Washington National Cathedral

Lloyd: Good morning. It’s wonderful to have you here for our Sunday Forum, where week by week we are looking for the brightest and most interesting minds we can find to come and help us think about the relationship between faith and public life.

Today we have with us one of the brightest and most interesting minds, who’s been in the church for the last several decades helping us think about where the church is and where it’s going. Dr. William Willimon has been the author of some sixty books. He writes them faster than any of us can read them. We do the best we can just to keep up with him. He’s pastored a number of Methodist congregations and for over twenty years was dean of the chapel at Duke University while teaching at Duke Divinity School as well. Four years ago he left that to go be a bishop, a Methodist bishop of North Alabama, serving some 160,000 Methodists. That’s larger than the two largest Episcopal churches put together. So he’s taken on a major job and a major position of leadership in the church.

He also was named several years ago as one of the twelve most effective preachers in America by Baylor University and Newsweek Magazine together. We want to talk about where the church is now, where it’s going, and what it means to try and lead and guide a church in such complex and interesting times as this. So, Will, welcome.

Willimon: It’s good to be back.

Lloyd: Well, you’ve gone through a job change in the last few years, gone from trying to mentor young people and help them get launched in life, to taking on a very large piece of the Methodist Church in trying to shape the Methodist Church in interesting times. What does the shift in leadership feel like, leaving a chapel on campus to now being a bishop? Are you having fun? What are you seeing and what are you learning?

Willimon: I am enjoying it. It’s interesting time in American mainline Protestantism. We’ve been through a period of decline in membership and I think we’ve been through a period of denial and then sort of floundering about which path to take next. And I think we’re in a period in our church, and in other mainline Protestant churches, of working in some new ways toward a new future. And that’s a fun time to be a bishop.

Lloyd: A lot of the accounts these days as they look to mainline churches, and the Episcopal Church especially, we’re going through division and still some decline in our numbers. There seems to be a loss of clarity about what mainline churches are for these days, and a search for what is our mission and what should we be focusing on?

You’ve written a lot about where the mainline churches have been going and what they need to do to renew themselves. Say a little bit about your diagnosis and your prescription for where the church is and where it’s going.

Willimon: I think in mainline Protestantism we’re in need for a kind of theological refurbishment. Some basic questions, such as what does the church talk about that nobody else talks about? I would submit God is the thing we do that others don’t do. There was a book out a few years ago that studied mainline liberal Protestantism, and it basically said mainline liberal Protestantism has got to get back in the business of meaning creation in the light of God, that people come to church to meet and be met by God. And we have a really interesting God in the Trinity, and we should examine ourselves again and look at that.

I think partly we lapsed into a kind of what I would call Constantinian assumption, and that is well we’re lucky enough to be in a basically Christian country where everybody kind of gets Christianity by breathing the air and drinking the water, and that’s okay. Well, we woke sometime in the ’70s and ’80s and realized, if that were ever true, it’s not true today, that if our young are going to grow up embracing this faith, we’re going to have to form them in the faith. And there’s a new intentionality I find in churches about being specifically, exuberantly the church, and doing what nobody else in the world does.

I said one time in the United Methodist Church that the line between the United Methodist Church and Rotary got really thin. And Rotary at least meets at a convenient hour of the week and serves lunch. And so we’re going to have to check that out.

That’s kind of been instilled in me by twenty years as a campus minister. I remember meeting with a group of Duke graduating seniors. And I said, “I’ve got to do the baccalaureate sermon”—this was my way of preparing for the baccalaureate sermon—“I’d like to listen to you. What are some issues you are dealing with? What are some challenges in this year’s graduating class that I might speak to?” And I remember this Duke student, baseball cap on the back of his head, said, “You know, you’re a preacher. You’re supposed to be listening to God, not us.” And I said, “Thank you.” And he said, “You know this graduation weekend we’re going to get advice from a lot of people who know a lot more about things than you do. I just hope when you preach, you talk about God, because that’s the one thing we’re not going to hear anywhere except maybe from you.” And I said, “Thank you, and this meeting is adjourned.”

Lloyd: But haven’t preachers been taught for generations now to connect with the culture, give people ways to make the Gospel relevant to themselves? Is not this the way we should go?

Willimon: True, and I used to teach homiletics, preaching, in seminary and say, “You need to make contact with your congregations.” I think I’m learning that that is a more complex task than maybe we preachers knew. For one thing, very few preachers anymore are addressing a culture. You look at an average congregation and you may have dozens of different cultures. A man introduced himself to me the other day as a member of the Harley Davison culture. So, which culture are you going to talk to?

Another thing is, the traffic tended to move in one direction on that interpretive bridge. It was always the culture telling preaching what could be said and not be said and what you were interested in and not interested in. So I think that’s challenging…

One Sunday, back to one of my sermons—I did the best I knew how—a layman said to me at the door, “You know the thing about you preachers? You never talk about anything that really relates to my world.” And I somewhat defensively said, “Who in the world told you we cared about your world? I want to rock your world. I’m here to destroy your world. Jesus and I are going to tear all this down if we can.”

And I think we’ve been far too deferential to talking about what people are interested in. That sometimes we get interested in things and we get sidetracked. And one reason we come to church, maybe, one of the reasons is to pay attention to be refocused on what is important and what we’ve been avoiding.

Lloyd: So often I’ve read the same sort of comments from people going out the door, that I come here every week for inspiration. I’ve got a hard week ahead. This is my chance to get some reassurance and have a few moments of reflection and some inspiration for the week. But you’re saying that’s really not the agenda for Sunday morning.

Willimon: I’d say to that person, try therapy, get a psychotherapist. This is Jesus. Kierkegaard, the great Danish Christian philosopher, noted in one of his writings in the 19th century, so many people were devoting themselves to inventing labor-saving devices and making peoples’ lives easier. And he said that I would be a preacher and devote my life to making everybody’s life more difficult. And I think sometimes preaching is a comfort, but Christian preaching is about Jesus. And sometimes Jesus brings us comfort, but today’s the second Sunday of Advent and Jesus is not into much comfort today. And I don’t want to lose my congregation before…

Lloyd: I was going to say, you’re about to run off the audience for your sermon…

Willimon: I must say though sometimes we preachers are guilty of misreading our congregations or paying attention to certain responses in congregations. I often tell lay people, you know, sometimes you get the sermons you deserve. Because when was the last time you ever thanked your preacher for venturing out and trying to say something bold and risky? Maybe I ought to worry about not only the people who are there to hear my sermon, but also those people who’ve given up thinking that they may ever hear anything from the pulpit that would fundamentally challenge them in a way that’s worth coming for?

Lloyd: One of the great themes of your work through the years is captured in a book you wrote some years ago called Resident Aliens, the notion that Christians are intended to be out of step with the culture around them. And you’ve talked a lot about the church as a counter-cultural enterprise, or a colony of people who are thinking very differently about the world in the midst of a lot of people in the rest of society. Could you say a little bit about where your thinking is about church as a counter-culture or colony now? And something about what a church like that starts to look like? What are the qualities, the characteristics of this sort of alternative version of life?

Willimon: I think I was really affected by the students at Duke. If you’re a student, an undergraduate at a big university, any big university, and you also see yourself as a disciple, a follower of Jesus, your life becomes strange to you. This is not where everyone else is moving. I remember a conversation with a young man from Mississippi, and I was asking him how he was enjoying the university. And he said, “Well I enjoy it here. It’s nice, although, sometimes I’ve had trouble fitting in.” I said, “Trouble fitting in?” He said, “Well some of the stuff that goes on is just, but you know I’m a little weird. I’m kind of different from most people.” I said, “In what way are you different from most people?” And he said, “Well, I’m an Episcopalian.” And I said, “Trust me, there’s nothing weird about Episcopalians.” And he said, “Well, you ought to try being an Episcopalian here.” I said, “Oh.” I thought that was kind of amazing. I said, “One problem here is Episcopalians have absolutely no training or experience for being weird, so you’re going to have to, like, blaze new territory here.” But they are, and I think it’s a shock to American mainline Christians to wake up and feel like strangers or missionaries in the very culture we thought we owned.

We thought we had devised a way that you could be Christian in America without anybody ever getting hurt for following Jesus. Well, that’s never happened. We thought we did that, but I think there’s a new sense that… It’s interesting that you’re having this Forum this morning. I hear lay people saying, “We want to be taught. We’re not sure where we are, what we believe. There’s a new emphasis on education. There’s a new sense to be a Christian is to swim against the stream in some interesting ways. There’s a sense in which the world has restored to the church the sort of adventure following Jesus, rather than agreeing with nine out of ten average Americans. So that’s what I think about.

Lloyd: A sense of adventure.

Willimon: Yes, and I think the younger Christians have been quicker to pick up on this than older Christians like me. And I think they’re onto something, and I tell pastors in churches I think we’re going to have to spend a lot more time teaching, forming people in the faith. I think we will again have a sense of ourselves as evangelists, as going out into a kind of alien world and saying, “You want to talk about God? You want to talk about things they won’t let you talk about out there?”

At Duke Chapel, students would complain, “Yes, I come in here; I don’t know any of the hymns. I don’t know how to sing these songs you people sing.” And I said, “Where the heck would you hear any of these songs? It’s illegal to sing any of this music on MTV? This is music you’ve got to get dressed and come down here to hear. This is weird stuff.”

I think that’s new.

Lloyd: We’re gathered here today in a Cathedral at the heart of Washington, D.C., a city that pays a lot of attention to politics these days, and one of the lively pieces of life in our country right now is a political campaign that easily gets caught up in the back and forth between religion and politics. Especially this week, you know that Mitt Romney tried to stake out his territory where he is as a Mormon in relation to the office of president, which he is seeking. Could you say something more broadly—you don’t need to talk about Mitt Romney in particular—but your sense of where faith and politics intersect? What is the political vocation for Christians?

Willimon: I’m from Alabama, so we’ve got some weird political ideas in Alabama, I warn you. You know to be a Christian is to be somebody who is trying to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. Period. But that is very complicated. There were American Christians of another century like Reinhold Niebuhr and others who sort of implied, well, you know, being a Christian is a big problem with most of the world’s governments that have ever lived except if you’re in a democracy. And if you live in a democracy, you’re so lucky, because Christians have got no problem with government. Well, I think when we say on Sunday morning in the creed, “I believe in Jesus Christ,” etc., “suffered under Pontius Pilate...” Isn’t it weird to have a politician show up in our creed? I mean, a Roman politician? And I think one reason we do that is to remind ourselves that if Christianity has tended to clash with every form of government under which it has lived, including the very first form of government under which it lived. And still does.

I remember in a student Bible study one night, we were looking at that infamous passage in Matthew where somebody says to Jesus, “Should we pay taxes to Caesar or not?” And Jesus says, “Who’s got a quarter?” His pockets are empty, interestingly, right? And he says, “Well, whose picture is stamped on the coin?” And they say, “Caesar… George Washington.” And Jesus says, “Well, he must own it then. You give to Caesar what he owns, but you be careful, you don’t give to Caesar what God owns.” And I said to the students, “There, Jesus has spoken on politics.” And a student said, “Well, what is that supposed to mean? What does Caesar own and what does God own?” And I said, “Um, that’s true.” And then one of the students said, “Well maybe when it comes to Caesar and God, we’re just supposed to be uneasy.”

Well, the more I thought about that, maybe we Christians would be making progress if we’re just uneasy. Like I think it’s kind of nice that Mr. Romney has to explain that “I’m a Mormon, but if you elect me president, I promise I won’t act like a Mormon, and I’ll never do what Mormons do, if I’m president.”

Lloyd: John Kennedy said the same thing.

Willimon: It bothers me that nobody said to George Bush, “Aren’t you a Methodist? Can we trust you? Because you Methodists have got some weird notions about peace and war and capital punishment and everything. It bothers none of you all were nervous he was a Methodist. You’re probably saying, “He’s a Methodist. He doesn’t take any of this seriously anyway, so forget it.”

I’m delighted that candidates are now free again to say what means a great deal to them. I read John Kerry being interviewed a while back said one of his great regrets from the campaign was that he never made clear how much he enjoys being a Catholic, and how much it’s meant to his life. And he said, “I wish I hadn’t been so careful not to talk about that.”

Well, if we believe in religious freedom, it means that we’re free. So I think it’s great to mix it all up.

I’m living in the state of Alabama and we have a Republican governor, and before I moved to Alabama he was being interviewed on NPR. And they said to this governor, “Why are you trying to reform the tax code of Alabama?” and he said, “Well, it’s the worst, most regressive tax code in America.” And they said, “Your own party is opposed to this! This may be the end of your political career. Why are you pushing to change the tax code?” And he said, “Well, I just think it’s holding Alabama back economically and all.”

And the reporter kept pushing, and he said, “Well, I guess it’s because I’m a Baptist, and we think we’re supposed to look after our neighbors. And this is a good way to look after your neighbors that don’t have what you have.” I was listening to that, driving down the interstate, and I went off the interstate, driving the wrong way down, cars spun around. I mean it was just amazing to hear politicians say, “I’m doing this because I’m a Christian. And here’s what we believe, and any of the rest of you all believe that?”

Lloyd: Is there a Christian agenda?

Willimon: That’s harder for me to… you know… A politician in North Carolina once complained to me that he would be glad to listen to take some political advice from Christians if he could ever find two Christians who said the same thing. And he said, “I had one Christian in here said, ‘No we don’t believe that; we believe this. And do this.’”

Christianity is this rich, bubbling, thick faith where God actually speaks to individuals by their very own names and calls them in different ways. So therefore, like the Christian agenda can be a more complex thing. So I’m reticent to talk about that. On the other hand it doesn’t mean that I don’t have an opinion about some political matter. And I think my opinion is informed—I hope—by the fact that I’m to worship Jesus Christ.

Lloyd: I’ll ask you one more question. Then we’ll go to our audience, so Deryl, our producer, will come out and select some people to offer you questions.

Beyond the question of politics, we have a culture that’s changing rapidly. Some people call it a post-modern culture. Everything seems culturally up for grabs. No one’s quite sure what society as a whole is about because it’s fragmented into so many little pieces. And often those pieces are battling and clashing with each other. It’s a pretty divided, contrarian, often uncivil society we’re in now.

What can be the role for the church in a time like this? A time of a deeply divided society, a deeply divided world? We’ve just had a series of books by atheists saying that religion is really part of the problem, not part of the solution, because it divides people. It makes them all think God’s on their side. Any sense of what the role is for the Christian church in a deeply divided society and a deeply divided world now?

Willimon: Well, maybe we’ve been presuming the world was unified when maybe the world’s never been unified. A friend of mine from Russia talks about, he’s mad when they talk about the “breakup of the Soviet Union.” He said there was nothing keeping us together except the Soviet Army. And once they left town we found out we were different.

One of the great things that’s happened in our society is more people are coming to the microphone. So when I make a statement like “All of us Americans agree that...” invariably there’s someone in the room says, “Just a minute. I’m an American and I don’t agree. This country has not been for me and my people as the way it’s been for you and your people.” Of course it’s one of the great things about being in Alabama.

So I’m just wondering if we’re making more than we ought of the confusion. But then when I say that, remember I’m a Methodist. And I’m accustomed to dealing with churches that call themselves St. Luke’s Methodist Church, but you get in there and you find out that none of them agree on anything, it appears, and that they all love to argue. And in fact one reason they come to church, some of them, is to argue about important matters.

So I think maybe we are in a time where we wonder how do you hold a nation together? What are the limits?

And just finally to say that I’m a preacher. And I like people to listen to me, and I like to say something interesting. So I get nervous when people start talking about civility because, believe it or not, I’ve actually been accused of being uncivil. And they were wrong. And I told them so. I told them to shut up because I was talking.

There’s a great book that came out years ago called The Ordeal of Civility. And it was about Jews. And the primary thing that American academics said about Jews was they are argumentative and they’re divisive and they’re not civil. Well, translated, that meant that Jews were talking, and having opinions, and speaking up in counter ways. So I guess I’m not as worried about the civility, but maybe I should be.

Lloyd: Let’s go for a question out here.

Question: Good morning. The main message that I got from Christ is love, and in the time now with all that’s happening with the Episcopal Church and similar discussions in the Methodist Church, and declining enrollment in the congregations, how do we not open our arms wider and accept more people into our faith?

Willimon: Ah, the question about love. And I hear a question there about inclusiveness, embrace. I hope this is not a copout, but love in the name of Jesus can be a complicated affair. For instance, the text to preach on in Mark is where a rich young man comes to Jesus and says, “I want to be part of your movement,” and Jesus says, “I want you to follow me.” And then it says Jesus looked at him and he loved him. And he said, “Because I love you so much I want you to go sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and then follow me.” And with that Mark said the young man got depressed and left. The only time anybody was ever called to be a disciple and left.

Which is says to me that love in the name of Jesus, it’s not a sentimental thing that I hear a lot about. I think the church always struggles to be half as inclusive as Jesus. I believe Jesus Christ died for the sins of the whole world. Period. The embarrassment to me, this is just me now, in my own church has bought into a kind of capitalist, Western, North American’s notion that sexuality is a hugely important issue, and that my sexuality is a very important distinguishing characteristic. That’s the predominant view in our society.

The thing that troubles me is I don’t find that anywhere in Scripture. I’m teaching a course on Jesus at Birmingham Southern College. And one of the things that most impressed the students about Jesus is we have no idea about his sexuality. And Jesus appears to be uninterested in that which interests us more than anything in the world and about which I get more email advertisements.

Well, what does it mean to look at Jesus and say that is God? Well, it just means that there’re some things we ought to stop talking about and other things we ought to have the guts to talk about. So it’s a struggle. But I think, I’m not only worried when we appear to be inhospitable to people of one sexual orientation from our churches because I’m in a church that is inhospitable to lots of different people. In Alabama we’ve lost 30,000 Methodists in fifteen years. That doesn’t sound very inclusive to me.

And just one last thing. I don’t know which particular lack of inclusion most troubles you, but I’m particularly troubled at the Episcopal Church and the Methodist Church and Presbyterian Church. The Lutheran Church has basically excluded everybody under thirty-five. We found a way to have church only with older people. Now, Jesus—I think that grieves him.

Question: I heard last week on NPR in an interview, a self-proclaimed Republican woman saying, “I don’t want my taxes used to give anybody else’s children breakfast anymore.” The dean just asked you about what the Christian agenda for our political season should be here. And it seems to me that it’s very clear Jesus said “Love your neighbor as yourself.” What is it that we as Christians can do to get back to basics? Because doesn’t that answer the whole issue of racism and sexism and poverty and inclusion, and all of it?

Willimon: He was a self-proclaimed, what did you say?

Question: Republican. But it doesn’t matter.

Willimon: Oh. Well, I, kind of like—it matters to me. You know I just can’t understand how anybody could have had any brush with Jesus Christ and come out and say “I’m not going to pay for anybody, for my money to go to these poor children to feed them breakfast.” And I think you’re right. You kind of feel the shame at that kind of sentiment. I mean for one thing, if you’re a Christian, it ain’t my money. Scripture says the whole earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the fullness thereof. And Christianity is kind of lifetime learning in how to keep reminding yourself that it’s not mine. That you’re my sister even though I don’t even know your name. Jesus Christ has made you that to me. That these children are my children even though they’re not my responsibility. And I’ll say this: I’ve been amazed at the lethargic, dead, Methodist congregations that have gotten born again by doing something just simple and basic that anybody could do. Like feeding breakfast to children. And what they had to do to get themselves ready to do that made them better worshipers of Jesus Christ.

So much so, I’ve got a little church I’m thinking of right now that just started out a group of men and women in the church to work on the homes of older people on Saturday morning. And just doing that has transformed that church. There’s something about Jesus that loves to work in these acts of charity and kindness. And I think, therefore, that sometimes that’s a judgment on the kind of society we created, and the kind of people we’ve become.

Question: Could you comment on the role of Christianity in environment, stewardship of creation? In particular, is caring for creation an organizing principle that could really unite people, especially, say, with global warming having a devastating effect on the world’s poor. They’re the least able to cope with any of the weather disasters that are…

Willimon: I think you have to confess sin that we Christians—I have done less than I should. In the early days of the ecological movement, there was a theory that we were partly in the mess we’re in because of back in Genesis where God says, “Now, exercise dominion over all that I’ve created.” And so we said, “Oh, that means we can do whatever we please.” Well, a closer reading of Genesis shows that God creates the world to be this lush garden that then we, through our sin, have desecrated and turned into a dessert. That’s the story we’re living out.

You say that you think maybe concern about the environment could be something that could unite Christians, and indeed all of us. And that could be. I must say that there’s a probably a reason we are desecrating the environment, and when we try and do differently we’re going to find out it’s a pretty complicated issue. Just to say that this is something many Western Christians are new, moving into. And we’ve yet to know the meaning of the fact that we are stewards of God’s creation. And that’s about the best you can say for us.

Imagine having to answer to God for what we’ve done to the world.

And Christians are those who believe that we are accountable to something larger than ourselves and to something grander than my own opinion of what works for me. The desecration of the environment that has gone on under Communism like in China, I wonder if this is maybe what you get, not only when you have great poverty but when you also have a gargantuan sense that the earth is ours and we can do with it what we please? I don’t know. But we Christians have both a lot to answer for and a lot of wonderful resources for dealing with that. But I confess; we’re just beginning.

Question: Good afternoon. You said the Lord said, “Render unto Caesar those things that were Caesar’s and unto God those things which are God’s.” The things that are Caesar’s, Caesar is known as the law of the land, and things that are Caesar’s are material things. Those things that are God’s are spiritual things. When we come to God, we must serve him in spirit and in truth. And so the Lord, spiritual is what he is focusing on. That’s in Galatians 5:22-23, “Love, joy, peace, hope, faith, long-suffering, tolerance, all those good things.” So the Lord wants us to render love unto his people and Him. God bless you.

Willimon: I would just challenge… I don’t hear there that, I don’t want to make too much out of that little exchange about Caesar’s coin, but I hear what you’re saying. But I think to be a Christian means that, it’s to believe that God has a hand in everything. And I’m not permitted to say “Oh, that’s material. The government works with that.” “Oh, that’s spiritual.” One problem is, if you go that route, everything important in life—economics, politics, my body, the world, becomes material. And everything else gets pumped up with helium and becomes spiritual and floats off into nothing. So I want to say I believe Jesus Christ is Lord of everything. And then we’ve got to struggle with what that means.

Remember, we’re just about three weeks away from the celebration of the Incarnation, when God almighty became flesh, became a Jew from Nazareth who lived briefly and died violently, rose unexpectedly. So that means that after that there’s a sense in which I don’t know what material is and I don’t know what spiritual is. It’s kind of all spiritual. It’s all a religious issue. So in that sense being a Christian means to keep trying to look at everything through in the light of the God who has come among us as Jesus Christ.

The good news is, it’s a great adventure!

Lloyd: One last brief question.

Question: Thank you. I’ll be brief. Just a quick note. I was actually a student at Duke and Bishop Willimon was a huge influence in my life and I’ll always be grateful for that. But a question about the mainline Protestant churches. Presbyterian, I believe we’re going to be extinct by about 2050 on the current trends. James Twitchell talks about in Shopping for God how the successful churches—which would be more conservative, evangelical, Pentecostal churches that are growing—tend to put huge demands on their parishioners and really offer intense spiritual experiences. One of the huge values of the mainline Protestant churches that I see is a broad tolerance. But how can the mainline Protestant churches maintain a broad level of tolerance while still putting huge demands on their members to follow Christ and know God, and really make it intense spiritual path and spiritual life of sacrifice?

Willimon: I think it’s a challenge. My friends in the evangelical, conservative churches would probably say to you, “Don’t give us too much credit. We got our issues. We got our ways of weaseling out of Jesus too.” I hope they would say that. One of things about your generation, if I may generalize, is that I think many of you are looking for a challenge and we made a mistake to try and crank Christianity down to the lowest common denominator of, you know, “Do you love your mother? Well, okay, good. That’s sort of the church. We’re into that.” All of us at every age want demands. And if you read the Bible, this is a God who makes demands. You tell me today after my sermon, “Was I let off the hook, or did I have a heavy demand placed upon me in that sermon?” Because that is one thing we are doing.

I know some people who tell you that they never had any demands put on them until they became an Episcopalian. And then suddenly they start feeling guilty about a bunch of stuff they used not to feel guilty about, and taking responsibility for people. So demands can cut different ways in different faith families.

Lloyd: Final question from me. The church is going through challenging times. Are you hopeful about where the Christian church in America is going? Maybe even the mainline churches? Are they going to find a new voice? Are they going to reinvent themselves? Does God have a new chapter for them?

Willimon: Well, you know, I know more about Methodists than any of the rest of you, and it’s pretty pessimistic to know Methodists that well. But—after Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, anything can happen. And when there’s a Holy Spirit, God seems to love to raise the dead, and God seems to love to wade into situations of bleak despair and hopelessness and bring hope.

This morning we’re going to read a passage from Isaiah that was written we believe during the darkest days of Israel’s life when they were in exile in Babylon. All their cities had been destroyed. They were carried off as slaves and exiles to Babylon. And the preacher stands up and says there’s going to be a sprig arising out of the root of Jesse. Dawn is going to break forth. I can’t imagine that in such a dark time God’s preachers use some of the most pushy, hopeful poetry. And it’s a reminder to me as a Christian: I’m not permitted to give up hope. I’m not permitted to despair because if Jesus Christ is Lord there’s more adventure yet to be shown. So.

Lloyd: It’s been a great conversation. Thank you very much. Hope you’ll join us next week when we have with us a very distinguished international church leader, Samuel Kobia, who is the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, talking about what’s happening in religions across the world.

Our service starts at 11:15. We hope you’ll stay with us for that from any tradition from which you come. Please join us. Now coffee is available in the back of the church. Please join us for that as well.

Now join me in thanking Will Willimon for his kindness.