Marsh Chapel Sermon Archive

I’m thrilled to be back among you this morning at Marsh Chapel, and I want to thank Dean Hill for the invitation to, in his words, “bat clean up” in this summer’s national preaching series. I’ve had a chance to listen to the fine sermons that have been preached in this series, and they are available on the Marsh Chapel website for you as well.

I must say, though, the last time I preached here, I was a lot less nervous in preparing my sermon, because I really had no idea just how many people listened to this broadcast. But then the following week people kept coming up to me or emailing and saying, “Hey, I heard you on the radio!” In fact I’ve learned that there are people out there right now listening who went to church this morning and heard one sermon already, and now they’re listening to another service on their way home. If that describes you, I just want to say, “Wow.” That’s like what the Puritans did, two sermons on a Sunday. It’s wonderful to think of what an eclectic Communion of Saints this service brings together over the airwaves; God bless you all.

The theme for this series has been “The Gospel and Emerging Adults.” That’s a category used to refer to younger adults, 18 to 29 years of age, or sometimes more generously 18 to 35. Sometimes even beyond that, though I feel like by the time you hit 40, you’ve emerged, for better or worse.

So the preachers in this series have reflected on many important virtues and values: on wonder, wisdom, simplicity, silence, hospitality, and how these relate to ministry with emerging adults. This morning I want to go in a bit of a different direction, and talk about how the church understands young adults. This topic has some urgency, as so-called emerging adults are leaving the church in record numbers, a phenomena sometimes called “the rise of the nones,” N-O-N-E-S, those who do not identify with any particular faith. This is a fast-growing group and includes a third of all Americans under thirty.

But “emerging adults” emerge from somewhere; I actually want to go back even further and meditate on how the church understands emerging emerging adults: what we usually call “children.” I want to suggest that many of us who are followers of Christ, despite our best intentions and our desire to welcome children, youth, and young adults into faith and into our churches, have a flawed paradigm of spiritual development. And this flawed understanding is helping to bring about the opposite of what we desire, namely, young adults abandoning the church in record numbers. (pause.)

A few weeks ago my family was vacationing in Maine, and I decided to do something that many of my parishioners do all the time, but that I, as an Episcopal priest serving a church, don’t get to do very often: go to church and sit in the pew with my children. My husband and son decided to sleep in, but I found a church nearby and went with my three-year-old daughter, Cecily. We brought a small backpack full of My Little Ponies to aid Cecily’s worship experience. She was very excited to go.

But the people who were already in the pew when we arrived seemed . . . less excited to see her. No one said anything, but when we sat down, their mouths were set in the stiff lines of those who must endure. We were in the back, so there was room to unpack the ponies. The usher brought us another box of books and crayons. Cecily had a great time at church. She liked the hymns, she loved the stained glass windows. We stood in the back in the aisle for Communion so she could see the priest consecrating the elements. She noticed the paschal candle, and the font where babies are baptized. She was so eager to receive Communion, that she suggested we cut to the front of the line. When I said that we needed to wait our turn, she complimented some people near us on how patiently they were waiting. She talked about Jesus, in her best stage whisper (which, admittedly, is not great as whispers go). Cecily was worshipping in her way.

But we didn’t get much of a welcome. At the end, the other people in our pew left as quickly as possible. No one really spoke to us, and I felt how I imagine the parents of many young children feel at the end of a service, like we had “pulled something off” or “gotten through the service.” Like airplanes and fancy restaurants, worship at church is one place parents of young children can feel acute anxiety, as if we’ve brought our kids somewhere that they don’t really belong.

Today’s gospel reading from Luke tells us, “People were bringing even infants to Jesus that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it.” Parents wanted their children to experience Jesus’ blessing. They wanted to bring them close to the presence of God. But the disciples decided to act like bodyguards, and send them away. There are two reasons this passage is surprising to me: first, because, think of all the other kinds of people who were permitted open access to Jesus: reviled tax collectors and prostitutes, lepers, people possessed by demons. But really, no babies? What were the disciples afraid they would do? And the second surprising thing: these are the disciples, not the Pharisees. These are the people who have left everything to follow Jesus, to align themselves with his message. These are the people who love Jesus the most—and yet they totally misinterpret what response best expresses the kingdom he is preaching about.

Jesus tells the disciples to “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them or hinder them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” And then he adds, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

This story appears in three of the four gospels; it is a cornerstone of Jesus’ teaching. A passage in the gospel of Matthew contains an even more pointed warning: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (pause.)

Now, the Bible doesn’t contain any stories or references to the Grown-Ups of God. They don’t exist! We are all, always and forever, children of God. The disciples didn’t understand this. But understanding this is key to following the way of Jesus. The Greek word for “change” that Jesus uses in Matthew also means to turn or to convert, to make a dramatic change of direction. “Unless you convert and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

I’ve observed that many of us today who follow Jesus don’t have proper perspective of the faith lives of children. Pretty much all churches I know of say they welcome children and families with young children—in fact, these families are highly sought-after, since a church full of children is taken as a sign of health for the future. But we must ask ourselves: are we valuing children for what they represent, especially in terms of institutional vitality, or are we valuing them because of who they are, and what we can learn from them? Are we welcoming children, but not honoring them and the unique contributions they make? Are we truly considering them as spiritual equals, and full members of the church, with real, meaningful and regular opportunities to worship, to learn, and to serve?

John Westerhoff wrote a wonderful book many years ago called Will Our Children Have Faith, that I highly recommend to you. He had a term for what I’m talking about. He said that in order to transmit and sustain faith, there must be “Shared experience, storytelling, celebration, action, and reflection between and among [what he called] equal faithing selves.” Equal faithing selves. (p. 89)

Children don’t want to know about God. They want to know God. That is a line from Jerome Berryman, the developer of a method of Christian education called Godly Play, which is based on Montessori educational practices. Children don’t need Grown-Ups of God acting as mediators to the divine. They need companions on their journey. They don’t need ministry for them, but ministry with them, that includes them fully. Children want to learn, children want to serve, at church and in the world, and children want to worship. However, adults often act towards young people in church as if children don’t want any of these things, and in fact are incapable of anything but a poor imitation of them. (pause.)

There was a little boy named Joel in a previous parish where I served, and when he was three, his mother began to let him help her usher at church. Or, rather, I think, Joel insisted that he be allowed to help usher. He loved greeting people and handing out bulletins. He never once dropped the offering plate. He saw a place where he could serve, and he did serve. His mother, Emily, taught him how. One Sunday, Emily told me that during the week he had been misbehaving in a store, and she said to him, “Joel, if you don’t calm down right now, I’m not going to let you usher with me on Sunday!” And that did the trick instantly.

Faith is taught, and faith is caught. Emily knew that. The Greek word that the early church used for teaching is “catechesis,” like catechism. Catechesis literally means echoing, echoing back. But for our children to be able to echo back, that means they have to be within earshot. That means they have to be alongside us, worshipping, learning, serving.

John Westerhoff, in Will Our Children Have Faith, writes about how in the last fifty or so years, the church did something it had never done before, in its whole history: it began separating children out of the main congregation, putting them out of earshot. The larger culture changed, with the generations becoming more separate from each other, and the church, for the most part, changed along with the culture. But it wasn’t always so. (pause.)

Of course, Jesus didn’t say just to include children, to honor them, to welcome them: he tells us to convert and become like them! To receive the kingdom of God as they would! To learn from them; to echo them in our lives of faith. What can this mean?

First of all, it means humility. In the ancient world, there was no romanticizing of children as paragons of purity or innocence. Children had no status; they were the lowest in the pecking order. Children are aware of their own vulnerability. They trust and rely on those who care for them. We are called to have this same kind of trust and dependence on God. We are called to be humble in heart. We can learn this from children.

Second, awe and wonder. Children revel in the newness of everything around them, in the natural world, in new experiences, in beauty, in friendship. My son said to me yesterday, “Look at this awesome drop of milk sliding down the side of my cup.” Children recognize the extraordinary in the ordinary. We can learn this, or re-learn this, from children, and our souls can grow in wonder and gratitude and appreciation for the lives we’ve been given, and the world in which we live.

More virtues: curiosity: knowing that we don’t know, and wanting to know more. The ability to give oneself over to joy, and to mystery, and to silliness and fun. All these things we can learn from the children in our midst—but they have to be in our midst.

And this brings us back, by the long road, to “emerging adults.” I am not a sociologist, though there are some fine sociological studies of why so many young adults are leaving church after college and not coming back. But here is my hunch, which is backed up by some of these studies: young adults are leaving the church, in part because: they were never really invited into a full life of faith as children. They were not really given authentic opportunities to worship, to learn, and to serve. They were not immersed in the stories of our faith, and told that these stories were about them. Instead they were told to be quiet during church, given coloring worksheets, and asked to put some pennies in a cardboard box during Lent. They were given a sanitized gospel, like one of the toddler children’s bibles we have at home, where every story ends before anything bad happens: so Adam and Eve are happy in the Garden, and Joseph gets to keep his beautiful coat, and baby Moses sleeps in a basket. The end. No sadness, no pain. But no redemption, either. They were given a kiddie-sized faith, without the language of death and resurrection, and new beginnings out of calamity. And so if calamity ever happened to them, faith had nothing to say about it. No wonder they lost interest.

I’ve noticed over the years how the church takes an interest in adolescents that it never had in children. After all, adolescents can reason abstractly. They are somewhat better at sitting still. They can go on service projects and mission trips. They are on their way to becoming a Grown-Up of God.

But by then, it is usually too late. They have been out of earshot too long. All those best years of echoing back the faith are past, and of course the desire for closeness with adults has waned with this new developmental stage.

But there is a new paradigm of faith formation. Which is really an old paradigm, from the parables of Jesus. Jesus tells two of his pithiest parables about a mustard seed: the first one says, if you have faith like a mustard seed, you can move mountains. The second one says that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, the smallest of seeds that grows into the largest of shrubs. (I always like the anti-climax there—the largest of shrubs!)

With Jesus, humility always wins the day. This is why children are the best receivers of the kingdom. Faith like a mustard seed: the smallest amount of faith, is still faith! The faith contained in the smallest of people, is still faith! And it can grow and flourish continually. This is truly good news, not just for youngsters, but for us oldsters, who are still trying to figure out who we are in God.

We are not called to be mediators or gatekeepers to the youngest among us. We are called to be fellow pilgrims who learn from each other. That means spending time together, learning together, listening to each other, serving together, wondering together, worshipping together, young and old. It’s not always easy. It takes practice and patience, this echoing and echoing back, this sharing, this mutuality. But this is how, together, we receive the kingdom of God, as children of God, still growing, wherever we are on the path—with or without My Little Ponies in the pew. In God’s name, Amen.

~The Rev. Dr. Regina L. Walton

posted in Guest Preachers on 08.17.2014 at 11:00 am

Sunday
July 27

Be Careful What You Ask For

By Marsh Chapel

The text of this sermon is unavailable

~Professor Jonathan Walton

Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church

Harvard University

posted in Guest Preachers on 07.27.2014 at 11:00 am

Sunday
July 20

The Cost of Discipleship

By Marsh Chapel

The text of this sermon is unavailable

~Dr. Echol Nix, Jr

Associate Professor of Religion, Furman University

posted in Guest Preachers on 07.20.2014 at 11:00 am

Sunday
July 13

Be You

By Marsh Chapel

The text of this sermon is unavailable.

~Dr. Echol Nix, Jr.

Associate Professor of Religion, Furman University

posted in Guest Preachers on 07.13.2014 at 11:00 am

Sunday
June 29

My Neighbor

By Marsh Chapel

Luke 10:25-37

(singing) It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?

It’s hard not to admire Mr. Rogers—a champion for children’s learning, a cardigan wearer, a Presbyterian minister (well, nobody’s perfect). But perhaps his most lasting contribution to the world will forever be his theme song.

Not because it ever hit the top of the charts or because of the brilliance of his voice, but kind of the opposite of that. You see, in 1968, when his show began what would be a 33 year run, the country was at war, young people were disenchanted with authority, and recent victories in civil rights had been answered by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the flight of middle class whites to the suburbs.

In other words, at a time in which people were literally struggling with who should be allowed in their neighborhoods, Fred Rogers found a way to invite people into his with a simple, radical, Christian request: Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?

It was a reminder of that gospel truth that no matter crazy this world gets, we don’t have to face it alone.

And although the times have changed, friends, the struggle has not.

For as much as we talk about technology and media bringing us closer together, we still live in a world that works very hard to keep us apart: young and old, black and white, gay and straight, male and female, rich and poor, broken and whole.

We live in a world that covets community, but insists on isolation. And our young people have noticed.

If we’re honest, we know that many contemporary young people, the same young people who grew up accepting Mr. Roger’s near daily invitation are just as disenchanted today as they were then. They’re just as frustrated by the hypocrisies of the world today as they were forty years ago.

And frankly, the church has not helped. Over and over again, today’s young people have heard the church fail to answer that quintessential Christian question “Who is my neighbor?” Nowhere has this failure been felt more keenly than in our treatment of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. Today’s young people have heard us exclude instead of include, speak instead of listen, choose law over love.

We complain that young people have no faith, but the truth is, we haven’t given them much to have faith in.

But the good news is that we believe in a God of grace, which means that despite our imperfections, despite our failures, our fractures, our faults, there’s always hope.

And so today, as we consider together what the gospel possibly has to say to today’s emerging adults, we begin by acknowledging our failures and recommitting to the basics.

Our story today is one of the most famous in all of Scripture: the story of the Good Samaritan. It’s only told in Luke and involves a lawyer approaching Jesus with a question.

Now we don’t know much about the lawyer in our story. Actually, basically nothing beyond the fact that Luke tells us he was a lawyer and a “he.” But let’s imagine for a moment that he was young, maybe just out of law school. Perhaps he was like so many young people today who finish their formal schooling, enter the job market, and pray that when the six month grace period on their student loans ends…they won’t have to move back in with their parents.
Maybe like so many young people today he’s found a job but is still getting used to not getting summer breaks or winter breaks, or breaks at all.

Maybe he’s been working for a year or two and starting to wonder “Is this it?”

In our story, the young lawyer asks Jesus, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

It’s a pretty honest question. How do I find life? It’s a question we all ask from time to time.

And frankly, perhaps the only difference between this young lawyer and many of the young adults today is that he thought his religious leaders might actually have an answer.

Fortunately for him, he was right.

Jesus responds, “What is written in the law?”

And the young lawyer gives the answer he had no doubt learned in school, the one that his parents, his teachers, his synagogue taught him. He says, “You shall love the lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

And Jesus responds simply, “You have given the right answer. Do this and you will live.”

“You have given the right answer. Do this and you will live.”

The word used for “right” in the Greek is orthos, from which we get the term “orthodox.” In other words, Jesus is saying, you have given the right answer, the orthodox answer, the approved answer, and if you do this, you will live. Right now, in the present tense. You will live. But he undoubtedly knew the real question the lawyer was asking: How?

