William H. Willimon - "Tears Today, Laughter Later" (February 16, 1992)

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	(organ music)	0:00
Pastor	Good morning,	1:31
	and welcome to this service of worship here at Duke Chapel,	1:32
	on this sixth Sunday after Epiphany.	1:36
	Our guest lector today is the Reverend Carl Daw,	1:40
	who is a distinguished American hymn writer.	1:45
	We're singing three of Mr. Daw's compositions	1:48
	in our service today,	1:53
	and we're delighted to have him with us.	1:54
	He has been on-campus this weekend	1:56
	conducting workshops and speaking	1:59
	about new hymnody in the church.	2:01
	Remind you that at 5:00 this afternoon,	2:06
	our chapel organist, Dr. David Arcus,	2:08
	will give a free concert here in the chapel,	2:12
	which will include some of his own recently published works,	2:17
	and we invite you to be present	2:22
	for the concert this afternoon.	2:24
	Now let us stand for the greeting.	2:27
	The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.	2:31
Congregation	And also with you.	2:34
-	The splendor of Christ shines upon us.	2:36
Congregation	Praise the Lord.	2:39
	(organ music)	2:41
	♪ Ye watchers and ye holy ones, ♪	3:30
	♪ Bright seraphs, cherubim, and thrones, ♪	3:36
	♪ Raise the glad strain, Alleluia! ♪	3:42
	♪ Cry out, dominions, princedoms, powers, ♪	3:49
	♪ Virtues, archangels, angels' choirs, ♪	3:56
	♪ Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! ♪	4:01
	♪ Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! ♪	4:08
	♪ O higher than the cherubim, ♪	4:21
	♪ More glorious than the seraphim, ♪	4:27
	♪ Lead their praises, Alleluia! ♪	4:33
	♪ Thou Bearer of the eternal Word, ♪	4:40
	♪ Most gracious, magnify the Lord, ♪	4:46
	♪ Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! ♪	4:52
	♪ Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! ♪	4:58
	♪ Respond, ye souls in endless rest, ♪	5:12
	♪ Ye patriarchs and prophets blest, ♪	5:18
	♪ Alleluia! Alleluia! ♪	5:24
	♪ Ye holy Twelve, ye martyrs strong, ♪	5:31
	♪ All saints triumphant, raise the song, ♪	5:38
	♪ Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! ♪	5:43
	♪ O friend, in gladness let us sing, ♪	7:38
	♪ Supernal anthems echoing, ♪	7:44
	♪ Alleluia! Alleluia! ♪	7:50
	♪ To God the Father, God the Son, ♪	7:57
	♪ And God the Spirit, Three in One, ♪	8:03
	♪ Alleluia! Alleluia! ♪	8:09
Speaker	Oh Lord who knows that our hearts are empty,	8:33
	except thou fill them,	8:38
	and all our desires want except they crave after thee.	8:41
	Give us this hour, light and grace,	8:47
	courage and hope to seek and to find thee,	8:52
	that we may be thine and thou mayest be ours	8:58
	not just on Sundays, but always, Amen.	9:03
	You may be seated.	9:10
-	Let us pray together the prayer for illumination.	9:22
-	[Speaker And Congregation] Open our hearts	9:28
	and minds, oh God.	9:31
	By the power of your holy spirit,	9:33
	so that as the word is read and proclaimed,	9:36
	we might hear with joy what you say to us this day.	9:40
	Amen.	9:46
	The first reading is from the words of the prophet Jeremiah.	9:49
	The seventeenth chapter starting with the fifth verse.	9:54
	Thus says the Lord:	10:00
	cursed are those who trust in mere mortals,	10:03
	and make mere flesh their strength,	10:08
	whose hearts turn away from the Lord:	10:12
	they shall be like a shrub in the desert	10:15
	and shall not see when relief comes.	10:20
	They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness	10:25
	in an uninhabited salt land.	10:29
	Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,	10:33
	whose trust is in the Lord.	10:38
	They shall be like a tree, planted by water	10:42
	sending out its roots by the stream.	10:47
	It shall not fear when heat comes	10:52
	and its leaves shall stay green.	10:55
	In the year of drought, it is not anxious	11:00
	and it does not cease to bear fruit.	11:04
	The heart is devious above all else.	11:10
	It is perverse who can understand it.	11:15
	I, the Lord, test the mind and search the heart	11:21
	to give to all according to their ways,	11:27
	according to the fruits of their doings.	11:31
	This is the word of the Lord.	11:37
Congregation	Thanks be to God.	11:41
-	This reading is from Paul's first letter	11:46
	to the Corinthians,	11:49
	Chapter 15 beginning with the 12th verse.	11:51
	Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead,	11:59
	how can some of you say	12:04
	there is no resurrection of the dead?	12:06
	If there is no resurrection of the dead,	12:10
	then Christ has not been raised.	12:14
	And if Christ has not been raised,	12:18
	then our proclamation has been in vein	12:21
	and your faith has been in vein.	12:25
	We are even found to be misrepresenting God	12:30
	because we testified of God that he raised Christ	12:34
	whom he did not raise	12:40
	if it is true that the dead are not raised.	12:42
	For if the dead are not raised,	12:46
	then Christ has not been raised.	12:49
	If Christ has not been raised,	12:53
	your faith is futile,	12:56
	and you are still in your sins.	12:58
	Then those also who have died in Christ have perished	13:02
	if for this life only, we have hoped in Christ,	13:09
	we are of all people, most to be pitied,	13:14
	but in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead,	13:20
	the first fruits of those who have died.	13:26
	This is the word of the Lord.	13:32
C	Thanks be to God.	13:36
	(organ music)	13:54
	♪ O God who planted Eden well ♪	14:14
	♪ with trees both blest and cursed, ♪	14:19
	♪ yet would not thwart our human will ♪	14:24
	♪ when dazzled by the worst: ♪	14:30
	♪ from all the futile, fruitless sins ♪	14:35
	♪ we blame on age or youth, ♪	14:41
	♪ entice our souls to taste and see ♪	14:46
	♪ the goodness of your truth. ♪	14:52
	♪ O Spirit known in wind and flame, ♪	14:59
	♪ who kindled round a tree ♪	15:05
	♪ and from its unburnt leaves breathed forth ♪	15:11
	♪ with pow'r unnamed and free: ♪	15:16
	♪ as there you charged that Moses stand ♪	15:22
	♪ on holy ground unshod, ♪	15:27
	♪ unsheathe our guarded hearts and minds ♪	15:33
	♪ to feel and know our God. ♪	15:39
	♪ O Christ, once hailed with boughs of palm, ♪	15:47
	♪ soon fading to forlorn ♪	15:52
	♪ betrayal in an olive grove ♪	15:58
	♪ and mocking crown of thorn: ♪	16:04
	♪ help us to trust that seeds of hope ♪	16:10
	♪ root under weeds of strife, ♪	16:15
	♪ as from the cross that wrought your death ♪	16:21
	♪ has sprung our tree of life. ♪	16:26
	♪ Eternal Triune God of grace, ♪	16:33
	♪ bless us that we be made ♪	16:39
	♪ like fruitful trees beside a stream ♪	16:45
	♪ with leaves that never fade: ♪	16:51
	♪ establish us with wisdom's roots, ♪	16:57
	♪ our wayward growth remove, ♪	17:03
	♪ and nourish us with faith and hope ♪	17:08
	♪ to bear the fruit of love. ♪	17:14
-	In the words of this hymn,	17:40
	unsheathe our guarded hearts and minds	17:41
	to know and to feel our God.	17:44
	Today's Gospel from Luke.	17:49
	He came down with them and stood on a level plain,	17:55
	but the great crowd of his disciples,	18:00
	a great multitude of people from all Judea	18:02
	and Jerusalem and Tyre and Sidon	18:04
	who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases.	18:07
	And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.	18:13
	All the crowd sought to touch him.	18:17
	For power came forth from him and he healed them all.	18:20
	And he lifted up his eyes upon his disciples and he said	18:25
	Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.	18:29
	Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied.	18:36
	Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh.	18:43
	Blessed are you when they hate you	18:49
	and when they exclude you and revile you	18:52
	and cast your name as evil on account of the son of man.	18:54
	Rejoice in that day,	19:00
	leap for joy for behold your reward is great in heaven.	19:01
	For so the forebears did to the prophets.	19:06
	But woe to you who are rich,	19:11
	for you have received your consolation.	19:15
	Woe to you that are full now for you shall hunger.	19:18
	Woe to you that laugh now for you shall mourn and weep.	19:25
