William H. Willimon - "Followers along the Way" (July 10, 1977)

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Narrator	Duke University Chapel service of worship,	0:03
	July 10th, 1977.	0:07
	(piano voicing)	0:11
	(singing in Latin)	11:10
	(piano voicing)	12:26
Preacher	Well let us unite in the prayer of confession.	15:22
	Most merciful God,	15:28
	we confess that we have sinned against you,	15:31
	in thought, word and deed,	15:34
	by what we have done and by what we have left undone,	15:37
	we have not love you with our whole heart.	15:43
	We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.	15:46
	We are truly sorry,	15:50
	and we humbly repent.	15:52
	For the sake of your son Jesus Christ,	15:55
	have mercy on us and forgive us,	15:58
	that we may delight in your will,	16:02
	and walk in your ways to the glory of your name,	16:05
	amen.	16:10
	May Almighty God,	16:13
	who cause the light to shine out of darkness,	16:14
	shine in our hearts,	16:18
	cleansing us from all our sins,	16:21
	and restoring us to the light of the knowledge of His glory,	16:25
	in the face of Jesus Christ our Lord,	16:28
	amen.	16:32
	♪ Sanctus ♪	17:19
	♪ Sanctus ♪	17:28
	♪ Sanctus ♪	17:35
	♪ Sanctus ♪	17:42
	♪ Sanctus ♪	17:49
	♪ Sanctus ♪	17:54
	♪ Sanctus ♪	18:00
	♪ Sanctus ♪	18:09
	♪ Sanctus ♪	18:16
	♪ Sanctus ♪	18:23
	♪ Sanctus ♪	18:27
	♪ Sanctus ♪	18:34
	♪ Sanctus ♪	18:43
	♪ Sanctus ♪	18:50
	♪ Sanctus ♪	18:57
	♪ Sanctus ♪	19:03
	♪ Sanctus ♪	19:11
	♪ Sanctus ♪	19:18
	The New Testament readings for this	19:41
	sixth Sunday after Pentecost,	19:43
	are taken from Paul's Letter to the Galatians 4:31,	19:47
	and 5:1,	19:53
	and the gospel of Luke 9:51-62.	19:56
	Let us hear God speaking to us through scripture.	20:05
	"So brethren, we are not children of the slave,	20:13
	but of the free woman.	20:19
	For freedom Christ has set us free.	20:22
	Stand fast therefore,	20:26
	and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."	20:28
	Let us stand for the reading of the gospel.	20:34
	"When the days drew near for Him to be received up,	20:43
	He set He's face to go to Jerusalem.	20:47
	And He sent messengers ahead of Him,	20:51
	who went and entered a village of the Samaritans,	20:53
	to make ready for Him.	20:56
	But the people would not receive Him,	20:58
	because His face was set toward Jerusalem.	21:01
	And when His disciples James and John saw it,	21:05
	they said,	21:07
	'Lord, do you want us to bid fire,	21:09
	come down from heaven and consume them?'	21:10
	But He turned and rebuked them.	21:14
	And they went on to another village.	21:17
	And they were going along the road,	21:22
	a man said to Him, 'I will follow you wherever you go.'	21:24
	And Jesus said to him,	21:29
	'foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests,	21:31
	but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.'	21:35
	To another He said, 'follow me.'	21:40
	But he said, 'Lord let me first go and bury my father.'	21:43
	But He said to him, 'leave the dead to bury their own dead,	21:49
	but as for you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.'	21:53
	Another said, 'I will follow you Lord,	21:59
	but let me first say farewell to those at my home.'	22:02
	Jesus said to him,	22:06
	'no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back,	22:08
	is fit for the kingdom of God.'"	22:12
	Horrendous the reading of the lesson.	22:16
	(piano voicing)	22:18
	Let us affirm what we believe.	23:02
	We believe in God, who has created and is creating,	23:06
	who has come in the truly human Jesus,	23:12
	to reconcile and make new.	23:15
	Who works in us and others by His Spirit.	23:18
	We trust God, who calls us to be the church.	23:22
	To celebrate life and its fullness.	23:28
	To love and serve others.	23:31
	To seek justice and resist evil.	23:34
	To proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,	23:37
	our judge and our hope.	23:41
	In life, in death, in life beyond death,	23:44
	God is with us.	23:49
	We are not alone.	23:51
	Thanks be to God.	23:53
	The Lord be with you.	23:56
Congregation	And with your spirit.	23:58
Preacher	Let us pray.	24:00
	Now unto the king, eternal, immortal, invisible.	24:13
	The only wise God, the honor and glory for ever and ever.	24:20
	Lord thou has been our dwelling place in all generations.	24:28
	Before the mountains were brought forth,	24:35
	or ever thou has formed the earth and the world,	24:37
	even from everlasting to everlasting vow art God.	24:40
	Before thy eternity,	24:47
	thy awful majesty,	24:50
	thy Almighty power,	24:53
	thy gracious wisdom,	24:56
	who are we but creatures of passing days and eras,	24:59
	dust and dream our years few	25:04
	and filled with toil and trouble.	25:06
	Unless oh God thou does teach us to number our days,	25:10
	that we may get a heart of wisdom.	25:13
	Unless thou does teach us	25:17
	to find in thee the meaning of our lives,	25:18
	the desires of our hearts,	25:22
	the spirit of our life together.	25:24
	Unless thou this established the work of our hands,	25:28
	as part of thy eternal working among all people.	25:31
	We bless and praise thee for thy wisdom, power, and love.	25:34
	We bless and thank thee	25:42
	for all the provision for life full and free,	25:44
	for the gift of life itself,	25:48
	for families to nourish and enrich it,	25:51
	for the larger family of humankind,	25:55
	in which we come to selfhood.	25:57
	For the sustenance of our bodies,	26:01
	with the fruits of thy good earth	26:02
	and the labor of others.	26:04
	For the wisdom thou giveth humanity to work together,	26:07
	and farm and factory, shop and bank,	26:10
	home and road for the filling of human needs.	26:13
	For thy awakening others to the arts of teaching,	26:19
	and governing and nursing and healing,	26:21
	and other ministries to our bodies and spirits.	26:25
	And especially in this community of learning and devotion	26:30
	for stirring the minds of all ages	26:34
	to seek truth about thy world,	26:36
	and thy people and thy self,	26:39
	and for their heritage of learning,	26:42
	now opened to our minds.	26:44
	For these and for all thy good creation we give thanks.	26:48
	Oh move us in gratitude to share thy blessings	26:54
	with people of every nation, race and creed.	26:58
	Thou giver and provider of life for all thy creatures.	27:02
	Oh judge and humble and expose us,	27:07
	by the light of thy searching word,	27:10
	to show us how we misuse thy gifts,	27:13
	and fail and hurt thy people.	27:16
	Above all we thank thee,	27:21
	for thy gracious redeeming spirit manifest to us,	27:23
	in Jesus Christ our Lord.	27:27
	For that life which was a light of humankind,	27:30
	that enlightens every person who cometh into the world.	27:33
	For thy word made flesh to dwell among us,	27:38
	full of grace and truth	27:41
	from whose fullness we have all received.	27:43
	For reconciling us to thy self,	27:47
	not counting our trespasses against us,	27:50
	and entrusting to us thy word and work of reconciliation,	27:54
	and of justice.	27:59
	Oh speak thy saving word ever in you to thy people.	28:02
	To reform and strengthen and direct thy church,	28:06
	wherever it meets this day,	28:09
	in mission chapel, in city church of slum or suburb,	28:12
	in country meeting house,	28:17
	here in this chapel.	28:20
	Purge us of pride and selfishness,	28:24
	of complacency and prejudice,	28:27
	and renew thy church ever to do thy will among all people,	28:31
	bearing one another's burdens,	28:35
	speaking courageously thy word of justice,	28:38
	and tenderly thy word of mercy in thy world.	28:42
	Being doers of thy word and not hearers, speakers only.	28:46
	Ministering to the sick and needy and bereaved,	28:51
	and poor and troubled and discouraged,	28:57
	and lonely and tempted and fallen,	29:01
	like all of us.	29:05
	For all of these and all of us,	29:08
	we pray thy saving help this day,	29:10
	and offer ourselves such as we are	29:14
	as instruments of thy caring.	29:18
	Bind us together beyond all differences of class,	29:21
	and race and nation and church,	29:26
	that together we may be faithful to Jesus Christ,	29:30
	who went about doing good,	29:32
	rebuking evil, speaking thy message,	29:35
	bearing His cross, for us to follow in His way.	29:38
	And in His words, we pray together,	29:44
	"Our father who art in heaven,	29:48
	hallowed be thy name,	29:51
	thy kingdom come,	29:54
	thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	29:56
	Give us this day our daily bread,	30:00
	and forgive us our trespasses,	30:03
	as we forgive those who trespass against us,	30:06
	and lead us not into temptation,	30:10
	but deliver us from evil,	30:12
	for thine is the kingdom,	30:14
	and the power and the glory forever,	30:16
	amen.	30:21
	It is our special privilege today,	30:30
	to have as preacher of the word,	30:34
	the Reverend Dr. William H Willimon,	30:37
	who came last year to the faculty of Duke Divinity School,	30:41
	as Professor of Worship and Liturgy,	30:47
	and who in that role and other services in this community,	30:52
	and in the church has been a speaker and doer of the word,	30:57
	and therefore a speaker to us today.	31:03
	Will we welcome you, and we hear you.	31:07
William	You may have come here this morning,	31:19
	seeking a	31:23
	word of comfort,	31:26
	a moment of rest.	31:28
	And as I look out here among you this morning,	31:32
	fanning, in this heat,	31:36
	you of all people certainly deserve it.	31:39
	You will receive your reward,	31:41
	I can assure you for this work of super irrigation.	31:44
	But I confess that,	31:48
	today's gospel lesson on this sixth Sunday of Pentecost,	31:52
	I'm afraid is anything but	31:57
	a comfortable restive word.	32:00
	What will you do,	32:06
	with this Jesus	32:10
	that speaks to us today from Luke's gospel?	32:13
	For 2000 years we have attempted to house break Him,	32:17
	tame Him, cut Him down to more manageable size.	32:22
	But today's gospel lesson just tells me	32:29
	that it will not work.	32:31
	He just will not fit into our puny pigeon hole theologies	32:35
	this Jesus.	32:41
	If He were really a gentle savior,	32:44
	a revolutionary rabbi,	32:49
	a peo Galilean, an area diet rabbi,	32:53
	then it would be easier for us.	32:58
	We could teach courses in Him over at the Divinity School	33:01
	and pin Him down.	33:05
	But He will just not stay tied down neat,	33:08
	this Jesus of which the gospel speak.	33:14
	He's none of these.	33:17
	He breaks all boundaries.	33:18
	"I will follow you wherever you go," they said,	33:22
	and Jesus said, "foxes have holes, birds have nests,	33:26
	but this son of man has nowhere to lay his head."	33:30
	"Lord, let me first go and bury my father,"	33:36
	that's a reasonable request.	33:39
	And Jesus responds, "you let the dead bury the dead.	33:42
	You go proclaim	33:48
	the kingdom."	33:51
	"Lord let me first say goodbye to the folks at home."	33:54
	And Jesus says,	33:59
	"nobody who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."	34:00
	It's a hard kind of following,	34:05
	that He demands here.	34:09
	What will you do with this Jesus?	34:12
	This section from Luke's gospel,	34:17
	has been called by some biblical scholars,	34:19
	a kind of travel log.	34:21
	It reads starting in this section of a little bit like a	34:24
	travel brochure of a cook's tour to Europe,	34:29
	21 countries in 21 days.	34:33
	I took a trip to Europe like that once,	34:37
	I fell asleep one afternoon,	34:41
	and missed the entire country of Switzerland.	34:43
	I went to the dining car,	34:46
	and missed seeing two constitutional monarchies,	34:47
	and republic, in the process.	34:50
	Had to get home and have my slides developed,	34:52
	before I knew where I had been.	34:54
	Well this word of Jesus,	34:58
	is delivered at just that fast a pace.	35:00
	Now there will be no more	35:04
	lessons	35:08
	seated on mountain tops.	35:09
	There will be no more strolls beside the sea,	35:12
	or picnics on hillside.	35:16
	No for the rest of Luke's gospel story,	35:19
	it's just one little dusted town after another,	35:21
	a quick word delivered here on the way,	35:25
	a quick healing there,	35:28
	and then breathlessly, relentlessly,	35:29
	restlessly onward,	35:33
	at a frenetic harrowing pace.	35:35
	Luke says that Jesus called the discipleship	35:40
	comes just like that.	35:42
	"It's given on the way," He says, "on the road."	35:45
	Jesus has set his face to Jerusalem,	35:50
	and He will not look back until it is done.	35:53
	And you know what that means on Good Friday,	35:55
	how this journey will end on Golgotha,	36:00
	and He will have no traveling companions who look back,	36:04
	take no bag, no sandals, no purse He says elsewhere.	36:09
	"You will have no where to stop, relax,	36:15
	even to lay down your head."	36:18
	Here my friends it seems to me is a hard saying of Jesus.	36:22
	"You let the dead bury the dead.	36:28
	Do not look back, do not rest."	36:33
	Now on the other hand,	36:38
	at first glance the lesson from Paul's letter today,	36:39
	seems easier to take.	36:42
	With it's high sounding abstract talk about freedom.	36:45
	Now there is a popular subject.	36:50
	Paul says, "for freedom Christ has set us free.	36:52
	Stand fast therefore,	36:57
