William H. Willimon - "Our Advocate" (June 11, 2000)

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-	The gospel for this Pentecost is from John.	0:06
	Jesus is preparing to leave his disciples.	0:14
	Most of the gospel of John is taken up	0:18
	with this long departure.	0:20
	Jesus tells them this,	0:25
	but when the advocate comes	0:28
	whom I shall send you from the Father,	0:29
	even the spirit of truth who precedes from the Father,	0:32
	He will bear witness to me,	0:36
	and you also are witnesses because you have heard,	0:39
	have borne with me from the beginning.	0:44
	I didn't say these things to you from the beginning	0:48
	because I was with you.	0:51
	But now, I am going to Him who sent me.	0:54
	Yet some of you ask, whence are you going.	0:57
	But because I have said these things to you,	1:02
	sorrow has filled your hearts.	1:05
	Nevertheless, I tell you the truth.	1:08
	It is to your advantage that I go away for I do not go away,	1:11
	but the advocate will come to you if I go.	1:17
	I will send him to you.	1:24
	This is the word of the Lord.	1:26
-	Thanks be to God.	1:30
-	I was with a group of law students,	1:34
	people preparing to be attorneys.	1:38
	They had asked me to speak on the subject	1:42
	on being a lawyer and a Christian at the same time.	1:46
	I don't know why you're laughing.	1:54
	(congregation laughs)	1:56
	Some of you are thinking, wait a minute,	1:58
	isn't that the definition of an oxymoron,	2:00
	a Christian lawyer.	2:02
	All right, I've been guilty of these tasteless lawyer jokes.	2:06
	They seem to me a respite from tasteless clergy jokes.	2:12
	(congregation laughs)	2:15
	But I really was quite touched	2:18
	by these young, would-be attorneys	2:20
	as they spoke of their fears	2:25
	at going into the practice of law.	2:28
	Fear, it is an awesome responsibility	2:32
	to have someone else's fate in your hands.	2:37
	Or more accurately to the practice of law,	2:42
	to have someone's fate in your words,	2:46
	because that's mostly what lawyers do, words.	2:51
	With words, lawyers plead	2:55
	the cases of other people.	2:59
	I expect there are people here today that can tell us	3:03
	if you're in trouble, if you find yourself in a situation	3:07
	where it's your word, say, against the word of the police,	3:12
	or you see your name across the docket	3:17
	from the People of the United States,	3:20
	well, it's then that lawyers look good.	3:25
	'Tis a frightening thing to stand before the bar of justice	3:31
	as the accused and be forced to defend yourself.	3:35
	How can you defend yourself?	3:43
	What legal precedent should you invoke?	3:46
	How should you present yourself?	3:51
	How should you put yourself forward to the court?	3:52
	As the old saying goes,	3:58
	the one who has only himself for his defense	4:00
	has a fool for an attorney.	4:05
	No, you really need somebody else to put forward your case.	4:09
	My wife spent a week on jury duty.	4:15
	She came home saying I learned one thing.	4:18
	If you're ever called before the court,	4:20
	you better get a good lawyer.	4:22
	Because we saw cases that were lost,	4:24
	not on the merits of the case,	4:28
	but simply because they had a bad attorney.	4:30
	I teach a course at the divinity school called	4:34
	the rhetoric of preaching.	4:37
	The art of rhetoric,	4:40
	the art of using language persuasively and effectively,	4:42
	we believe grew up in Greece about 6 B.C.,	4:46
	when, in a chaotic time in Greece,	4:50
	there where a lot of property disputes,	4:52
	and people were always having to go to the court	4:54
	to try to get their land back.	4:56
	And so people would go out and hire skillful talkers	4:59
	to plead their case to the court.	5:03
	And that is when philosophers began studying language,	5:08
	how language works, how words work,	5:12
	and thus was born the science of rhetoric	5:16
	and the study of law.	5:19
	That's all they do over at the law school.	5:21
	They just argue about words.	5:23
	Jurisprudence was born in a time when people needed	5:28
	other people to stand up and speak in their behalf,	5:32
	to find the right words.	5:37
	And that's a holy task.	5:42
	I remember asking this guy,	5:46
	now, why did you leave sales	5:48
	and go back and earn your undergraduate degree	5:50
	and then go to law school.	5:53
	What made you want to be a lawyer?	5:54
	And he said, I read this book	5:57
	by John Grisham, The Street Lawyer.	5:58
	This young lawyer in John Grisham's book is	6:01
	on his way up in some law firm.	6:05
	One day, he is encountered by	6:09
	this homeless man out on the street.	6:10
	And that encounter changes his life.	6:14
	And he dedicates the rest of his life	6:17
	to working with street people.	6:19
	And that young man said, it was right then that I knew	6:23
	that I wanted to be the voice of the voiceless.	6:26
	My mother's favorite movie was Inherit the Wind.	6:35
	You know, the one where Spencer Tracy plays	6:39
	Clarence Darrow defending John Scopes,	6:41
	the little teacher in the Scopes Monkey Trial?	6:45
	Or who can forget that good man Atticus Finch	6:50
	in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird?	6:54
	We thrill to these stories of those	6:57
	that dare to speak up for those who have no speech.	7:01
	In high school, my junior year, I wandered into the library,	7:06
	I picked up this autobiography called The Story of My Life.	7:10
	It was written by Clarence Darrow.	7:14
	And he told these stories about all these despicable people,	7:18
	anarchists, child molesters, child killers, murderers	7:24
	whom he in his life's career had defended.	7:30
	And Darrow said, one of the deepest human rights,	7:34
	that which makes us truly human	7:41
	is to live in a world where there's somebody out there,	7:46
	no matter who you are or what you've done	7:51
	or how bad you've been, somebody out there	7:53
	to present your defense.	7:55
	It made a deep impression upon me.	8:00
	How do you defend yourself?	8:03
	Well in today's Pentecost gospel,	8:08
	Jesus is preparing to leave his disciples.	8:12
	Jesus tells them that while He will not be with them	8:17
	in the way that He has been with them before,	8:20
	He is not abandoning them.	8:24
	He will be with them, He says, but in a new way.	8:27
	He will send them what He calls, the advocate.	8:32
	In the Greek, I will give you a parakletos.	8:39
	The King James translates parakletos as comforter,	8:44
	the RSV as counselor.	8:50
	But let's go with the NRSV's advocate.	8:53
	Jesus tells them, I'm gonna leave you with a lawyer.	8:58
	Jesus promises to send his disciples	9:04
	an attorney, an advocate.	9:07
	Last Sunday, from this pulpit,	9:11
	Clay spoke of our various images of God.	9:13
	We speak of Christ as King, as Savior, as Lord.	9:17
	But today at Pentecost,	9:23
	here is a strange word,	9:26
	a name for God as advocate, lawyer.	9:29
	Pentecost among the Jews is when	9:34
	the first five books of the law are celebrated,	9:39
	the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible	9:43
	giving the law to Israel.	9:46
	Pentecost is when those books are celebrated.	9:47
	The Jewish festival of the law is, in this scripture,	9:51
	when Christians get together and celebrate,	9:57
	not the gift of the law, but the gift of a lawyer,	10:01
	the parakletos.	10:07
	John encourages us here to speak of the Holy Spirit	10:10
	as parakletos, advocate, attorney,	10:14
	the third person of the Trinity as a lawyer.	10:19
	Elsewhere in 1 John 2, it is said,	10:25
	if anyone sins, and who here does not,	10:30
	if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father.	10:35
	Jesus Christ, the righteous.	10:39
	Imagine yourself standing one day	10:44
	before the thrown of almighty God,	10:47
	holding your little life in your hands,	10:51
	and you think about all that you've said	10:55
	and all that you've done,	10:58
	all those words uttered in anger that you can't take back	11:00
	that are part of the record,	11:04
	all of the battles that you fought,	11:06
	the battles that you've won,	11:08
	and the battles that you've lost,	11:11
	and the battles that you've run away from.	11:13
	Now, what would you say to God in your defense?	11:17
	With what words would you pled your case?	11:22
	Picture this, the righteousness of God,	11:26
	the Ten Commandment, the sermon on the mount,	11:29
	everything Jesus taught and said against Joe Jones.	11:30
	A couple of years ago,	11:38
	when the president of the United States	11:39
	was being investigated for his improprieties,	11:41
	more than one person asked,	11:44
	well, what if $50 million was spent investigating your life.	11:47
	Who could stand?	11:55
	Who could stand under such scrutiny and investigation?	11:58
	You think about all those secret misdeeds	12:02
	that we so quickly push to the back of our minds.	12:06
	What if we were dealing with someone who never forgets?	12:12
	By what argument would you defend yourself?	12:17
	Uh, well I'm only human.	12:20
	Uh, look, I'm not, I never said I was	12:22
	the best of Christians, I, uh.	12:25
	Hey, the Bible says so much stuff.	12:27
	I didn't even know that was in the Bible.	12:29
	I didn't know it was a rule, you know.	12:30
	If God knows everything you've done and said	12:35
	and every word spoken, every deed done in darkness,	12:38
	remembers every sin we so quickly forget,	12:43
	well, what hope has any of us to stand before	12:47
	the judgment seat of God?	12:52
	Who could defend you?	12:56
	Studies show that the number one phobia is America	12:59
	is having to stand up and make a speech.	13:05
	And to have to stand up	13:10
	and make a speech in your own defense	13:11
	when the audience and the judge and the jury	13:15
	is God Almighty.	13:20
	Well, huh.	13:23
	So Jesus says, I'm getting ready to depart,	13:27
	but I am going send you an advocate.	13:31
	I am going to send you somebody	13:36
	who will be able to take the argument, your defense.	13:38
	You're going to have an advocate with God.	13:43
	You need, when you stand before God,	13:50
	when your life is held up for divine scrutiny	13:55
	and your only possible defense is	13:58
	"guilty as charged,"	14:03
	you need an advocate.	14:06
	In my last church, we had this clothes closet	14:10
	and a food pantry for the needy.	14:15
	And people in need a couple days a week	14:18
	would come by the church looking for help.	14:20
	Now there was this business man in the church	14:26
	who spent his life in upper level management positions	14:29
	in a big corporation.	14:32
	Well, the corporation went through some changes,	14:34
	and he was unceremoniously fired.	14:38
	And he went into deep depression,	14:41
	and we became deeply concerned about him.	14:44
	The corporation called it early retirement.	14:48
	He called it being put out to pasture.	14:51
	He became sullen, depressed,	14:55
	and out of concern for him,	14:58
	you know, trying to find something for him to do,	15:00
	I said, why don't you come down to the church	15:03
	a couple mornings a week and help out at the clothes closet.	15:05
	He was reluctant.	15:10
	Maybe he thought, well, this is quite a come down	15:13
	for somebody who had previously been	15:15
	in such a high position of power.	15:18
	Maybe he was bothered by being around poor people.	15:20
	But he consented.	15:24
	Now while working there	15:27
	and handing out these clothes and this food, he met a woman,	15:28
	a woman trying to make ends meet and her little family	15:33
	from her wages as a domestic worker.	15:38
	She happened to tell him about how bad her week had been	15:42
	since she had no electricity at her home,	15:45
	since the electric company had cut of	15:48
	the power to her house.	15:50
	She had paid her bill late.	15:52
	When she went down there to pay her bill,	15:54
	they were demanding the unheard of huge sum of $100	15:56
	just to turn her electricity back on.	16:01
	Well what could she do?	16:05
	She told him, she said, I've called down there.	16:06
	I can't get anybody to talk to me on the phone.	16:08
	Well the man thought he had played golf a couple of times	16:12
	with the head of the electric company.	16:15
	He said, okay, let me go down there.	16:16
	Let me make a couple of calls.	16:20
	He called down there.	16:22
	Somebody down there made the mistake of telling him,	16:23
	I'm sorry, you called the wrong place.	16:27
	Call another place.	16:28
	He called that place.	16:29
	They said, no, we're not dealing with that today.	16:30
	He said, let me talk to the president.	16:34
	And he said, I was astounded	16:38
	at how miserably people get treated	16:42
	when the company thinks they're nobody.	16:46
	Well the next thing you know,	16:50
	he's there on the church phone,	16:52
	and he's making a call for somebody else	16:54
	to this loan company.	16:56
	She had missed her payments on some loan some time back.	16:58
	She couldn't understand the paper they had sent her.	17:01
	He had read the paper.	17:02
	He found something wrong on that.	17:04
	He was calling the loan company.	17:05
	An area of ministry opened up for this man.	17:09
	In giving, he received.	17:12
	And he learned, as he said later,	17:16
	he said, I didn't know what a gift it is	17:18
	just to be able to talk on the telephone.	17:22
	Well, he had become an advocate.	17:29
	Someone to plead with words	17:33
	the case of the powerless before the powerful.	17:36
	In Luke's gospel, they say,	17:41
	Jesus says, they're gonna deliver you up before kings	17:44
	and princes before courts.	17:48
	They're gonna make all manner of accusation against you,	17:51
	but you don't worry.	17:55
	The Holy Spirit will tell you the words to say.	17:57
	Well Jesus, Jesus is about to leave us.	18:05
	He is is not going to be present with us as He has been,	18:10
	but He will not going to leave us desolate.	18:14
	He's gonna send the Holy Spirit, the near presence of God	18:18
	to speak for us, to speak to us, to speak up for us.	18:23
	See a lot of people think of religion as,	18:28
	you know, reading the Bible	18:30
	and learning a lot of religious words,	18:31
	learning how to talk religious like yourself.	18:33
	Well maybe the Christian faith is also	18:38
	the gift of having somebody to talk for you.	18:42
	As Paul says, we don't know how to pray.	18:48
	But the Holy Spirit intercedes to God Almighty	18:53
	with words and with sighs too deep for words.	18:59
	Here is the near presence of God among us,	19:05
	as near as the bread and wine of communion,	19:08
	as near to us, our advocate.	19:12
	Because this advocate is the same one	19:16
	who shares the life of Jesus.	19:19
	Here's a spirit that knows first hand our need,	19:23
	finds words to articulate our groaning.	19:27
	You are not alone.	19:31
	You may not be good on your feet in front of people.	19:32
	Well, okay, you don't have to speak for yourself	19:37
	before the thrown of God.	19:39
	You don't have to find some way to present your life	19:41
	into the courts of the Almighty.	19:44
	You've got an advocate with the Father,	19:46
	Jesus Christ, the righteous.	19:49
	Amen.	19:54

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "Our Advocate" (June 11, 2000)

Description:

Sermon start time: 01:34. Sermon end time: 19:56.
This sermon discusses an important role and attribute of God—God being the Advocate in the person of the Holy Spirit. The preacher argues that God’s love is not only shown in giving Christians God’s righteousness through the sacrifice of the Son, but also in leaving Christians with a powerful lawyer, the Holy Spirit, to defend their righteousness. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “You need, when you stand before God, when your life is held up for divine scrutiny and your only possible defense is ‘guilty as charged,’ you need an advocate.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4pv6bn8p

Date:

June 11, 2000

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Biblical Book:

John

Chapter and Verse:

John 16:4-15

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-1017
ref10191_5gq
uachapelsermaud
duke:320755
dcrau001661
ark:/87924/r4pv6bn8p
48cc47cc-af32-4fcd-a664-f401b6008305

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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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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William H. Willimon - "Our Advocate" (June 11, 2000)

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