Monday
September 6
A Balm in Gilead
By Marsh Chapel
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Coming after 18 months hiatus to the Lord’s Supper, we announce the healing Gospel, the Balm in Gilead, in the breaking of bread, such a choice phrase: A Balm in Presence. A Balm in Remembrance. A Balm in Thanksgiving.
Presence
Month by month many of you gathered on the first Sunday, out on the Plaza at 8am, for prayer. It was cold every month, including April for Easter. Yet there were, sans heat, sans pew, sans communion.
In thy presence there is fullness of joy.
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 friendship, or partnership, or 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. Discipleship needs 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. Where are the gentle people?
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. Kenmore Square being rebuilt! 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.
Through the year we recalled Thurman’s favorite psalm, 139:
O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
7 Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Into Another Presence…
Dr. Chicka, in spiritual presence, what have we to offer our community this fall?
(Dr. Jess Chicka speaks)
Remembrance
A Balm in Gilead, in presence, and in remembrance. Those quiet Sunday dawning taught us to take the covid quiet, or some of it, with us. Thursday at noon I opened the front door of the chapel to leave it ajar, a physical invitation. It was jarring, not the door, but the sight. After months of empty quiet, with only a squirrel or an absent-minded professor crossing the plaza, there, then—throngs, hordes, multitudes, masses. The plaza full of students. The sidewalk full of students. The streets and cross streets and all, full. I wandered and one asked for directions to Photonics and another to Morse auditorium.
For students seeking directions we regularly recommend a walk on the Emerald Necklace once a month, a walk on the Esplanade once a month, a public transport and walk on the coast, the sea shore, once a month, and a look through the CAS telescope once a month. For four years. Keep close to nature. Remember the natural world. Especially, Go to the ocean once a month, especially if you are from the Midwest. The ocean keeps us balanced, as does the natural world in general, as a kind of creational Scripture. Nature reminds us.
Low tide and high.
Storm and sun.
Winter and summer.
Heat and cold.
Evening and morning.
Sunshine and rain.
Day to day and night to night.
Easy and hard.
Good and not so good.
Seed time and harvest.
Wind and calm.
The natural world, let us recall,speaking by not speaking, can offer us balance, a reminder that not all is always well, but also that there is often a sunset even after a day of rain.
We remembered every month and do again today, Romans 12: 9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.[e] 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
Rev. Dr. Karen, in spiritual remembrance, what have we to offer our community this fall?
(Rev. Dr. Karen speaks)
Thanksgiving
A Balm in Gilead in presence, and remembrance and thanksgiving.
Eucharist means thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the heart of faith, the marrow of faith, the sinew and bone and carne y hueso of faith.
The faith of a friend: We continue to be blessed by our God, being deeply appreciative and mindful that love and faith make us resilient and hopeful. We continue to be blessed by our God, being deeply appreciative and mindful that love and faith make us resilient and hopeful.
The faith of another friend: Maybe I will take deeply to heart my friend’s definition of faith: ‘the personal positive answer to the question whether life has meaning’. Maybe I will take deeply to heart my friend’s definition of faith: ‘the personal positive answer to the question whether life has meaning’.
The faith of the author of James, one of the earliest recorded sermons in emerging Christianity by the way, that faith is primary but works count too, and faith without them is really not vital faith at all. Or, as the writer puts it, ‘faith without works is dead’.
The faith of a friend through writing: “Thirty years ago, my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.” (Anne Lamotte). (Good advice for beginning the school year…)
With thanksgiving we lift the strange blessedness, the word means happy, Makarios, happy.
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Dr. Jarrett, in spiritual thanksgiving, what have we to offer our community this fall?
(Dr. Scott Jarrett speaks)
Coda
Here we are, at the Lord’s table. Present, remembering, giving thanks.
We believe in God:
who has created and is creating,
who has come in Jesus,
the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new,
who works in us and others
by the Spirit.
We trust in God.
We are called to be the Church:
to celebrate God’s presence,
to live with respect in Creation,
to love and serve others,
to seek justice and resist evil,
to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,
our judge and our hope.
In life, in death, in life beyond death,
God is with us.
We are not alone.
Thanks be to God.
-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel
