | |
| rest at the feet of what I do or I don't do? | 20:19 | |
| The funny thing is that guilt | 20:27 | |
| is a surprisingly delicious emotion | 20:29 | |
| for resourceful, capable people | 20:34 | |
| because it's a nice way of reminding me that after all, | 20:38 | |
| the world really is in my hands after all for good or ill. | 20:40 | |
| Surprise, busy intelligent resourceful people, | 20:49 | |
| there is more pain and rage and grief in this world | 20:56 | |
| than has been generated even by your guilt. | 21:01 | |
| The amount of evil out there exceeds | 21:08 | |
| the currently available means of eradicating it here. | 21:13 | |
| A mother in Mexico City weeps | 21:20 | |
| because both of her children have died of infant diarrhea. | 21:23 | |
| Not a serious malady here, but a major cause of death there. | 21:26 | |
| We're really gonna do something | 21:34 | |
| about third world debt we say. | 21:35 | |
| I want my babies back, she says. | 21:39 | |
| Perhaps a new administration in Washington will be | 21:44 | |
| more sensitive to the needs of Latin America, we say. | 21:46 | |
| I want my babies, she says. | 21:51 | |
| The World Bank really has big plans for Mexico, we say. | 21:57 | |
| I want my babies. | 22:01 | |
| Surprise, | 22:11 | |
| there is too must heartache and grief | 22:14 | |
| and tragedy out there even to be accounted for by our guilt. | 22:17 | |
| That woman knows that no matter how guilty this preacher | 22:24 | |
| manages to make you feel by the end of the service, | 22:27 | |
| no matter how motivated you become, | 22:29 | |
| the currently available human solutions will be exhausted | 22:32 | |
| before her tragedy is put right. | 22:37 | |
| Our solutions just crumble in the face of that | 22:40 | |
| one mother's awesome unresolved grief. | 22:44 | |
| Now do you appreciate how much courage it takes | 22:49 | |
| for a preacher like me to say that | 22:51 | |
| in front of a congregation like you? | 22:53 | |
| Most of us have been culturally conditioned | 22:57 | |
| to believe that we already possess the human potential | 23:00 | |
| to devise a new heaven and a new earth, | 23:05 | |
| that we are best described | 23:09 | |
| as bundles of untapped possibility. | 23:11 | |
| So I'm supposed to make you feel guilty | 23:16 | |
| that you really haven't lived up to your potential. | 23:18 | |
| Yet Karl Bart tells me that many of you have come here | 23:24 | |
| this morning deeply suspicious of human potential. | 23:28 | |
| People come to church on a Sunday morning says Barth, | 23:34 | |
| consciously or unconsciously leaving behind them | 23:39 | |
| the cherry tree and the symphony and the state | 23:42 | |
| and daily work and other things | 23:47 | |
| as possibilities somehow exhausted. | 23:49 | |
| Human possibilities for world transformation | 23:57 | |
| appear inadequate to the need for world transformation | 24:01 | |
| and that's very depressing news | 24:07 | |
| to people who are preoccupied with strategies | 24:09 | |
| for the present rather than wild dreams for the future. | 24:12 | |
| When will we preachers get it through our brains | 24:19 | |
| that one's ability to act differently | 24:24 | |
| is not simply a function of knowing how to act | 24:28 | |
| but of living in a new world with new possibilities. | 24:34 | |
| And so in the Bible, in texts like today's from Revelation, | 24:41 | |
| there is talk about a world that is not yet, | 24:46 | |
| a world we haven't fully seen yet, | 24:51 | |
| a world still on the horizon of human history | 24:54 | |
| rather than the world which is now. | 24:58 | |
| The world as it is, no matter how much better | 25:01 | |
| we manage to make it, | 25:04 | |
| is never enough to escape despair. | 25:08 | |
| And ironically, it it often those people | 25:13 | |
| who work the hardest to make this world better | 25:15 | |
| who are the most susceptible to utter despair. | 25:20 | |
| I mean, what I'm saying is that downtown Durham | 25:24 | |
| even with better padlocks and more skillful police | 25:26 | |
| is still downtown Durham. | 25:29 | |
| After the soccer tragedy in England a couple of weeks ago, | 25:33 | |
| there was the predictable modern attempt | 25:39 | |
| to blame this on somebody. | 25:41 | |
| The police shouldn't have let those people into the stadium. | 25:45 | |
| The soccer field owners | 25:49 | |
| should have built more modern facilities. | 25:51 | |
| The fence for mob control was a bad idea. | 25:55 | |
| The trouble is, after it's all said and done | 26:00 | |
| and after we've pinned it on somebody, | 26:03 | |
| we're still stuck with the awesome truth | 26:07 | |
| that we are people. | 26:09 | |
| We are people capable of trampling and smothering to death | 26:12 | |
| our own kind to get a better view of a soccer match. | 26:17 | |
| And my little moralistic preacherly exhortations | 26:25 | |
| to duty, to crusade, to fight, | 26:28 | |
| just crumble in my hands to dust. | 26:31 | |
| Any preaching which is worthy, which is honest, | 26:37 | |
| has got to somehow get beyond what is | 26:40 | |
| and move to what by God's grace ought to be. | 26:44 | |
| Could I be bold enough to stop helping you | 26:49 | |
| to just adjust to things as they are | 26:51 | |
| and try to get you to stand on tiptoes | 26:54 | |
| quivering with anticipation over what is to come | 26:57 | |
| because either God is busy creating a new heaven | 27:01 | |
| and a new earth or all our talk | 27:05 | |
| about God's love, mercy and justice is nothing. | 27:07 | |
| Either God will give that woman in Mexico City | 27:12 | |
| a new city with clean fresh safe shining streets | 27:16 | |
| or we are all without hope. | 27:22 | |
| Such eschatological vision is not escape | 27:26 | |
| from responsibility but a narrow escape into hope | 27:29 | |
| which is the very basis of action. | 27:34 | |
| Without hope, there is no action. | 27:39 | |
| If you can't dream of some utterly new world yet to be, | 27:44 | |
| then all you can do is just to adjust. | 27:50 | |
| Que sera sera my dear. | 27:55 | |
| I mean, some are born well, some are born poor, | 27:57 | |
| what can anybody do? | 28:00 | |
| Contort the voice into a whine, clench the fist in rage, | 28:03 | |
| that's about all that can be done. | 28:08 | |
| If that's all there is my friend, then let's keep dancing, | 28:13 | |
| let's break out the booze, | 28:18 | |
| and let's have a ball if that's all there is. | 28:20 | |
| But it's okay with your preacher | 28:29 | |
| if you want to dream a wild dream. | 28:32 | |
| A wild, unmanaged, maladjusted, uncompromised dream | 28:35 | |
| of full stomachs and safe streets | 28:43 | |
| and loved children and peaceful Beirut, | 28:48 | |
| imagine. | 28:53 | |
| And that's why St. Augustine once called | 28:57 | |
| the Lord's Supper, hors d'oeuvres for heaven. | 29:00 | |
| Here at this table, Augustine said, is just a little | 29:07 | |
| foretaste, a little antipasto | 29:11 | |
| for this hungry world, | 29:16 | |
| a foretaste of a world where there is food | 29:21 | |
| and our people around the table are no longer strangers | 29:29 | |
| but brothers and sisters, imagine. | 29:33 | |
| There will be a day soon, very soon, | 29:37 | |
| when God will close the gap | 29:40 | |
| between what is and what ought to be, | 29:42 | |
| when God will take up the justice project | 29:46 | |
| in which we have only haltingly engaged, | 29:49 | |
| the making of a new heaven and a new earth, imagine. | 29:52 | |
| And on that day, you won't need a preacher | 29:58 | |
| to help you to see because the love and the justice | 30:02 | |
| and the mercy of God will be so visible, | 30:06 | |
| so real, so tangible that all preachers | 30:10 | |
| will be turned out to pasture, imagine. | 30:14 | |
| But until that day, you've got this preacher | 30:19 | |
| urging you to dream, to cut loose, | 30:24 | |
| to stand on tiptoes for a glimpse of God's promised city. | 30:26 | |
| And you've got this bread and you've got this wine | 30:32 | |
| to just whet your taste for some real love | 30:36 | |
| and mercy and justice. | 30:41 | |
| Amen. | 30:45 | |
| (organ plays) | 30:50 | |
| (everyone sings) | 31:21 | |
| - | Now, let us worship God | 34:17 |
| with the giving of our gifts and the offering of ourselves. | 34:19 | |
| (organ plays) | 34:40 | |
| (choir sings) | 36:20 | |
| (everyone sings) | 41:28 | |
| The Lord be with you. | 42:36 | |
| Congregation | (murmuring) | 42:38 |
| - | Lift up your hearts. | 42:39 |
| Congregation | (murmuring) | 42:41 |
| - | Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. | 42:43 |
| Congregation | (murmuring) | 42:46 |
| - | We give thanks Father | 42:49 |
| because You were God even before time began. | 42:50 | |
| You have seen every sunrise, every day begin | 42:54 | |
| since you first gave form to our home, this earth. | 42:59 | |
| You launched it into your universe, | 43:03 | |
| shaped its hills and filled its seas. | 43:05 | |
| When space was ready, you brought life out of the waters | 43:09 | |
| and in time, made us in your image, male and female. | 43:13 | |
| Yet we were not content with such a paradise. | 43:18 | |
| We rebelled, putting our wills before yours. | 43:21 | |
| Even then, we found you boundless in love. | 43:26 | |
| Time after time, you reached out your hand | 43:30 | |
| to touch our lives with loving kindness. | 43:32 | |
| You led us from captivity to life in the land you promised. | 43:36 | |
| You made covenant to take us to be your people, | 43:40 | |
| to love, and to cherish, and we took you | 43:44 | |
| as God and ruler promising to forsake all others. | 43:48 | |
| You put your words on the lips of women and men. | 43:52 | |
| They spoke your words of love, | 43:57 | |
| gave themselves in the struggle for justice, | 43:59 | |
| and taught us to sing your glory. | 44:02 | |
| We join with those who have lived | 44:05 | |
| and those now living in faith from sunrise to sunset, | 44:07 | |
| from south to north as with one voice | 44:12 | |
| in the song of unending praise. | 44:15 | |
| Everyone | Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, | 44:18 |
| heaven and earth are full of Your glory, | 44:24 | |
| hosannah in the highest. | 44:27 | |
| Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, | 44:29 | |
| hosannah in the highest. | 44:32 | |
| - | Full indeed are heaven and earth of Your glory, | 44:36 |
| holy Lord God. | 44:39 | |
| When time was ready, You the creator of all that is | 44:41 | |
| sent Christ to be a creature like us. | 44:46 | |
| Instead of a servant you sent Your own Son | 44:49 | |
| that he might be a servant of all. | 44:52 | |
| Christ alone, he who is closest to Your heart, | 44:56 | |
| he made You known to us. | 44:59 | |
| Walking among us, Jesus the Christ | 45:02 | |
| performed great signs to reveal his glory. | 45:04 | |
| He spoke as one having authority, | 45:07 | |
| that we might trust Your love and obey Your law. | 45:10 | |
| When his hour had come, he drank the cup of suffering | 45:14 | |
| and accepted the baptism of death. | 45:18 | |
| Like a lamb, he was led away from the living | 45:21 | |
| but as Your Son, he was raised from the grave. | 45:25 | |
| Having triumphed over death, he left our sight | 45:28 | |
| that his Spirit might fill our hearts | 45:31 | |
| as we await the completion of all things in him. | 45:34 | |
| On the night in which he give himself up for us, | 45:39 | |
| the Lord Jesus took bread in his hands. | 45:42 | |
| Lifting his eyes to heaven, he gave thanks to You, | 45:46 | |
| broke the bread, gave it to his disciples and said, | 45:49 | |
| Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you. | 45:53 | |
| When supper was finished, he took the cup. | 45:59 | |
| Again he returned thanks to You, | 46:02 | |
| gave the cup to his disciples and said, | 46:04 | |
| Drink from this, all of you. | 46:07 | |
| This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood | 46:09 | |
| poured out for you and for many | 46:13 | |
| for their forgiveness of sin. | 46:16 | |
| When we eat this bread and drink this cup, | 46:19 | |
| we know anew the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ | 46:21 | |
| and look to the day when we shall feast | 46:25 | |
| in his eternal kingdom. | 46:27 | |
| With hearts raised in joy, | 46:29 | |
| we know a new Christ life among us, his death because of us, | 46:31 | |
| his resurrection for us, and his ascension to glory. | 46:37 | |
| Join this memorial made by your priestly people, | 46:42 | |
| bound by earth and time, to the heavenly and timeless | 46:45 | |
| offering for us of Christ himself, our great high priest. | 46:49 | |
| Everyone | Dying, Christ destroyed our death. | 46:55 |
| Rising, Christ restored our life. | 46:58 | |
| Christ will come in glory. | 47:01 | |
| - | Sinned, we pray your Holy Spirit on us. | 47:04 |
| Gathered here out of love for you | 47:07 | |
| and on this offering, may your Spirit make real | 47:10 | |
| the signs that through breaking bread | 47:14 | |
| and drinking wine together, | 47:16 | |
| we may know Christ's present among us. | 47:18 | |
| By the Spirit, make us one with the goodness of Christ, | 47:21 | |
| as you made him one with our sinfulness. | 47:24 | |
| That we may be one with each other | 47:28 | |
| and one in service to all you have created. | 47:30 | |
| Through your Son Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit | 47:34 | |
| in your holy church, all your people and all your works, | 47:37 | |
| glorify and honor you Father, now and forever, amen. | 47:42 | |
| And now with the confidence of children of God, we pray. | 47:48 | |
| Everyone | Our Father who art in heaven, | 47:52 |
| hallowed be Thy name. | 47:55 | |
| Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, | 47:57 | |
| on earth as it is in heaven. | 48:01 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread; | 48:03 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses, | 48:06 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us; | 48:08 | |
| and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. | 48:12 | |
| For thine is the kingdom, and the power, | 48:17 | |
| and the glory forever, amen. | 48:20 | |
| - | When we break the bread, | 48:32 |
| it is a sharing in the body of Christ. | 48:35 | |
| When we give thanks over the cup, | 48:45 | |
| it is a sharing in the blood of Christ. | 48:48 | |
| (organ plays) | 49:05 | |
| (choir sings) | 55:20 | |
| Let us pray. | 1:04:30 | |
| We thank you Holy God for giving us this meal | 1:04:32 | |
| shared in the Spirit which sustains us with the food | 1:04:36 | |
| and drink of Your life. | 1:04:39 | |
| Grace our lives that we may at the last | 1:04:42 | |
| come to share at the heavenly banquet of Your kingdom. | 1:04:45 | |
| Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. | 1:04:49 | |
| And now, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ | 1:04:53 | |
| the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit | 1:04:56 | |
| be with you now and always, amen. | 1:05:00 | |
| (organ plays) | 1:05:06 | |
| (everyone sings) | 1:05:42 | |
| (choir sings) | 1:08:20 | |
| (organ plays) | 1:09:51 |
Item Info
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