Sunday
August 21
The Lukan Horizon
By Marsh Chapel
Click here to listen to the full service
Click here to listen to the meditations only
Come summer in the north, we are closer in some ways to nature, than we are otherwise. You may be listening this morning, toes in the surf or sand, or high up a mountain trail, or along a lakeshore, or in the back lawn, coffee in hand. We need the summer to survive the winter. You are wise to embrace it.
In the evening hour, with a tenebrous cool after a long, hot day, you may have, this summer, looked out on a horizon, blue and pink and moving. The day has a beginning at sunrise, and an end at sunset. To know the day you need to know both, as to know a person you need some information regarding whence and more regarding wither. To know people, and to know a people, the far horizon, tenebrous at dusk, is keenly, crucially meaningful. Quo vadis? Where are you headed? Dime a donde andas, y te dire quien eres.
A question for those to be married: where will you be ten years from today? A question for those to matriculate: to what end is your education? A question for those entering retirement: are there now different shores on which to land? A question for those newly diagnosed, suddenly alone, shorn of routine, anxious about the unseen: what is the ‘telos’, the point, the soul forming meaning of your disappointment, dislocation, or departure? Our gospel affirms lasting meaning in life.
In particular, the Gospel of Luke paints a compassionate horizon. The third gospel has a passion for compassion. In a broad compassion Luke locates our ultimate destination.
The National Preacher Series
Today concludes the tenth year of our annual Marsh Chapel Summer National Preacher Series. Our intention has been to bring the best preachers—the best whether or not the best known—to address, either in some indirect or in some more linear fashion, a shared theme. Listen again, on the website to some of our past sermons. Consider ‘the Gifts of Summer’ in 2007, including the missionary witness of Mark and Lynn Baker. Hear again (now) Bishop Mike McKee on the Call to Ministry in 2008. Pick any of the ten sermons on Darwin and Faith from 2009, say that of Wesley Wildman. Receive the Gospel from (now) Bishop Ken Carter, on the theme of Grace in 2010. Hear Rev. Dr. Robin Olson on student ministry in 2011, or enjoy again the venerable voice of our saintly (now)deceased friend and neighbor, Professor Peter Gomes, earlier that year. Learn about New Testament Apocalyptic, say with Dr. David Jacobsen, in 2012. Enjoy the Peter Falk like voice of Dean Snyder, so wise and true, on Hope in the Church, 2013. Reckon with Professor Jonathan Walton, summer 2014, on Emerging Adulthood. Or reflect again on the Beloved Community, from last summer 2015, with the Rev. Dr. Regina Walton. Our is a University Pulpit, and with your aid, support and engagement we shall continue to unite the pair so long disjoined, knowledge and vital piety.
The Summer Series 2016
Your 2016 series made some news earlier this summer. Our local reporter, Mr. Richard Barlow of BU Today wrote about the 2016 series:
The series kicks off Sunday, July 3, with the first of seven sermons on Luke’s Gospel and its central theme of compassion. The Lukan Horizon, as the series is named, seeks “to remember the compassion—the passion for compassion—in the person of Jesus the Christ,” says…dean of Marsh Chapel. The Gospel stresses humanitarianism and forgiveness; it’s the only one of the four Gospels with the stories of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, and it is full of sympathetic portrayals of women.
This message… contrasts with the “less than appealing and frankly appalling conditions of some parts of our culture that have been revealed in some ranges of (our recent experience).”
The compassion motif also echoes several recent Commencement addresses, Hill says, including the Baccalaureate talk this spring by Peace Corps director Carrie Hessler-Radelet (CAS’79, Hon.’16), who called on BU graduates to “embrace the cause of humanity with optimism and enthusiasm.” (BU Today, June 2016). (We could quickly add the magnificent speech given this spring at the Boston University Humphrey Scholars graduation program May 9, 2016 by Hubert Humphrey’s niece, Dr. Ann Howard Tristani, who quoted her uncle’s famous 1948 spell binding Philadelphia aspeech: ‘There will be no hedging, no watering down, of the instruments and the principles of the civil rights program. My friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say we are 172 years late…To those who say this bill is an infringement on state’s rights, I say the time has arrived in America. The time has arrived for the Democratic party to get out of the shadow states rights and walk forthrightly intot he bright sunshine of human rights.’ It is both stunning and tragic to recognize how much of what he addressed then is still with us this great, but troubled land, in today’s issues of urban violence and its state level address, in affordable health care usage (or not) state by state, in the lasting not just lingering formative power of slavery in the making of American Capitalism, in the willingness or lack thereof of those who have much, to provide for others who have little, in the use of a word like ‘liberty’ to mean its opposite, its very denial to tens of millions of poor children.
