Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 76 to 100 of 165 results

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Will Willimon

"If I speak in human tongues or even the speech of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal," Strong words to one who makes his living trying hard to speak in the tongues of angels, or at least of Billy Graham. I could pass peacefully if, after one of my sermons, I overheard someone on the third row say to her boyfriend, "Dr. Willimon sounded just like an angel today." I'm...

77. Love In Action

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

Will Willimon

''And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, 'You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor'..." Baptist prophet Will Campbell, a man who is always an uncomfortable guest, was asked to be a visiting preacher for a series at New York's Riverside Church on "What Riverside Church Can Do To Help the Future of Race Relations in America." Here is a church with impressivel...

78. Mary's Song

Luke 1:46-47, 52

Sermon

Will Willimon

I suspect that many of you are anxious for me to get off my chest quickly whatever it is that I want to say, to get out of the pulpit, so you can get on with the beautiful music of Christmas. We have restrained ourselves throughout the Sundays of Advent, confined ourselves to slow-moving, somewhat somber hymns of hope, anticipation, expectancy. "Come, O Come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel."...

79. Mind Your Manners

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Sermon

Will Willimon

"For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." Luke 14:1, 7-14 If you are new here you have been subjected to what is called Freshman Orientation. That's when PISCES, ASDU, DCM, CAPS, and every other campus acronym tries to orient you to life at Duke, tries to put you in your place, so to speak. If you are a Freshman, you have already been subjected...

80. More

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Sermon

Will Willimon

There is more to life than meets the eye. There is more in our past than history can tell. There is more going on in the present moment than we know. There is more to our relationships with one another than we are aware. And the more we explore the mystery of our lives, the more we learn about ourselves, the more mysterious our selves become. Seldom have we been content with what appeared on the s...

81. Mutual Submission

Ephesians 5:22-33

Sermon

Will Willimon

Today, Orientation Sunday, we welcome Freshmen to Duke. Orientation, that's when you learn the "in's and out's" of life here, when you get oriented to expectations of the university. A big part of Orientation is the acquisition of a new vocabulary. Every new place has its own language, its own special words. If you are new, you are learning the meaning of such verbal mysteries as ASDU, the Black a...

82. No Partiality

Acts 10:34-43

Sermon

Will Willimon

When I first read it, it seemed an odd text for Easter: "And Peter opened his mouth and said: "Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the word which he sent...the word which was proclaimed throughout all Judea...how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went...

83. Now

Mark 13:32-37

Sermon

Will Willimon

Our parable takes place in Galilee, in a world of absentee landlords and servants who are left on their own for years at a time. “You do not know when the time will come,” says Jesus. “It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work.” Here is a parable about masters and servants, employers and employees, about those who have and those w...

84. On Rendering to God and to Caesar

Mark 12:13-17, Isaiah 42:1-9

Sermon

Will Willimon

'I am the LORD,...my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to graven images.” The story is told of a remote Methodist congregation somewhere in a forgotten corner of North Dakota. One week, they had a terrible blizzard. Everything was snowed under. All the roads were blocked. They got not a piece of mail the whole week. This meant that the Methodist church received no mailings from the conferenc...

85. One Tough Master?

Matthew 25:14-28

Sermon

Will Willimon

"Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid,...I hid your talent in the ground. " You know with whom we identify in this story of the Parable of the Talents. We are on the side of the little one-talent man. Perhaps because few of us are overburdened with talent, perhaps because we love stories of the littl...

86. Only Human?

Psalm 8:5-6

Sermon

Will Willimon

We gather here this day, toward the end of July, in the middle of summer. That means, more than likely, that the majority of you are here on vacation. You are just passing through or perhaps you are visiting someone in the Triangle area. If so, we're glad to have you here at Duke Chapel. You should be glad that this place was air-conditioned a few years ago! Ah, the glorious summer! For those of ...

87. Open Talk about Truth

John 18:33-37

Illustration

Will Willimon

It frightens us to hear such open talk about truth. We are more concerned with how to live in a world where there is a plurality of truths—and with how to do so without killing each other—than we are with truth. Pilate himself was trying to deal with this problem of pluralism. It was difficult enough keeping Jews in their place—with their Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes—without a young Nazarene c...

88. Ordinary People

Ruth 1:1-16

Sermon

Will Willimon

It's Parents' Weekend here and, through some act of divine serendipity, the lectionary has assigned as our first reading a passage from the book of Ruth. The book of Ruth is a family story, an ancient novella which may be three thousand years old. It's an old story, but I'm claiming that it's a true story because it's a story about a family in trouble. Here is a middle-class family that's hit on ...

89. Ordinary Sin

Luke 22:28-34, 54-60

Sermon

Will Willimon

Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, ''Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times, '' and he wept bitterly. '' Measured by mere numbers, the Final Solution of the Nazis' was not unique. Stalin killed more, so did Mao. The Hutus slaughtered a larger proportion of their own in a shorter time, as did the Khmer Rouge. The British took out the whole Tasmanian race; not one is left. Where are...

90. Ordinary Tragedy

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Sermon

Will Willimon

Eric Auerbach (Mimesis) notes that, in the whole of Greek literature there is nothing to compare with this scene--Simon Peter's confrontation with the maid in the courtyard tonight. In Greek literature, ordinary people--like fisherfolk and servants--are always low life, comic, buffoons. Tragedy is for kings, queens, for who cares deeply for the souls of common people? The power of great tragedy o...

91. Our Light

Genesis 1:1-5 · Mark 1:9-11

Sermon

Will Willimon

Carl Michaelson knew a philosophy professor at Colgate who, whenever a student used the word "God" in his classroom, would stop and beckon the student to come forward and stand with him at an open window. "Show him to me," the professor asked. What a disadvantage believers have when it comes to empirical evidence for God! At first glance, this seems to be a uniquely modern problem. In the old day...

92. Outrageous Parties

Luke 15:1-10

Sermon

Will Willimon

One spring break, I took a group of students on a retreat called, "Exploring the Christian Faith.'' The retreat was designed for people "who know something about Jesus, but are not yet ready to put their money down yet. I told them, ''I am going to use any means at my disposal—films, arguments, worship, music, Bible study—to arm wrestle you into following Jesus. But don’t get anxious, I am a Unit...

93. Overwhelmed

Revelation 1:4b-8

Sermon

Will Willimon

Not long ago I was involved in a meeting concerning racial problems in our city. The meeting was long, and rather depressing. It was difficult to find a common theme, other than that we had racial problems and no one knew exactly what to do about them. On the way out of the meeting, a man said to me, a man who has been a life-long activist in the Civil Rights Movement, "It makes you long for the ...

94. Patience

Matthew 11:2-11 · James 5:7-10

Sermon

Will Willimon

"Be patient, therefore,...until the coming of the Lord." I begin this Third Sunday in Advent here in the Chapel preaching on the necessity for Christian patience. Advent is the Christian season of waiting and expectancy. Therefore it is also a season of patience, because what we really need in life can't be ours merely by wanting it. It must come as a gift from God, in God's own good time. Patien...

95. Preachers, All!

Acts 2:1-13, Acts 2:14-41, Acts 2:42-47

Sermon

Will Willimon

Someone has said the church is somewhat like a football huddle, the huddle that players go into at a football game. ''You know that something important is being said there, but you can't understand a word of it, and all you can see is their rear-ends." But in fairness to the church, we must admit that it isn't easy to be understood by the world, after all, what we are talking about, in this hudd...

96. Proclaiming Death

1 Corinthians 11:26

Sermon

Will Willimon

Do you remember when the Lord's Supper used to be sad? An old Presbyterian Service made clear that Holy Communion was an occasion for penitence, a time to talk about sin: "It is my duty to warn the scandalous and the lewd, and all those indulging in any known sin, that if they come unworthily to the Lord's Table; they do eat and drink damnation to their eternal souls." Aren't you glad that, in re...

97. Prophets and the Powerful

1 Kings 21:1-3, 17-21

Sermon

Will Willimon

“Ahab said to Elijah, 'Have you found me, o my enemy?' He answered, 'I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the LORD.”' (1 Kings 21:1-3, 17-21) A few years ago, Dr. Billy Graham was asked about his friendship with then recently deposed Richard Nixon. Graham had been something of a court chaplain during the Nixon years -- a frequent guest at the White Ho...

98. Public Sex

Mark 10:2-16

Sermon

Will Willimon

''Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.'' While you were away over the summer, the Presbyterians (P.C.U.S.A ) discovered sex. They issued a big report on sex at their General Assembly, voted it down by a margin of 95 to 5, the report that is. But not before Presbyterians captured many headlines, so shocked was the media to see staid...

99. Pursued by Mercy

John 10:11-18 · Psalm 23

Sermon

Will Willimon

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." How pleasant to come to church on a Spring Sunday and encounter an old friend. Sometimes Sunday can be a jarring, discordant experience. You settle down into the pew only to be hit over the head by some unfamiliar idea, some alien biblical text, poked in the ribs by a pushy preacher peddling an even pushier biblical passage. No...

100. Redeem the Time

Matthew 24:36-44 · Romans 13:11-14

Sermon

Will Willimon

"For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood came and swept them away, so will be the coming of the Son of man." A man I know, a professor at a nearby university, has decided not to do any reading, writing, or speaking, until we get a total freeze on nuclear wea...

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