Sunday
October 2
The Sacrament of Conversation
By Marsh Chapel
Click here to listen to the full service
Click here to listen to the meditations only
Sacrament: Conversation
Our theme at Marsh this year is Conversation. Sacrament means mystery. 2 Sacraments and 5 sacramental rites shape our life of faith. John Wesley named 5 means of grace including conversation (Scripture, Prayer, Eucharist\Baptism, Fasting, Conversation). Vancouver 1983, WCC, ‘in Christ there is no East or West’.
Conversation: Sacrament
Iva. A Winter Sunday. So angry. (Janitor). My PhD that year. ‘Of course, you know, they have PhD’s. I should be more understanding. They have PhD’s. You really can’t expect much. (J). Learning is no substitute for meaning. Making of living is no substitute for leading a life. Your field work is no substitute for your domestic duties. Learning is good and very good, but it will not alone lead you to meaning. Our business at Marsh Chapel is not talent but grace. We would rather have untalented grace than graceless talent. As Wesley, ‘we would rather throw over all the libraries in the world than lose one soul’.
Lamentations
Jeremiah may or may not have written this. Catharsis of grief and despair is the aim of the poems (we can use this). They are all acrostics (facilitates memorization). ‘The pent up emotion of a people who had lost practically everything that belonged to their former way of life IBD’. Historical faith vs. historical actuality. ‘What is the meaning of the terrible calamities that have overtaken us?’ A new, firmer faith emerges, dominated by strong convictions: responsibility for sin; the disciplinary value of suffering; the absolute justice and abiding love of God; the inscrutability of God’s ways; the unconquerable trust of the believer; the necessity of patience.
Luke
Your field work is no substitute for your domestic duties. Men and parenting. Students and parents. Adults and mature parents. Civil Society including church and worship.
Slavery is here used as a positive analogy. It is Biblical and dominical, ‘Jesus says…’ Should we then affirm slavery? This is the hermeneutic of the evangelical Christians who use 6 verses in all of Scripture to support bigotry against gays. The Bible has a history, too, as do you.
You are not finished once you have recited the conjugations, written out the periodic table, aced introduction to computer science, memorized the ten presidents of BU and the 44 of the USA, and defined the teleological suspension of the ethical.
Faith as a mustard seed. ‘Faith that mountains can move’. Hyperbole (eye, pluck it out, etc). The way of discipleship: worship, prayer, study, tithing, faithfulness, charity, hospitality. ‘Service!’ At your service. At your disposal. Ministry is service. Ministry is to put yourself at another’s disposal.
Condition according to fact (even if you only had faith the size of a seed it would be enough, but you have a whole lot more than that!)
Spirit
Spirit: The church as the bride of Christ: conversation, divine and human.
We are here with you because we are here for you (repeat). We have come from many regions of the world and many ranges of your past experience in order to be present here, to share your presence, and our presence with you. Here with you, we are here for you.
And yet, quite soon, we will not be present, at least most of us. You will go off on your own for another week. We will need to give you over, and to give over to…Another Presence, God’s Presence. God’s presence, spirit, or, as the reading for today names it, God’s Abiding in us. As will you, day by day, so will we need to trust in…Another Presence.
You will sense the warm breeze, the sunlit horizon, the abiding grace of God’s Presence by its fruit (Galatians 5:23). Another Presence, of which you become aware, in your daily life together, by sensing the fruit of this presence. God’s love abides in us and is made whole in us, through these marks, these footprints, these touches of grace.
In Love. Love is the attentive gift of time, as in the course of a lifetime of faithfulness—in family, in friendship, in work, in marriage. In Love.
In Joy. Joy is happy embrace—physical, mental, spiritual, soulful—morning and evening. In Joy.
In Peace. Peace is the gift—all these are pure gifts of God—of real listening, listening with a full smile and a glad heart. In Peace.
In Patience. You need persistence, the accelerator, and patience, the break, to make it over the mountains and through the deserts, and across the great plains of life. Said the Buddha: patience is self-compassion which gives you equanimity. In Patience.
In Kindness. Kindness is the long distance run, the gift of a gracious long distance perspective, known in part in the openness to forgiveness. In Kindness.
In Goodness. Real Goodness bursts forth in generosity. You only have what you give away, and you only truly possess what you have the grace and freedom to offer to someone else. What you give is what you have. In Goodness.
In Faith. Faith is a gift, like all other signs of abiding love. Faith is the capacity to withstand what and when we cannot understand (repeat). When you face struggle, challenge, difficulty, may this gift be yours by divine grace. In Faith.
In Gentleness. Tea, sunset, backrub, quiet, handholding, prayer, worship. In Gentleness.
In Self-Control. Self-Control, a gift of God’s Presence, guides you to work through any and all labors: in care for family and extended family; in stewardship of precious material wealth, never plentiful but always sufficient; in sensitivity in intimacy, sexuality, in preparing for an unforeseen future; in the building of community—yes religious community, but also neighborhood, town, school, city, and a culture gradually amenable to faith. In Self-Control.
You will sense the warm breeze, the sunlit horizon, the abiding grace of God’s Presence by its fruit (Galatians 5:23). Another Presence, of which you become aware, in your daily life together, by sensing the fruit of this presence. God’s love abides in us and is made whole in us, through these marks, these footprints, these touches of grace.
Into Another Presence, into Another’s Presence, we send you, for another week. With Ruth may you say: ‘Wither thou goest I will go, wither thou lodgest I will lodge, they people shall be my people, and thy God my God.’
– The Reverend Doctor, Robert Allan Hill, Dean.
Leave a Reply