Sunday
September 17
Conscience
By Marsh Chapel
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I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
(Robert Frost)
‘Let everyone be convinced in (their) own mind’
You owe it to yourself to be honest with yourself. Even, if you can be, apart from repression, from the mind’s way of sheltering us from lasting hurt in memory. You owe it to yourself to be able to look in the mirror. This is what conscience, the work of conscience, brings. Faith is the mysterious power to withstand what we cannot understand. Faith is the power to get up, stand up, start up, to take the promise of Sunday morning into every other day. One of the steps of faith, on the trail of faith, is awareness of conscience, the quickening of the conscience. Faith awakens conscience, and conscience guides faith, even when the walk is a walk in the dark. Luther: Faith is a walk in the dark.
We too are acquainted with the night, and walk, together, in the rain. Hear Gospel this Lord’s Day, the good news of faith. The path, the sawdust trail of faith involves steps toward the mirror, toward what the wonderful old prayer names as the chance to serve God ‘with a quiet mind’.
You owe it to yourself to be honest with yourself. Even, if you can be, apart from repression, from the mind’s way of sheltering us from lasting hurt in memory. You owe it to yourself to be able to look in the mirror. This is what conscience, the work of conscience, brings. Faith is the mysterious power to withstand what we cannot understand. Faith is the power to get up, stand up, start up, to take the promise of Sunday morning into every other day.
There is such a step of faith, a growth in conscience, in the exercise of study, of sacred study, of exegesis, the careful study of Holy Scripture. The historical and critical study of Holy Writ, as practiced from this pulpit over 70 years, is a pathway to insight, interpretation, application–and sermon.
Samuel Terrien taught many the adventure of this labor, years ago, the search for the divine, for God: an elusive but real presence…not in nature but in history, and in history through human beings…a presence that does not alter nature but changes history through the character of women and men…a walking God not a sitting God, a walking God not a sitting God…nomadic, hidden, free…known in tent not temple, by ear not eye, in name not glory, in a spiritual interiority (we might say conscience)…that translates the love of God into behavior in society…demythologizing space for the sake of time…(phrases from The Elusive Presence: The Heart of Biblical Theology.) Samuel Terrien.
We are left to wonder in conscience about things, to plumb the depths of Scripture. What are they? We are on our own. There is no live interview from the heavenly conference room. There is no point-by-point bulletin, with details promised at 11pm. There is no footnote, or explanatory second conversation. We are left on our own, by our Lord to wonder and study, relying on conscience. We are given a fair and good amount of freedom in doing so.
In conscience, do you wonder about things, as darkness falls, as the rain falls?
Through the year, from this pulpit, we have tried continuously to trace the moves Matthew makes in 85ad away from what Mark, his source, had written in 70ad. Mostly, we want to be crystal clear about the way the announcement of the gospel changes, with the setting, changes with the occasion, changes, with the time and season and year.
New occasions teach new duties. Time makes ancient good uncouth. One must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.
“Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe…the starry heavens above and the moral law within,” wrote the German philosopher Immanuel Kant at the end of his Critique of Practical Reason (1788), and these words were inscribed on his tombstone.
Of one conscience stirring sermon, Oliver Wendell Holmes did say, in five words, I applied it to myself.
We are left to wonder in conscience about ‘the things that are God’s’. What are they? Are they wonder and conscience—the starry heavens above and the moral law within? Wonder and conscience? Wonder and conscience, spirit and soul?
Our colleague offered a marvelous devotional to being our faculty meeting. Biblical, Johannine, exegetical and resting in a single Greek verb, the devotional implored us to abide, through difference, to remain, through disagreement, to wait and watch, through difficulty. It restored faith, it restored my faith—including my faith in the necessity, power and beauty—of devotions. It was a devotion that restored faith in devotions. It stirred the conscience.
There is such a step of faith in the exercise of study.
There is a step of faith, growth in conscience, in institutions, for the love of God and country both. Let your conscience be your guide.
So, today, Matthew, being Matthew. He is looking at institutional life, political and religious, governmental and ecclesiastical, all 2000 years before our own similar challenges today. In Matthew we hear what we perhaps most need to hear in America, in October, in 2023, in the midst of political contest, even political mayhem. Institutions matter. Institutions matter. We are broadly or dimly aware, year by year, that institutions matter, but see so most sharply when they collapse. The collapse of shared truth. The loss of acute memory. When the my US Marine friend’s slogan, ‘leadership is example, period’, is discarded and disregarded. Covid took more than a million lives, in our country alone. But not only that. Covid removed the benefit of the doubt for inherited structures of civil society, including gathering, assembly, community, presence, religion
As we mortally and tragically are today. Institutions, particularly those of civil society, really matter. Volunteerism in a free society is not a luxury, but a necessity. For the Christian, for the citizen in a free republic, faith involves ‘intelligent and conscientious participation in politics so that God’s will may be done as fully as possible’ (IB, loc. cit.).
Just in time, Marilyn Robinson reminds us: This country would do itself a world of good by restoring a sense of the dignity, even the beauty, of individual ethicalism, of self-restraint, of courtesy (NYT, 10/11/20).
One pastor delivered a powerful sermon on dreams, last week, relying on Jacob and his ladder, from centuries before. He invited the congregation to dream, to dream of new things for a bright future. The sermon cut through the wariness and distrust we have come to practice regarding religion, with the fine blade of honesty, love and truth. It stirred the conscience.
Midweek this week, one recalled our 2008 decision to hire a gay pastor to work directly with our BU gay community, out of our religious commitment to the full humanity of gay people. She did so for nine years with grace and faith. (It may be time again to refit and refill that part time position.). The memory brought encouragement. It stirred the conscience.
There is a step of faith, in participation in institutions, for the love of God and country both.
There is a step of faith, a growth in conscience, in respect of and for community, given through these institutions that shape community. Community matters. So. Give of your life and breath. Till gardens you will never harvest. Build schools in which you will never study. Construct churches in which you will never worship. And listen, listen to the voices that emerge in communal conversation, particularly those tart and salty.
Listen to lives that speak, for so the faithful gift of community abides, and guides us.
Over some years now, one of the treasures and delights of living in Boston is the grace, and care, with which lives are remembered in our Boston Globe. No other paper, to our memory and experience, does so well, so consistently and so personally. Our community is one of memory, as well as of hope.
We lost many friends and congregants to Covid. Those who were front line COVID workers and victims have had right, ample remembrance, here, on our behalf. As have those once among us who now rest from their labors. Our first loss, in March of 2020, was C F Richardson, whose husband Neil, an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls, taught Hebrew Bible first at Syracuse University and then here at Boston University. She, Faith, was for decades the secretary to the local bishop. It was rumored he would make a decision about who to appoint to what pulpit, and then reverse the decision after talking to Faith. She was a grand soul, a person of faith, whose conscience was her guide.
Greeting our new class of students in the school of theology, our new faculty member concluded his welcome sermon by telling students not only to study the high ranges of theology, but also to make space for the touch, for the tactile, for the physical, for photographs, for pets, for plants. By gracious accident, as the doors opened, his hearers were greeted by our chaplains, passing out—plants! There was a gardened altar call, unplanned but so timely! It stirred the conscience.
There is a gift of faith, in respect of, and for, community.
There is a step of faith, a growth in conscience, in the joy of discourse, of conversation. Of all our losses in the last several years, this has been the greatest. John Wesley even named conversation a means of grace. All need warm, personal, true, glad hearted, genuine dialogue. Especially, leadership needs dialogue, leaders need dialogue.
Leadership, said my friend, ‘is disappointing people at a rate they can accept, or survive, or endure. At a rate they can handle.’ Justice is a part but not the heart of the Gospel—justice is a part but not the heart of the gospel; equality and justice are not the same thing; public safety on the streets matters to all; poor children of every hue need and deserve our care in health, in education, in protection, in nurture, and in respect.
We will pause and ask questions like: Why is there so much distance between theology and ministry, theory and practice, when there is not such in medicine, dentistry, public health, hospitality, education, engineering, arts, social work and communications? Why?
In September of 1995, newly installed as the senior minister of a very large church, I hurried out for a breakfast meeting to meet and get to know with our church’s investment advisor. My earlier church had also an endowment, small and stowed away in card board boxes, or at least in impregnable savings accounts and CD’s. Now I had some responsibility for a real, or a large, endowment, and more detailed strategies for investment.
Over breakfast, a bright well-dressed fellow explained the current funds, their places of investment, risks and rewards. About half way through the fine talk, I noticed that his lapel button was not buttoned. This produced a moment of conscience. I did not know the man, I did not want to offend him, and I did not thereby point out his sartorial error. We parted to go on to the rest of the day. I wondered how someone so well dressed and spoken could come out the door unbuttoned. Who dresses you, I mused.
But you know, life is funny, and will teach us, if we let it.
Returning to my office, I stopped in front of a mirror there. Here is what I saw: my own lapel button was unbuttoned. His and mine, both. He had gone on to his day thinking what I had before—why this otherwise well-appointed person going about with his shirt unbuttoned? Conscience would have leaned over in both directions and righted the wrong. The look in the mirror stirred the conscience.
You owe it to yourself to be honest with yourself, to look in the mirror. There is a step of faith in the joy of discourse, of conversation. Our friends give us back ourselves. And a look in the mirror can move us along.
Study, institution, community, conversation—steps along the walk of faith that quicken the conscience, steps of faith that quicken the conscience, steps of faith that quicken the conscience. Sursum Corda. Hear Gospel this Lord’s Day. God walks with us, in the rain, in the dark, in sadness—at night, at night, at night. A walking not a sitting God. God walks with us in the rain.
‘Let everyone be convinced in (their) own mind’
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel
