Sunday
May 23
Spirit Days
By Marsh Chapel
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When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the Truth.
Spirit Days at Commencement
Pentecost, today, is the day of the Spirit. Yet they are all spirit days are they not? All our days, all, are spirit days. Especially, listening caringly to the Gospel of John, we are empowered and emboldened to proclaim that all days, each day, every day, they are all spirit days. The Bible tells us so, as does Shakespeare, Scripture and the Bard being the two best sources for learning in college, and out of college:
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
On arrival in Boston, some years ago, we had no grandchildren. Then they came, one by beautiful, blessed one, beginning at the end of our first year. As she grew, she spoke, one of her first words, beneath the great CITGO logo, was, ‘sign’. Then she walked, and walked up and down every outside staircase on Bay State Road, one by one, counting the steps. Looking for her grandfather, off at work, she later asked, ‘Where is…somebody? Is…somebody…coming home?’ For once, her granddad was really ‘somebody’. Now she is 13. You will hear from her in a spirited moment, as so fully we did hear the spirit through Commencement at Boston University this last week.
One Club launched a free laundry demonstration, on a recent Friday noon, on Marsh Plaza. Our staff made playful comments about…a rising tide lifts all boats…whisk them away…what do they have to gain by it …Yes, it was Ajax…a whole laundry list…Reap the bounty…We were going a little stir crazy, fifty four weeks later…but at the table next to them the Sojourners Campus Ministry was writing thank you notes to social workers, and encouraging others to do the same.
Spirit Days.
Maria Erb now leads a new department at Boston University, named the Newbury Center, which is devoted to supporting first generation students, those who are first in their families to attend college. It is a center so in keeping with the heart, spirit, tradition, history and soul of BU. She said a few days ago: This is my vocation, my work with first generation students. This is my calling. This is my ministry. I view it as a form and type of ministry, whereby I live out my faith. Could someone say ‘amen’ to that?
Spirit Days.
After a stirring peroration offered to Seniors, of the best ways to live and thrive into the future, a fine faculty member added, as a post script, with humor: And also…get a cat. At that same Senior Breakfast, our friend and colleague Dean Elmore said, ‘My mentor, George Houston Bass, in “Breer Rabbit Whole” had this closing thought that has stayed with me:
May joy, beauty and kindness be with you,
Day after day. Night after night.
May joy walk beside you,
Let kindness guide you,
May beauty surround you,
May you always want to say,
To friends, kinfolk and strangers you meet along life’s way,
May God bless and keep you each and every day.
Spirit Days.
Graduate Soren Hessler, in his fine remarks for THIS I BELIEVE, said… I believe that the modern American research university, so often built upon the educational foundation of training Christian clergy, does well to remember its roots in cultivating personal character and equipping graduates to care for the needs of the world. I believe a quality professional education, regardless of discipline must “Unite the pair so long disjoined, knowledge and vital piety: learning and holiness combined.” Graduate Afsha Kasham, said, … Being a woman has taught me a lot. But it’s mostly taught me to speak up, even if my voice shakes. Maybe they won’t believe you, but at least you’ll know that you tried.
Spirit Days.
And for Sunday’s Commencement itself: our pioneering neighbor, the creator of the Moderna vaccine, urging us to be comfortable being uncomfortable; to learn to weather rejection; and to stay curious, always thinking ‘what if?; the head of the Boston Food Bank bluntly asking us, ‘what are you willing to really work for?’; a congresswoman bringing back to this University the voice, the voice both in content and in calling, of Coretta Scott King.
Then Monday, to hear first with the Army near Faneuil Hall, then with Navy on The USS Constitution—to be so located for commissioning!…it is like being ordained a priest at the Vatican or a preacher on John Wesley’s porch—the repeated solemn vow, taken by such young courageous women and men—to support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. Can you hear that America, in May of 2021? To support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.
Spirit Days in John
These are spirited voices, Johannine voices. And John is so different, so radically inspired, so different and new and spirited. Spirit abounds especially, even perhaps in full measure, only in John. Only John places Jesus in Jerusalem thrice. Only in John does Jesus raise the dead at mid Gospel—“Lazarus, come out!” Only in John does Jesus preach for five chapters on the last evening, washing feet rather than celebrating mass. Only in John does Jesus make the Jerusalem road fully and only a road of glory, from Palm Sunday to Easter. Only in John does Jesus say, “In my Father’s House there are many rooms…” He is going home, home. And somehow, again strangely, we know the way where he is going. For it is our way, too. Only in John does Jesus walk serenely to Golgotha. Only in John does Jesus walk to death like God striding upon the earth. Only in John does Jesus pronounce GLORY from the jaws of death. Remember his dying word. Not “eli, eli” as in Matthew and Mark. Not “Father forgive them” as in Luke. Simply, serenely, powerful, triumphantly, yes, gloriously, he says, in John, “It is finished.” It is done, completed, perfected—finished. He dies to rise, and go home, making a place a space for the whole human race. Spirit fully flourishes only in John
‘(Those who composed John) had a burning conviction that they had been given the truth (led into all truth) and that through this truth they would come to enjoy a freedom that would release them from the constraints to which they were subjected: ‘the truth will set you free’’(John Ashton, 95)
Conscious as they were of the continuing presence in their midst of the Glorified One, no wonder the community, or rather the evangelist who was its chief spokesman, smoothed out the rough edges of the traditions of the historical Jesus…(They) realized that the truth that they prized as the source of their new life was to be identified not with the Jesus of history but with the risen and glorious Christ, and that this was a Christ free from all human weakness. The claims they made for him were at the heart of the new religion that soon came to be called Christianity. (199) The difference between John’s portrait of Christ and that of (the other gospels) is best accounted for by the experience of the glorious Christ constantly present to him and his community (204)
The stark strangeness, the utter difference of John from the rest of the Bible we have yet fully to admit. But when we get to the summit, John 14 and following, we see chiseled there in ice and covered fully with wind snow, an enigmatic, mysterious riddle: Spirit, sweet Spirit, Paraclete. The endless enemy of conformity. The lasting foe of the nearly lived life. The champion of the quixotic. The standard bearer of liberty. The one true spirit of spirited truth. Yet we cannot even give the history of the term, nor fully define its meaning, nor aptly place it in context, nor finally determine its translation. Paraclete eludes us. Paraclete evades us. Paraclete outpaces us. Paraclete escapes us.
Notice that the Spirit is given to all, not just to a few or to the twelve, definitely not. Notice that it is Spirit not structure on which John relies. Notice it is Spirit not memory which we shall trust (good news for those whose memory may slip a little). Notice that Spirit stands over against what John calls ‘world’ here—another dark mystery in meaning. Notice that the community around John’s Jesus is amply conveyed a powerful trust in Spirit.
Spirit Days in Life
Now the granddaughter, with whom we began at the first of life’s stages is 13 and crossing into another, and mid-Covid her local news media picked up her spirit, as she honored a retiring crossing guard:
I am writing to you because my friend…and I learned that the Crossing Guard on Monroe, Vicky, by CVS is retiring soon and this Tuesday… is her last day. Vicky has been the crossing guard for 40 years here at Brighton. She was there on our first day of sixth grade and she has always been so kind to us.
Every morning, she greets by name on our walk to school and asks us if we have anything exciting happening. She wishes us good luck on any tests that we have, and gives us advice about school and life. When we come home, she asks us about our tests, or wishes us a happy weekend. She is almost a grandmother to all of the kids she keeps safe each and every day. Vicky has been the most amazing crossing guard to us, and we will be very sad to see her go.
You will take your nourishment as you find it, day by day. As that quintessential romantic Alexander Herzen wrote, “Art and the summer lightning of individual happiness—these are the real goods”.
Spirit Days. Spirit Days. Spirit Days!
Speaking of art and of the summer lightening of individual happiness, we close with a little song. Our own daughter, a generation ago, afforded us on stage the tune, the lyrics, and the inspiration. Our children teach us, as she has taught us, on stage. She has taught us the power of the spoken, live spoken word, to intervene, and alter, and make new. It takes a while to raise parents right, but over time, we sometimes learn, learning that all days of life in every one of the seven stages are spirit days. No one says such lightly, after the last fourteen months. After more than a year of loss, we may be able to hear something of spirit from those who have known loss too. After this last year, those who have suffered loss, those of us who have suffered the loss of loved ones, may yet await spirit days to come.
This week I remembered our daughter’s stage voice and presence, from some years ago, in a play about love and marriage and death and spirit. After a lifetime of loss and disappointment, and the recent deaths of their spouses, two very elderly folks fall in love at the end of musical (I Love You. You’re Perfect. Now Change.) Where is life there is hope, and where there is hope there is life and where there is spirit there is life and hope together. In the song, SHE SPEAKS first, and he answers second:
I’VE GOT SOME PROBLEMS, MY HEALTH’S NOT GOOD.
Well at our age that’s understood
I’VE GOT ARTHRITS
Flairs up in June
I’VE GOT BRONCHITIS
I’ll get that soon. No matter. I can live with that.
I’VE HAD A BYPASS
Well I’ve had two
I DIE MY HAIR
It looks nice blue
MY WAYS ARE SET
Well, people change. I find you sexy
I FIND YOU STRANGE
No matter. I can live with that.
I OFTEN THINK OF THOSE I MISS
Sometimes I have to reminisce
FRIENDS KEEP DYING BUT I’M STILL STRONG
It still does hurt, but not as long
MY KIDS DON’T VISIT
Mine never leave
I MAKE A MEATLOAF YOU WON’T BELIEVE
I tell tall tales
I TELL THE TRUTH
I drink skim milk
I DRINK VERMOUTH
No matter. I can live with that.
I LIKE THINGS CLEAN. I SCRUB AND WASH
I’ve got a garden, I grow some squash
I KEEP IN SHAPE I MOW THE LAWN
I wake up late
I’M UP AT DAWN
No matter. I can live with that.
I WILL BE BURIED AT MY JIM’S RIGHT.
Next to my Sue is my gravesite
BUT I’M STILL HERE WITH MUCH TO GIVE
Someday I’ll die
FOR NOW I’LL LIVE
I’ll ALWAYS LOVE JIM
And I my Sue
I JUST DON’T KNOW
You think I do?
(Together): No matter. I can live with you. No matter. I can live with you.
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
Pentecost, today, is the day of the Spirit. Yet they are all spirit days are they not? All our days, all, are spirit days. Hear good news: When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the Truth.
-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel
