Margaret B. Via - "What Does It Mean?" (May 13, 1990)

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Speaker	A few weeks ago, my husband and I were	0:15
	with our Presbyterian minister son	0:18
	on the New Jersey Turnpike headed south a few miles north	0:21
	of Newark airport where we were to catch a plane	0:26
	back to Durham after a glorious Easter weekend	0:30
	in New York City and the beautiful village of Bronxville.	0:34
	All seemed well as we happily reviewed the events	0:40
	and the exciting time we had had together	0:44
	for those few days.	0:47
	Suddenly, all four lanes of traffic came to an abrupt halt.	0:49
	You know the feeling.	0:54
	It's happened to you, too.	0:56
	For the next forty minutes, we inched our way along,	0:58
	not knowing what was ahead or whether we would make it	1:01
	to the airport in time for our plane's departure.	1:05
	The ugly sight of the blighted landscape surrounding us	1:09
	and the thick smog from the noxious gasses erupting	1:13
	from the nearby chimneys of industry,	1:17
	did not contribute to a feeling of well-being.	1:20
	Adding the anxiety of being trapped for who knows how long,	1:24
	smelling the fumes from the exhausts of the cars	1:28
	and the trucks, and we had a stressed-filled situation	1:31
	on our hands.	1:36
	As the tension mounted within us,	1:38
	I remembered that this John 14 passage was to be	1:41
	the subject of my sermon on this day, May 13th.	1:44
	And, being a mom to other ordained Baptist ministers,	1:49
	I said, sorry, one Presbyterian and two Baptists, I said,	1:52
	"Let not your hearts be troubled."	1:57
	It was partly in jest, but also partly serious	2:01
	and I thought certainly an appropriate remark	2:06
	in the midst of such a troublesome dilemma.	2:09
	Our son wisely responded, "Mom, in that kind of world	2:14
	we live in, that passage can only make sense	2:19
	in the language and in the experience of faith."	2:23
	I was grateful for his comment.	2:28
	For certainly, that is the way it makes sense	2:30
	to me and to all of you.	2:33
	To unpack this comforting and hard to believe	2:37
	to be true text is not an easy task.	2:40
	For John's gospel is full of metaphorical truths	2:44
	and elusive language which demands	2:48
	much theological reflection and mind-stretching.	2:50
	A troubled heart is something we know about all too well.	2:56
	Karl Barth, the great theologian, puts it like this,	3:02
	"We're deeply sunk into the night	3:06
	of our fears and frustrations. Into the night of our stories	3:09
	and the stories of our world."	3:14
	We worry about our health, our safety,	3:17
	about whether we should retire early or late,	3:21
	about whether we stay in one place or move to another,	3:25
	about whether to remain in a marriage or not,	3:30
	about whether we make right decisions or wrong decisions,	3:34
	about how much we are committed to the societal	3:38
	and environmental problems that we find all around us.	3:42
	We worry about our aging bodies and those of our parents,	3:47
	about how much to interfere in our children's lives,	3:52
	About how faithful we are or unfaithful we are to God	3:56
	and to each other.	4:00
	We worry about deadlines and headlines,	4:02
	about the threat of nuclear holocausts or accidents.	4:06
	We worry about the political	4:11
	and the economic state of our world.	4:13
	Most of our worries are legitimate,	4:17
	if we are responsible human beings,	4:20
	human beings concerned about the well-being of others,	4:23
	our earth, and our cosmos.	4:28
	In the midst of such a world we live in,	4:32
	how can the words, "Let not your hearts be troubled"	4:35
	make sense?	4:39
	Can we take them seriously and still be caring persons?	4:41
	Let us take a closer look.	4:47
	Our text is set in Jerusalem where Jesus and his disciples	4:50
	are lingering around the table	4:54
	after a farewell dinner party.	4:56
	Here the writer seems to be giving attention	5:00
	to the major crisis of the early church:	5:03
	the absence of Jesus.	5:06
	The concern here is not about the terrible things	5:09
	that will happen to Jesus very soon,	5:12
	but rather what will happen to his disciples	5:15
	once he is gone.	5:18
	The disciples were afraid for themselves.	5:22
	With the announcement that his departure was imminent,	5:25
	what were they to do?	5:29
	Jesus had promised so much.	5:31
	What were they to think about him and his life and his work?	5:35
	Was it all for naught?	5:39
	Was it over?	5:42
	Do they return to their fishing boats and tax tables?	5:43
	If not there, then where are they to go?	5:48
	Jesus comforts the Joanna in church, telling them that,	5:53
	though he is leaving, he will not leave them	5:57
	to fend for themselves.	6:02
	The good news is that Christ will send the Holy Spirit	6:05
	to be with the church.	6:08
	The good news is that Jesus' and God's relationship	6:10
	is closer than parent and child, father and son.	6:14
	If you know one, you know the other.	6:19
	The literal translation of the text seems to be	6:24
	most meaningful, "Let not the heart	6:28
	of you be troubled."	6:32
	The heart is a word rich in meaning in the scriptures.	6:36
	It is a word which represents the total human person.	6:40
	It can mean a hidden place,	6:45
	the place of will and understanding,	6:47
	the center for decision-making, of intentionality.	6:50
	It functions as the source of thought and reflections.	6:55
	Within the heart, human beings meet God.	7:01
	In this gospel, the heart is a place of emotions,	7:07
	the place where we see God more clearly.	7:11
	The words of the poet, Gerard Manly Hopkins,	7:16
	seem appropriate to describe what, I think,	7:20
	John tries to say.	7:23
	"I lift up heart, eyes,	7:26
	Down all that glory in the heavens	7:28
	to glean our Savior."	7:32
	In their life with Christ, the disciples have experienced	7:36
	a break with the world.	7:40
	They are now in opposition to the world	7:42
	because of their experience with the dynamic Jesus.	7:44
	What a blow to find out that Jesus will not be with them.	7:49
	They are heartsick.	7:53
	Because Jesus leaves, they are in trouble.	7:55
	The trouble, according to Bootmon, for the disciples,	8:00
	comes from the collision of the world with Revelation.	8:04
	The disciples now have the burden of the world upon them.	8:09
	The revelation has been given to them,	8:14
	but the Revealer, Jesus, will not be with them.	8:17
	That trouble gives that gives the trouble	8:22
	its positive significance.	8:26
	The disciples know the hurt and the strangeness	8:30
	of being cut loose from the world	8:34
	because they have been close to Jesus.	8:37
	They had just begun to faintly grasp	8:42
	the other side of things, the other way, God's way,	8:45
	God's truth in the person of Jesus.	8:50
	The collision of the world with Revelation,	8:55
	with God in Christ, with God in us,	8:58
	is what this trouble is all about.	9:02
	It's the same trouble we have today.	9:06
	The church, the believers, the disciples are lonely	9:09
	in the world because of their encounter	9:13
	with the person Jesus, who has made	9:15
	all the difference in their lives.	9:18
	They have seen themselves and the world	9:21
	with new eyes because of their life in Christ.	9:24
	What does this mean for us, now?	9:29
	Our anxiety stems from our believing existence	9:33
	in our alien world,	9:37
	our aloneness in our belief,	9:39
	the fragility of our belief,	9:43
	the uncertainty of our belief.	9:46
	The secret of the untroubled heart is faith in the Christ	9:52
	who is not confined to our world,	9:56
	yet, who is our hope.	9:59
	It is in the devastation of bewilderment	10:04
	that we can hear the promise of a place, of home,	10:06
	not one in the sense that we know home.	10:11
	Deep within our suffering, we find that home,	10:14
	that hope in the present and in the future,	10:18
	because of Christ being present to us.	10:22
	The faith that allows the hearing	10:28
	is cause for joy and peace.	10:31
	The dwelling place of God, God in us, the presence of Christ	10:35
	in the world, is home.	10:40
	It is our dwelling place.	10:43
	The miracle of Jesus' return, makes Jesus real to us.	10:46
	It places Jesus and his truth	10:52
	in the center of God's truth,	10:56
	which has always been there and which is applicable	10:58
	for us through all times and generations.	11:02
	The truth that God went away, but did not stay,	11:07
	is too good to be true.	11:11
	In our forsakenness, we are not forsaken.	11:13
	In our disconnectedness with the world, Christ is present.	11:17
	We the homeless, we the troubled,	11:22
	we the stranger in the world, find that our friend,	11:24
	our companion, our resurrected Lord	11:28
	is our access to God.	11:33
	The deeper we stand in the night of our fears	11:37
	and the isolation from the world over against our belief	11:40
	in the authenticity of God in Christ, Barth tells us,	11:44
	the more Jesus will help us, will come to us	11:49
	in our own time and in our own separation.	11:53
	My friend, Emily Wilson, a poet and a writer,	11:59
	talks about Betty Hill and a beautiful book	12:04
	called "Hope and Dignity."	12:07
	The book is about older black women in North Carolina.	12:10
	Betty is over a hundred years old,	12:14
	living in a rural North Carolina community	12:17
	in a small, unpainted, badly in need of repair house	12:20
	with the privy in the back yard.	12:25
	Betty can not read or write and lives alone.	12:28
	She talks about her past, about her dead husband, Perence.	12:32
	There she has little in the world	12:38
	except her memories and her faith.	12:43
	She says, about the present and the future,	12:47
	"I sing by myself here.	12:50
	The Lord has looked after me	12:54
	and I'm thanking God for it everyday."	12:57
	And she sings, "This love I have,	13:01
	the world didn't give it to me.	13:05
	This love I have, the world didn't give it to me.	13:07
	This love I have, the world didn't give it to me	13:12
	and the world can't take it away."	13:16
	The meaning of this dialogue in John's gospel	13:20
	is to show that the believer, who is discouraged	13:24
	and who can not see his own present and future,	13:27
	or own faith possibility,	13:30
	can discover it, can know it.	13:33
	However, this believing existence	13:37
	is no permanent settled state,	13:40
	rather, it is the ever taking hold, the ever grasping,	13:43
	the ever claiming of it.	13:47
	Of that, which has already been given us.	13:50
	It is ours for the reaching.	13:53
	It is our for the taking,	13:55
	ours for the claiming each day of our lives.	13:57
	Many painters through the years, have been fascinated	14:02
	with the Crucifixion and have painted it	14:06
	over and over again.	14:08
	One such painter in our time never had	14:11
	any formal with the church, yet he painted	14:13
	the Crucifixion over and over,	14:16
	in brutal form and color.	14:19
	He is reported to have said, "I don't know what it means,	14:23
	but, if there is any meaning, anywhere.	14:27
	I suspect it is there."	14:31
	"Let not the heart of you be troubled."	14:35
	Where is the meaning of it?	14:39
	The meaning lies in the Cross, as the artist suggested.	14:41
	The meaning lies in the dining room with Jesus.	14:46
	The meaning lies in our struggle with church,	14:50
	with the complexity, the simplicity, and the reality	14:54
	of the resurrection.	14:59
	The meaning lies in our faith and the One who comes to us,	15:01
	the One whose power is in us, but not of us.	15:06
	The meaning lies in Jesus Christ,	15:12
	whose living presence is found	15:14
	in communities and in persons,	15:17
	grasping them, inspiring them,	15:21
	and transforming them.	15:25

Item Info

Title:

Margaret B. Via - "What Does It Mean?" (May 13, 1990)

Description:

Sermon start time: (Part 1) 00:15. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 15:28.
Jesus is our connection to God, and the deeper we stand within our fears and isolation against the world, the more Jesus will come to us in our own time. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “It is in the devastation of bewilderment that we can hear the promise of a place. Of home. Not one in the sense that we know home, deep within our suffering, we find that home. That hope in the present and in the future because of Christ being present to us. The faith that allows the hearing is cause for joy and peace.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4ms3kg01

Date:

May 13, 1990

Speaker:

Via, Margaret B.

Liturgical Calendar:

Ordinary Time

Biblical Book:

John

Chapter and Verse:

John 14:

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0487
ref8785_fca
uachapelsermaud
duke:320412
dcrau001380
ark:/87924/r4ms3kg01
ed9f0b20-864a-480c-b347-14b4dc40964f

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Language:

English

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United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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Provenance:

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

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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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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Margaret B. Via - "What Does It Mean?" (May 13, 1990)

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