Luke 13: Gospel and Tradition
Luke was written nearly a generation later than Mark, by most estimates, Mark in or near 70, Luke in or near 90 of the common era (in fact, possible much later). Traditionally ascribed to Luke the physician, its author and that of its sequel, the Acts of the Apostles, is finally unknown to us. We know him only through the writing itself.
What do we find?
Luke is made up of a mixture of ingredients. First, Luke uses most of Mark. An example is the memory of our passage today, Luke 13. Like Matthew, Luke knew and repeated most of the earlier gospel of Mark. But he made changes along the way, or construed the gospel according to his own desires and emphases. This is hopeful for us, in that it is an encouragement for us to take the gospel in hand, and interpret it according to our time, location, understanding, and need. In fact, we are summoned and ordered to do so, and not free not to do so. Second, Luke uses a collection of teachings, called Q, as does Matthew. An example is our Lord’s Prayer, later in the service. Luke’s version is slightly different from that in Matthew, as is his version of the beatitudes and other teachings, found in the ‘sermon on the plain’, rather than the ‘sermon on the mount’. Third, Luke makes ample use of material that is all his own, not found in Mark or elsewhere. The long chapters from Luke 8 or so through Luke 18 or so, where we find ourselves this morning, are all his. Examples include some of your favorite parables, like the Good Samaritan, and like the lost sheep, and like the Prodigal Son, and like the Dishonest Steward. We have Luke to thank for the remembrance of these great stories. Luke brings us a unique mixture of materials, and makes his own particular use of them.
What does Luke say?
This will take us the rest of the fall and more to more fully unravel. We shall do so, on step at a time, one Sunday at a time, one parable, teaching, exhortation, miracle, or, as today, one traditional episode at a time. Still, there are some outstanding features of the Lukan horizon, which we may simply name as we set forth. First, Luke displays a commitment to and interest in history, and orderly history at that. Both Luke and Acts are cast in a distinctive historical mode. Second, Luke employs and deploys his own theology, or theological perspective, including this emphasis upon history and the divine purpose, or better said, divine meaning, in history—on this more in a moment. Third, Luke highlights the humanity and compassion of Jesus in a remarkable way. The Christ of St. Luke is the Christ of magnificent compassion, embodied in the humility of a birth among shepherds. The poor, women, the stranger, the injured, those in dire need all stand out in Luke, as the recipients and subjects of Jesus’ love, mercy, grace and compassion. Fourth, Luke carries an abiding interest in the church. Ephesians says that ‘through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principles and powers’. That catches the spirit of the author or the third gospel and of the Acts to follow. It is this feature of Luke, the Lukan Horizon, the Lukan passion for compassion, upon which our preaching has centered this summer. So we are taught: know history, think for yourself, love the church, have compassion.
Compassion in interreligious dialogue framed and formed the sermon by Br. Lawrence Whitney on July 3: ‘ritual restrains our tendency toward indifference and causes us to recognize one another’. Compassion for those at the margins of society, including those who have suffered in this year’s tragic killings of various sorts and in various places, inspired the sermon of Chaplain Jessica Chicka on July 10: ‘the Samaritan does not allow himself to be constricted by rules or fear’. Compassion for those searching for meaning, and a direct challenge to find such in spiritual inwardness, self-discipline, and struggle gave the heart to Dean Lawrence Carter’s July 17 address. Compassion for those of ‘another flock’ gave wings to his July 24 acclamation—the witness of Ghandi, the voice of King, the advice of Thurman, the wisdom of Buddhism, the mothering of Hinduism and the stark reminder: it is not Christian belief but its realization that finally matters. Not belief but realization! Compassion and concern for our shared home, our natural habitat—a worthy and frequent theme in this pulpit—empowered Dr. Davies’ homily on July 31: dominion is not domination, both optimists and pessimists can at least be meliorists, our children’s children will ask questions of or to us, about how we have cared for our environment. Compassion of a substantial, material, physical, even financial kind—‘forgive us our debts’ carried the burden of the Communion Homily on August 7. And last Sunday, beginning and ending with Tutu, probing the power of relational rather than authoritarian power, finding examples in hospitality near and far, the Rev. Susan Shafer, in the heat of the day, interpreted a tough passage from Luke and memorable line from our Vice President: ‘the world needs from us not the example of our power, but the power of our example’. It happens, perhaps providentially, but certainly in a timely way, that our lectionary readings this year hail from Luke. Toward what horizon are we hiking? Onto what shore do we hope to land? By what compass and map, what star, what conscience call, what soulful spirit shall we be guided? ‘Quo vadis?’ Whither? Where are you headed? Is yours, at twilight, a compassionate horizon?
Today’s Gospel, it happens, presents this theme under the cloud of smoke and pillar of fire of a familiar, pan Gospel, episode, Jesus’ compassionate willingness to heal on the Sabbath, to judge the Sabbath by its human or humanizing effect, to forever trump tradition with gospel, and to make religion necessarily subject to judgment in the categories of pride, sloth, falsehood, superstition, idolatry and hypocrisy. Is religion a good thing? It can be. Is the weather a good thing? It can be. It depends.
In our passage from St. Luke chapter 13, the Gospel writer has sharply implanted his own emphasis, on compassion. The similar Sabbath passages are in Mark 2, Matthew 12, and John 5. Luke explicitly heightens Jesus’ authority by placing him in the synagogue, in the synagogue teaching, and in the synagogue teaching on the Sabbath. Luke changes the gender of the afflicted person, from male to female. Luke quantifies the hurt, to 18 years of suffering. Luke accentuates the verbal condemnation, ‘hypocrites’. Luke connects the healed one to Abraham, and amplifies the size of Jesus’ legal victory, shaming adversaries and causing rejoicing by all. Clearly, this is a story that has developed, that has lived a while, that has been marinating in the sauce of the church’s own growth, advance, and expanse. Sadly, there is here the hint, the glimpse, the clear though far-off hymn, that hails—triumphalism. Not Jesus the minority view rabbi, arguing uphill against a majoritarian Torah tribe, but rather Jesus the conqueror, the great debater, the winner of arguments about Torah. We might do well to re-hear and rehearse Elie Wiesel’s lecture on this from 5 years ago.
The Far Horizon
One final note about Luke today. The gospel itself, and its sibling book the Acts of the Apostles, written also by Luke, make heavy use of a short, Greek verb. The three letters, delta-epsilon-iota—not a fraternity or sorority as far as I know—mean simply ‘it is necessary, it is needful, it was necessary, it was needful’. For St. Luke there is a necessity at work in the church’s expanding involvement within the culture around, and hence its need for story as legend, for leadership in unity from Peter to Paul, for organizational forms, bedrock heroes, and ways of thinking about others, and others within others. Yet Luke’s spirit is one of compassion. His theology is determinist to some degree. He sees purpose, necessity, even fate if you will, behind most trees, and behind many bushes. You may not see things that way, as many in late modernity do not. In interpretation, you will then perhaps need to hear Luke’s song of necessity transposed into the key of meaning. Purpose in the sense of meaning, not in the sense of destiny. Not so much ‘God has a purpose for your life’ as ‘God has life for your purposes’.
At Marsh Chapel we have the privilege to solemnize weddings on a regular basis, especially come summer. You need summer to survive winter, here in the north. There is grace in every wedding. There is unspoken, volcanic power in the hearing and speaking of the vows in every wedding. There is real change, which is real hard, heralded in every wedding. A privilege—what a privilege—to be present at the creation, nay the new creation, of such a moment. In a play otherwise precious and beautiful, Thornton Wilder had his dour New England minister say, as he prepared to marry Emily and George, speaking of his wedding experience, ‘Once in a thousand times it is interesting.’ That is the very opposite of my experience. Over 40 years at 20-25 weddings a year on average, I have not reached, but may be closing in on his number. Every one in the thousand was not just interesting but unutterably so. A while ago we married one couple, who were standouts in spirit and soul. Their four parents rose to greet them after the vows. Her parents, the mother from Japan and the father from England. His, the mother from India and the father from Italy. Buddhist, Methodist, Hindu, Catholic. Sometimes it feels like the world is coming apart at the seams. And then you go to a wedding, and, as every other time in a thousand, it is not only interesting, but unutterably so. This world can work. It may take a little compassion. But it can work.
Which brings us back to the very beginning. Your purposes. Your horizon. Your outlook, perspective, your end point and its hope. The offer of the Third Gospel, the horizon in Luke, is the possibility of a life of faith, girded in compassion. Will such a life be ours?
My life flows on in endless song,
above earth’s lamentation.
I hear the clear, though far off hymn
that hails a new creation.
No storm can shake my inmost calm
while to that Rock I’m clinging.
Since love is Lord of heaven and earth,
how can I keep from singing?
Through all the tumult and the strife,
I hear that music ringing.
It finds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?
More: Will you consider—it is offered with love and care—perhaps reconsider, maybe accept an invitation to lead a faithful life? To practice—nay, realize—the Christian faith? To walk steadily toward a horizon of compassion–a Lukan Horizon?
– The Reverend Doctor, Robert Allan Hill, Dean.
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