On our answer hangs every decision of life. Most of us know that we are called to love God and to love our neighbor, but if we’re honest, we don’t always know what that means. Despite what we are sometimes led to believe, it’s not as if in every situation there is a clear choice between loving God and not, between loving our neighbor and not, a simple right or wrong, No! It doesn’t work that way. Whether we like it or not, things are not always black and white. There is a lot of gray in our faith…at least fifty shades of it.

Sure, sometimes our choice is clear, loving our neighbor rarely means killing them, but often times being a person of faith means struggling with confusing and often contradictory choices, both of which can be justified from the Scripture or the tradition of our faith.

In other words, friends, sometimes being a person of faith means moving beyond Scripture or tradition in order to use that that other God given gift – our brains. A gift that young people have too often witnessed people of faith checking at the door.

Perhaps Luke was offering his readers, and in turn us, a way forward; freedom from the law which threatens to imprison us. Not necessarily an easier way, but certainly one that is more honest. Instead of leaving it here like the other gospels, the lawyer in Luke’s gospel asks a follow up question: “And who is my neighbor?”

“Who is my neighbor?” Was there ever a more honest question asked in the entire gospel? Who is my neighbor? Who are the people we’re called to love?

And Luke could have had Jesus respond in any number of ways. After all, there were no other gospel accounts to refute him, but instead of quoting more Scripture, or giving a map with neighborhoods highlighted, or pointing to specific people— instead of offering a black and white answer, Luke has Jesus tell a story that to this very day is open to interpretation. A story that requires our brains.

Jesus says that a man was beaten and stripped by robbers and left half dead on the side of the road. An act that would have removed any means of identification, whether social or religious. When we are naked and half-dead on the side of the road, one can’t tell if we are rich or poor, free or slave, Jew or Greek, gay or straight. In other words, this man was just a person in need.

And by chance a priest came walking by. Now, had this been our first time hearing the story, we might think, “Ah! A priest! Surely he will help.” But when he sees the man, he crosses over and passes by on the other side of the road. Then we see a Levite, and again, he sees the man and passes by on the other side of the road.

And while we’re scratching our heads trying to wrap our minds around why these two religious leaders didn’t stop, a Samaritan spotted the man and was moved with pity. So, he bandaged his wounds, poured oil and wine on them, placed him on his animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii – equal to a day’s wage each-- gave them to the innkeeper and told him to take care of him and that whatever else is spent he would repay upon his return. In other words, he didn’t just stop. He STOPPED! He stepped away from the routine, from the busyness, from the expectations of life long enough to show this man love.

Now, we knew that was going to happen, we’ve heard the story before, but we should remember the shock value for both the young lawyer in the story and the original audience for Luke’s gospel.

You see, a Samaritan, was a person hated by the Jewish people of first century Palestine. The Samaritans were people who had interbred with their Assyrian captors 800 years earlier and they had never been allowed to forget it.

It would be as if a member of Al Queda was the one to stop and lend a hand where no one else had dared. So for the lawyer in the story and the audience of Luke, this story would have been unbelievable and more than slightly disturbing. Jesus was telling a story in which their enemy was the one to offer more care than their religious leaders.

And to be fair to the religious leaders who passed by, they had justification. After all, they had Scripture on their side. They had interpreted the canonical law correctly, their bible, and part of ours too, says that it is sinful to come into contact with a half dead man. It was sinful for them to come in contact with the man in need and so they went with orthodoxy over common sense; they went with orthodoxy over mercy, they went with orthodoxy over love.

And we get it. After all, we do the same thing today. We allow a couple of obscure verses of scripture to trump our common sense.
And in case there was any room for confusion, Luke has Jesus say to the young lawyer, “which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” To which the lawyer responds, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.”

Go and do likewise. Friends, this young man came to Jesus wanting to know the meaning of life. He wanted to know the way to fullness of life. And though he had been trained enough to know that love is the answer, he didn’t know what it looked like.

Jesus told a story that reminded him that the way to life abundant isn’t about chaining ourselves to the law, to the rules that we follow through life like a map, it’s about taking time to care for those around us, to show mercy. It’s about investing in community, not in general, but in particular. As Howard Thurman said, we don’t love in the abstract, we love in the concrete. We love in community, and when we have a question, we ought to err on the side of love.

Friends, when we allow our understanding of what is “right” or “orthodox,” or “Scriptural” to get in the way of our common sense of mercy for our brothers and sisters in this world, we miss the point of the gospel.

When I was in thirteen, my home church in Kansas hosted an AIDS conference. It was a big deal at that time and our newly elected United Methodist Bishop, came to participate in the conference and to talk with some of the youth about the challenges surrounding AIDS.

While he was chatting to us, a person came in and whispered a message in his ear. When the person left, the Bishop turned to us teenagers and said, “There is a man who is on his way here from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka.” --a church that some here might know from their protests in recent years at military funerals-- He told us that this church will be on the other side of the street when we left that day and that they would most likely holding up signs condemning our church.

Then the Bishop paused and said, “I had two gay sons who died of AIDS, and as we were burying them, that man was shouting at their graveside, your sons are burning in hell.”

And then he said, “I want you to know, there is another way to be a Christian.”

Friends, what today’s young people don’t often hear is that there’s another way to be a Christian.

There are people in our world, our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters among them who are in need of mercy, of love, of care, and the church keeps moving to the other side of the road.
And whether we realize it or not, we have an audience. People, young and old, are watching us and wondering how we can proclaim the gospel of love and continue to ignore people right in front of us.

In this story, we see Jesus pointing, as he does throughout his ministry, to the one who wasn’t concerned with the law, but with grace. Friends, even if we have questions, we are called to err on the side of love.

Perhaps the lesson of the good Samaritan for us as Christians, and for the church as a whole, is that we should never be shown up in our love.

And when we are, it is time to re-evaluate our faith.

And so, we are left with the basic question of this sermon series. What does the gospel have to offer to today’s emerging adults? The same thing it has to offer each of us: Life. Real Life. Full life. A life which promises that no matter how hard things get, no matter how crazy, how isolating, how demanding this world becomes, we are not alone.

In other words, a life of love.

And while it can be confusing to know how to find it, we might do well to follow the example of Mr. Rogers and begin every relationship by asking, “Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?” Amen.

~The Rev. Dr. Stephen Cady, II

Pastor, Asbury First UMC, Rochester, NY

posted in Guest Preachers on 06.29.2014 at 11:00 am

Sunday
June 22

Wonder and Other Life Skills

By Marsh Chapel

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

How fun it is today to be lead-off batter in the summer preaching series, with Dean Hill’s choice theme of “the Gospel and Emerging Adulthood.” I’m going to take a swing at this first pitch and see if I can get us on base with my sermon title, which I boldly borrow from Kathleen Fannin’s book title, “Wonder and Other Life Skills.” Fannin, who is a college chaplain, writes about creating spiritual life retreats for young adults.

WONDER. I’m tempted to say it’s a Wonderful word, but you know we ought not be redundant in our definitions. WONDER As a noun: “A feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected.” As a verb, “to be curious to know something.” Or better yet, WONDER as the reality of all life- as Abraham Joshua Heschel writes, “To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings….Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.”

Let’s name WONDER as a quality gifted us by emerging adults. It’s one of the reasons why I love being in ministry with young adults; they have yet to leave behind the beauty of “childlike wonder”; they are curious and open to learn; they haven’t yet developed the protective exoskeleton of cynicism some already emerged adults have grown. Let’s name today that we can all learn from young adults, and that indeed our very walk of Gospel discipleship has one persistent demand on us- that we are receptive. Receptive to wonder. That we keep our hearts and minds open to the presence of the divine all around us, and within us…. in short that we cultivate the life skill of wonder.

Pause a moment to ask What exactly is Emerging Adulthood? Whatever happened to being an adolescent and then a grown up? Sociologists advance that Emerging Adulthood is actually a new developmental stage, one identified as part of a post-modern coming of age reality. A stage post-adolescence and pre-adulthood, generally identified as the years between 18-29. And it is interwoven with characteristics of the Millennial Generation-our current population of emerging adults.

Janjay Innis, a recent graduate of the BU STH, a young 20 something who is off taking the world by storm in mission work, spoke at the NE AC UMC last week- she said “in spite of staggering statistics about Church decline and the claims that Millennials are disengaged with the Church, God has raised up a new generation of young people who are seeking and asking questions about how faith calls them to be about the work of justice, peace, reconciliation, and love. This is Gospel.”

In the Gospel lesson that spoke to me for this day, Jesus teaches us how to engage the world. Jesus tells us to put on His yoke, to choose to walk with him tethered to the holy perspective of freedom and wonder. To walk together, linked shoulder to shoulder along a route that he promises we’ll figure out together. And you will see dedication of service and love of selfie and love for neighbor in such a wonderful way.

The first time I saw an actual yoke happened to be in my own emerging adulthood years. I was a brave 22 year old, and I had just loaded up my backpack to live a year on my own in Israel, learning Hebrew on a kibbutz, milking cows in Hebrew- I don’t know how to do it in English- pulling the 5 am shift in the milking parlor. I was a NYC suburban kid enamored of farm life. I still have the scar, faint now on my finger, given to me by the first cow I ever milked. She didn’t like my unskilled touch so she stomped on my hand. I learned to welcome the metal bar yoke of restraint that my kibbutznik partner taught me to apply. It settled my bovine friends and allowed us to work together in the land of flowing milk and honey.

More commonly a yoke is used to link 2 working animals side by side - often oxen- so they can focus on the path intended for them. With heads directed forward, the crossbar rests on their shoulders, distributing some of the weight of the pull of the plow or burden of the wagon. In Biblical metaphor, a yoke is a most often a symbol of servitude, of being harnessed to a life of toil.

But if you know anything about our friend Jesus, you know he is apt to invert metaphors, to Wake Up our settled assumptions so we might be receptive to wonder. Jesus rebukes the established generation of religious folks who act is if they know it all and yet… they cannot recognize John the Baptizer as a messenger of the kingdom of God- to them he is an ascetic nut job who wears weird clothes and eats weird food. They cannot recognize Jesus as the Son of God – to them he is a rule breaker who likes to wine and dine with the wrong sort of people. Jesus says these already emerged people are really like babies- they don’t get it. Perhaps it will be the ones who are not so impressed with organized religion who will truly see him.

Hear Eugene Peterson’s lovely interpretation of our Gospel. Jesus says, in Matthew 11:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

On this first weekend of summer, doesn’t that sound like the most wonderful invitation: to recover our lives? To learn the unforced rhythms of grace. Here in Boston, let’s face it - the historic epicenter of the Puritan Work ethic - Jesus offers us a way forward in centered peace. Let’s hear a witness to the gospel keeping company and living freely with emerging adults.

I met Bethany Printup-Davis through my previous appointment as the Protestant Chaplain at Nazareth College in Rochester NY. Bethany grew up on a Tuscarora Indian Reservation near Buffalo, she attended a church off reservation and was particularly fond of singing in the choir. She was an enthusiastic undergrad who came to our Sunday evening Protestant Worship services. These services that in my first semester drew a not-so-enthusiastic crowd of 4 or 5. And 2 of us were paid to be in attendance- myself and the undergrad piano player. The College was founded as a Catholic all women’s school, but had been independent and co-educational for 3 decades. However, the legacy of Catholicism reverberated, and every Sunday night I waited as pew after pew of Catholic students poured out of the Chapel from evening Mass, galvanized by a specific religious tradition. Then my little flock entered the Chapel for our service. I found that while my students were keen to explore their spirituality, and to offer their lives to make a difference, they had minimal introduction to religious tradition. And they called themselves “the not-Catholic kids.”

And so I started to introduce them to wonders of Protestant churches. I began by bringing students to a national gathering organized by United Methodist college students. And 2 wonderful things happened for Bethany Printup-Davis at a gathering in Shreveport Louisiana.

First, the keynote speaker was Dr. Eboo Patel, a sociologist of religion, a devout American Muslim from Chicago by way of family of origin in India. Eboo Patel, the founder of the Interfaith Youth Core, spoke eloquently to us about our Wesleyan heritage. He detailed the mission of John and Charles Wesley and enumerated the beauty of Methodism. He urged that the best way to be a fully engaged citizen and a full partner in interfaith cooperation is to know your own faith story.

Second, the music leaders were all Native Americans, taking the stage and leading us in songs with cadence of drumbeat and dancestep of ancient practice. My young friend Bethany sat in the front pew, as close as possible to the music. And she wept. Grace flowed down her cheeks. Later she told me “Robin, I had no idea that I could unite my Native identity with my Christian identity. I thought they had to be separate.”

The next year Bethany was up there on the stage- a leader in the music ministry. She went on to take a Confirmation Class with me, to be baptized and welcomed into the UMC though our Campus ministry. I saw her a few weeks ago as she led a Workshop for some 500 churches on Native American awareness. Professionally she is a District educator for Native American cultural competencies, and is discerning a call to ministry. She is as enthusiastic as ever, attributing her joy to walking with Christ in wonder of identity.

My friend Micah Christian is a young man with a big and brave vision for being Church out in the world. I’ve journeyed alongside him the past several years on a path that has taken him through Spiritual Life practices in seminary to baptism and confirmation in the Catholic Church to a year of service in Peru with his wife Jocelyn, to expressing beauty and faith through music. Perhaps you are one of 11.5 million people who watched him perform a couple weeks ago with his quartet “Sons of Serendip” on America’s Got Talent. All 4 members of the band are recent BU grads- having earned degrees in law, theology, and music. At their audition they received a standing ovation. The judges- one of whom – Howard Stern – is a proud BU alumnus, were in rather stunned awe. Many in the crowd of thousands at Madison Square Garden and those of us huddled around TV sets cried for the beauty of it. Their harp, cello, keyboard and vocals transported us.

I first learned about Micah’s new band on the last Saturday of the semester, when he approached me on Marsh Plaza. I was in midst leading a Study Retreat for students, and we had brought the labyrinth Brother Larry and students made some years ago out onto the Plaza. A whole variety of folks came by and walked the labyrinth – this ancient Christian practice now embraced by just about every spiritual tradition I know as a tool for centering. Students of engineering, law, management, fine arts…a family on their way to a Red Sox game, 3 fraternity brothers rushing to a big event, 2 girl scout troops… they all stopped to walk in peace. The engineers were the most suspicious. “It’s a maze, right? It’s a trick for me to solve, right?” “No,” I said “there is no trick, and the meaning isn’t found in external analysis. You just have to get in there and start walking, trusting that you will be led to your center.” And so they did.

As Micah and I chatted around the perimeter of the labyrinth he told about this crazy, unexpected America’s Got Talent ride with the band. He had just come from a rehearsal on campus. While he could not tell me anything about the results of the audition, sworn by Producers to secrecy, (we know now they advanced!) He told me about fans waiting at the stage door, autographs requested, the pull and push of the glittery world of reality TV. And his desire, his burning deep desire to stay centered in the soul of the music and the soul of the friendship in the band. To stay centered in integrity- so that everything he said and sang and did might reflect his calling to live as a follower of Christ.

He was on his way to see his Spiritual Director, and thanked me for sharing the labyrinth because “so many of us struggle to stay centered.”

Researchers at UCLA have a longitudinal study on Emerging Adults and Spirituality. They conclude that there is a positive correlation between spirituality and well-being. While the highly spiritual students were by no means exempt from the significant stresses of collegiate life, they were also able to exhibit a high level of Equanimity. .. the qualities of being able to find meaning in times of hardship and feeling at peace and centered.

Micah, Kendall, Cordara, and Mason: Sons of Serendip, from the heart of your campus at BU, we wish you every joy and success.

Young adults witness to me just about every week the sentiment of Anne Frank, who wrote, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” They get inspired and they get going. Caitlin Schultz and Lyndsey Seeley Fellows attended a national campus ministry event, and came back to the Nazareth campus with hearts strangely warmed by the Church’s impact on malaria prevention in Africa. They said, “Robin we are going to raise $1000 to donate to the Nothing But Nets campaign, to send treated bed nets to Africa, because they are so effective in saving lives. We have this idea to partner with the Men’s basketball team, because they have nets.” Apparently my exoskeleton of doubt had developed because I did not match their enthusiasm. “But we are a small group, we don’t know anyone on the basketball team, actually we don’t know any athletes, and I’m just not sure that’s a realistic project.” And then they called me to WAKE UP! “Robin if you are not going to help us, you can at least get out of our way.” And you bet I joined them –as they put on the yoke of service to the world. Over the next 2 years they raised $3000, with hundreds of students and faculty and staff from all over campus participating. And our little group of “not Catholic kids” gave themselves a new name as they multiplied in numbers and confidence and spirit. They called themselves “The Little Church That Could.”

And, finally, I share a story about the yoke of accompaniment.

Demarius Walker is soon to graduate from BU. He’s a philosopher and deep thinker and kind soul who loves to dive deep into conversations that matter. He’s the leader of our Howard Thurman discussion group here at Marsh. He participated at one of our recent Study retreats as we ended the long, productive day by gathering here in the sanctuary at 10 pm. Turned out all the lights, and walked up to balcony by candlelight to reflect on the day in the shared company of friendship and prayer. Demarius lingered, absorbing the tranquility of the stillness, the silence, the flickering of light. Afterwards he shared a story with me.

He told me that one time during the winter, very late at night, he wandered across campus and found himself at Marsh Chapel. He was slightly surprised to find the front door open. He came in. Something compelled him in, down the center aisle of the sanctuary. All the lights were off, except for the solitary light that illuminates the face of Christ on our chancel. It was a moment of sheer awe for him, and he stopped in his tracks midway. He could not go further. Then he sensed a companion. He looked over and there stood David Soper, our Marsh sexton and steward extraordinaire of this block of Comm Ave. Now, Demarius wasn’t sure he was supposed to be in the middle of the sanctuary in the middle of the night, and he was getting a little nervous in front of this man in an official BU uniform. But before he had a chance to give explanation David spoke, “Beautiful isn’t it?” as they both gazed at the illuminated Christ. Then, David turned and left.

I followed up with David, and asked for his recollection of the night. He said, “Oh sure I came in early, probably 3 am or so, to get a head start on clearing all the snow on the Plaza. It was a nice quiet moment to share together.”

Friends, we are called –young and old and in between - to accompany one another in this wondrous journey. Let’s step into the summer with Rachel Carson, pioneer environmentalist from Maine, who wrote, “If a young person is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder…she needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.” Let’s walk together in the unforced rhythms of grace.

~The Rev. Dr. Robin Olson

posted in Guest Preachers on 06.22.2014 at 11:00 am

Click here to listen to the University Baccalaureate service.

Sunday
May 18

University Baccalaureate

By Marsh Chapel

Click here to watch the video from BU Today.

Boston University’s 2014 Baccalaureate speaker was Dr. Nancy Bishop, Amgen, Inc., Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For more information, please see the BU Today article.

There will be no sermon text posted for this Baccalaureate address.

posted in Baccalaureate, Guest Preachers on 05.18.2014 at 11:00 am

Sunday
February 16

make haste slowly

By Marsh Chapel

The sermon text is unavailable at this time.

~Ms. Liz Douglass, Chapel Associate

posted in Guest Preachers on 02.16.2014 at 11:00 am

Sunday
January 19

The Welcome Table: Welcoming the Unwelcomed

By Marsh Chapel

Luke 14: 15-24

The Parable of the Great Banquet

When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”

Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’

“But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’

“Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’

“Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’

“The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’

“‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’

“Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”

To Dean Robert Hill, in his absence, and the fine chapel assistants and staff of Marsh Chapel; to you, the Marsh Chapel congregation and our radio listeners, and especially to the faculty, students and staff of Boston University, I am indeed delighted to be here again on this special Sunday in which we celebrate the living legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. Had he lived, he would have been 85 years-old on this past Wednesday.

Introduction and Elaboration of Thesis

Our Gospel text is about a table conversation between Jesus and a rich and influential man of the cloth. Jesus had been invited not so much because the pleasure of his company was sincerely desired, but so that he could be watched by the cynical and critical eyes of his enemies. They wanted to see him break the rules in some word or act of religious and moral impropriety. In response to his host’s table blessing, “Blessed is he who shall break bread in the Kingdom of God”, Jesus relates the story of the Great Banquet which you have heard in the reading this morning.

In the parable, a certain man prepared a huge feast and invited all the people who are on his regular guest lists: his friends, the socialites, the fat cats and the play- makers, but they all for some reason or another made paltry excuses and did not come. So when the servant returned and reported this to his master, the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant to ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’” The second and third invitations are different in respect to degree, each was more expansive than the other—from the streets and alleys of the town to the rural roads and country lanes—the servant’s orders were to compel them to come to the banquet. Welcoming the unwelcomed to the feast involved radical hospitality (and it still does).

The Welcome Table Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.—William Faulkner, Light in August

As we gather on this very special Sunday, dedicated to the memory of our greatest alumnus, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I thought it appropriate to pause and reflect on the place of memory and its power to evoke presences; ghosts, if you will, who beckon us, nudge us and demand of us that we take up their quarrel with the foe. All around us and within us, we are surrounded by memories that seek habitation in our lives, our speech and actions. It was Dean Howard Thurman who often said from this pulpit, “We died but you who live must do a harder thing than dying is. . .You must think and ghosts will drive you on.”1

During the holidays, I was struck by the powerful symbol of the Table. The times at the Table with family, friends and food were filled with moments of joy and of sadness— but precious memories, nonetheless, that I cherish because they help me to believe. I had plenty of memories. There were memories of my mother busy in the small kitchen in Chicago preparing for the big meal of ham, turkey and dressing, candied yams, greens, macaroni and cheese, cakes and pies. Ours was not the idyllic Christmas of John Boy on the Walton Farm or Beaver and Wally at the Cleaver dinner table, rather it was the gathering of my sisters, brother and brother-in-laws, uncles and aunts and cousins and friends who would drop by for good food and fellowship. Everybody was from Mississippi or one of the southern places from which people had come in search of “the warmth of other suns”. They had long memories of families gathering together at the Table. It was a Table where everyone was welcome and it really didn’t matter whether you were related or in the family’s circle of friends, if you showed up, you got fed. We knew then about the meaning of the Welcome Table--it meant radical hospitality for the least of these.

I think that we are forgetting (or have forgotten) that The Welcome Table is part of a great American tradition. Maybe once upon time, we, as African Americans, took it so seriously because we knew something about not being welcomed—not being welcomed in certain establishments, certain schools, certain neighborhoods, certain parties, around certain people—even certain churches and cemeteries. We knew what it meant to be unwelcome, so we worked hard at preparing a table that was big enough to welcome all. That’s why the old enslaved Africans, who had been relegated to the margins of anonymity and profanity, would gather way down in their brush arbor meetings and while working in the fields, and sing a song about The Welcome Table:

I’m going to sit at the welcome table Yes, I’m going to sit at the welcome table One of these days, hallelujah I’m going to sit at the welcome table Sit at the welcome table one of these days, one of these days I’m going to feast on milk and honey... I’m going to tell God how you treat me... All God’s children gonna sit together... I’m going to sit at the welcome table..3

Kennedy, King, Mandela and Obama and the Welcome Table

These “black and unknown bards” knew that while the Welcome Table was part of the great eschatological hope of African Americans, it was also costly. On this Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Sunday, I want us to remember people who paid the price for all of us to come to the Table. There are so many heroes and sheroes whose memories visit us from the past 50 years. Both 1963 and 1964 were powerful moments which shaped the legal, moral and spiritual landscape of the United States of America forever. I want to lift up the names of Medgar Evers (field secretary NAACP, murdered June 12, 1963); Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Denise McNair (the 4 little girls who died in the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on September 15, 1963); and the 3 civil rights workers, Michael H. Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James E Chaney (murdered June 21, 1964 and found two months later in an earthen dam in Philadelphia, Mississippi)—all martyred in the struggle for justice in this country. They made possible the Welcome Table through radical hospitality. Now they implore us to join them at the Table. Longfellow wrote:

There are more guests at table than the hosts Invited; the illuminated hall Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts, As silent as the pictures on the wall.2

In late November of the past year, the nation was busy remembering the erudite and handsome, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, who was assassinated 50 years ago. Although some were suspicious of his politics and cautious embrace of the civil rights movement, in almost every African American home of the sixties his picture was on the wall alongside Jesus and Martin Luther King, Jr. His picture was there in commemoration not so much for his brilliance and commitment to civil rights—-but because of his absence. Although some felt he came kicking and screaming, he made room for us at the Welcome Table. So, we treated him as family.

Most Americans of that era had a deep respect and abiding reverence for the office of president. I am not so sure now. The dangerous incivility and racist innuendoes hurled at President Obama convince me that though seasons have changed, still most Americans find it easier to revere our fallen heroes than to honor and believe in the possibility of the present ones.

On August 28th of this year, my wife and I joined the throng of thousands who returned to the Lincoln Memorial, this site of memory, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. While sitting there, I could not help but reflect on the progress that we have made towards the realization of that dream, but also on how far we still must go “if America is to become a great nation” as King so eloquently proclaimed. I was trying to believe. While we sat there in the shadow of the Great Emancipator, there were signs and banners calling attention to the George Zimmerman verdict in the killing of Trayon Martin, a seventeen year old teenager in Sanford, Florida. President Obama’s remarks that “Trayvon could have been me thirty-five years ago” came as a source of encouragement for many mass protests of righteous indignation and cries for justice from citizens around the nation. On the other hand, many felt that he had inserted the proverbial race-card into an already volatile situation of fractured race relations in this country. Some conservative pundits blamed him for acting as the “Racist-in-Chief” while some critics within the black community felt that he said too little, too late—that his statement was like “pre-sweetened Kool-Aid” suggesting that it was palliative, at best, and failed to address the deep structural issues at stake for the poor and black and hopeless masses who needed his engaged and embodied leadership in this case and others.

One has to ask why this continued public harassment of President Barack Hussein Obama which appears to be intensifying as Supreme Court rulings carefully and effectively began to dismantle the hard-fought gains of the Civil Rights Movement (the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and affirmative action) in the year of the 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s historic speech.3 Is it because there are some people in this country who are afraid of the Welcome Table?

I visited family over the holidays and in the home of my sister there was a picture on the wall next to Martin and Malcolm X. It is the dignified portrait of Nelson Mandela. He was not made in America, yet he helps me to believe. He was a beautiful man with a soft smile and deep humanity. When I was at Morehouse College, each summer, I led a delegation of students sponsored by Oprah Winfrey to South Africa to study ethical leadership within the context of the South African democratization process. After a visit to Robben Island, the prison facility where Mandela spent most of his 27 years incarcerated, one of the students wrote in his diary:

The impact was strongest when I stood directly in front of Nelson Mandela’s cell, number five in the B section, which was reserved for political prisoners. Sections A and C housed criminal prisoners. What affected me most was to hear how these prisoners were actually treated. It was heart-breaking to look at the cement floor where Mr. Mandela slept without a cot or anything for cushion. It was enormously troubling to look at the five-gallon bucket that Mr. Mandela had to use for a bathroom because there was no toilet in his cell. Who can imagine having to smell something like that two feet away from you all night long until the following morning when you were allowed to empty and clean your waste bucket?4

We cannot help but resonate with this student's feelings as he observed Mr. Mandela's inhumane circumstances, but we also marvel at the deep humanity of this man who forced an apartheid government to open up the Welcome Table and who emerged as the first black president of South Africa and statesman to the world. Madiba teaches us that:

Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage;

If I have freedom in my love And in my soul am free,

Angels alone, that soar above, Enjoy such liberty.5

Today, I would like to place another picture on the wall this morning. It is a picture of my colleague, Professor Kathe Darr, Chair of the Faculty Council, who has made a commitment to expand the Welcome Table at Boston University. She is joined by the President and Provost in this commitment to diversity. Let us pray that in this year when we celebrate the memory and legacy of Martin Luther King, that we place more pictures on the wall.

Opening up The Welcome Table: Welcoming the Unwelcomed

I often wonder what it will take to produce a new generation of leaders who understand the power and the cost of radical hospitality and who are willing to build on the great vision of a beloved community. What might it mean to become servants of justice and truth in this place that is haunted by the memories of Martin Luther King, Jr., Howard Thurman, Barbara Jordan, Anna Howard Shaw, Walter Muelder and Samuel DeWitt Proctor and so many others, who like ghosts, drive us on? Echoing Frederick Douglass, King often said, “Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless effort and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God.”6 Ah, there it is! Co-workers with God! An old-fashioned, unsophisticated theological assumption that has no empirical warrant and backing? Maybe . . . but it got the job done. I think it still will.

Ours is a daunting challenge, but if we are truly committed to welcoming the unwelcome here at Boston University and elsewhere, we must join the long and hallowed chorus of brave women and men and boys and girls who have dared to make room for others at the Table. King called these principled actors who are willing to risk life and limb through nonviolent creative social change, “transformed nonconformists.”

Summary and Closing

In closing, parables can be tricky—the Parable of the Great Banquet does not tell us how much work and how hard it is to welcome the unwelcomed—to expand the guest lists and to restructure the rooms so that “the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame” can come in.

First, welcoming the unwelcomed involves courage—the courage to change. According to Martin Luther King, Jr. it begins with a transformation in consciousness— a revolution of values and priorities. It implies a re-orientation of values and priorities, it requires a readjustment of our worldview, it requires a rearrangement of the personal and social furniture in our living rooms—more than that it requires a type of courage, a kind of resistance, a steadfastness to go in spite of the resistance. It says, "Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and God will strengthen your heart."

Second, welcoming the unwelcome will require a sense of justice. Justice as fairness—a level playing field. If we are going to invite others to the Table, we will need to change the menu, change the rules of etiquette, restructure the dining room and change the seating arrangements. We will need to make room for folks at the Table who do not look like us, talk like us, dress like us, love like us and pray like us. It means ultimately, that we must learn to share power. For the religious among us, it will require repentance, confession and conversion. For some Christians, this will be especially hard.

Finally, we must practice compassion for the least of these. Who are the least of these? They are the ones whom we do not see, whom we seldom even think about except when in our hurried pace, we pass them on the street or see them behind bars or lying in their own blood on the evening news. One has to ask how is it that in a nation of so much wealth and prosperity, we are witnessing more and more poverty, mis- education, mass incarceration of the black, brown and poor, the left-out and the left behind?

Who are who are the least of these? They are your sisters and your brothers locked in poverty and locked out of a future of hope and possibility. Dare we see the face of our brothers and sisters from whom we are estranged and find our own faces?

We need not look far to see what is at stake in this call to radical hospitality. It is not enough to be gentle, civil and progressive—these are fine personal attributes, but ultimately we are called to put some skin in the game, to stand up and join the creative forces that call us to justice and peace-making in this world. Leaders in this century are called to be more than charitable actors who respond to the needs of individuals; they must be willing to stand at the intersection where worlds collide and create communities of justice and compassion. Who dares to stand in the absent spaces and places left by King and others and suffer with strangers? Who dares to welcome the Unwelcomed to the Table?

NOTES

1 From Howard Thurman’s meditation in memory of Jim Reeb in the issue of The Liberal Context (Spring 1965) a paraphrase from Hermann Hagedorn’s The Boy in Armor, "Because you would not think we had to die : . . . .We died. And there you stand no step advanced."

2 “Haunted Houses" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

3 In 1964 Congress passed Public Law 88-352 (78 Stat. 241). The provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race in hiring, promoting, and firing.

4 Walter Earl Fluker, Ethical Leadership: The Quest for Character, Civility, and Community (Fortress, 2009)166.

5 Richard Lovelace, “To Althea, From Prison” (1642)

6Douglass actually said: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.” Frederick Douglass, “West India Emancipation” speech at Canandaigua, New York, August 3, 1857. See more at: http://www.blackpast.org/1857-frederick- douglass-if-there-no-struggle-there-no-progress#sthash.fLNNA0p9.dpuf Accessed, 19 January 2014.

~The Rev. Dr. Walter Fluker

MLK, Jr. Professor for Ethical Leadership, Boston University School of Theology

posted in Guest Preachers on 01.19.2014 at 11:00 am

Sunday
October 20

Rules of Engagement

By Marsh Chapel

I am a parent today. Yes I stand in this pulpit as a Pastor whose head and heart have been claimed for years by the joy of ministry with young adults. But, today, the title I claim is MOM. I am here for Parents’ Weekend, and I welcome members of my parent posse who have travelled across the country to spend some time on campus with our sons and daughters. Dean Hill tells me that this day is special because we have been granted visitation rights. Welcome to campus, parents.

If you’ve had a conversation with me for longer than 5 minutes this fall, you know that my son is a freshman here at BU. All right, let’s be honest, it’s probably more like 2 minutes into our meeting. OK, you have to tell the truth from the pulpit- it’s been a message of my heart emblazoned in neon on my sleeve for the world to see. “My son is a freshman here!” I’m kind of a proud Mom, who is very close to her son, who’s had a hard time letting him go – I know –go ahead and laugh- I am letting go all the way from my work place here at 735 Comm Ave across the street to his residence at 700 Comm Ave.

As a chaplain I’ve led many events over the years for parents dropping their kids off at college. But there is a profoundly different experience when it is your own child…… I am a parent today. Did I mention that? Has it been 2 minutes into our conversation?

I’ve been rereading some of my higher education books on college transitions, specifically passages for parents. I haven’t read so many parenting books since the infancy years. But I am honoring this unique time of transition. And trying to get it right on my end. Our lesson from Jeremiah today has a pithy proverb about first generations not getting it right for the next generation. Jeremiah admonishes that “the parents ate the sour grapes, and the children got a stomachache.” I thought- parents - we can do better than that. And Jeremiah thinks so too- he envisions a day when an individual’s actions will have consequences for that person. You eat a bad apple, and you get the stomachache. Mistakes of the elders need not be passed on as problems for the children. Of course it goes both ways, and we have not a little bit of attitude in a couple verses from our Psalter toady- - did you note the line when a young writer says - “I understand more than the aged.” Just an FYI: I wouldn’t recommend students quoting that one to your parents over lunch today.

Since we parents really are trying to get it right, let’s name a place of origin for us. I quote from my Fall Canonical literature: Letting Go: A Parents’ Guide to Understanding the College Years “We all know intellectually that this is a time for our children to separate and assert their own independence. But long after they have become taller or stronger than we are, our primal protective feelings are easily unleashed. We carry images in our heads of the curly haired toddler, the gap-toothed 6 year old, and times when a hug could make their world all better. The mature, rational part of us wants them to solve their own problems and believes they can- but another part of us wants to stay connected, be in control, protect them from any pain they will have to face.” End quote.

When our son announced to us, complete with drumroll, that he was choosing BU from the 10 schools at his horizon, we were thrilled. Not the midwest college we thought he might choose, some 12 hours from home- but 9 miles, we were ecstatic. ….My husband and I love this university, having met here, both earning our first graduate degrees here, both now working here on campus.

Our highly literate son could read the excitement in our faces. He even read that chapter in our minds, that went something like “maybe the nest won’t be so empty with our youngest living a block away from our offices.” Our son then presented us with a carefully premeditated, bullet pointed speech that he coined his “Rules of Engagement” for attending BU.

Our biblical scholars will recognize that These Rules are apodictic in nature- all the lovely thou shalt not commandments. MOM, You will not greet me with your usual outgoing enthusiasm. No unsolicited hugging. If we pass by one another on Comm Ave, you may greet me with restraint, IF I have first acknowledged you. This acknowledgement will be in the form of a nod of the head, perhaps a smile. No Acknowledgement, no greeting.

If we see each other in the GSU, and you are looking for a table at which to eat lunch, and I give said acknowledgement, you may come over just to say hello, even to my group of friends, but NO “honey how are you, I miss you, I love you” talk. Communications will be occasional texts and phone calls, and I will be home for Thanksgiving.

I thought for a moment and said, “So, you want us to pretend you‘re in college in Ohio.”

“Exactly!” was his reply.

My son is here in the sanctuary today. My son, who has been raised by 2 United Methodist clergy parents, is a PK squared. My son, who has been the object of many a sermon illustration in many a church. My son, whose classroom building shares a Plaza with this chapel. My son, who shares DNA with a BU Chapel Associate and a Professor. So my gift to my beloved, amazing, wonderful son is that I will let him be anonymous. But I have to call him something, so I’ve been calling him HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED . “You know who” is in the house today.

Now, “You Know Who” grew up book by book with Harry Potter and the Hogwarts posse. YOU KNOW WHO is a reference to Lord Voldemort himself, the source of all evil and fear and chaos in the world. This is where the pseudonym loses some of its utility, because my son is not the Dark Lord. But it’s the best I’ve got. Students, you gotta trust us, we parents are doing the best we can to let go and to set you free for like Robert Browning we know that “the best is yet to be.”

So, ‘You know who,” while I applaud your disengagement from your parents, I have 3 Rules of Engagement of my own I would like to share today. Without “thou shalt not”

Look Up. 2. Get Lost 3. Be Unrecognizable.

Look Up. In my first parish there was a framed Norman Rockwell print, that featured St. Thomas Episcopal Church on 5th Avenue in NY - a gothic revival beauty of a church. Numerous Urban pedestrians are passing by the church, each downcast, slumped over in cement gazing routine. Not a one is looking up. The rector is outside on steps in full vestment, and he has just posted his sermon title on the church sign entitled “Lift Up Thine Eyes!” You can sense both his Jeremiad admonition, What are you doing ,people, and his Jeremiah vision for life that could be lived so much more abundantly.

Dean Howard Thurman, who served this Chapel 1953-65, stands on the steps of Marsh Chapel 24 -7, calling out “Come Alive! Figure out what makes you come alive and go do it!” Lift Up thine Eyes. Look Up around you. That will help you to look deep to the hunger within you. Look up. look in. That sounds a little bit like Albus Dumbledore wisdom, what do you think You Know Who?

Look up! Yes, the Mom here does want to mention, please look both ways when crossing Comm Ave- 57 bus, BU shuttle, cars, taxis, T, bikes, students on skate boards, not so smart pedestrians glued to smart phones .

LOOK Up. Be attentive to your splendor. Live mindfully. With intentionality put down your virtual world so that you may live into the incarnational world of God’s people right here, right now.

When my generation went to college we were exhorted to do this newfangled thing called Study Abroad. For this globally connected generation, in a post- modern flattened world, I have no doubt that you are engaging the world. But I exhort you to engage the person right next to you.

Sharon Daloz Parks who writes about emerging adulthood and faith, notes that young people are hungry for “hearth places.” Hearth places are places where people linger with one another, with invitation to pause, to reflect, to be. They offer an exquisite balance of stability and motion. They are places of contemplation- defined by Quaker Douglas Steere as “A continual condition of prayerful sensitivity to what is going on.” Be attentive to what is going on. This can be in a Marsh Chapel fellowship meal when you discover that inquiring minds really belong in this place, on your dorm floor when your friends throw you a surprise 18^th birthday party , when you look up on your walk to class and smile at everyone you meet.

Hearth times can happen on the T in serendipitous conversation with a fellow sojourner , at a meal in the Dining Hall when you open your table up to greet a student from another country, studying another discipline, and Common Ground morphs from a phrase of Howard Thurman to a discovery of your heart.

This is where we parents must nuance one of previous Rules of Engagement we taught you in grade school, notably “Stranger Danger.” You know how to be smart and safe, but our faith urges us to engage the stranger in our midst - in addition to your 1,452 Facebook friends. Did you know that in class of 2017, right here on campus, there are students from 66 different countries? Look Up.

Daloz Parks says that the “hunger for hearth-sized conversations persists, and it can be ignored only at the cost of a malnourished life.” Eat well at the banquet of BU community! Be attentive to the Splendor along Commonwealth Avenue.

Rule #2 for He Who Shall Not be Named and all our beloved students. Get Lost. Sometimes we need to get lost on purpose, sometimes we just need to stop the ego car and admit that we need directions.

Now, this is going to sound counter-intuitive to this GPS dependent generation. Where a satellite can talk to the gadget in your palm and your friend Siri can guide you wherever you want to go. Our wisest spiritual guides tell us that pilgrims on adventures get lost a lot of the time- so we best value the process, not just the destination. When you are lost and must rely daily on the kindness of strangers.

In our worship life this fall we’ve been travelling through exile with Jeremiah. . .Displacement. Separation from home. Dislocation. Life on a foreign avenue. Following political defeat, Jeremiah travels with Judah from home field advantage of Jerusalem to refugee life in Babylonia. At first there is the shock and lament of arrival in a new place. Then last week Jeremiah recognized that the Babylonian exile would last a long time –so he advised folks settle in- to build houses and plant vines, to thrive, even to do their part to benefit the welfare of the foreign city in which they now live.

Students, you are not here because you are lost, or exiled. You are here by privileged choice to study at this fine University. But what student has not felt the burning loneliness of banishment from all that is familiar, or the paralysis of fear during these midterm evaluations. Am I good enough? Can I do this? Confessed or not, there is a moment of longing for the cocoon of unconditional love at home. It’s not only OK to be lost, it’s a condition of our humanity. To deny our moments of exile is to deny our moments of restoration. And here’s the lavish joy of life. My colleague the Rev. Jen Quigley expressed it beautifully when she preached that “Grace is the serendipitous moment of being found.”

Sometimes it’s good to Get lost on purpose. Spend a day away from your determined efficient production, and wander. Wander to the shoreline with Dean Hill, wander through neighborhoods of Boston, wander into colleges other than your own, wander beyond your syllabus and get lost in the thrill of an idea. Chase a footnote down its rabbit warren of antecedents until you look up at the clock and an hour has passed. It’ll probably have nothing to do with the thesis of your current project- but it may lead you to the very thesis of your life. To Vocation. Get lost in what you love.

Over the years I’ve led numerous Alternative Spring Break trips for service and vocational exploration. At each trip’s orientation I name that it will be a week of “intentional dislocation.” We are purposefully leaving what is known and comfortable, in order to see ourselves in a new way, to become a joy-filled Christian community in that long fun van ride. We must separate from homefield advantage so we may be fully open to the communities we will serve. Kenda Creasy Dean calls it the place of “creative disequilibrium,” a liminal principle of the Gospel - that the reality of being off kilter may precipitate growth and transformation.

Getting Lost is like Falling in Love. You are lost and you are found. Fall in love on purpose. Listen to this short poem by Ignatian priest Fr. Pedro Arrupe:

Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.

Look Up, Get Lost, and my final Rule of Engagement:

Be Unrecognizable

When You Know Who went off to FYSOP community service the week before classes, he was still 17. I had to fill out special BU Rules of Engagement forms to surrender my minor’s care to the University, including my own cell number. There was a slight miscommunication and apparently my number was confused with YOU KNOW WHOs number. I started to get texts that week. They didn’t sound like messages that my son would write to me. “Hey DUDE, meet at the Plaza at 10 tonight to start our night out.” I wanted to write back “Hey Dude, I’m the Mom; I’m headed to bed at 10.” But instead I wrote, ”I believe you want You Know Who’s number. Here it is. Text him.”

After about 3 messages from my Dude friend- who was so very friendly and polite- I thought we had it nicely worked out. Until the second week of classes and I got a text that read, “I’m on the Quidditch Team, I’m a chaser, I am a member of Dumbledore’s Army, and I have 2 interviews for staff writing positions.” Oh great, it’s Dude again. Who is this person writing me???? Until I studied the number, and realized this indeed this was HE Who Must not be Named. Unrecognizable to me in two weeks. Fabulous!

Students, Reinvent yourself. Or as a friend of mine, Nora Bradbury-Haehl writes in her new book called the Freshman Survival Guide, “Shed you skin, not your skeleton.” Do something so different that your parents have to google it to figure out what you’re up to. I had to Google “chaser” (it’s a quiddtich position) and I did some research to learn that “Boston University Dumbledore's Army is a chapter of the Harry Potter Alliance. We will harness our love for Harry Potter to bring about change in the Boston community through volunteering and fundraising.” Wow. I love it!

Finally, Jeremiah dreams of a day when we are transformed from the inside out. When our hearts are strangely warmed, and our new lives of justice and joy are practically unrecognizable . Jeremiah gives us these famous words -“The days are surely coming when I will make a new covenant… I will put my law within them, and I will etch it on their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people.”

Beloved students, this is our deepest and most important dream for your engagement. That the love and grace of God will be so close to you that it is tattooed on your heart. That you will be in relationship with this God in Christ who accompanies you through exile and into homeland.

Friends, Be careful crossing the street. Thank you for visitation rights. And, Fall in love with God, it will make all the difference.

~The Reverend Dr. Robin Olson, Chapel Associate

posted in Guest Preachers on 10.20.2013 at 11:00 am