A Will to Preach

[light chord of song] <Rev.

Dr. Willimon> Hey!

How are you?

Doing well, <Rev.

Dr. Willimon> As you know, I generally travel with a camera crew.

These guys are making a film of a pastor moving from the text to the sermon.

Okay.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> Filming somebody preparing a sermon is not that exciting TV.

[dramatic music] <Rev.

Dr. Powery> Will Willimon is a master storyteller.

<Rev.

Dr. Powery> What have I learned from Will Willimon?

Oooo, let me think about that for a moment.

[laughing] <Rev.

Dr. Willimon> He doesn't say things for people to like what he says.

<Stephen Chapman> He does not sit still.

There's no moss that grows on the rock that is Will Willimon.

A Will to Preach is made possible by generous support from InLighten Films, makers of original short films based on scripture.

Learn more at inlightenstream.com.

Additional funding provided by... [natural sound] [cheerful classical music] <Bria> Studying under Dr. Willimon, is an experience.

<Carsten> I had heard about him as a bishop of the church and read some of his books before I got to school.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> Wait.

0012.

Right here.

<Bria> You don't really know what you're getting into until you get in there.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> As one of the inventors of the term post-Christendom...ummm... [laughing] it does sound dead doesn't it?

<Bria> He never gives you an answer out front.

He just, he makes you really think.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> What's one thing you've learned that's really grabs you?

<Stanley> I wrote an article some years ago, called Why Will Willimon Never Explains.

<Stephen> I remember reading the book that he co-authored with Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens.

That made a huge impression on me.

[soft music] <Rev.

Dr. Willimon> I've had the opportunity to preach at a lot of different places.

This is a challenging assignment I have though, because I've been invited by a small Episcopal Church in Salisbury, North Carolina, to preach.

The hosts in Salisbury said they normally preach from the lectionary, which most Episcopal churches do.

<Carsten> He's got this lectionary text, which is totally obscure.

As it talks about all this Levitical law, it seems basically irrelevant.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> At the same time, they're having a parish emphasis on racism and race.

And want me to work that together.

<Carsten> I don't know how he's going to do it.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> I found the lectionary a wonderful resource for preaching in that, in a sense, I preach what I'm told to preach by the church, and passages are laid on me that I would probably never touch, left to my own devices.

It's kind of fun as a preacher, when you say to congregation, Okay, we're in Jeremiah today, this could get bumpy.

<Patsy> The biblical work is the most important thing for him, and understanding what it actually can do and is doing to him and what it might need to be doing for others.

<Stephen> He is the definition of intellectual curiosity.

We co-taught a course at one point called preaching the Psalms, months before we we're going to teach this course, he contacted me and he said, I want you to give me the 10 best books you think have been written about the Psalms, and I'm going to read them over the summer.

And he did, I gave him 10 books and he read them.

Do you mind my borrowing it?

You can borrow it.

Good.

<Patsy> Reading constantly, even now.

And wallowing in the scriptures all the time.

And then reading theological books.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> My challenge in Salisbury is, as far as I can see, the assigned gospel for that day, from Luke.

It really doesn't sync up with issues of concern about race.

The Sadducees who don't believe in the Resurrection, say, In your so called Resurrection of the dead.

Say there's a woman and she's married, her husband dies, and she goes through 5 funerals and 5 weddings.

So next thing you say, Well, whose wife will she be in the Resurrection?

<Stephen> Yeah, good luck with that.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> I guarantee that's a passage.

I would've never gone to on my own.

If you got any great insights on it?

I got nothing on that.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> Great.

Thank you.

<Carsten> Figuring out what that text might have to say to anybody today is a challenge.

And then he's going to try to talk about that in the context of a weekend spent talking about race?

<Rev.

Dr. Powery> The Gospel in many ways is at the intersection of the biblical texts in our context.

So if you just reiterate a text, you may not preach the gospel.

And if you just talk about context and what's happening in the world, you may not preach the gospel.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> And from this story, the church just explodes.

<Rev.

Dr. Powery> If you think about the gospel as story, listen to Willimon.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> The gospel is sort of like a biography, sort of a travelogue.

But mainly Jesus is presented through stories.

The thing that gets you about this story, <Patsy> Story means a lot to Will, because it's an opportunity to use words in such a way that entices people and, as our grandson says, is relatable.

[light mucis] <Rev.

Dr. Willimon> When you ask people, well, what did you remember of my sermon, they never remember the abstract points, the generalizations.

They remember the story about the bird and the little boy and.. They open up a window of the human experience, for people to enter in where they will.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> Stories are not a way of taking truth and putting it down on the bottom shelf for the common people.

Stories are very complex way of exploring reality in deep, meaningful ways.

And that appears to be the way Jesus connected with us.

<Stephen> Sometimes he just makes stuff up.

Can we walk down the hall and look collegial?

<Stephen> And he'll kind of send a signal when he's making stuff up.

My favorite one is when he'll say, I ran into a sophomore this week - And he said, How are you doing?

And I said, Well, not very well.

I mean, this is just horrible.

And he said, You mean the election?

And I said, Yeah, yeah.

And then the sophomore kind of becomes what's called a strawman.

And he said, Uh, you disappoint me a little bit.

And I said, I'm disappointing you?

In what way?

The sophomore who asked some kind of silly question, sophomores, right, actually has had a deeper insight than Will has had himself.

And he said, Okay, so you are stunned and shocked that America has elected a white male, racist person as President.

This was news to you.

[audience laughs] He's learned something from this silly sophomore's question.

[Stephen laughs] I'm going to write that down.

It's good, Thanks!

[laughter continues] Whenever I'm in Luke, I feel as if I'm in the presence of a colleague, a fellow preacher, who preaches by telling stories.

Some of Jesus' Greatest Hits like the Good samaritan, Prodigal son, found only in Luke.

He loves to construct wonderful narratives.

Luke is a master.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> I believe a beginning of sermon, preparation and delivery is prayer.

Lord, help me be transparent to you.

Lord, help me not take over the sermon with my stuff.

<Carsten> One of the things he's talked about a lot is the way sermons can and want to become just this intensely personal thing where people are only talking about themselves.

<Stanley> Preaching isn't just the preacher, discerning the Word of God.

It's the hearer hearing the Word of God.

[steady music] <Stephen> It's always a we , he's always part of what Scripture is addressing.

So it's never about other people.

It's about us.

And he's very much included in that.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> The second Helvetic confession and foundational document for Protestants says the preached word is God's word, which is kind of a wild astounding statement to make.

But we believe that happens, it's true.

And it takes some work.

<Patsy> I think preaching is everything to him and he wants it to be that way for...other preachers.

You learn to preach, I think by apprenticeship by looking over somebody's shoulder who's doing it and by saying, Hmm, that worked.

or Oooo, I think he's, - he's losing people right now.

[birds chirping] <Rev.

Dr. Willimon> I enjoy doing what I can to undergird the work of younger, newer pastors.

<Rev.

Dr. Black> Will was one of those great preachers that I found, and once I found him, I just listened to everything I could find on YouTube and do chapels' website, all of his old sermons.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> It's wonderful to see new people being called by God to come step up, take the reins.

I can remember a sermon that Will has preached where he says, There's this couple that they go to a funeral... And the preacher would pound on the pulpit and look over to that casket and he would say, It's too late for Joe, it's too late for Joe, he might have wanted to get his life together, he might have wanted to spend more time with his family, he might have wanted to do, but he's dead now.

He can't be saved now, but it's your chance.

It's not too late for you.

There is still time for yo, you're still can decide you still are alive.

It is not too late for you.

And the couple gets back in the car and they're talking about, that was just a terrible sermon.

I can't believe he said that.

I just found it disgusting .

And she said I, I've never heard anything like that.

It was manipulative.

It was disgusting.

It was insensitive.

And worst of all, it was also true.

[audience laughs] And he ends the sermon with that.

<Stanley> He will often times not complete a thought.

So what think you of the Christ?

What think you?

He's drawing in the congregation to try to complete it.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> Father Black is very involved in the community of Salisbury.

One of the things that St. Luke's is doing is trying to foster some conversations about race.

And they asked me to come down here and talk about racism from a Christian point of view.

When we invited you here to preach, I had not looked at the lectionary to say Oh, well, how does this line up with with, it was just Can we get him here?

And then the text verse afterthought.

I guess in my own study of the text it's kind of like, okay, Jesus is not talking about racism.

But hey, how can we listen to what Jesus is talking about and say, Huh, how does that challenge what we're talking about?

<Rev.

Dr. Black> I think that will work just fine.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> Is there coffee?

<Rev.

Dr. Black> Yeah, we can get you coffee.

[organ plays a chord] <Rev.

Dr. Willimon> Let's see.

<Patsy> He prepares divinity too far in advance sometimes.

And then he reworks it.

Tends to take out more than add, at the last minute or the last day before.

What I tend to do is to do a kind of manuscript of the sermon to try to get down what I think ought to be gotten down related to Scripture.

[sighs] They no longer dared to ask him any question.

In a way, I'm more nervous than I remember being earlier in my ministry.

I would have thought I would've gotten over that.

Maybe I'm more nervous because the longer you preach, the more you learn to respect, wow, sometimes it doesn't work.

I've spent years being educated to get stuff down on paper.

Trouble is preaching is supremely oral.

For instance, like when you're reading something, there are paragraphs, there's punctuation.

You don't have any of that in preaching.

So preachers learn oral techniques like, now the next thing I'd like to say is, or Here's another way to think about this, and you're sending a signal to the congregation, Okay, people get ready now, buckle down.

We're going to take a move here, make a turn.

[chuch choir singing] <Preacher> Some Sadducees, those who say there is no Resurrection, came to Jesus and asked him a question.

A man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no children.

The man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother, and the second and third married her.

And so in the same way all seven died childless.

Finally, the woman also died.

In the Resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be?

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> Nervousness is a sign of energy and it does produce energy.

And I think anytime you stand up and try to preach about Jesus Christ, you need to be nervous.

You need to have some energy to say, Hey, let me talk to you about something you don't want to talk about.

In the last presidential election, evangelical Christians, when asked, Why did you vote the way you voted?, a predominant response was, I had no other option.

I could vote for unlikable candidate A, or I could vote for incompetent candidate B. I was stuck.

Just A or B.

Well, that's the situation that Jesus' critics hope to put him in in today's Gospel.

They come to Jesus hoping to publicly embarrass him with their impossible question.

Mr.

Religious expert, whose wife is she going to be into your "so called" Resurrection of the dead?

Gotcha.

<Rev.

Dr. Powery> The way he communicates is very much in the vernacular of the people, right?

He's with the people.

<Rev.

Dr. Gregg> He is who he is, whether he's walking in the hallway, or he's teaching or he's preaching.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> Preaching is testimony, you're giving testimony after having encountered the Scripture, you're now testifying to the congregation.

So therefore, eye contact, not standing up and reading it, where it really comes from you to them.

Jesus refuses to choose option A or B, he chooses C. As if to say the Resurrection is not just a continuation of your human institutions and arrangements.

The Resurrection is not just this world improved a little bit.

We have our social institutions.

And we do our best through our institutions and our human laws to rectify things that we get wrong, but we're never truly able to work complete justice.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> In our class, we talked a lot about some of the problems with racism that the church has traditionally had, recognizing that it's not something of the past that it's something that's relevant to today's issues.

This is something that you're training me as a preacher to be able to address and deal with.

<Rev.

Dr. Powery> Will is a good person to address race relations coming from South Carolina, being a church leader on the ground, will speak volumes.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> I'm a white, Southern male, from South Carolina, born and raised at a time of legally enforced racial segregation.

That has deeply imprinted me.

And I think I really do agree with my friend Jim Wallace, when he says racism is America's Original Sin.

I'm thinking about telling a story about an African American who came home from World War II, served his country and all.

But there was no GI bill for him.

His wife told me he just, he gave up.

I remember when I attempted to comfort her on the death of her husband.

And she said to me, he so wanted to make a contribution.

He signed up for World War II as soon as he could.

He got in the army.

And he thought, if I show this country how much I love it, show them what I really got, this country will be different.

But after the war, he came back home, there was no GI bill for him.

And he came back to South Carolina and it was the same South Carolina he left before the war.

It went right back in place after the war.

We wanted a house and he worked hard.

We got some money together.

We went to the bank but we were denied.

It was, we learned later, it was called Red Lined.

He watched one man after another step up over him and become supervisor, not because of what they knew or did, just because the color of their skin.

And then she said to me, the newspaper was wrong.

He didn't take his life.

His life was taken.

If this is it, I mean if this world, in spite of the efforts of earnest good people, if this world is it?

Well, it's uhh it's depressing.

What really drew me I think to Will's preaching is just his focus on the radicality of Jesus.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> Mr. Meek and Mild, Jesus just tears into them.

<Carsten> He's got this idea of like a preacher as a provocateur, where he's really willing to needle where they'd really prefer their preacher didn't talk.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> Christ died for the unrighteous for the ungodly for the rebels.

<Carsten> And then he somehow manages to get right into the messiness of human experience.

<Rev.

Dr. Willimon> Creeps get elected to public office, become presidents of large corporations, pastors of large churches.

Even if it is a strong word, you come away laughing, right, laughing yourself into the truth [laughs] of God.

But in the Bible, in the Bible, creeps get incinerated in fiery furnaces.

They get eaten by lions, they get drowned in floods, they get their heads cut off or worse.

And don't lie to me.

You just love that because everybody longs for a world in which there shall be justice.

Well, me, I, I don't know that I need to think a lot about the Resurrection.

My children, my grandchildren, well fed, well housed, well futured.

But there are brothers and sisters, like this woman in the story, for whom this age has been one disappointing misery after another.

Jesus says, Hey, don't sit too securely on this world as you've received it.

Because God is the God of the living, not of the dead.

And I wonder, I wonder if maybe that's a reason you come to church, that you're here this morning.

That you come not for just some good advice from the pulpit.

Some tips and tricks for choosing wisely, option A, that the world gives, or Option B that the world gives.

But maybe you've come to have your mind blown.

You've come to have your imagination stoked and funded and fueled by these ancient Jews and their writing.

And you've, come to get a glimpse.

Today, I find lots of preachers have become just pastors and that is handholding, ambulance chasing, soothing the anxieties of upwardly mobile adults.

They've let that be ministry.

Well, ministry is also about the truth, the truth, who is Jesus Christ, who had only the way in the life, but the truth, <Stanley> The God that we think we know, isn't the God of Jesus Christ.

So how to maintain that constant surprise, Will's very good at.

<Bria> You feel caught off guard sometimes.

But you don't think it ever comes from a place of malice.

It always comes from a place of love.

I got a friend, Episcopalian, teaches to me.

And she said about 40 years ago, she was at the Episcopal Church Center in New York, working with a group, working against South African apartheid.

She said the group had led the Episcopal Church in a boycott of South African companies and said we'd agitated, we'd lobbied in Washington, nothing had changed.

Apartheid was securely in place and said when we met, we were depressed.

We were down and said unexpectedly, the door burst open and there came through the door, Bishop Desmond Tutu.

He walked through the door.

And he looked at us and he said, Well chappies, why the downcast faces?

Why are you looking so bad?

He said, Come on!

We've got the Resurrection!

Let's get busy.

<Desmond Tutu> Amen.

Paul says, If for this world only, we have hope.

We have no hope.

But by the grace of God, by God of the living and not of the dead, by a God who loves to make a way when there's no way, a God that just loves to raise the dead.

There's hope.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

As the gospel was being read, the man in the choir behind me was laughing.

And I thought, Whoa, that's either good or bad for me.

Had the challenge before me, one of them was a visitor, guest preacher, <Congregant> Thank you so much.

Two, I had some scripture text that I found to be challenging.

Three, I had been asked to say something about race in the church and America.

And yet, despite all of that, I think I said something that was worth saying.

Thank you!

<Congregant> You're really good.

And also, I think, from their comments, something was heard, which is about the most a preacher can ask.

[soft classical music] A Will to Preach is made possible by generous support from Inlighten Films, makers of original short films based on scripture.

Learn more at inlightenstream.com.

Additional funding provided by