	and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery."	36:59
	Now there is something we can all agree on.	37:04
	Freedom that blessed word.	37:06
	We all love freedom,	37:11
	especially around these Ivy covered academic Sanctuaries.	37:14
	One of our prime values is academic freedom.	37:20
	To say and write and teach what we want.	37:24
	Freedom,	37:28
	as the pop saying goes, to do your own thing,	37:29
	to do it our own way,	37:33
	to do what we want to do and be what we want to be.	37:35
	Or another phrase you often hear around the campus,	37:42
	freedom from parental restraints,	37:45
	freedom from society's confining ways,	37:50
	freedom,	37:54
	we must have our freedom.	37:56
	But let us be honest,	38:00
	that here too often,	38:02
	academic freedom means freedom from	38:05
	accountability,	38:11
	for our intellectual mediocrity.	38:13
	Too often personal freedom means,	38:17
	total irresponsibility for anybody besides yourself.	38:19
	"I must be free to develop my own human potential,"	38:25
	she says, as she walks out on what was once a marriage.	38:29
	"I must be free from your smothering affection," he says,	38:35
	as he goes out to	38:39
	prowl around the suburban neighborhood like a Tomcat.	38:41
	"I must be free of society's pressures,"	38:45
	he says, as he moves to his organic farm in Vermont.	38:50
	Freedom from others and for ourselves,	38:56
	that's freedom for us too often.	39:00
	But the kind of freedom of which Paul speaks here,	39:05
	is not that same kind of freedom.	39:09
	Paul says," it is freedom in Christ."	39:12
	Freedom as Paul says a view versus later,	39:17
	freedom to be servants to one another,	39:20
	slaves to one another.	39:24
	Now, what kind of freedom is that we ask?	39:28
	Who in our self satisfied, self-centered,	39:32
	egotistical, hedonistic, introspective culture,	39:35
	is looking for that kind of freedom these days?	39:40
	The freedom which is called for here by Paul,	39:44
	is a hard kind of freedom.	39:47
	As Jesus says, "it's the freedom,	39:53
	to give away everything you got."	39:55
	The freedom to leave your nets like Peter and follow.	39:59
	The freedom to get up from your counting house,	40:03
	like Matthew and follow.	40:05
	The freedom to touch the untouchable,	40:08
	and love the unlovable.	40:10
	The freedom even to lay down your life.	40:13
	The freedom to loose your life,	40:15
	for something greater than your life.	40:19
	The freedom to wed yourself to somebody else for a lifetime.	40:22
	This is the kind of freedom	40:28
	only practiced by those who are along the way,	40:29
	those who follow.	40:34
	Here is not an abstract purely academic freedom,	40:37
	it's a hard,	40:42
	costly, demanding, active, every day,	40:43
	sometimes damning freedom.	40:48
	The philosopher Cuker Gore compared this freedom,	40:53
	to a leap over 10,000 fathoms of water,	40:56
	not knowing where or when you would land.	41:02
	And you know the water can be cold and it can be deep.	41:07
	To be free, oh, that's fine,	41:13
	we're all for that.	41:16
	But to be truly free,	41:18
	the way that Christ calls us to,	41:20
	is another matter.	41:22
	To me it means to be free of my cherished idols,	41:25
	that I love so much and my cherished ideologies.	41:29
	To be free of my incessant quest for status	41:35
	and approval of others.	41:39
	Most of all it means to be free	41:42
	from some of my selfish concern for myself.	41:45
	And that freedom frightens.	41:51
	The water is cold.	41:54
	The road gets long.	41:56
	The demands of discipleship get tough.	41:59
	And what will you do with this Jesus, what will you do?	42:03
	This one who will not let me keep my props	42:10
	and my comforts, my crutches.	42:13
	Who will not let me honor my parents and their values,	42:18
	much lest give my past a decent burial.	42:23
	Who constantly beckons me to plow up new and harder ground	42:27
	and not look back from the plow,	42:32
	to see how well I've done in the past.	42:34
	Who sets me free,	42:37
	by His hard cold truth about myself,	42:40
	and then yokes me to Himself, taking me,	42:46
	God only knows where.	42:51
	A friend of mine recently visited a rather large seminary	42:56
	that is owned by a rather small denomination of Christians.	43:02
	I think the seminary had an enrollment	43:08
	of something like 400 students,	43:10
	and it was run by a church	43:12
	that had something like a total of 600 churches.	43:14
	And my friend of course asked the obvious question,	43:18
	"what are you going to do with all these	43:21
	young ministers after they graduate?	43:24
	Where are you going to send them?	43:26
	Where are your churches?"	43:28
	And the Dean replied, "oh well you see,	43:31
	we're training them to start their own churches.	43:33
	We're training them to go out and find	43:37
	their own congregations."	43:39
	Now that sounds to me	43:43
	like a kind of freedom that takes courage.	43:44
	Oh I know of a middle-aged medical doctor,	43:51
	who left his suburban practice	43:55
	and he left the hypochondriacs and the over-medicated,	43:59
	to fend for themselves,	44:02
	and he went to a little county in Mississippi,	44:04
	that had no doctor,	44:06
	and there he treats everybody blue cross or not.	44:09
	And there he tangles with the stuffy AMA.	44:14
	I submit to you that kind of freedom takes a kind of faith.	44:19
	Or I'm thinking of that little man,	44:24
	who peered at me across his hospital bed that day,	44:29
	and whose presence was very uncomfortable,	44:34
	and did not know what to say,	44:36
	because he couldn't speak back to me from his hospital bed,	44:38
	because he had just had his cancerous larynx removed,	44:43
	and could no longer talk.	44:46
	And he took a pad to pencil and he scribbled it down,	44:49
	and something on there that said something like,	44:52
	'preacher I am trying to figure out what God wants me to do.	44:59
	Now that part of me is gone.	45:04
	When I figure it out,	45:08
	I'm anxious to get out there and do it.	45:10
	I can't speak anymore,	45:13
	but there's enough of me left	45:16
	that God can do something important with.'	45:17
	I confess to you that I'm a Methodist,	45:25
	who loves to be guaranteed a church,	45:31
	by some benevolent bishop.	45:34
	I'm a teacher,	45:37
	who longs for the self satisfied complacency of tenure.	45:39
	I'm a man who wants the same things in life,	45:46
	tied down, predictable, orderly, neat,	45:51
	the same house,	45:56
	the same good health, the same job, the same familiar faces,	45:59
	the same comfortable ideas and values.	46:03
	But what will I do?	46:10
	What will you any of us do	46:14
	with this Jesus,	46:17
	who demands a costly discipleship,	46:22
	and calls forth so much?	46:26
	What will we do,	46:30
	except to follow?	46:32
	To do what those first disciples did.	46:36
	To stumble after Him,	46:40
	to catch our breath when we have to,	46:42
	to follow along His way in our own way,	46:46
	to dare to risk the kind of freedom,	46:51
	that His following demands.	46:54
	Following not because we know,	46:59
	where the road will take us,	47:03
	or what will be demanded of us along the way,	47:06
	or even how much the trip is going to finally cost.	47:12
	But following the way they did,	47:18
	simply because we know,	47:22
	who goes on before us,	47:25
	and who leads us,	47:29
	on the way.	47:32
	Amen.	47:36
	(piano voicing)	47:39
	(singing in Latin)	51:36
	(piano voicing)	55:00
Preacher	And now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,	1:00:55
	the love of God,	1:00:59
	the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,	1:01:01
	be with you all.	1:01:04
	♪ Amen ♪	1:01:13
	♪ Amen ♪	1:01:18
	♪ Amen ♪	1:01:24
	♪ Amen ♪	1:01:28
	♪ Amen ♪	1:01:38
	♪ Amen ♪	1:01:46
	♪ Amen ♪	1:01:59
	(piano voicing)	1:02:13

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "Followers along the Way" (July 10, 1977)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4q52kf1d

Date:

July 10, 1977

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0906
ref7015_tep
uachapelsermaud
duke:628468
dcrau002851
ark:/87924/r4q52kf1d
2ea2f1d6-ff45-4252-bc9a-1033c33d400d

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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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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CC BY-NC 4.0

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William H. Willimon - "Followers along the Way" (July 10, 1977)

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1. William H. Willimon - "Followers Along the Way" (July 19, 1977)

Duke University Archives

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William H. Willimon - "Followers along the Way" (July 10, 1977)

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Duke University Archives

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