Sunday
February 13
An Invitation to Faith
By Marsh Chapel
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Might we hear a call, an invitation, to faith this morning? Following the sense of the numinous, the moments, moments of transcendence throughout this Epiphany, a season of light and revelation, might there follow, for one or another, a straightforward invitation to faith, spoken and heard and heeded?
For we are nigh on to two years of COVID: two years of days with limitations and with fears laced into the very simplest of moments—a trip to the store, a decision to meet a friend, a first meal outside or inside, a worried report of a colleague ill. And other strains have come alongside as well: planet, pandemic, politics, prejudice, pocketbook. Our planet will need our attention, our care, well into the future. The pandemic may become endemic but will not by a moment disappear. Our raging political discourse, downstream from the losses in culture just when we needed them over these 24 months—gathering, symphony, travel, family, tertulia, worship and assembly and prayer together—will require attentive, disciplined, curative investment of time and mind, not just a quick vote on a November morning. Our lasting measures of racial prejudice, much on our minds especially this month, continue and cost. And speaking of cost, gasoline is up 40%. With all this about us, we may be ready for, and ready to hear in full this Lord’s Day, a robust call to faith, an invitation to faith. Ours may be a profoundly preachable moment.
Here we may rely on our Epistle, speaking of such moments. St. Paul leaves speculative, less practical theology and jarringly tells us how to live, in Romans 12. He outlines a call to faith. He describes what a life of faith might look like, for you, and for me.
You might not expect such from the author of the rest of the Epistle to the Romans, the one who traced our condition (our sin) from creation through conscience in Romans 1 and 2. Impractical theology there, though most treasured and precious. You would not expect such from the Apostle who poured out the great watershed (our salvation) from Christ to Cross in Romans 3-5. Impractical theology there, though pearls great in price, field hidden. Nor would you expect the 13 lightning bolts of 12: 9 and following from the elliptical, emotional, tent-making, bachelor, spit-fire—what a friend we have in Paul!—who unveiled Spirit, Holy Spirit, in freedom and grace, in Romans 6-8, who wept and conjured and pleaded about his own extended religious family in Romans 9-11. Impractical theology, there and there, though the high-water mark of all his writing, a Spirit interceding for weakness, speaking of love and need. Imagine our shock. Not sin, not salvation, not Spirit, not synagogue come Romans 12: 9. Rather, some utterly practical, pastoral, applicable theology. Say, an Epiphany call to faith, especially for those who may be just a bit ragged, just now.
Romans 12: 9ff, the ‘Pauline 13’ may be your best threshold, liminal line, front door response to the question, ‘Can you help me get going on this? What does it mean to hear a call to faith? I mean I would like to think about faith, and the gift of faith, and growth in faith. But how am I to do so?’ We ask: what does it mean to hear a call to faith? And the Holy Scripture, in the voice of the Apostle to the Gentiles, responds.
What does it mean to hear a call to faith? It means to let love be genuine. All these verses, note well, are plural imperatives, communal commands. The command in Genesis ‘be fruitful, multiply, fill the whole earth’ is not an individual demand. Your family doesn’t need to do so alone, though Samuel and Susanna Wesley certainly did their best. It is communal. You all. All you all. In fact, given our ‘limitations’ (being kind here), there is no way for us individually to accomplish such commands. Not all love is genuine. Not all is from the heart, nor true, nor durable, nor real. But it is our call, together, to be lovers in a post-agape world, and to make that love genuine.
What does it mean to hear a call to faith? It means to hate what is evil. Notice the firmness in Paul’s flexibility, the vagueness in his certainty. In sin, salvation, Spirit, and synagogue he has now confidence that—for our own time, we shall know the place of hatred and the outline of evil. Implied here: new occasions teach new duties, as James Russell Lowell wrote, and this month in repetition we note. Not all of life is good and clean. Some is, some is not. We are free, nay called, to hate evil. You overhear Amos: ‘I hate I despise your feasts’ (5:23). When someone says or does something you hate, something that is wrong, hurtful, damaging, and lasting, not something mild or minor but something real and permanent, then the door closes on that event or act or word, and you are left with disappointment and anger, disappointment that does not dissipate and anger that does not abate. It is a permanent wound, a lasting, permanent scar, perhaps by grace forgivable and forgiven over long time and disciplined prayer, but not forgettable or forgotten. It is as if that deed or word or word\deed or deed\word is now locked behind a great oak door, an oak door with heavy iron hinges and a great lock, locked without a key. You may howl at the door. Please do. You may pound on the door until your fingers bleed. Have at it. You may knock your nose and forehead against the door until you bleed with profusion. Go ahead. It will do you nothing of good. It is done. It is said. It is awful and it is irremediable. It has only one true first cousin in life and that cousin is death. Here, just here, right here, is where you need faith.
What does it mean to hear a call to faith? It means to hold fast to what is good. Hold fast to what is good! Notice again the firmness in Paul’s flexibility, the vagueness in his certainty. Of one odd Scriptural admonition, Krister Stendahl said, ‘I believe it is the Word of God, but not the Word of God…for me.’ Time makes ancient good uncouth—again, Lowell.
What does it mean to hear a call to faith? It means to love one another with mutual affection, brotherly affection, a bond that is fraternal, sororial, militant if not military, visceral and reciprocal. Real affection is mutual. Affection wherein one party has all the say and the other does all the work is not affectionate. It is affectionless, affected, not effective.
What does it mean to hear a call to faith? It means to outdo one another in showing honor. Creative generosity, happy hospitality, courage in counting others better, here is our way. Forebear one another in love. Light, salt, sheep: people need to see you giving honor, taste the spice of your commendation and expect willingness to honor to be shorn, clean cut, readily recognizable—not just an afterthought.
What does it mean to hear a call to faith? It means not to lag in zeal, to be ardent in spirit, and to serve the Lord. These three dicta largely place before you the directive to get out of bed, into some comfortable clothes, into a prayerfully cleansed mindset, and seated by the radio dial, come Sunday, or to get yourself out of bed, into some clean clothes, over to Marsh Chapel, and be seated in a pew, come Sunday. A walk in the country or on the beach is good. Yet the public worship of Almighty God is not a matter of indifference. Hear a call to faith, and come to worship! Your sister, here, needs the encouraging support of your zealous presence. Your brother, here, needs the example of your ardent spirit. God’s service is perfect freedom, and this worship service is just one hour. We can become so lackadaisical about worship: and I am not only speaking of us academics (J). In a lifetime, you have 4,000 Sundays, 1,000 haircuts, 60 income tax returns. And 525,600 minutes a year. Zeal, spirit, service, Sunday: prize your time now you have it!
Howard Thurman was and still is not only the past Dean of Marsh Chapel, but the Dean of Black preaching, teaching and devotion, 100 years ahead of his time 50 years ago. My friend Phil Amerson remembers Thurman’s words: “I say that creeds, dogmas, and theologies are inventions of the mind. It is the nature of the mind to make sense out of experience, to reduce the conglomerates of experience to units of comprehension which we call principles, or ideologies, or concepts. Religious experience is dynamic, fluid, effervescent, yeasty. But the mind can’t handle these, so it has to imprison religious experience in some way, get it bottled up. Then, when the experience quiets down, the mind draws a bead on it and extracts concepts, notions, dogmas, so that religious experience can make sense to the mind. Meanwhile, religious experience goes on experiencing, so that by the time I get my dogma stated so that I can think about it, the religious experience becomes an object of thought. (From “An Interview with Howard Thurman and Ronald Eyre, Theology Today, Volume 38, Issue 2 (July 1981)). ”)” Deeper and Wider: Beyond the Two Revivals, Philip Amerson, February 2022 p. 8
To hear a call to faith, and to heed, is to ride the waves, in community, of shared hope and pain and prayer. Hope carries us beyond pain through prayer. Pain drives us hard back onto hope in prayer. Prayer brings us up, out, forward, and through whether in hope or in pain. When we have hope, we celebrate, as a community. When we have pain, we endure, as a community. Be constant, steady, regular, punctual, reliable, disciplined, in prayer. This is an old saw, but a true one. A man on Fifth Avenue is asked, How do you get to Carnegie Hall? The right response: Practice, practice, practice. And that requires community, a common ground, social holiness as well as personal, and habits: a prayer a day, a worship service a week, Holy Communion once a month.
(Again Phil Amerson reminds me): “Speaking of the suggestion that individual mysticism was the highest good, John Wesley wrote (in contradiction): Solitary religion is not to be found there. “Holy Solitaries” is a phrase no more consistent with the gospel than Holy Adulterers. The gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social holiness. Faith working by love, is the length and breadth and depth and height of Christian perfection. “(John Wesley, Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739), Preface, page viii.)” (“A Call for Social Holiness | The United Church of Canada”)” Deeper and Wider: Beyond the Two Revivals Philip Amerson, February 2022 p. 8
And sometimes for those trying to live out that social holiness there is high cost. I keep a quotation from former Republican Senator Jeff Flake in my desk, from almost five years ago, November 2017: ‘I will no longer be complicit or silent in the face of the president’s reckless, outrageous, undignified behavior…I deplore the casual undermining of our democratic ideals, the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedom and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth and decency…We must stop pretending that the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal. Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as telling it like it is when it is actually just reckless, outrageous and undignified. And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else. It is dangerous to a democracy…It is often said that children are watching. Well, they are. And what are we going to do about that? When the next generation asks us, why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you speak up? What are we going to say?…There are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles. Now is such a time.’ (NYT, 10/24/17). That is, better to lose your job than your soul.
What does it mean to hear a call to faith? The Apostle reserves the two toughest communal challenges for last, one about money and one about time. Time and money, money and time. On money: Rightly, you will take one tithing Christian for every 10 of the born-again variety. Rightly, you will take one tithing Christian who remembers the ministry of the church in her will for every stadium full of political praying Christians. You want to see less hat and more cattle. A Christian vision along our southern border, and we do need borders, say, will include a recollection of the Monroe Doctrine teaching us to care especially for our hemispheric neighbors, a recollection of the Marshall Plan, and what can be done to the benefit of all to reconstitute fragmented nations and communities, a recollection of the love poem of Emma Lazarus at our front door. Contribute to the needs, not the irresponsibility but the needs, of the holy community, near and far. On time: Hospitality is to time what generosity is to money. Hospitality is how you spend your time (such an odd but choice phrase in American English). Hospitality: the making of the bed of friendship, the cooking of the meal of companionship, the pouring of the bath of empathy, the cleaning of the linens of suffering, the embrace of the journey through life: welcome home, how was the trip?, let’s see your photographs. Hospitality is to time what generosity is to money. Practice. Practice! You will get better at both with time. I would put money on it. Practice. Practice! You will get better at both with time. I would put money on it (J).
Here is your Epiphany call to faith, offered with a Methodist handshake. If this were a Wesleyan revival, we would line this out like a hymn for us to sing. If this were a Pentecostal church we would call you to response in call and response. If this were Fenway Park, we would start the wave or sing Sweet Caroline. But this is Marsh Chapel, so we will just ask you, encouraging your memory, to remember together, entering 2022: Romans 12: 9-13.
Let love be genuine
Hate what is evil
Hold fast to what is good
Love one another with mutual affection
Outdo one another in showing honor
Never lag in zeal
Be ardent in spirit
Serve the Lord
Rejoice in your hope
Be patient in tribulation
Be constant in prayer
Contribute to the needs of the saints
Practice hospitality
-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel
