Margaret B. Via - "Let This Be Known to You" (May 14, 1989)

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	(faint audience chatter)	0:13
Woman	In one of Nathanael West novels,	0:16
	a man called Miss Lonelyhearts	0:19
	wrote a newspaper column giving advice to those in need.	0:23
	Each day, the writer sat and ran through	0:29
	the mound of correspondence which flooded his office desk.	0:32
	The cries for help were from persons suffering	0:38
	from all kinds of pain and trouble,	0:42
	ranging from broken hearts to unwanted pregnancy.	0:46
	The writer knew deep down in his heart	0:52
	that somehow Christ could make a difference	0:54
	in the lives of those battered, fearful, frustrated persons.	0:58
	But he knew, too, that he dare not mention to his readers	1:04
	the Christ business.	1:08
	He became ill and his view of religion	1:11
	was part of that illness.	1:14
	He remembered that as a boy,	1:18
	he had discovered in his father's church	1:20
	that something powerful stirred within him	1:23
	when he heard his father call out	1:27
	the name of Christ from his pulpit.	1:29
	West, the author, gives us some explanation	1:34
	of the sickness of Miss Lonelyhearts.	1:37
	He had played with the Christ business	1:41
	but he had never allowed it to come alive.	1:44
	At Pentecost, the Christ thing came alive	1:51
	within those disciples and the church was born.	1:57
	The birthing of the church is more than any single event.	2:04
	It is larger than any historical fact.	2:08
	Behind the story of Pentecost	2:13
	is the truth that Jesus is indeed alive,	2:15
	that death is defeated,	2:19
	that through Christ's Spirit in the church,	2:21
	the mighty works of God continue in history.	2:25
	Karl Barth tells of seeing a troop of actors	2:32
	present a play called The Dance of Death.	2:35
	The main character in the play was Death,	2:40
	who stood triumphantly in the center of the stage	2:42
	surrounded by persons of all ages, of all races,	2:45
	and from all conditions of life.	2:49
	The shocking message of Death	2:53
	to that assembled host of humanity	2:54
	was that all persons must die,	2:56
	that nothing is more certain, all are its victims.	3:01
	At Pentecost, the early players of the church	3:08
	enacted another drama.	3:10
	We might call it the drama of life.	3:13
	The key figure is the risen Christ	3:17
	and just as Death in Barth's drama	3:21
	was at the center of human life,	3:23
	so stands Jesus in Luke's drama.	3:25
	The actors are a multitude of strangers	3:31
	and those who knew Jesus	3:35
	and who claimed him and his teachings.	3:37
	If we look closely,	3:42
	the timeless Jesus is not just anchored in one place	3:43
	where the drama all began.	3:47
	But we also see Jesus here in the midst of history	3:49
	with all its generations	3:53
	standing before Christ's living presence	3:55
	where distinctions no longer matter.	3:59
	Those early friends of Jesus had known him	4:04
	only three short years	4:06
	and too soon had come his cruel, agonizing death.	4:09
	They thought it was all over	4:15
	that awful day of his crucifixion,	4:16
	yet they wanted to believe	4:20
	that death had not claimed him forever.	4:22
	They wanted to believe that the strong, gentle Jesus	4:26
	who had come to them promising so much	4:29
	could not have vanished.	4:33
	And the stories of his appearances	4:35
	dot the pages of the Gospels.	4:38
	Were they no more than tales told about a figure	4:43
	who had become a legend?	4:47
	Luke, in an effort to explain and capture	4:52
	the essence of the truth of Jesus' life and death,	4:54
	took the bits and the pieces that he had heard	4:58
	and seen and read,	5:00
	and breathed life into that fascinating	5:02
	and incredible material.	5:06
	As best he could,	5:09
	he put into words what he understood of Jesus' life	5:10
	and of the formation of the early church.	5:14
	The strange imagery in our text today	5:19
	describes a piece of that story.	5:22
	It is extraordinary,	5:26
	yet reminiscent of other times and places,	5:28
	of theophanies in the Old Testament,	5:32
	where God appears to humankind.	5:35
	Here, we see the burning Spirit of God hit that few	5:40
	like a bolt of lightning.	5:44
	The words rock and spin and melt on the pages of scriptures	5:47
	as a Spirit is unleashed upon that gathering in Jerusalem.	5:52
	Luke's words tell it like this:	5:58
	"They had all met in one room and suddenly they heard	6:01
	"what sounded like a powerful wind from heaven,	6:04
	"the noise of which filled the entire house.	6:07
	"And something appeared to them like tongues of fire."	6:11
	The concept of the spirit is a mysterious and a vague thing.	6:18
	No human words can do it justice.	6:24
	It goes beyond the limits of our imagination	6:28
	and yet, like a sword, it pierces us at times	6:31
	with God's impelling truth and awesome presence.	6:36
	In the book of Acts, the Spirit comes	6:43
	like a mighty, noisy windstorm	6:45
	when the frightened disciples do not know what to do.	6:48
	The Spirit drives them from themselves	6:53
	to risk preaching in hostile Jerusalem.	6:55
	It drives them from Jerusalem	7:00
	to faraway places on distant shores.	7:02
	It comes sweeping across the centuries	7:07
	at decisive moments to tell the church what to do.	7:09
	It settles upon the faithful	7:16
	with words of challenge and of love.	7:17
	In Luke's drama, the Spirit comes upon all gathered,	7:23
	from east and west, from north and south,	7:25
	from the nations of Africa and Europe and Asia.	7:28
	Differences do not matter on that great day.	7:34
	In the drama of Death,	7:39
	all humanity felt the stark and lonely finality	7:40
	of their fate, but in our Pentecost story,	7:44
	those discouraged, anxious, burdened disciples	7:48
	moved from the hopelessness of death	7:53
	to the hopefulness of life.	7:56
	That to which Death continues to summons us	8:00
	is ultimate defeat, resignation, separation, and sin.	8:04
	That to which Christ's Spirit summons us	8:12
	is life and truth and love and light and unity and faith.	8:15
	Pentecost is the miracle which breaks down barriers	8:24
	and opens up our understanding to the reality	8:27
	that the Holy Spirit is alive and operative	8:31
	in our generation, in our churches, in our lives,	8:35
	and in the uttermost parts of the world.	8:39
	This was made strikingly clear to me about four years ago.	8:45
	We had flown to the distant African continent,	8:49
	to the exotic land of Zimbabwe,	8:53
	feeling alien and frightened,	8:57
	with only a few names of persons	8:59
	who might be friendly toward us.	9:01
	Shortly after our arrival in Harare,	9:05
	we were invited to a dinner party and, to our amazement,	9:07
	among the guests that evening	9:12
	were two old acquaintances from college and seminary days.	9:14
	Before the evening was over,	9:20
	Becky and Hugh had invited us to their seminary,	9:21
	hidden away in the bush.	9:25
	Three weeks later, we journeyed those 150 miles,	9:28
	arriving on the weekend	9:31
	when seminary students were returning for the fall term.	9:33
	Hugh, the principal of the seminary,	9:38
	and Becky, his wife, had invited the students to a party	9:39
	to welcome them back, for them to meet us,	9:43
	and for us to meet them.	9:46
	It was a rare experience	9:50
	as we shared the only thing we had in common: our faith.	9:52
	In their many dialects, they told us their faith stories.	9:58
	We understood them and they understood us.	10:05
	As those black and brown students prepared to leave,	10:11
	they paused and in spontaneous delight,	10:15
	they sang and danced a benediction.	10:18
	Tribal, racial, and language barriers melted away	10:23
	as representatives from Angola, Mozambique, Zambia,	10:27
	Botswana, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe	10:33
	came together with us as a family of faith.	10:40
	In the Pentecost story, we see both present and promise	10:46
	as Peter, the once unstable, unsure early disciple	10:52
	emerges as a strong, responsible leader.	10:59
	To the charge that his staggering,	11:04
	Spirit-filled colleagues were drunk,	11:07
	Peter boldly stands and refutes the cynics.	11:10
	He quotes from Joel, the ancient prophet,	11:15
	"Let this be known to you, God declares.	11:18
	"In the last days it shall be that I will pour out my Spirit	11:23
	"upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters	11:28
	"shall prophecy and your young shall see visions	11:31
	"and your old shall dream dreams.	11:35
	"And I will show wonders in the heavens above	11:38
	"and signs on the earth beneath."	11:41
	The risen Christ is not a legend.	11:47
	The Spirit is not a fantasy.	11:49
	It is a dream, a vision come true.	11:53
	The disciples, like other Christians throughout the ages,	11:57
	were human, yet in them, like us, was a power,	12:00
	a life which came through the Spirit	12:06
	and worked spiritual transformation.	12:10
	In these late days of the 20th century,	12:15
	the Spirit continues to create and renew us	12:17
	in the frightening present	12:21
	and in the promise of a future.	12:24
	In one of his sermons,	12:29
	Martin Luther King tells of sitting at his kitchen table,	12:30
	bowed over with hateful fear after a malicious	12:33
	and threatening phone late one night.	12:37
	He tells of praying these words:	12:40
	"I am here taking a stand	12:44
	"for what I believe is right, oh God.	12:46
	"Now I'm afraid.	12:50
	"I'm at the end of my powers.	12:52
	"I can't face it alone."	12:54
	He reported that at that moment,	12:59
	he felt the presence of the Spirit	13:01
	like he had never felt it before.	13:03
	It seemed as though a voice was saying,	13:07
	stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth.	13:10
	God will be on your side forever.	13:14
	Three nights later, his home was bombed.	13:19
	But God had given him a new strength and trust	13:22
	to face whatever came with calmness.	13:27
	I believe that the Spirit which came upon that early church	13:34
	continues to empower and shape us in our world.	13:38
	I've seen it here when a small church group of 35,	13:44
	in this chapel, were transformed in only four years	13:49
	to a congregation of 225,	13:53
	dedicated to God's purpose and mission in this place.	13:56
	I can attest to the Spirit at work	14:03
	when an anguished mother brought to her pastor	14:05
	the hurts and the sorrows of her heart	14:08
	over the sickness and helplessness of a daughter	14:11
	who was a crippled victim forever	14:15
	because of her longtime drug habit.	14:17
	I can attest to the Spirit when the burden of that woman	14:23
	was lightened as her community of faith	14:27
	has stood with her in her grief.	14:31
	I believe that the Spirit is still at work	14:36
	when young women hear and heed the call to ministry	14:40
	against discouraging odds in their denomination.	14:44
	As the disciples waited prayerfully in Jerusalem,	14:50
	they were not disappointed.	14:54
	They did not wait in vain.	14:57
	The Christ then came alive	15:01
	and it rested on each one of them.	15:05
	Let it be known to you.	15:12

Item Info

Title:

Margaret B. Via - "Let This Be Known to You" (May 14, 1989)

Description:

Sermon start time: 00:16. Sermon end time: 15:14.
The Pentecost story tells the drama of the living Christ making himself present to the whole world through the indwelling of his Spirit in the church. That same Spirit who empowered the disciples to preach and carry the Gospel to distant lands is still at work today in our lives and in our churches, bringing new life and healing. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “Pentecost is the miracle which breaks down barriers and opens up our understanding to the reality that the Holy Spirit is alive and operative in our generation, in our churches, in our lives, and in the uttermost parts of the world.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4nv99r50

Date:

May 14, 1989

Speaker:

Via, Margaret B.

Liturgical Calendar:

Pentecost

Biblical Book:

Chapter and Verse:

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0434
ref8621_wyq
uachapelsermaud
duke:321018
dcrau001363
ark:/87924/r4nv99r50
f29b822f-342c-4fa8-b0c9-e15c430e611d

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Language:

English

Location:

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 - "Let This Be Known to You" (May 14, 1989)

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