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Boston University’s 2013 Baccalaureate speaker was Bishop Peter D. Beaver, Retired Bishop of the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church. Additionally, he served on the Board of Trustees of Boston University from 2004-2012. For more information, please see the BU Today article.
There will be no sermon text posted for this Baccalaureate address.
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Brittany Schwartz is graduating from the College of Arts and Sciences with a Bachelor of Arts in environmental analysis and policy, with minors in earth sciences, biology, and international relations. She has been a leader on the Servant Team here at Marsh Chapel throughout her time at Boston University and was given the University Service Award for her extraordinary contributions at the Community Service Center.
I didn’t plan on getting involved with religious life at BU. I planned on going to mass but that was going to be about it for me, like it always was.
But I was browsing the BU calendar on the evening of one of the very first days of classes freshman year and saw an event for that night that really caught my eye: capture the flag. I didn’t pay much attention to the group running the event and was simply eager to participate in a game I loved to play with friends back home. Turns out it was hosted by Marsh Chapel. Hmm…
Once I found my way to the Thurman Room in the basement, I was greeted by some of the craziest, coolest, most-passionate people I had ever met, along with my very first of many free meals from Marsh. Those folks I met that night made me feel unbelievably welcome as they asked meaningful getting-to-know-you questions and genuinely listened to my answers, pointing out little pieces of common ground between all of us along the way. Within these new friends I found comfort, I found family, and I found home.
And so it began. After that night and some other first-week events I was hooked on this open, accepting, lively place and the even more dynamic people found inside of it. From service projects with Servant Team to discussions with Interfaith Council to community dinners on Monday nights, the Marsh family has unrelentingly reminded me how amazing it is that while we each hold our own different beliefs we can share in so many of the most wonderful aspects of life.
I believe we as humans can all unite with the image of a world that is kind, just, and wholesome, one that revolves around compassion for others and treasures each individual’s unique perspective, experiences, and voice. A community like this one here at Marsh, one that is founded on indiscriminate love and cherishes common threads, allows me to put incredible faith in the thought of such a place.
Looking at it as a whole, my journey here at Marsh is kind of just like that capture the flag game I went to freshman year. Both are about working with others and searching, looking into things in ways you hadn’t before and taking risks along the way as you propel across that safe line of comfort, trusting others to have your back. Each quest requires perseverance, attention, and a deeper understanding of yourself. Both are exhilarating and challenging, especially when you’re sometimes left confused in the dark as the unexpected strikes. The diary of neither adventure is perfect – you can get tagged and sent to the tree or come across incomprehensible struggles in life – but both are always more than worthwhile. One thing that’s different, though, is that when working on finding yourself and your beliefs at Marsh, everyone has customized flags – many of them in common with others, some not – and we’re all on the same team. Plus, at Marsh we all get flashlights – that is, amazing people that teeter the perfect balance of guiding us and pushing us to discover things ourselves.
I am incredibly blessed to have been a part of this community for the past four years and don’t just believe but know that the deep friendships I’ve made here at Marsh will forever be a home-base for me as I search and reach for the flags life after BU will bring.
Thank you to all who have supported, inspired, and simply loved me while I’ve been here.
Molly Flanagan is graduating magna cum laude from the College of Fine Arts with a Bachelor of Music in Brass Performance, specializing in French horn. She has been a faithful member of the Marsh Chapel choir throughout her studies at Boston University.
I attended Sunday school regularly as a child, and came away with two things from that experience: 1.) Jesus apparently likes to drink a lot of wine and 2.) God looks like everyone. I accepted the first one without much internal struggle, but the second one threw me for a loop. Our teacher told us that God makes everyone in his own image, so He looks like a little bit of everyone… or something like that. I tried to picture what every person in the world looked like, and how you could mash all of those images into one. There are only so many features on a face, and who got to decide what color the eyes were, or what size the nose was? And if He looked like everyone, then wouldn’t He really look like no one? I don’t like thinking very hard about things, and I was no different at age 7, so I ended up letting it go.
Years later, I began my freshman year of college. I crashed, and badly. It took me a long time to get used to being at BU, and I hated myself for that. I joined the Marsh Chapel choir my second week of school and hung out with people from CFA, but I could never really make it work. Every time I felt myself becoming comfortable with what I was doing, or actually feeling okay for a moment about where I was, there was always something that would overwhelm me, like it wanted to remind me that I was not allowed to be happy or at peace. The feeling gradually disappeared the longer I stayed in school, and I assumed that “it” was just normal freshman adjustment difficulties that I’d left behind me. However, “it” came back numerous times until about 18 months ago, when I finally saw a doctor who diagnosed me with Depression and started me on medication that gave me my life back.
During those tumultuous years when it felt like the ground could slip out from beneath me at any time, the one thing that remained consistent was the people along the way. There was my teacher, who noticed that something was off my second lesson and, much to my surprise, spent an entire hour talking to me instead of playing. There was the friend who l was able to confide in and vent to more comfortably than I could with anyone else, a friend who I only met because he just happened to be the roommate that year of another good friend of mine. There was the teacher I had during a semester abroad whose kindness helped me find my way thousands of miles from home. There was also the group of people who, maybe without knowing it, provided a safe space for me every Thursday night and kept me going even through those days when I seriously considered dropping out of school. Whenever anything happened, whenever I had a setback or got into trouble, someone always just happened to be there to help me along the way. Four years later, I am still here; four years later I now believe that those numerous acts of grace and kindness that kept me here came from God working in the form of the people I come in contact with. So even though I am leaving Boston after this week, I believe that wherever I end up, God will be there with me, and He really will look just like everyone around me.
‘
Serrie Hamilton is graduating from the College of Arts and Sciences with a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics. She has been a faithful member of the Servant Team throughout her time at Boston University and served on the ministry staff here at Marsh Chapel in 2011-12.
I have been a part of the church since before I can remember. Growing up a blond-haired, blue-eyed Scandinavian girl in the heart of the Midwest, I narrowly avoided Lutheran lutefisk dinners, but was always up for a tater tot hot dish. Growing up as a church musician’s daughter, I lived and breathed church; marching on over to my dad’s office every day after school, singing in children’s choir, having my classmates tease me, saying that I had a microphone in my earring because that was the only way I could know all the answers in confirmation class.
Then, I fled to Boston University. I was convinced that I had to get as far away from what I thought of then as the stifling Midwest and my identity as my “father’s daughter.” I was convinced that I didn’t need church and that living and breathing church was the same thing as faith.
I kept that mentality up for about a year until I met Br. Larry and Dean Hill. It was not long after that that I wrote to Br. Larry while sitting in my darkened dorm room on Bay State with the realization that church for me could exist outside of my childhood world; I wanted to be involved at Marsh, and did I ever get involved! I ushered, I co-chaired Servant Team, I worked in the office, I worked as a Ministry Assistant; I was back to living and breathing church, which I again, was confusing with faith.
It was then that I decided to take a step back from all these commitments. In the past year, I have learned so much about myself and my faith. I came to Boston, convinced that I would change the world. Has that happened? No, but I have made my mark, giving friends advice, engaging in academic conversation, smiling at strangers as they pass by. As I grow older and wiser, I realize that these are the things in life that matter, these are the things that grant me the ability to have faith in God – the little things that reveal God’s presence in our daily lives.
After an almost 23 year long journey with its twists and turns, for better and for worse, I have barely scratched the surface of what faith means, but here is what I believe today:
Today, I believe that having faith in God allows me to be unsure about my faith in myself. God picks up the slack, and is there, even in the depths.
Today, I believe that God works through each one of us so that we may support and love one another.
Today, I believe that, in the words of Dean Hill, wherever you are, be present. Breathe, listen, smile, love, hear, lift, be there.
No matter what happens, when I question my abilities, when I doubt my choices, when my faith falters, I look to words from the Dean:
Life is good. Morning is good. Prayer is good. Grace is good. Love is good. Family is good. God is good. All the time.
In this, I will always believe.
Sami Hamdan is graduating summa cum laude from Sargent College with a Bachelor of Science in Health Science and will begin a Master of Public Health in health policy and management at the Boston University School of Public Health in the fall. He has served as a Student Health Ambassador at Student Health Services for the past two years.
Faith is at times a tricky concept. In the small, dark moments of my life, faith felt like leaning against a wall of mist. But that was before I came to college, before I fully understood what faith meant to me. I have found that my faith was tested in my time at Boston University, and in the end, strengthened. When I began college, I was not entirely sure what faith meant. I knew what religion meant, and I accepted Islam as my religion wholeheartedly, but a deep and intuitive faith took time to discover. As my understanding of faith began to develop, I found that it is far more than a litany of dogmatic do’s and don’ts. While ritual is important, my time at college has shown me how faith can be cultivated in many ways, not simply through one system of belief. Of course, actively embracing Islamic prayer and ritual has helped channel and grow my sense of faith. But for me, faith gained a far more fundamental meaning. In so much of the world today faith is portrayed as a divisive issue, but I have come to believe that true faith is a common denominator more than a common divider. For me, faith is living deeply, by meaningful action and through meaningful connections with others. For me, faith is not about arguing over the details; my faith is about embodying the core principles of Islam, and spirituality in general: acting decently, forgiving before judging, and looking for the good in people. During my time in college, I have found this sense of faith in many surprising places, and it can be a source of great inspiration and strength. I have found a sense of faith in my dear friends who have supported me in times of need and celebrated the successes of my college career. I have found a sense of faith in a graveyard on the first beautiful day of spring, when so much else seemed to be missing from my world. I have found a sense of faith in the joy of a child’s smile while recovering from a surgery that gave him a fresh start to life. And I have found a sense of faith in the quiet solitude of a sunset on a fall day, when all the small concerns that can occupy my time are swept away by the simple grandeur of life. In the midst of sorrow or happiness, in the grand moments and especially in the little ones, faith has become my core and my guide. Faith is about embracing the unknown, with a sense of clarity and purpose. It is my deep sense of a greater meaning and order to life; a purpose to my existence, even it seems beyond me at times.
Prayers of the People
We now come to the time in our service when we turn our hearts and minds to prayer and lift up our lives and ourselves to God. As we pray together this morning, I will conclude each petition “God, in your mercy.” Please respond, “Hear our prayer.” Please assume an attitude and posture of prayer by either remaining seated, standing, kneeling, or coming to the communion rail as we sing together our call to prayer, “Lead Me, Lord.”
God of serendipity, we give thanks for those moments in our lives that we could not have planned and yet which, in the surprise of grace, exceed our every hope and aspiration. God, in your mercy. Hear our prayer.
God of hospitality, we are grateful for the communities in which we have received the joy of fellowship, and we invite your Spirit to guide us to be a people of extraordinarily hospitable grace. God, in your mercy. Hear our prayer.
God of peace, we pray for a world that is kind, just, and compassionate amidst diversities of perspective, experience, and voice. God, in your mercy. Hear our prayer.
God of adventure, we pray for the perseverance, attention, and self-knowledge to take the path of spiritual seeking that, while risky, promises a deeply worthwhile reward. God, in your mercy. Hear our prayer.
Invisible God, we who have never seen your face pray for the grace to see you in the faces of all those we encounter this week, and to display in our faces the radiance of your glory. God, in your mercy. Hear our prayer.
God of wholeness, we give thanks for those in our lives who accompany us back from darkness and despair to health and vitality of life. God, in your mercy. Hear our prayer.
Ever-present God, we are grateful that even when we try to flee from your presence, you remain alongside us, and provide us companions and comforters to lead us into more truth. Grant us grace also to accompany and comfort those we are given to walk alongside in the path of life. God, in your mercy. Hear our prayer.
Faithful God, remind us this day and each day that life is good; morning is good; prayer is good; grace is good; love is good; family is good; and you are good; that we may embody goodness and light in your world. God, in your mercy. Hear our prayer.
God who calls us into community, help us to live as communities that embody the richness of prayer and ritual that we may nurture and grow faithful people for lives that will be transformative in society and the world. God, in your mercy. Hear our prayer.
Merciful God, help us to find the resources in our faith to be people of common ground, living deeply, practicing meaningful action, and cultivating meaningful connections with others. God, in your mercy. Hear our prayer.
God of grandeur, help us to embrace the unknown that in the quiet solitude of a sunset, when all of the small concerns that can occupy our time are swept away, we may enjoy the simple grandeur of life. God, in your mercy. Hear our prayer.
And now, with the confidence of children of God, we are bold to pray:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
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Situation
Come with me for a moment, if you will, and by the mind’s eye, by the imagination, as we walk a little bit across our beloved city.
We can leave Marsh Chapel and head to the left, due east. The trees and flowers are fragrant and in bloom. We will saunter and wander down the Commonwealth Mall, past the statues and benches and people enjoying a free Sunday. At Dartmouth we will turn right, due south. Now you will want to pause at Copley Square. Take a moment with me to stop by the office of our sister congregation at Trinity Church. We will leave a calling card and say a prayerful word of greeting. Take a moment with me to stop by the office of our brother congregation at Old South church. We will leave a calling card and say a prayerful word of greeting. Take a moment with me to read the cards and notes, see the flowers and gifts, in the people’s memorial, there, across from the library. Remembrance, thanksgiving, presence—you feel them all, these emotions of living grace, these sacramental emotions of living grace. I want to give us a moment to pause here. By the living grace of God we can face grief with grace, hatred with honesty, and death with dignity. There is a spirit of truth loose in the universe, to guide us on our walk this morning. Many of us have already, personally or individually, made this same hike, but we have done so together, until now, and now we do so, together, by the mind’s eye, by the imagination. There are some things we need to face, again. Here.
Now we will head back to Marsh Plaza, walking west on Boylston. These blocks have become brick to brick familiar to the whole globe, not just to those of us in the ‘hub’. It is important for us to take this walk, and it is important for us to take this walk together. You may want to look at some running shoes in Marathon Sports. Or if you like the gracious narthex of the Lennox Hotel, we could rest there a moment. We will stand for a moment in front of the Forum Restaurant, and there, look for a moment, at another makeshift memorial. By the living grace of God we can together make our way into the past, in memory, and into the future, in imagination. We see ourselves being filmed from the camera atop Lord and Taylor. We greet a friend who is seated in a nearby restaurant. The eyes film over, somehow. But we are walking together, and we can walk on. You can walk fast, or, like me, walk slowly. It is after all your own imagination. Take things at your own pace. Coming back, up Boylston, across Hereford, left on Commonwealth, and on to the Chapel, there are some things we need to face, again. Here.
Two young men of limited abilities, armed with the Internet, $100, and some kitchen utensils, brought the fifth largest metropolitan region in the country to a many day standstill. Coffin: God gives us minimum protection and maximum support. In our neighborhood. Loss of life and limb, of property and security. Here. Present together to receive the living grace of God in Eucharist, present together across the airwaves to receive the living grace of God in the spoken word, we face together all the potentials of an open future and the extent of human freedom. This is our shared situation. We need to level with each other about this.
Scripture
Our Scripture, today in particular and every day in general, promises the presence of the spirit of truth, loose in the universe. The potential for harm is, like death itself, ever present. The potential for living grace, like life itself, is ever present. The psalmist sings of a living grace. Lydia embraced such a living grace. John, ever unique, names this grace with a new name, the paraklete, the counselor, the advocate, the holy spirit, who abides in the experience of peace.
For all the familiarity of these lines from John 14, the actual meaning, in history and theology, is darkly or obscurely understood. In particular the novel figure of the paraclete, related in some manner to the holy spirit, to this day is a source of wonder and perplexity for those who study these passages. We are standing on high precipice, ice beneath our feet, wind swirling about our temples, as we receive the promise of the counselor. The living grace of the living God we know in living. Our scripture assumes that we shall be in need of some counseling, some advocacy, some aid. We are.
Today such sustenance is given in a living grace, a lively grace that teaches and reminds. Let me show you. Let me remind you. We need to learn and remember, though, the clear statement here. You will be taught, reminded. This is you plural, friends. You all. The gift of the living grace is made to the gathering, the community, the whole. Not to you but to YOU. These things I have spoken to YOU (plural). While I am still with YOU (plural). The spirit sent will teach YOU (plural). Reminding of all that I have said to YOU (plural). Peace I leave with YOU (plural). My peace I give to YOU (plural). Not as the world gives do I give to YOU (plural).
Living grace makes of us a community by making of us an addressable community, speaking to us together: speaking us together. We may deconstruct the Scripture, but Scripture reconstructs US. The gospel, spoken and heard, reshapes us into a living grace. Reclothes us in our rightful minds…That is, in our situation, our SHARED situation, we are promised something, but the promise is to the plural YOU. YOU, YOU ALL, ALL YOU ALL. Our way forward, that is, on the strength of this Gospel, lies in forms of partnership—meaning is found in community, belonging is found in fellowship, empowerment is found in friendship. Each one’s death diminishes me for I am a part of humankind. The dark mystery of the Counselor remains, but there is nothing unclear about the spirit’s attention—focused on the common, the commonwealth, the common good.
The far too familiar lines of this strange moonscape of a passage come to a crashing conclusion. ‘Let not your hearts be troubled’. Heart-S. We are, at heart, gifts of one another to one another, hearts whose heartbeats are felt by one another, souls whose soul is born in soulful connection to one another, meant to live for one another.
On television sometimes I hear some commentator say, ‘Let not your heart by troubled’. I want to write in the S at the end. It changes everything. Heart-S.
Living grace is the grace to live together, which takes wisdom, power and goodness. This is why, may I gently say, connecting with a community of faith is so primary, so irreplaceably important. We worship TOGETHER come Sunday. Together we search for wisdom, power, goodness.
Wisdom forms design, power allows action, goodness does good. Research, policy, practice. Teaching, deaning, pastoring. Preaching is over all. Eucharist is over all. Grace is over all.
Let us receive some wisdom about anger. Our anger is real, and needs to be felt, seen, heard, understood and processed as real. I refer you to the sermon of April 21. You will not get away from the marathon bombing without facing your anger, your hatred, even, for those who did this. Be angry, the Bible says, but let not the sun go down on your anger. Hate what is evil, the Bible says, but overcome evil with good. We need to acknowledge that anger, even confess it, even speak it, so that we do not repress it. Beware, my friend, beware the return of the repressed. You have reason to be angry. Oklahoma, Nineleven, Columbine, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Boston. But you also have resources with which to deal with it.
Let us receive some power regarding hatred. Romans 12: 9 I get…It is the later verse, 20, ‘feed your enemy…and so pour burning coals on him’ that is harder to interpret. We may in part finally understand, at a gut level, Paul’s admonition. Is there any other way to channel the anger and honest hatred of evil that we feel? What a wise leverage, a Syracusan, a Archemedian leverage of anger for good, of hatred for love. Let us together try it. We have the possibility of regeneration right here, a living grace. Shmuel Eisenstadt distinguishes irreversible collapse from ‘collapse with a possibility of regeneration or renewal’ (eg UMC)…’ability to reflect on themselves…reference to shared, lofty visions…allows reshaping…allows continuity…eg Roman Empire and Han Dynasty’ This is why, may I gently say, connecting with a community of faith is so primary, so irreplaceably important. We worship TOGETHER come Sunday.
Let us receive some goodness for the journey.
One wrote: We just wanted to thank you all for your kindness and hospitality. On Marathon Monday, when our race came to an end at Mile 25, we were so disoriented about what was going on. Without any cell phones or money, we wandered the streets a while confused about what to do and worried about our loved ones at the finish line. We met wonderful people that day,. Some gave us money to get a taxi, but there were none to be found, others told us to go to the chapel and walked us to your doorsteps. Everyone at the Chapel was so nice and helpful, bringing us food, hot tea, and letting us use your phones. We felt safe! You helped us to reunite with our families. Thank God that they were OK and thank God for all the wonderful and kind people who we met that day at Marsh Chapel. With love…
Another wrote: I want to express my gratitude and that of my entire family for the comfort and care provided to us on 4/15. We sought refuge and we received that and more…Your staff was wonderful and their comfort was most appreciated. It is hard to understand how someone can cause so much pain. The benefit of being reminded in tangible ways of the goodness and kindness of others helps to create a sense of balance—thank you for that. Sincerely…
It will take the wisdom, power and goodness of another generation to design, build and desire a better world. Here is our prayer for them, the class of ’13, but it is truly a prayer for us all:
Seniors: “13 prayers for the class of ‘13”
May you finish your papers, wake up for your finals, and pass your courses
May you find a job when you are hunting for one, and be found by a calling when you are not (hunting for one)
May you remember your mom on Mothers’ Day, seven days from today
May our recall that there are two ways to be wealthy: have a lot of money, or, have very few needs.
May you honestly face death, as we have done this spring, and so discover the precious value of every breath, as we also have done this spring.
May you, with the Greeks, see in tragedy the seedbed of nobility.
May you bring a sense of purpose to days and events which lack both (sense and purpose).
May your return your overdue library books. May you find your overdue library books.
May you with Samuel Johnson keep your friendships in good repair, with John Wesley and Mother Theresa remember the poor, with Lord Baden Powell do a good turn daily, and with Bill Coffin take yourself lightly so that you may fly, like the angels.
May you have a life long, rapturous, torrid love affair—with Boston, dear old Boston, the home of the bean and the cod, and take your first born to Fenway Park, and remember the radiant, sun-dappled happiness of this morning all your days.
May life be good to you, and may you be good to life.
My dear ones, my dear friends, who so resemble my own dear children, may you be safe, may you be well, may you be happy.
May you as a generation find the wisdom to design a better world, acquire the power to build a better world, and have the goodness to want a better world.
May it be so.
~The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel
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Preface
The Shepherd is present and loving and good.
But today we are city, and a world around, drenched in sorrow. Some of that sorrow lies at the feet of those killed, Martin and Lingzi and Krystle and Sean. Some of that sorrow arises from the thought of those physically injured. Some of that sorrow dimly recognizes the many others, near and far, harmed in other less visible ways. Some of that sorrow kindles anger at the video image of assassins who lingered to view the potential effects of unspeakable actions on fellow humans. This weekend we are a people drenched in sorrow.
We are also a University working through sorrow. Monday began with brunch and celebration, and ended with terror. Our staff opened the chapel later for the throngs walking, T-less, by. Water, refreshment, prayer, counsel, they gave. One runner came very cold and was shrouded with a clergy gown, all we had to offer, a shepherd’s outfit. Tuesday brought us to the plaza, come evening, in vigil, to honor and reflect. Wednesday, in this chapel, and also at other hours in other settings, gathered us for ordered worship, prayer, music, liturgy, Eucharist and sermon. Thursday we heard the President, on a familiar theme, ‘running the race set before us’. Friday at home we watched televised news. Saturday we listened for the musical succor of Handel’s beautiful Messiah, right here. Tomorrow we will again gather for a memorial service, for our deceased BU student, Lu Lingzi. But today is Sunday, when we come to church, to pray, sing, and hear the Word. Quietly, now, as a visible congregation in the pews and as a virtual congregation in the region, we might want to allow our Gospel to help us, to speak a pastoral word to us, to live in us, in three ways.
Here
The Gospel of John, more than any other ancient Christian writing, and in odd contrast to its prevalent misunderstanding across the continent today, knew the necessity of nimble engagement of current experience, and the saving capacity to change, in the face of new circumstances. The community of this Gospel could do so because they had experienced the Shepherd, present, ‘here’, hic et nunc. In distress, we hold onto divine presence, on word, the Shepherd– here.
Two BU students were maimed on Monday. One survived, in part because an Iraqi war veteran ran to her, held her, acknowledged her shock, staunched her bleeding, kept her from focusing on the carnage at hand, and made it his business to be present to her, on Boylston street. His experienced prediction later that evening, that she would “make it”, proved true. The Shepherd is here, present, in the shepherding acts of people like him who put on the equivalent of a pastor’s robe, to aid others.
It is not trite and not redundant repeatedly to honor the first responders, those first present. It is faith, good faith, and theology, good theology. God has no hands but yours.
In quieter hours, we may simple say, “God is here”, “the Shepherd is here”, referring only to the brute, undeniable experience of breathing, of life, of something, of something not nothing. But in sorrow, and in the distress causing sorrow, we know presence through the Shepherd. Next to us, it may be, we hear a voice: “Hold my hand. Look down not out. Focus on my eyes. That pain in your leg is a good sign. Breathe in and out. I am here”.
We are a community devoted in witness to the One in the stained glass behind you, the Shepherd. It is a good and healthy thing to enter a gothic nave whose form is a thousand years old, an Indiana limestone chapel built to last another thousand years, with a form of worship as ancient and historic as it is beautiful and true, and music from the ages, and readings 2000 years in use, all in a place of graceful space. A physical recollection that we are not the first, nor will we be the last, to face inexplicable horror. I do not know of a week when one does not need that, but this week, in particular, we do. John’s community had none of that in Ephesus in 90ad. They had only voice. Speaking, and hearing. They found that in speaking of the Shepherd: ‘he is here’. ‘I am…’ That is all, still, we have, the voice. Utterance. ‘I am…’ The ‘here’ is in the hearing. Can you hear that? It begs to be heard, here.
It is an old word. The Shepherd is here.
Love
The Gospel brings a second old word. One writer said he used the old short words. ‘I know the other ones, the big words, but the short ones say it better.’ Love. God so loved the world, to give God’s only Son. I try to remember that when a boy who looks like my son did at age 8 is taken. It is as if God walked over, and put a hand on my shoulder, and said, ‘You know, I do understand. Yes. I had a son once, too.’ The reason the community of faith, John’s church, could hear the ‘here’ of the Shepherd is that they had experienced his love. With them, I am a Christian more for the cross than for the empty tomb. The Gospel of John knew the reality of love, and called love God. Love is God, said the later letter bearing the name of John.
But it is a strange, somewhat unfamiliar kind of love. (The gospel makes the familiar strange, and the strange familiar.) Not the love of family or kindred, those with whom you watched TV on Friday. Not the love of lover and beloved, to whom you rightly repaired on Monday. Not even the religiously frequent reference, across the globe, to a principle, idea or virtue. Ours today is rather a love that gives, and gives of self, which they knew in Ephesus, and we know today, in loving hands. God has no hands, none, but yours. We all need loving hands.
To recall love, when you see others, in brutality, shredded by insidious evil, you will need to pronounce love in life. It is also repeatedly said, not tritely, that the only thing evil needs to succeed is the inattention and inaction of good people. This passage, ‘the Father and I are one’, created a new religion–in love. The verse is usually thought to convey a heightened Christology, the raising of Jesus to divine status. But for the first century Christians it arguably may have meant the very opposite, the lowering of God to human status. It meant the lowering of the Father, not the raising of the Son. It meant, well, love. The Shepherd loves, is loving, is love.
Love is God. That is all we have of God, as we breathe and listen and live. Love means love of self, family, kin, but also of neighbor, other, friend, but also, remarkably, of enemy. Now John does not get quite that far. I am not sure that I have. But the Christian Gospel as a whole does, and more. I will try to remember that when I feel my anger welling up, or when I am tempted to disparage groups for the behavior of individuals, or when I want a faster solution to a thorny problem.
That is why you come to church every week, to be prepared for love. You cannot develop a worldview, a religious perspective, a depth of faith, or a disciplined life, in the 3 minutes following a bombing. You have to get started a lot earlier in order to have, in crisis, the nourishment, the power, you will need, really to live. Love means taking responsibility. Love means taking responsibility. And taking responsibility means finding, soon, a community wherein you can know and show meaning, belonging, empowerment, where you can learn from others to pray, to tithe, to keep faith.
I encourage you to continue in ways many have already begun, to find effective modes of help for those well beyond our community who have been hurt, one way or another. A card, a note, a check, a gift, a prayer—we all have things we can do to lean forward and help those harmed. One of our students is active in bringing a blood bank to campus in the next few days. It is healthy and it is helpful, in many directions, to find one thing or two things creatively to do, to bring some good to bear in the face of tragic violence. So you will don a shepherd’s gown, hoist a shepherd’s crook, live a shepherd’s life, for the moment, in love.
It is an old word. The Shepherd is love.
Good
Here is one other old word. Good. The Shepherd is good.
But, let us be frank. There is a kind of nihilism abroad today, which is not good. You can hear it, in the word ‘whatever’: and see it in inebriation, in amoral sexual practice, in materialism, in incapacity for human communication, in incapacity for moral discernment. These features of current life, exploding all about us on a daily basis, are just not good.
As our fellow preacher the Rev. John Holt, of Osterville, wrote two weeks ago:
I’m troubled. Really troubled. Disturbed because compassion is scarce. Too often, we live in a “what’s in it for me” world.
You remember, from last Sunday, my friend describing life, in one word as ‘good’, and in two words as ‘not good’. Well, no early Christian document surpasses John in plumbing the depths of that duality. A bright Monday, bombs. A sunny Patriots Day, carnage. A glorious marathon, death. As my teacher Robert McAfee Brown said, ‘This is God’s world. But is a crummy one. We have to live with both realities.’ I remember Anglican Bishop Hapgood, circa 1975, facing a group of idealists and saying, ‘Go ahead, keep your dreams, be dreamers. Just remember that others dream, too, of gulags, and genocide, and terror.’
From this pulpit four years ago, (Nov 29, 2009), we tried to be alert to the probability that, at some point, another nineleven would befall us. How little we knew how close it would be, both in time and in space.
The best of days, the highest of moments, the most charmingly gracious of cityscapes, the culmination of the American experiment on Patriots Day–trashed by hateful, killing violence. When another takes what you hold dear, count precious, think lovely, and bombs it, you cannot avoid anger, and the sorrow at the heart of anger.
Some may wonder whether anything religiously cast, any preachment, can carry any truth, any good. Religion, like the weather, is just so mixed–good and bad and other.
One response: Do you have good religion, or bad, asked the spiritual? Are you putting on that shepherding robe, that pastoral gown, to fend off the cold?
Unamuno wrote, “ Warmth, warmth, warmth. We are dying of cold, not of darkness. It is the night that kills, it is the frost.”
Religion that brings good relationships can bring much good. You can see and hear that right here in the pews of Marsh Chapel. Come and join us!
Our passage about the Shepherd shepherded into experience something new, over time, the relational community of God. Yes, we are monotheists, but not really fully so. God is not One, for us. God is Three, or, at least, Three in One. That is, the good Shepherd, is good– in relationship. God is in relationship, with God. We might want to think about that, as we measure our relationships into the future. ‘The Father and I are One’ was step toward Chapter 14 and the Spirit, and beyond that to Nicaea. Ours are the hands with which to touch, hold, greet and honor.
By the way. I do not believe in a God who wills that some are hurt and others spared. Who would worship such a God? I see rather random chance in life, both freedom to will and the freeing of the will, to be present, to love, and to do the good. Jan and I did not turn left on Boylston, Monday at 2:30, we went around the back way. Not because we are more beloved, smarter, or more faithful. No, random, just random. Rain falls on the just and unjust. But through it all: There is good, there is good, there is good in every day. Part of that good is found in relationship, blessed by the relational God of John 10. Some of that good is right here in Boston, ‘the Hub’–in relationship. Hugs in cold of First Night, cheers for the music come July 4, waves to the rowers come Head of the Charles, and, yes, next year, celebration come Patriots Day. Connected in relationship.
No orthodox Bostonian
Is lonely or dejected,
For everyone in Boston
With everyone’s connected.
For Boston’s not a capital,
And Boston’s not a place;
Rather I feel that Boston is
The perfect state of grace.
(EBWhite)
It is an old word. The Shepherd is good.
Coda
How then will you live?
Will you find your way, through the crowd and the rubble, to the Shepherd—who is here, who is love, who is good?
We will want to live with presence, love and goodness. Thankfully, from Monday itself, we have a shining example of people modeling dimensions of healthy spirituality, of the runners and the race (a metaphor not unknown to the biblical mind by the way—Psalm 19, 1 Cor 9, Hebrews 12). I picture all the runners practicing months and weeks. I see the lacing of the running shoes. I hear the starting whistle and the throng surging forward. We saw at Kenmore, the brightly attired elderly man, the young guy with blue hair, the student running in a tuxedo, the troop from a nearby college ROTC program, the woman running—as so many—in memory, the folks in wheel chairs, the straining forward, by mile 25, of striving, disciplined energy. They all are models for us of running the spiritual race and finishing the spiritual course. We can lace up and run, too, in our own ways. God’s goodness, love and presence beckon us onward.
~The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel
Text from Prayers of the People:
Good Shepherd,
Hear our voices:
The voices that are hoarse from shouting,
The voices that are unsteady from weeping,
The voices that are sharp with anger,
The voices that are quivering with fear,
The voices that are dull with weariness,
The voices that are quiet with uncertaintiy,
And the voices that have fallen silent.
You, Good Shepherd, you know all of us and call us each by name. We have come to know the names of some of our flock, our community, our city, who have been taken from us by violence this week:
Martin, Lingzi, Krystle, and Sean
We mourn their loss and we pray for all those around the world who are victims of violence, for those whose names we do not know, but who are known by you.
While violence can tear people from our arms all too soon, we are confident Lord, that nothing, nothing and no one can snatch them from your loving hand.
We are all called to follow you, and this morning we give thanks for those who follow your call by embodying your shepherding, those first responders who run into danger to rescue the injured, those nurses and doctors who knit wounds and bring healing, and those members of law enforcement who help to keep us safe from the dangers that surround us.
Good Shepherd, this week our thoughts turn to the green pastures of the Common and the Public Garden, the still waters of the Charles river, this city of Boston which we love so deeply. This week our beloved city has also felt like the valley of the shadow of death. Good Shepherd, restore our souls so that we again may feel rest, safety, and delight in this our beloved city.
And Good Shepherd, even though it is difficult, even though it is so difficult, we ask for your grace this morning to be able to pray for the lost sheep, for those who have wandered far from us, for those who have perpetrated violence against us. We know that you pursue every lost sheep with your grace, love, and mercy. Give us the strength to follow you so that we may do the same, so that we may forgive those who trespass against us.
And when our words fail, when we lose our voice, we are grateful that you, Jesus Christ, have given us familiar words which we can fall back upon to pray:
Our Father…
Amen.
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John
One man asked another, ‘Tell me, in just one word, how is your life?”
His friend replied, slowly, “In one word? In one word, my life is, well…good”.
Sensing something, the man asked again, “Then tell me, in just two words, how is your life?”
His friend replied, slowly, “My life, in two words? In two words, my life is, well…not good”.
Both the brevity of life and the strange estrangements of our experience in life, place us, if we are honest, come Sunday, somewhere between the first and second replies, between good and not good.
We know the thrill of victory and the agony of betrayal. We know the joy of birth and the pain of death. We know the exuberance of growth and the hurt of departure.
The Gospel of John ended last week, with its concluding sentence, ‘This things are written that you may believe that Jesus in the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. Jesus: Lord and God, doorway both to allegiance and to reverence. Jesus: word incarnate, good shepherd, feeder of thousands, alchemist of water and wine, healer of the blind, raiser of the dead, doorway to grace, freedom, love, spirit, community, and friendship. Only believe, only believe. Live in tune with the universe.
Startling then, today’s lesson, added twenty years after the Gospel conclusion. A simple meal, of 153 fish, breakfast with Jesus. Different language and imagery here. A different, now heroic role, for the robbing and disrobing Peter, here. A different voice for the beloved disciple here. A different reflection on death and life here. A different prediction of Peter’s martyrdom here. What is the meaning of this strange breakfast?
Just this: for all the grace, freedom and love, all the spirit, community and friendship rightly trumpeted in the Fourth Gospel, people are still people. This chapter is about fishing and farming, about catching and tending, about boats and fields, fishermen and shepherds. In church language, that is, 21 is about evangelism and pastoral care.
You are leading a Christian life, you are committed to the way of discipleship, the path of love. Then, and so, you will need to receive and give invitation and comfort.
The deep resonance of Handel’s Messiah, its third part sung gloriously today, undergirds our good and not so good life with triumph, with the triumphant song, with the triumphant promise, with the triumphant promise of redemption, heaven, hope, healing, wholeness, God. In a word, today, triumph.
Life
In a word, triumph. In two words, evangelism and pastoral care, work and structure, laity and clergy, world and church.
Breakfast is a simple meal. The worst hour of the day, the worst food of the day, the worst attitude of the day, everything and everyone more human than not. Carried by triumph, we re-enter the world of invitation and compassion, the world of the preacher and the pastor. Every week, you are encouraged to make one invitation to another about what you find lastingly good. Come to worship with me. Every week, you are encouraged to offer one compassionate word to another from the source of lasting compassion. I will pray for you.
Public worship places us in the necessary presence of others who are not our own kith, kin and kindred. With the child behind us, the student beside us, the professor ahead of us, the widow across from us, we worship God. We perceive again the utter variety and actual need of others. It is a cautionary move against the prevailing winds about us, including tornadoes, including dehumanizing techno-communication and distance drone aerial bombardment. A woman will receive that email. I might have seen her, or her kith, kin and kindred, in church. A child will be harmed by that bomb. I might have seen his kith, kin and kindred, in church. Public worship places us in the necessary presence of others who are not our own kith, kin and kindred. So crucial, saving, significant, then the simple invitation: join me for worship.
Compassionate pastoral care, personal kindness, a willingness to listen—feed, tend, sheep to sheep—connects us to the deeper dimensions, those for which life is given. Fifty years ago M L King sat writing in a prison cell in Birmingham Alabama. He wrote the famous Letter, which bears your re-reading this afternoon, addressed to pastors, fellow clergy, who could not or did not or would not hear: “when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness”. While most of us will not regularly write such a momentous letter, in our pastoral that is personal correspondence, we will write. You know of another’s inattention, another’s pain. You can sit down, put pen to paper, and select some caring words—sorry, condolence, hope, help, prayer. You can imagine another opening the mailbox, holding the letter, seeing the penmanship, removing the page, reading the card. Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.
It is not I believe that the Fourth Gospel diminishes or discounts invitation and compassion, evangelism and pastoral care, laity and clergy. It is just that the writer(s) had bigger fish to fry and sheep to tend of another fold. So along came—someone—who wrote 21 for us, to remind us. In a word—good. In two words—not good.
Triumph, triumphant joy, triumphant promise comes your way. Put them to work this week.
I know that my Redeemer lives.
Behold I tell you a mystery.
The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised.
Death is swallowed up in victory.
But thanks be to God who gives us the victory.
If God is for us who is against us? If God is for us , who is against us?
Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto him.
~The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel
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Gospel
My Lord and My God
Resurrection Grace offers us gracious allegiance and resurrection reverence
Jesus Christ our Lord who commands allegiance
Jesus Christ our Lord who inspires reverence
A way to live and a way to love, doing and being
David sings so in the Psalms: my Strength and my Might
Peter preaches so in Acts: He is exalted as Leader and Savior
John teaches so in the Apocalypse: Alpha and Omega
Strength and Might!
Leader and Savior!
Alpha and Omega!
Lord and God!
Have we received Him this Easter with song, and word, and lesson, and love?
Lord and God.
The Gospel of John is so different: four resurrection stories, the figure of Thomas, Thomas doubting faith, his seeing that is believing and believing that is seeing, his friendship with the estranged, he (alone) gets the meaning of the story right.
To live in resurrection grace is to find, to be found, by the true Lord and the real God, to accept allegiance and reverence.
Allegiance
You will pledge allegiance to someone, and maybe, already, you have.
Beware the dark danger of allowing lesser loyalties to eclipse the one great loyalty.
You are pilgrim not a tourist, a pilgrim not a tourist.
You are here on a journey not a lark.
We are a pilgrim people, stumbling our way forward, as Robert F Kennedy tried to remind us 45 years ago, weeping with those who wept in Indianapolis, the night King was murdered. Kennedy preached:
“We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization – black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.
For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.
But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: “Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”
Something, or someone, will claim your allegiance. Beware giving the sacred dimension of your heart to something less than worthy of your heart.
Ask: Who are you? What do you believe? How do you love? To what are you called? Whom shall you forgive?
To what do you give your highest allegiance. The old Boston personalists counted cooperation as the highest good. Bodily cooperation—health. Social cooperation—civilization. Climactic cooperation—nature. Personal cooperation—the beloved community.
Love is the norm, not a mere virtue. Love is the power that makes virtue possible. Love is who we are meant and made to be.
Have you truly selected one just need, one issue in justice, and applied and invested yourself with allegiance?
Reverence
You will finally worship somewhere, somehow. The human being is irretrievably religious—not such good news in the face of pride, sloth, falsehood, superstition, hypocrisy, and idolatry.
Nonchalance about non attendance in public, ordered worship expands the circles of nonchalance about others, about different others, about the hurts of different others, about the willingness to neglect the hurts of different others, about the capacity to harm different others. There is a straight line from absence in church to drone warfare.
If on Easter Sunday you saw and heard only your own kith, kindred and kind, beward. Brunch with your wife’s family, dinner with your parents, a nap in the Easter afternoon. Lack of physical engagement with the physical presence of others, in reverence, narrows the personal imagination about what life is for others.
People all people belong to one another.
We may take five days of prayer. One in a prison. One in a hospital. One in a school. One in a psych unit. One on a farm (R Shankar).
That is John’s difference, ironically, universality. Our puny, trumped up differences of size, gender, race, religion, color, orientation, age, creed, tongue, waist and shirt measure—what we see—falls away before what we believe, in love. Love is God. We are loved, so we may love.
We think this week about Martin Luther King and the Letter from Birmingham Jail.
Some of us are habitual. Some of us are spiritual.
Some of us are habitual: morning prayer, daily reading, Sunday worship, tithing, gathering, all. But are we spiritually habitual?
Some of us are spiritual: present, alive, free, gracious, loving, open, all. But are we habitually spiritual?
Let those of us who are habitual, be spiritually so. May we have the power not only the form of faith
Let those of us who are spiritual, be habitually so. May we have the form not only the power of faith.
Who is your Lord? Who commands your allegiance?
Who is your God? Who inspires your reverence?
Coda
Be happy
Stay happy
Be confident
Have fun
Create fun
Enjoy
Count it all joy
Shine
Live in Love
You so will benefit others
~The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel
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Preface
Wonderfully created, more wonderfully restored…
Often our experience falls short of our expectation, even very short. We hope for love and find companionship. We desire friendship and find alliance. We expect vocation and land a job. We have high expectations, but low experience. So, over time, our expectations can diminish, and we find ways both to accept that outcome and to militate against it. Experience ever trumps, and often disappoints, expectation. We want an A and get B. We want a Porsche and get a Ford. We want a full church, and get half of that.
How different Easter! The Easter gospel is so strangely, hauntingly different. It is not just a matter of a church being full (though that is very nice). It is the experience of the women, who come to the tomb, in the face of their expectation. Luke begins and ends this gospel of restoration power with the women. A gathering of women engaged in a traditional task of preparing a body with spices and ointment. Luke revises, not to say restores, Mark’s earlier account. Christ has triumphed over the cross and that triumph is based on appearances—experiences—of the risen Lord, experiences of restorative power.
For St. Luke, the resurrection of Jesus brings the restoration of life, the redemption of the world, the re-creation of the church. Hence his location of all these stories in Jerusalem, where the spirit will come upon the church come Pentecost.
The Women
We might ponder especially this Easter the women in Luke 24, the prototypes of faithful people in the church, your own progenitors: sent on a thankless mission…heading for the stench of death…facing a corrupted corpse and a corrupted hope…dreading the visual and spiritual encounter…worried too about the practicalities (spices, cloths, stone)…together, at least, in their dread and sorrow, together…leave the messy things to the women…carrying with them, at daybreak, the memory of Passover loss…perhaps hoping for one last earthly moment of connection with One who brought meaning, belonging, and empowerment… Jewish women of the first century, not exactly the Lords of creation…three for whom the ministry of Jesus was in ruins, consigned to failure…it is a tomb after all to which they march, conscripted into the army of the least, last, and lost…
‘I dread the sight of him, torn and bloody. I dread the lifting of him, and the stench. I dread the cold of the stone, the darkness of the crypt—it makes me shiver shake. I dread to touch him. I dread facing him and the future, and facing the future without him. I dread how awful the world is, and now that light love glimmer doused. I dread the walk home, full of emptiness.’
Come Easter we recall: something happened, with power, to restore the life of a desolated community, and to restore the lives of particular women and men, who have given us the record of the Easter restoration. Easter is about restoration, resurrection, rebuilding, re-creation.
They expected a corpse and found an angel. They expected a stone and found an opening. They expected and ending and found a beginning. They expected death, real pungent death, and found life. No wonder they were perplexed.
The women breathed apocalyptic air. The church breathed messianic air. The evangelist breathed dualistic air. We are recovering naturalists. Some assembly required here, that is, some translation, from worldview to worldview. These are symbols to be interpreted more than doctrines to be propounded.
Easter: Wherein our worst fears are not realized in dread, in bread, and in spread. Wherein, for once, our experience if far better than our expectation. For the Easter news of Jesus Christ is not about creation, but about redemption, about restoration. The good news of Jesus Christ is not about building, but about rebuilding. The good news of Jesus Christ not about the beginning, but the next beginning. The good news of Jesus Christ is not about creation but about a new creation.
It raises a personal question for those in their later sixties: with time remaining, what do you hope to restore? Endow? Rebuild?
As said EE Cummings “I thank you Lord for this most amazing day…”
As Tug McGraw so well said, “You gotta believe.”
As Butch Cassidy told the Sundance Kid, “Kid, I’ve got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals.”
‘I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, most of which never happened.’ M Twain.
As Judy Collins sang, “I’ve looked at life from both sides now, from win and lose and still, somehow, it’s life’s illusions I recall. I really don’t know life at all!”
Exemplum Docet
You can hear restorative words every week:
“Hello, my name is John, I am an alcoholic…” Restoration.
“I enrolled to start my education again…” Restoration.
“I just called, Dad, it’s Easter. I know we haven’t gotten along very well. But I wanted to be in touch…” Restoration.
“She joined the Y last month. She had to start again toward health.”
Restoration.
“This meeting is about changing our company to save it.” Restoration.
“We are here to try to prepare our church for the next century.”
“I took communion because I wanted my life to change.” Restoration.
“In the time I have I will share my heart with those I love.”
“Hi Mom. I went to church today. It felt good to be there.: Restoration.
“I’m 45 years old, and I’ve never been able to commit to anything or
anyone. With you, I am going to try.” Restoration.
“For 30 years there has been a woman inside me waiting to come alive, to be. I have crying other people’s tears. No more.” Restoration.
“I made a mistake when I was 19. I have been beating myself up for it
ever since. I guess I’ll move on.” Restoration.
“Today you made me happy. I haven’t laughed like that since school.
Where have I been all these years?” Restoration.
New Creation Augustine
‘Twas not the creation which settled Augustine’s heart. Here is restoration from our neighborhood. It was the grace of restoration. No, he saw too well who we are by nature, and the restoration turn the redemptive God of Easter gives our souls:
Sloth poses as the love of peace: yet what certain peace is there besides the Lord?
Extravagance masquerades as abundance: but God is never ending store of sweetness.
The spendthrift makes a pretence of liberality; but God is the most generous dispenser of good.
The covetous want many possessions for themselves: but God possesses all.
The envious struggle for preferment: but what is to be preferred before God?
Anger demands revenge: but what vengeance is as just as God’s?
Fear shrinks from any sudden unwanted danger, for its only care is safety: but to God nothing is strange, nothing unforeseen. (Confessions,50).
It was grace, redeeming power: “not in reveling and in drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. (Rather arm yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ; spend no more thought on nature and nature’s appetites. )(Rom13:13)’”. For in an instant, as I came to the end of the sentence, it was as though the light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled.” (Confessions, 178). “ That’s restoration.
Anderson Deliverance
Here is restoration from my neighborhood: Several years ago, a young man from my neighborhood, upstate New York, one Batavia boy, set out for the Marines. He did a couple of tours. Then a job opened up in journalism. He was young! First he went to South Africa. And then to Israel. Later, he chose to transfer to Lebanon. Free, healthy, successful, gaining influence—what a life. Then one Saturday he went early to play tennis in Beirut. Along the way, a black sedan pulled him to the curb. He was blindfolded, stuffed in the truck and whisked away, carted from basement to tenement to apartment. He spent all day and all night hooded and chained. For six years.
It’s one thing to build a life—free, healthy, successful, influential. Another to redeem a life.
I remembered Terry Anderson’s story again this week. In the darkness, in the bondage, through the terror, out of the misery he found … a new life, a new creation. He found faith. Or faith found him. He read the Bible, cover to cover, more than 50 times. It was his only story. As it is ours.
50 times, he watched Moses slay the Egyptian.
50 times, he saw Israel run from Pharaoh.
50 times, he heard the chariots chasing God’s folk.
50 times, he wondered at the Red Sea parting.
50 times, he gasped as the returning water drowned Pharaoh.
50 times, he fidgeted as Israel just wandered and wandered in
wilderness.
50 times, he heard the promise of milk and honey.
50 times, he sat with Moses on Mt. Nebo.
Then, as Moses lay dying for the 50th time, a knock came at Anderson’s door. And again he was whisked away, but this time, by grace, to freedom. Do you remember his landing in New York? Do you recall his walk across the tarmak? Do you recollect his drive—they closed the highway to all traffic—to Midtown? Do you remember his words? “I have faith in God”.
It’s one thing to grow up in Batavia and build a life.
It’s another thing, hooded and chained and trapped in later life to see life redeemed. And some bondage comes to us all. That’s power. That’s restoration. That’s power.
I Expect Great Things
45 years ago, Martin King was killed. But he transformed our land. His words transformed our rhetoric. His marches changed our culture. His leadership fashioned a new middle class. His hope kindled our hope. His courage inspired our own. 45 years ago. I love a story he told many times about power, redeeming power. So hidden we miss it, in borrowed upper room, in a tragic crucifixion, in a temporary tomb, in a woman’s report of resurrection, in little hands, scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing to finish the new creation…
The gnarled hands—the cross, Good Friday. The expectation—the resurrection, Easter. (No matter who you are today, somebody helped you to get there. It may have been an ordinary person, doing an ordinary job in an extraordinary way. ) Here is restoration from your neighborhood:
There is a magnificent lady, with all the beauty of blackness and black culture, by the name of Marion Anderson that you’ve heard about and read about and some of you have seen. She started out as a little girl singing in the choir of the Union Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And then came that glad day when she made it. And she stood in Carnegie Hall with the Philharmonic Orchestra in the background in New York, singing with the beauty that is matchless. Then she came to the end of the concert, singing Ave Maria as nobody else can sing it. And they called her back and back and back, and she finally ended by singing, ‘Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen’. And her mother was sitting out in the audience, and she started crying; tears were flowing down her cheeks. And the person next to her said, “Mrs Anderson, Why are you crying? Your daughter is scoring tonight. The critics tomorrow will be lavishing their praise on her. Why are you crying?
And Mrs. Anderson looked over with tears still flowing and said, “I’m not crying because I’m sad, I’m crying for joy.” She went on to say, “You may not remember, you wouldn’t know. But I remember when Marian was growing up, and I was working in a kitchen till my hands were all but parched, my eyebrows all but scalded. I was working there to make it possible for my daughter to get an education. And I remember Marian came to see me and said, “Mother, I don’t want to see you having to work like this.” And I looked down and said, “Honey, I don’t mind it. I’m doing it for you and I expect great things of you.”
And finally one day somebody asked Marian Anderson in later years, “Miss Anderson, what has the been the happiest moment of your life? Was it that moment in Carnegie Hall in New York?” She said, “No, that wasn’t it/” “Was it that moment you stood before the Kings and Queens of Europe?” “No that wasn’t it”. “ Well, Miss Anderson, was it the moment Sibelius of Finland declared that his roof was too low for such a voice?” “No, that wasn’t it.” “Miss Anderson, was it the moment that Toscanini said that a voice like your comes only once in a century?” “No, that wasn’t it.” “What was it then, Miss Anderson.” And she looked up and said quietly, “The happiest moment in my life was the moment I could say, “Mother, you can stop working now.”
Marian Anderson realized that she was where she was because somebody helped her to get there. (MLKing, “A Knock at Midnight”). That’s restoration. In the mother’s gnarled hands—the cross. In the mother’s voiced and great expecations—the resurrection.
Endnote
You are a people soaked in a sense of restoration! The church: women at the tomb! The church: loving rebuilding not just building! The church: you present today, voicing redemption! The church: waiting six years with Terry Anderson in prison! The church: giving Augustine grace! The church: singing with the voice of Marian Anderson!
Wonderfully created, more wonderfully restored…
Come ye faithful raise the strain
Of triumphant gladness
God has brought his Israel
Into joy from sadness.
Loosed from Pharaoh’s bitter yoke
Jacob’s Sons and Daughters
Traveled with unmoistened foot
Through the Red Sea waters.
~The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel
The real text for my sermon this evening is the two verses preceding the official text from Luke, namely, Luke 23: 55-56. “The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.” Matthew and Mark agree that after Jesus was dead, the women gathered spices but had to wait out the Sabbath before they could embalm Jesus. John differs by saying that Nicodemus already had embalmed Jesus with spices before he was placed in the tomb. But they all agree that the Sabbath was a time through which the disciples just had to wait. Our Easter Vigil symbolizes that waiting. But unlike the disciples whose wait looked back toward the Good Friday death and desolation, ours points toward the joy of Easter.
Jesus’ original disciples spent the Sabbath in traumatized disorientation. They did not know who or where they were after the shock of Jesus’ arrest, the hurried denials and evasions by the leading disciples, and the crucifixion. The text says they rested, but that was because of the commandment regarding the Sabbath. I can’t imagine it was a peaceful rest.
Consider this theological point. There is a profound sense in which Good Friday and Easter are always simultaneously with us, not the latter succeeding the former. Every day we orient ourselves to follow Christ by picking up our cross. Some days are worse than others but life is a continual minefield of crosses. Likewise every day we enjoy the new life of fulfilled orientation to God as in Easter. Every day grace abounds if we but have the eyes to see. Part of the maturation of spiritual life is keeping our feet on the ground as we traverse the minefield of crosses while keeping our eyes on heaven where we already live in God’s light and joy. But I want to say that the experience of Holy Saturday, the day of waiting after desolation and before joy, is also a dimension of every day. Every day we live in a condition of profound disorientation, just like the first disciples, and we require a spirituality to embrace that too.
We orient our lives by a great many things, but I believe they fall into five ultimate categories.
First, we orient ourselves by how we deal with the choices in our lives. Each of us every day faces value-laden possibilities, and how we choose determines our moral character. We all make bad choices sometimes and it is common for us to think of ourselves as sinners who need forgiveness and mercy. We are disoriented with regard to our obligations when we do not know how to live with ourselves and our bad choices.
Second, we orient ourselves by how we deal with the need for wholeness and integrity in our personal lives. Sometimes we are quite literally broken with illness, disability, or other crippling conditions that inhibit our integration. In deeper senses, becoming whole means coming to terms with the important components of our lives, our talents and career dreams, our families of origin, God bless them, our social conditions such as race, class, wealth, and intelligence, the major historical issues of our watch, and a host of other things. Each of us has a wrangle of internal conditions that are integrated one way or another but often in ways that are contradictory, fragmented, and deadening. The quest for wholeness is deep and unending. Third, we orient ourselves by how we relate to other people and to the institutions and natural ecologies of our environment. In some respects, these others are internal to our own experience and we treat them according to how they lie in our orientation to personal wholeness. But that is also to miss the very point of their otherness. Those other things are not just part of us but exist in their own right. Every religion says that we should love those other things. Loving other people is not the same thing as loving institutions or loving various things in our natural environment. But love involves some kind of appropriate respect for those others precisely as other than ourselves but equally creatures of God. Jesus was particularly strong on the commandment of love.
Fourth, we orient ourselves by how we find worth and meaning in life. Some of our value consists in how we integrate our lives’ components. But we also have effects on others for better or worse, effects that they have to integrate into their lives in ways beyond our control. We have impacts on the institutions in which we live. Our very metabolism impacts the environment. Our value-identity in ultimate perspective is not only what we have integrated into our lives but the effects for better and worse we have on others who have to integrate our effects into their own integral reality.
Fifth, perhaps the most important domain of orientation is how we relate to the very existence of our world, especially of ourselves and place. Do we affirm the creation in gratitude and joy? Or is there a low-voiced bagpipe drone of resentment at having to navigate that minefield of crosses, at having to live life so full of failure and suffering, of struggling alongside Job to respond to his wife’s advice to curse God and die? Sometimes our orientation to life is to give up, and that temptation is nearly always with us.
The problems of righteousness, quests for wholeness, relations with others, what our lives add up to, and how we relate to our Creator are ultimate conditions of human existence. They define us existentially in ultimate ways. To the extent we have symbols and practices to engage these ultimates, we are religious. In one sense, everyone is oriented in all these ways. But often we are oriented badly. Sometimes the loss of those symbols and practices disorients us. I wager each person here has suffered ultimate disorientation at least momentarily when the religious path gets lost.
Consider the first disciples on the Sabbath. They had been galvanized to transform their lives and follow Jesus by coming to adopt something like the following story. Jesus brought them into a radical reordering of their religion’s moral life by saying it was a matter of the heart, not just behavior, as in the Sermon on the Mount. Joining with him in this movement healed them in various ways and made them more whole. The journey for which he was the new Moses required them to love one another, more, to love those outside their ingroup, indeed to love their enemies, and they were slowly learning such love. Their lives were given transformative meaning because of their participation in this story of the incoming of the kingdom of God where Jesus would rule and the Twelve Disciples would be his viceroys over the tribes of Israel. God in this story was not only the creator but the triumphant king who would bring about justice, destroy evil, and reward his followers with love and mercy. Something like this is what they believed, and many Christians believe this today, indeed think it is the meaning of Easter.
But by the first Holy Saturday this story was in shambles. The moral purification of his Judaism was ground to pieces in the underhanded collusion between its leaders and the feckless Pilate. The sense of personal healing was destroyed by the failure of the renewal project and manifested in the betrayal and abandonment of Jesus by the disciples. The relation to the world that was supposed to be loving was slammed back in the dirty politics leading to crucifixion, snapping Jesus alleged kingship like a twig. Jesus was not going to be king and rule in justice in the divine kingdom. And the Creator sent no angels, did not take away the cup, and was just absent: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?!!” Nothing that previously had oriented the disciples in ultimate ways was left. That story was false.
Sometimes we suffer from a similar disorientation. For instance, think about the Church. One of the ancient images of the Church is that it is the Ark, like Noah’s Ark, that can carry us to salvation. The Ark is an orienting metaphor. But then, when we realize that our Church in the 21st century denies the full humanity of large groups of people, for example homosexuals, or in the 20th century denied the legitimate findings of science in the name of a culture-bound misappropriation of the Bible, or in the 19th century defended the enslavement of large numbers of people, or in the Middle Ages whipped up crusades to kick ass for Jesus, the leaky Ark can no longer provide ultimate orientation. Now, I could have referred to the crusades as “passionate devotion to hastening the Kingdom of God,” as they spoke of it then. But they were so mistaken as to be vulgar, and my vulgar phrase is more appropriate. When the aura of our customary communal orientations to salvation turns from holy to vulgar, we feel something of the disorientation of Holy Saturday.
Or consider your more personal senses of ultimate orientation. Have you ever thought that some choice you made was so evil in its consequences, wicked in its motivation, and culpable regarding your moral character that you wouldn’t accept forgiveness if it were offered? Have you ever felt so broken and contradictory to the core that you abandon hope for personal integrity of any sort? Have you ever felt that your failure to love, not the heroic love of enemies that Jesus commanded but the simple love of friends he said was easy, is so egregious that you hate yourself? Have you ever thought that all the things you believed make life meaningful are delusions fit for children? Have you ever raged against the God, or the accident, that gave you life because it’s just not worth it? I suspect all of us have even if we usually hide those feelings under an apple-butter layer of piety. I suspect we have these feelings thrumming away in our psyches all the time.
In themselves, these feelings are part of life and are not disorienting. What is disorienting is not to have religious symbols, beliefs, and practices that acknowledge them and give them proper orientation. The problem with these feelings is that they undermine and show up as shams so many of the domestic orienting structures of our religion. Holy Saturday symbolizes the pervasive and profound sense that our religion is in shambles.
I said at the beginning that we, unlike the first disciples, abide Holy Saturday with an orientation to Easter morning. Now let me tell you what Easter is not. Easter is not an affirmation of some old story that postulates victory so as to erase the desolation of Good Friday and the disorientation of Holy Saturday. That triumphalist theology has been common in Christian history but it is just whistling in the dark. Easter is not the happy ending of a story that had some dark moments. In fact, Easter is the demonstration that, despite our many stories that give life proximate meanings, ultimate orientation cannot be in a story at all. The problem is the belief that any story can give ultimate orientation. One of the meanings of Good Friday is that the actual story of each of us is that we inevitably lose and die. One of the meanings of Holy Saturday is that no story ultimately can justify our moral lives, or our brokenness, or our estrangements, or our despair, or our hatred of existence. The Easter gospel requires us to give up on stories for ultimate orientation and come to ourselves in God irrespective of our stories.
The resurrection means that God is never absent after all, despite how it seemed to Jesus on the cross. The astonishing thing about the symbolic power of the resurrection is that it says that ultimate orientation for us all comes from finding our center in God the Creator, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. What happened in Jesus’ story and in ours, is not ultimately important, and this is ultimately important to recognize. As sources of orientation, our stories are to be relativized in light of our fundamental orientation to God our Creator.
The problem with our stories, true as they might be, is that they make it seem as if we are the centers of our lives. But to the contrary God is the center of our lives. God’s creation is the ultimate cosmic reality, and our own parts in it are only proximately important and then only to us. Easter is not about Jesus beating Pilate, or the Devil. It is not about God rescuing his Son from a sticky situation. It is about the glorious reality of God everywhere and always grounding and holding all our stories, a truth so easy to forget when we live under the illusion that our stories are ultimately rather than proximately important.
Our Easter joy is to accept our moral lives for what they are, including our failures, and to tunnel beyond morality to God the creator of an immensely value-filled universe. Easter joy is to accept the brokenness of our lives and meditate into to the wholeness of God who gives us our complexities. Easter joy is to accept our estrangements and enter into God’s glorious fecundity in the Other anyway. Easter joy is to accept the fragmentations of life’s so-called meanings and receive the depths of God who creates all things, even those that do not add up. Easter joy is to accept the world as it is and consent to being in general because this is God’s act.
So you see that, with the truly ultimate orientation to God, our Easter joy brings a sense of humor to the proximate stories of our moral adventures, quests for wholeness, fumbling attempts to love, concerns about what we are worth, and essays to say whether life is worth living. Because of God, whatever we do and are ultimately is just fine. Life is a comedy after all. Easter is a riot of laughter, from God’s perspective.
With such an ultimate orientation, decentering ourselves and centering our orientation on God, of course we should go back to ordinary life and try to do better morally, to become more whole, to love better, to enrich the world as best we can, and to love the God who gives us life. Let’s hear it for sanctification! These proximate stories are the actual content of the life we must engage, the stories of our watch. Because of the Easter orientation to God we can start afresh in each of these ways. But the Easter theme of “new life” is consequent upon coming to ourselves in God rather than hunting for ourselves in our stories. Our ultimate identity is manifest when we take ourselves ultimately seriously with a sense of humor.
Have you ever wondered why our religion emphasizes Jesus as so meek and humble? Why does it emphasize Passion-week which is the story of the failure of his regal story? Why do we preach Christ crucified? It is because we believe our true orientation is in God and not the historical victory of some regal divinity. What did Jesus do? Beat the Romans? Purify Second Temple Judaism? Heal everybody? Make proper theologians of the disciples? Bring righteousness to Zion? Behave like a proper Messiah? No, he accepted the cross and commended his soul to God.
The Easter joy in which we come to ourselves in God allows us also to inhabit the particular stories of our lives with their Good Friday minefields of crosses, but with a sense of humor. It also allows us to acknowledge our disorientations that come with the ambiguities of morality, integrity, engagement, meaning, and life-affirmation; we can abide Holy Saturday with a laugh—who needs all that story-orientation to be ultimate anyway? With Easter joy we consent to God in our small ways as God consents to us in the great creation of which we are humble parts. Amen.
~ The Rev. Dr. Robert Cummings Neville
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Introduction (Nico Romeijn-Stout):
Three days before Life triumphed over sin and death, Jesus, knowing what was about to happen, took the time to gather with his closest community to celebrate a ritual meal. His disciples thought that they were present to celebrate the Passover, but the evening did not unfold as any of them had imagined. Instead their time together in the Upper Room was full of new experiences, of new rituals.
Here tonight we will embody three ancient Christian traditions associated with Maundy Thursday: foot washing, communion, and the stripping of the sanctuary. This worship service can become a bit overwhelming with so many rituals back to back. We challenge you, as we navigate this service together, to be mindful of the reasons for the rituals.
As we hear in today’s Gospel lesson, during the meal Jesus got up, took off his outer robe, and washed his disciples’ feet. The Teacher and Lord humbled himself in service to his disciples. Jesus set for them and for us an example, a pattern of service which we should emulate.
In that same meal, Jesus also set for us an example of how we should eat as a community. In the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup, Jesus gave us a pattern by which to remember him. When we eat the bread and drink the cup, we are reminded of the Life and Covenant through Jesus Christ.
Tonight we also follow in ancient Christian tradition by stripping our sanctuary of all decorative and liturgical objects as a reminder of both the barrenness of a world without Christ, and also to make room for the new Life we find in the resurrection of Easter.
Jesus, who is the path to Life Eternal, recognized that we would need nourishment in order to thrive. And so he gave us Life-giving rituals to sustain us. Tonight we remember those rituals.
Stripping (Caitlin White):
Stripping of the altar is an ancient tradition that Christian communities celebrate in many different ways. Some, like Marsh Chapel, believe that this is a time of reflection on the weighty emotions and issues of the passion and resurrection. Here at Marsh Chapel, we strip our sanctuary of liturgical decorations to reflect the barrenness of a world without Christ. We make the space to reflect on the worst of human deeds on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Ours is a theological position that allows people to embrace whatever truths they might find in their own reflection- whatever personal narratives relate for them, whatever view of sin and redemption they understand, whatever beauty or disgust they behold in the crucifixion- it makes room for the truths of many people.
Many communities with a similar understanding of the ritual also strip the sanctuary of everything but leave a single cross shrouded in dark cloth, a symbol of the spiritual weight and mourning of the season.
Many Christian communities are much more fixed upon the notion of atonement- the idea that Jesus had to suffer and die for us to be forgiven. Many strip the altar to remember how Jesus was stripped of dignity, clothes, and finally his life, but that may not be a theology that all of us embrace. At least, that might only be one aspect of all that the cross can be for you.
As Dean Hill reminded us in his meditation on the Passion this past Sunday, “Easter defines Holy Week, and not the other way around. The resurrection follows but does not replace the cross. The cross precedes but does not overshadow the resurrection. It is Life that has the last word.”
My challenge therefore to those who hold an atoning, sacrificial way of thinking about this ritual is not that I necessary disagree, but that Christians in our culture (myself included) have a poor understanding of sacrifice, of waiting and of loss. How can we? In a world of fast food, fad diets, and disposable everything, we have forgotten patience and the seasons of life.
Perhaps the question for us today should be: What are you being stripped of? Why did we just do Lenten reflections? Why give up chocolate – is it just a way to not gain weight in time for spring break and the beginning of summer, or is there something more there? I often think we get caught up in the altar mentality- we give up things because it is hard, not because they are wiser left behind.
Any good gardener knows that the first thing you must do in the spring is pull up all the weeds that have taken over your soil. If anything good and intentional is to take root, it can’t be bumping into other forces, other agendas that rob it of the resources to survive.
The purpose of our ritual should be to root out what distracts us, those noisy things that rob us of positivity, purpose, and connectedness to God, ourselves, and one another. We need to give our time, resources, and communal creativity to something that feeds our spiritual growth and brings more light into the world.
Communion (Nico)
An incredibly intelligent 9 year-old named Becca, in order to be allowed to recieve communion, explained it like this: Jesus knew that his friends would miss him. He also knew they had to eat every day. So, he told them to remember him when they ate and that they should eat together. That way they’d be able to be friends and get through anything.”
The communion liturgy I am most familiar draws upon 1 Corinthians 10:17 in which Paul writes “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” Elsewhere in 1 Corinthians, Paul chastises members of the community for the way in which they are eating their communal meals – a practice probably tied closely to practices of communion. What was happening was that some members of the community were beginning to eat before others had even arrived, causing a rift in the body.
You see, from Paul’s first-century pen to Becca’s twenty-first century lips, Christian understandings of communion have always been founded upon community. When we gather at the table, we are united in this meal. When we break bread, we are one body. This is a meal to cast off divisions, to cast off hierarchies and inequalities and simply to come, in unity as one body.
In the tradition of Marsh Chapel the communion table is open. All are welcome to come forward and receive communion. But the question we must ask is not so much who is welcome, but who is invited? And that question must begin to be asked not in the middle of a service of worship, but rather after the service, when we leave the sanctuary, go into the streets of Boston, into our neighborhoods. It is a question we must carry with us as we prepare to gather again every Sunday for ordered worship. It is a question which must dwell as much with pew-dwellers as with pulpit-dwellers.
The ritual of Holy Communion is a life-giving ritual. It is a meal in which we may be physically and spiritually fed. Jesus gave us this ritual of community, a ritual to sustain the lives of his followers. Given its life-sustaining nature, perhaps we should interpret communion in light of the example-giving life Jesus led. In his life, Jesus gave us the example by which we should be in community, by which we should feed ourselves and others. In his life, Jesus gave us the example by which we should live, and by which we should serve.
Foot washing – service (Caitlin):
The service of foot washing- that moment you have all been waiting for, grooming for, wondering how many days your neighbor has recycled those heavy wool socks for. It isn’t a very common spiritual practice for many people and I will be the first to admit that it can be awkward. I will also tell you that it can be thought provoking and spiritually enriching as well- precisely because it is uncomfortable. So why of all the ways to display service did Jesus chose this strange ritual? Why did Jesus choose a ritual at all?
Psychologist, speaker, and activist, Staci Haines might have some insights for my questions. In 2011, I attended a Calling Congregations conference offered by the Fund for Theological Education where she spoke to a crowd of both clergy and laity who seek to renew the church particularly by involving and equipping its young people. She challenged them with the findings of psychology that in recent years has begun to understand that our memories are really in our muscles. The body, in time of panic and adversity, will bypass logic and emotionalism and shortcut to whatever patterns we have trained our muscles for. Aristotle was right- we are what we habitually do. Our problem in the church, she observed, is that our vision- our ideals- our mission statements do not sync up with our practices. We want to put an end to suffering and hunger but we treat service like an event, not a life style. We want to throw our doors open to everyone with love but we haven’t gotten to know anyone who doesn’t look, act, and live like us in so long we’ve forgotten how. We have to retrain our practices to look more like our hopes.
Perhaps, Jesus also understood that rituals can retrain our bodies and our practices. So he took this last chance to serve his disciples.
In tonight’s service, we sing hymns, read lessons, and receive communion, all before foot washing. Honestly, that is because we think it is gross to touch feet and then food. However, in the Jewish custom of Jesus’ time, foot washing would have been the first event of the evening. Ritual cleaning is how you prepared for a meal, for Jesus’ breaking of the bread, to hear his message… Jesus started the evening with service. In times of danger and doubt, serving others was his first reflex, his instinctive response. And he asked them to imitate their Lord- to learn to serve one another in the same humbling way.
Of all the things Jesus could have saved to say for that moment- that last meal- he said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another… Just as I have loved you.” At least that is how the writer of John reports it to us. But was it really a new commandment? Didn’t that whole love other people concept show up a few times by then? I’m not convinced that it was all that groundbreaking for Jesus. I suspect that this has a lot more to do with our human tendency to need reminding. And given how absentminded the disciples are portrayed throughout the gospels, I’d guess that they were no exception to the rule. Jesus knew that we need practices that Remind us that love was the way of Christ- Remove us from old habits to try-try again until service is our first instinct- AND Reform our vision for the future so that we might live into it more fully.
Conclusion:
(Nico) In removing us from our old habits of living in isolation from our neighbors, isolation even from those who sit at the table with us; in reforming our vision so that we may see a future in which we are all more fully alive, Jesus has shown us the way.
(Caitlin) In showing us the way, Jesus last teaching to his community was love – and so it should be ours as well.
(Nico) We walk in the footsteps of Jesus when we… Love others.
(Caitlin) We walk in the footsteps of Jesus when we… Serve others.
(Nico) We walk in the footsteps of Jesus when we…Break bread with community.
(Caitlin) As we are stripping the sanctuary, we are stripping it of things, not of people. As we prepare to remember the death of Christ, let’s not strip Jesus’ message of Life. It is Life that has the last word – and that word is Love.
~Nico Romeijn-Stout and Caitlin White, Ministry Associates
Click here to hear the full service.
A Meditation on the Palms
Seeing With the Heart: Meditations from Marsh Chapel, 2010
The Dean: If we believe that life has meaning and purpose
People: And we do
The Dean: If we believe that the Giver of Life loves us
People: And we do
The Dean: If we believe that divine love lasts
People: And we doThe Dean: If we believe that justice, mercy, and humility endure
People: And we do
The Dean: If we believe that God so loved the world to give God’s only Son
People: And we do
The Dean: If we believe that Jesus is the transcript in time of God in eternity
People: And we do
The Dean: If we believe that all God’s children are precious in God’s sight
People: And we do
The Dean: If we believe grace and forgiveness are the heart of the universe
People: And we do
The Dean: If we believe that God has loved us personally
People: And we do
The Dean: If we believe in God
People: And we do
The Dean: Then we shall trust God over the valley of the shadow of death
People: And we shall
The Dean: Then we shall trust that love is stronger than death
People: And we shall
The Dean: Then we shall trust the mysterious promise of resurrection
People: And we shall
The Dean: Then we shall trust the faith of Christ, relying on faith alone
People: And we shall
The Dean: Then we shall trust the enduring worth of personality
People: And we shall
The Dean: Then we shall trust that just deeds, merciful words are never vain
People: And we shall
The Dean: Then we shall trust the Giver of Life to give eternal life
People: And we shall
The Dean: Then we shall trust the source of love to love eternally
People: And we shall
The Dean: Then we shall trust that we rest protected in God’s embrace
People: And we shall
The Dean: Then we shall trust in God
People: And we shall.
A Meditation on the Passion Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill
Deliver Us From Evil, 2005
The Dean: To the question of evil let us live our answer by choosing the cruciform path of faith.
People: Let us meet evil with honesty, grief with grace, failure with faith, and death with dignity.The Dean: Let us carry ourselves in belief.
People: Let us affirm the faith of Christ which empowers to withstand what we cannot understand.
The Dean: Let us remember that it is not the passion of Christ that defines the Person of Christ, but the Person that defines the passion.
People: Let us remember that it is not suffering that bears meaning, but a sense of meaning that bears up under suffering.
The Dean: Let us remember that it is not the cross that carries the love but the love that carries the cross.
People: Let us remember that it is not crucifixion that encompasses salvation, but salvation that encompasses even the tragedy of crucifixion.
The Dean: Let us remember and that it is not the long sentence of Holy week, with all its phrases, dependent clauses and semi‐colons that completes the gospel, but it is the punctuation to come in seven days, the last mark of the week to come in 168 hours, whether it be the exclamation point of Peter, the full stop period of Paul or the question mark of Mary—Easter defines Holy Week, and not the other way around. The resurrection follows but does not replace the cross. The cross precedes but does not overshadow the resurrection. It is Life that has the last word and there is a God to whom we may pray, in the assurance of being heard: “Deliver us from evil”
~The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel
