You Tube Theology

A service of worship in Duke University Chapel. The Reverend Dr Samuel Wells delivers a sermon entitled "Reading the Bible and Letting the Bible Read You" Opening excerpt from the sermon: (26:57) "I wonder if you've ever had the experience of realizing that you and another person have both been reading the same story, but have been interpreting it in a very different way. 25 years ago I went to see the film The Mission. The film is set in South America in the eighteenth-century. It portrays a group of Spanish Jesuits who go into the Paraguayan rainforest to convert the local Guarani people. One of the Jesuits is a recent convert who goes as a penance for having killed his brother in a passionate duel over a woman they both love. The mission is a miraculous success: we're given an idyllic picture of Catholic teaching blended with indigenous culture. But a sinister treaty signed in Europe transfers sovereignty of the territory from Spanish to Portuguese hands. Suddenly, the mission is in serious danger. Unlike Spain, Portugal has no law against slavery. So there's nothing to stop a horde of rapacious Portuguese plantation-owners who descend upon the mission, determined to enslave the population. The Jesuits are divided as to how to respond: some train the local people to take up the sword; others simply walk toward the attackers holding the blessed sacrament. The ruthless Portuguese slaughter both groups with equal vigor. The film ends with local children rescuing precious relics from the mission and taking them deeper into the jungle, and with the words of John's gospel: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." Closing excerpt from the sermon: (46:02) "Here's the beginning of the exodus, the pivotal story of the Old Testament, the template onto which the early church imprinted the death and resurrection of Christ. Read it, and enjoy all its dimensions of liberation. And then, if you dare, let it read you, and repent of where we, Christians in the West, truly belong in this story. But don't despair. Find the humility and the hope to read it one more time,and let it show you how to be a subversive Christian in our Egyptian culture. Let it show you how to see suffering. Let it reveal how to hear the cry of those we oppress. Let it portray how to incubate liberation in its infancy. Let it demonstrate how to fear God. And let it call you to exercise God's civil, but divine disobedience." Sermon Starts at 26:57. Exodus 1:8-2:10 Bulletin: http://bit.ly/qr7rAw