	Woe to you when all speak well of you,	19:30
	but so their fathers did to the false prophets.	19:36
	This is the word of the Lord.	19:43
C	Thanks be to God.	19:45
-	Now I know that you do not feel as good as you look.	19:57
	I know that though you're all	20:04
	well dressed and hair combed and seated neatly	20:09
	in row upon row of pews,	20:13
	that your life is probably not	20:16
	in as good an order as you look.	20:19
	I know some of you have come here this morning	20:24
	hoping for some word, some honest word	20:29
	to cut through the building and music	20:33
	and the platitudes and the cliches,	20:37
	and name your pain rightly.	20:41
	But I also know	20:47
	that there may be more of you that hoping that somehow	20:49
	through the music, the sermon, the hymns, the prayers,	20:52
	the building, we might be able to anesthetize you	20:54
	and take away some of the pain for just fifteen minutes.	20:59
	But I know because I know myself.	21:06
	I know your tricks for deceit and evasion	21:10
	because I've played them myself,	21:15
	as well as you, better.	21:19
	Now I am happy that I do not preach	21:25
	at the crystal cathedral.	21:28
	I am happy that I do not have to preach	21:32
	at one of those happy TV churches	21:34
	where everybody looks so good and so young	21:41
	and so successful,	21:45
	and where they seem to kill their clergy	21:47
	when they reach fifty and get gray.	21:49
	(congregation laughs)	21:51
	I am happy that I don't bear the burden	21:55
	of preaching to a congregation	21:59
	that measures Sunday on the basis of	22:01
	how good you grin after the service	22:03
	because all it takes is one cancer diagnosis	22:08
	or one anorexic daughter,	22:14
	or even a lousy grade in organic for that jig to be up.	22:18
	In our better moments,	22:27
	and sometimes even Sunday is one of our better moments.	22:29
	In our better moments,	22:34
	we sense that the pain that we feel	22:36
	is somehow interconnected.	22:41
	The pain that we feel and the pain that we deny	22:43
	is somehow linked up to some larger discomfort.	22:47
	The cancer, a tip	22:54
	that our consumptive environment is poisoning itself.	22:58
	The anorexia a kind of revolt	23:04
	against a world in which	23:08
	physical appearance means everything,	23:10
	and we are only what we consume.	23:14
	A people who bomb babies in Baghdad	23:21
	need not be surprised to pick up the Durham Morning Herald	23:24
	and find an epidemic of baby bashing right here in Durham.	23:27
	Our purely private pain	23:35
	may be indicative of larger public pathology.	23:37
	The secret personal disorders	23:44
	which you brought in here this morning to church,	23:46
	these aches and pains,	23:51
	they may tip you off that something is amiss	23:53
	in the larger world, something is being dismantled,	23:56
	something is being brought down.	24:01
	There's a possibility of reconstruction.	24:03
	Something is shifting,	24:06
	like an old man's aching knees	24:10
	that only ache when the weather is about to turn.	24:13
	In today's Gospel, Jesus comes down on a level place.	24:21
	He comes down out of the pulpit,	24:25
	and stands with people down on a level place.	24:27
	Some of you may have heard these words	24:29
	in Matthew 4 and you remember in Matthew 4,	24:32
	these words are spoken.	24:37
	Jesus goes up on a mountain.	24:38
	He goes up on a mountain to speak these words,	24:40
	but in Luke, Jesus comes down on a plain,	24:42
	he comes down out of the pulpit, he stands next to people	24:46
	shoulder to shoulder.	24:49
	He rubs shoulders with the people	24:50
	where he experiences their disease	24:53
	and their infirmities and their possessions	24:56
	and he heals them.	24:59
	And then he speaks.	25:01
	He begins to preach.	25:07
	"O how blessed are you, who are poor.	25:11
	"Blessed are you who weep.	25:18
	"You shall laugh.	25:21
	Lucky are those of you	25:26
	who are enough in touch with reality to feel the pain.	25:29
	Lucky if you've still got enough of your wits about you	25:34
	to be able to cry.	25:37
	Lucky, blessed are you who weep now.	25:39
	You shall laugh.	25:43
	Jesus came down into a level place	25:47
	and he immersed himself in the pain of humanity,	25:51
	and he summoned people to weep.	25:58
	Fortunate are those of you who are poor now.	26:03
	Lucky are those of you who are empty,	26:07
	who are hungry,	26:10
	who haven't got enough to make it and you know it.	26:11
	Blessed are you.	26:16
	You find yourself suffering from a kind of	26:18
	gnawing hunger that will not be satisfied.	26:20
	Lucky are you who weep.	26:23
	Don't reach for the Darvon, weep.	26:25
	Just lucky are you that weep.	26:28
	Lucky are you that weep?	26:34
	She told me,	26:41
	"You know, I'm surprised with the difficulty	26:45
	"that I've had getting over his death.	26:47
	"I think I'm making progress.	26:50
	"I get along fine for a few weeks,	26:52
	"and then I open this drawer,	26:55
	"I see this tattered photograph,	26:57
	"and I'm just undone.	27:00
	"I wish I could make more progress on this grief."	27:05
	And I said to her,	27:10
	"But you are."	27:13
	Oh I quickly learned as a pastor,	27:17
	that the only dangerous grief	27:21
	is the grief that's unable to grieve.	27:23
	The strong ones among us,	27:28
	the really strong ones are the ones able to weep,	27:30
	able to grieve.	27:33
	Or as a Duke undergraduate said it to me the other day,	27:38
	"We don't drink to have a good time.	27:41
	"We drink because we're not having a good time."	27:44
	It takes a lot of strength to be honest about the grief.	27:50
	When I went back into the parish ministry	27:58
	after a stint in seminary teaching,	28:01
	I was surprised, again,	28:03
	by how much time pastors spend with depressed people.	28:05
	Turns out there's an epidemic of depression.	28:10
	It's the modern American epidemic: we're depressed,	28:14
	and pastors spend a lot of time with depressed people.	28:18
	She called me early one morning, she said "Are you busy?"	28:21
	I said "No no, I'm just down here	28:26
	"waiting for someone to make my day."	28:27
	"Well could you come over?	28:29
	"I'm depressed."	28:31
	And when she would call, I would usually go over	28:34
	and we would talk, we would have prayer.	28:36
	I said "I'll come, I'm reading a book right now,"	28:39
	"I'll come a little later."	28:42
	I was reading a book,	28:43
	a commentary on the prophet Jeremiah	28:45
	written by Walter Brueggemann	28:49
	who will preach here in two weeks,	28:51
	and no sooner had I put the telephone down,	28:55
	I was reading about the Prophet Jeremiah,	28:57
	and Brueggemann comments,	29:00
	"The prophets of Israel were not carping social critics.	29:02
	"They were not people who had some program	29:05
	"to push on the government for human betterment.	29:08
	"No, they were poets."	29:10
	All they had were just words,	29:14
	the prophets of Israel, just words,	29:16
	and through these words,	29:18
	they attempted to get people to grieve.	29:20
	The first prophetic move is grief--	29:26
	just to let people grieve.	29:30
	And in grieving, to weep.	29:33
	And in weeping to let go,	29:35
	to acknowledge publicly something is wrong.	29:37
	Oh, later the prophets want people to	29:44
	catch a new vision for Israel,	29:46
	but you can't catch a new vision,	29:49
	Brueggemann said, as long as you're holding on to the old,	29:51
	and so prophets tried to wrench loose our grip	29:54
	to help us to grieve.	29:57
	By the time I got to her house that afternoon,	29:59
	I had very different pastoral care to offer.	30:02
	I said, "You know, I confess,	30:06
	"I've been dealing with you like you were sick or something.	30:08
	"I'm sorry.	30:11
	"You're a nice intelligent woman.	30:15
	"It appears that you have figured out	30:18
	"that all is not well in Greenville.	30:19
	"That's progress.	30:23
	"There's a lot of people who think	30:25
	"this is the best of all possible worlds.	30:26
	"This is a great place to live.	30:28
	"You, on the other hand, have realized something is wrong.	30:30
	"Something is out of sync.	30:32
	"You're grieving--that's good.	30:33
	"You may be about to make a move.	30:37
	"Go ahead, let go if you want to.	30:42
	"Maybe God can help you let go of the status quo	30:48
	"and help you move somewhere else, into some new future."	30:52
	Tears may be the beginning of health.	30:59
	"Seeing the joy of this bubble-brained world,"	31:07
	wrote the poet Auden,	31:10
	"I thank God I could be unhappy."	31:13
	Or, as Jesus put it, "Lucky are you who weep now."	31:19
	Lucky if you sense somewhere down deep	31:26
	that something seems to be dying.	31:28
	Lucky, fortunate because the pain in your private life	31:30
	may be foretaste of some larger cosmic social dismantling.	31:34
	For Jesus it is clear	31:42
	that there was something much more dangerous than tears.	31:43
	It was a dangerous deception	31:48
	that this world is stable and secure,	31:50
	the best of all possible worlds--	31:52
	"Don't worry; be happy."	31:54
	He warns in dark words of that deception.	31:57
	Woe to you who are happy.	32:01
	Woe to you who laugh now.	32:05
	Woe to you if you feel too good,	32:09
	if you're settled too comfortably	32:11
	with the way that things are.	32:13
	Against such self-congratulatory, self-deception,	32:15
	Jesus hurls a prophetic word:	32:19
	Woe to you	32:21
	that laugh now,	32:24
	and lucky are you that weep.	32:30
	Now I have noted, if you are say, twenty-one, twenty-two,	32:35
	on the verge of graduation,	32:39
	many of you are on the verge of tears.	32:43
	Well what's the matter with you?	32:46
	You oughta be happy, you're getting out of this place.	32:48
	May I suggest to you this morning that your dis-ease	32:52
	may be the intelligent creative response	32:56
	to our present dilemma?	33:01
	Maybe?	33:07
	Maybe we are awakening out of our great national daydream.	33:09
	If you are nineteen or twenty years old,	33:16
	there is evidence that you have been raised	33:19
	by the most selfish generation ever to rule this country.	33:21
	In the 70's and the 80's and the 90's,	33:28
	we have squandered your inheritance,	33:31
	run up an unbelievable deficit,	33:36
	and stolen from your children and your grandchildren.	33:39
	And we called it prosperity.	33:44
	And there are a few of you who are smart enough to know	33:49
	that an old world appears to be ending.	33:51
	That old American white male,	33:55
	Ronald Reagan, Milton Friedman,	33:57
	George Will, Robert Schuyler world	33:58
	it may be just sort of dismantling.	34:01
	And you grieve, of course,	34:05
	because sometimes it feels like something secure,	34:07
	and even precious is being ripped off.	34:09
	You face commencement with a sense of loss,	34:15
	a sense of uncertainty, not sure of what tomorrow may bring.	34:17
	Well we're told that we have a number of choices.	34:26
	We can get pessimistic and despairing,	34:32
	or we can engage our mechanisms for denial	34:37
	and blame it on the Japanese,	34:40
	tear up a Toyota.	34:42
	I have come before you this morning to announce another way.	34:47
	Jesus offers another choice.	34:53
	These words were spoken amidst the ruins of Jerusalem.	34:59
	The devastation of a destroyed temple.	35:03
	The rubble of the first demise	35:08
	of Western civilization called Imperial Rome.	35:11
	And Jesus's word is this:	35:16
	lucky if you can embrace the loss,	35:18
	if you can touch the pain, if you can weep.	35:22
	And then the great evangelistic promise:	35:25
	you shall laugh.	35:28
	Yes, you shall.	35:31
	You shall sing, you shall rejoice.	35:32
	You shall see a new world being offered	35:35
	among the rubble and the ruin.	35:38
	And you cannot hear that powerful new word,	35:42
	unless it's out beyond,	35:44
	somewhere out of that territory beyond grief embraced.	35:46
	Cause if you hope too soon, if you laugh too early,	35:51
	this is self-deception.	35:56
	The reduction of Christian hope	36:00
	to November campaign fluff.	36:03
	Weep now, that you may laugh later.	36:08
	What you're hearing Jesus say here,	36:15
	I think, is a great affirmation of faith.	36:17
	Of faith that God gives life and God gives hope.	36:21
	Confidence in the midst of your chemotherapy.	36:25
	Confidence in the midst of your IBM interview.	36:30
	The gospel lesson does not tell us how,	36:34
	it just asserts what is:	36:37
	God gives life and hope.	36:39
	And I don't know which side of that equation	36:42
	is harder for us to believe.	36:45
	Laugh now and then cry later,	36:48
	or cry now so that we can laugh later.	36:52
	We academic types, I think,	36:57
	are prone to a kind of easy pessimism	36:59
	which masquerades as great intelligence.	37:02
	I think most of us are willing to speak of the loss,	37:07
	but we don't have the guts to name the hope.	37:11
	Humor, laughter, is therefore considered to be inappropriate	37:17
	for serious academic discourse.	37:23
	But Jesus says that laughter	37:27
	is the fruit of a serious engagement with the dead	37:31
	and the denial, a movement on the way	37:34
	to God's life-giving promise.	37:37
	You will laugh, Jesus says,	37:40
	not out of some bubble brained program	37:43
	for human betterment or self-esteem.	37:45
	You'll laugh simply because God is alive	37:49
	and God is busy puttering about	37:52
	the ruins of the Reagan years,	37:55
	getting ready to bring newness	37:57
	to those who can look for it.	38:00
	Of course I'll admit that	38:04
	with the promise of Jesus is a dark warning.	38:05
	If you laugh now, you may end up crying.	38:10
	If you're too rich right now,	38:15
	you may end up very poor.	38:18
	If you're filled now, you'll get to be empty later.	38:21
	If you spend too much energy thinking positively	38:27
	about what is,	38:29
	you won't be open to receive what will be.	38:31
	If you clutch too tightly to what you've got,	38:34
	you won't be open for the gift that God gives.	38:36
	You will laugh.	38:41
	Weep now.	38:45
	Is this true?	38:50
	Is it true that we must,	38:52
	like the recovering alcoholic in AA,	38:53
	hit bottom, go down, let go and cry it out	38:56
	before we can hope for help?	39:00
	Is it true that our future	39:05
	is not to be had by cautious careful retrenchment,	39:08
	but rather the result of God's joyful, playful gift?	39:15
	Yes, says the church, yes.	39:23
	The prophets have not lied to us.	39:28
	Yes, you shall laugh.	39:30
	Joy is the gift of God on the other side of grief.	39:33
	A gift of a God who is not limited	39:37
	by our myopic merely human vision.	39:40
	Yes, Sunday morning is a bold pushy move	39:43
	out beyond the tears.	39:46
	A bold venturing force beyond the present data.	39:48
	Without Sunday, all we've got is	39:52
	a kind of hopeless grief bereft in a world	39:55
	left to our own devices,	39:59
	or the temporary diversion of basketball.	40:02
	It just makes a lot of difference,	40:06
	is God alive or not?	40:08
	If God is not alive,	40:10
	then Jesus's talk of laughter is foolish.	40:11
	Yes, God wills the dismantling,	40:19
	the letting go.	40:24
	He works within it.	40:26
	You shall laugh, you shall laugh just like Sarah laughed.	40:28
	But not before she cried when she was told	40:34
	that though she was past ninety	40:36
	she was going to give birth to her first-born child.	40:38
	She cried.	40:40
	But then nine months later, she laughed when she did.	40:42
	You will weep now like the disciples	40:48
	who wept when Jesus told them,	40:52
	"I'm going away from you to prepare another place for you."	40:53
	But then they laughed on Easter when he returned.	40:56
	Oh believe the blessed beatific promise:	41:02
	the way to laughter leads first through loss.	41:07
	It always begins in grief;	41:14
	we believe it inevitably shall end in joy--	41:16
	when God turns tears to laughter	41:22
	and the holy joke is on us.	41:27
	(organ music)	41:40
	♪ Oh day of peace that dearly shines ♪	42:43
	♪ Through all our hopes and prayers and dreams ♪	42:49
	♪ Guide us to justice, truth and love ♪	42:56
	♪ Delivered from our selfish schemes ♪	43:03
	♪ May swords of hate fall from our hands ♪	43:09
	♪ Our hearts from envy find release ♪	43:15
	♪ Till by God's grace our warring world ♪	43:22
	♪ Shall see Christ's promised reign of peace ♪	43:29
	♪ Then shall the world dwell with the Lamb ♪	43:48
	♪ Nor shall the fears devour the small ♪	43:55
	♪ As beast and cattle calmly graze ♪	44:02
	♪ A little Child shall lead them home ♪	44:08
	♪ Then the meek shall learn to love ♪	44:15
	♪ All creatures find their true accord ♪	44:21
	♪ The hope of peace shall be fulfilled ♪	44:28
	♪ For all the earth shall know the Lord ♪	44:34
-	The Lord be with you.	44:45
C	And also with you.	44:47
-	Let us pray.	44:49
	O God of tears and laughter,	45:00
	the truth of your word startles our world,	45:03
	topples our securities, upsets our thinking,	45:08
	brings us to our knees.	45:13
	Before you we see the meaninglessness of our own life.	45:17
	The sin which has brought us	45:21
	down the path of futility and regret.	45:23
	We confess that our sin is a symptom	45:27
	of the greater disorder in our world.	45:30
	The disorders in our government,	45:33
	in our society, the ache in our hearts,	45:36
	the tears in our eyes.	45:41
	Help us to know that we have not lost our souls,	45:43
	that we have not lost the ability to feel	45:47
	and identify with the despair in our world.	45:50
	With the empty faces and stomachs that we see every day	45:55
	on our TV screens, in our work places, on our city streets.	46:00
	And so with unsteady voices, we raise our petitions to you	46:07
	on behalf of ourselves	46:13
	and our brothers and sisters around the world.	46:16
	We thank you, O God, for bringing us to judgment,	46:20
	to knowing that your love	46:24
	strikes us down before it raises us up.	46:25
	Thank you for exposing	46:30
	the broken and scattered pieces of our lives	46:31
	and for showing us that transformation is possible.	46:35
	Thank you for your forgiving love	46:40
	that delivers us from the meanness in our own selves.	46:42
	Thank you for showing us the agony in our world,	46:48
	for piercing our hearts	46:51
	with the knowledge of the pain out there beyond our selves.	46:53
	Instead of wringing our hands in desperation,	46:59
	we thank you that we can throw ourselves at your feet.	47:02
	We thank you that you raise us up	47:07
	with a vision of your kingdom,	47:09
	a place of blessedness where there are no tears,	47:12
	no heartaches, no death.	47:16
	And in this knowledge we ask for strength,	47:20
	to join you in ministering to those who have lost their way,	47:23
	to those who are paralyzed with fear of life.	47:28
	To those too weak of body or spirit to hold a job,	47:32
	to have a home, or to provide for the needs of their family.	47:38
	We ask for strength to join you	47:43
	in ministering to those who wrong their neighbors	47:45
	and cheat their country.	47:48
	To those whose service to their community is a mockery,	47:50
	to those who cannot or will not work toward peace.	47:55
	To those addicted to a life of misery and crime,	48:00
	We ask you for strength,	48:05
	O God to join you in ministering to those	48:07
	who have lost loved ones,	48:09
	to those who have lost their health.	48:11
	To those who are dying,	48:15
	to those who face grave dangers and difficult decisions.	48:17
	Bless us, O God with hope, with song, with laughter.	48:23
	Bless us with the strength to move out into the world	48:29
	bearing the good news of your joyous kingdom.	48:33
	Confident that you are a God	48:37
	who in truth and love surpasses in power	48:39
	the crippling sway of death through the hope of your son,	48:44
	Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.	48:49
	And now in faithful response to God's love for us,	48:57
	may we bring our offerings to God	49:01
	to enrich the lives of the impoverished,	49:04
	and to bring God's creative light to our children.	49:07
	(organ music)	49:15
	♪ Sing to the Lord ♪	50:34
	♪ Sing to the Lord ♪	50:44
	♪ Sing to the Lord ♪	51:00
	♪ Sing to the Lord no threadbare song. ♪	51:08
	(organ music)	52:47
	♪ Praise God from whom all blessings flow ♪	53:25
	♪ Praise God all creatures here below ♪	53:32
	♪ Alleluia, Alleluia ♪	53:38
	♪ Praise God the holy heavenly host ♪	53:46
	♪ Praise God the son and Holy Ghost ♪	53:52
	♪ Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia ♪	54:00
	(choir vocalizes)	54:28
Speaker	And now with the confidence of children of God,	56:08
	let us pray the prayer our Lord taught us to pray saying	56:12
-	[Speaker And Congregation] Our Father,	56:17
	who art in heaven,	56:18
	hallowed be thy name;	56:20
	thy kingdom come;	56:22
	thy will be done	56:24
	on earth as it is in heaven.	56:26
	Give us this day our daily bread;	56:29
	and forgive us our trespasses	56:31
	as we forgive those who trespass against us;	56:34
	and lead us not into temptation,	56:38
	but deliver us from evil.	56:40
	For thine is the kingdom,	56:42
	the power and the glory forever,	56:44
	Amen.	56:48
-	And now may we go forth as God's people	56:50
	forgiven, healed, brought down, and lifted up,	56:53
	fed strengthened and empowered	56:58
	and may our weeping and rejoicing bind us together,	57:01
	uniting us for service in the name of the father	57:05
	and of the son and of the Holy Spirit.	57:09
Choir	Amen, amen.	57:16
	(organ music)	57:58
	♪ God the Spirit, guide and guardian, ♪	58:52
	♪ wind-sped flame and hovering dove, ♪	58:59
	♪ breath of life and voice of prophets, ♪	59:06
	♪ sign of blessing, power of love: ♪	59:13
	♪ give to those who lead your people ♪	59:20
	♪ fresh anointing of your grace; ♪	59:27
	♪ send them forth as bold apostles ♪	59:34
	♪ to your Church in every place. ♪	59:41
	♪ Christ our Savior, Sovereign, Shepherd, ♪	59:51
	♪ Word-made-flesh, Love crucified, ♪	59:58
	♪ teacher, healer, suffering Servant, ♪	1:00:05
	♪ friend of sinners, foe of pride: ♪	1:00:12
	♪ in your tending may all pastors ♪	1:00:19
	♪ learn and live a Shepherd's care; ♪	1:00:26
	♪ grant them courage and compassion ♪	1:00:33
	♪ shown through word and deed and prayer. ♪	1:00:41
	♪ Great Creator, Life-bestower, ♪	1:00:50
	♪ Truth beyond all thought's recall, ♪	1:00:57
	♪ fount of wisdom, womb of mercy, ♪	1:01:04
	♪ giving and forgiving all: ♪	1:01:11
	♪ as you know our strength and weakness, ♪	1:01:19
	♪ so may those the Church exalts ♪	1:01:26
	♪ oversee her life steadfastly ♪	1:01:33
	♪ yet not overlook her faults. ♪	1:01:40
	♪ Triune God, mysterious Being, ♪	1:01:49
	♪ undivided and diverse, ♪	1:01:56
	♪ deeper than our minds can fathom, ♪	1:02:03
	♪ greater than our creeds rehearse: ♪	1:02:10
	♪ help us in our varied callings ♪	1:02:17
	♪ your full image to proclaim, ♪	1:02:24
	♪ that our ministries uniting ♪	1:02:31
	♪ may give glory to your Name. ♪	1:02:38
	(organ music)	1:02:50

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "Tears Today, Laughter Later" (February 16, 1992)

Description:

Sermon start time: 19:57. Sermon end time: 41:32.
The preacher argues that laughter can be the fruit of a serious admission of death, followed by a bold embrace of God's life-giving promise. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: "Oh believe the blessed beatific promise: the way to laughter leads first through loss. It always begins in grief; we believe it inevitably shall end in joy."

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4cz32m24

Date:

February 16, 1992

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Ordinary Time

Biblical Book:

Luke

Chapter and Verse:

Luke 6:17-26

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 VHS-0269
ref9059_65o
uachapelsermaud
duke:321333
dcrmv001258
ark:/87924/r4cz32m24
4af84656-36f3-4cda-9edf-614c4a4834d2

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 - "Tears Today, Laughter Later" (February 16, 1992)

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1. William H. Willimon - "Tears Today, Laughter Later" (February 16, 1992)

Duke University Archives

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William H. Willimon - "Tears Today, Laughter Later" (February 16, 1992)

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Duke University Archives

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