Marsh Chapel Sermon Archive

By Marsh Chapel

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Luke 10:38-42

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In the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum here in Boston, there is a tapestry room. The room is grand with walls displaying enormous tapestries. Many of the tapestries depict images or scenes, one even showing parts of Abraham’s story. These textile artworks are woven together thread by thread to make their images and tell their stories. They may not always have the vibrancy of oil and canvas, but they are commanding. At its essence, a tapestry is a collection of dyed threads. Because the thread is dyed before being woven into the final product, it takes an enormous amount of precision and patience. It takes vision to see the final product and precision to actualize the vision. When connected to the whole, each thread becomes a part of something larger. Colors work together to form beautiful images.

I’m struck by how each individual thread alone is small. Just a piece of thread. A single piece is easily broken or blown away by the wind. These individual threads are vulnerable to tearing. When they are woven together into a tapestry though, the threads become stronger together. The small thread vulnerable to tearing alone is less vulnerable when surrounded by a community of threads woven into each other. On a tapestry, the horizontal threads, the weft threads are woven through the warp threads, that are the vertical ones. Horizontal and vertical, weft and warp, hold each other tightly to prevent the tapestry from coming undone or fraying. They work together to hold one another in place.

When I was young, whenever I had a thread break away from a piece of clothing, my mother would tell me not to pull it. I generally did it anyway but pulling it risks making a minor snag into a big problem. Because of the way cloth is woven together the threads hold the other together but it does not make them invincible. So, pulling on loose threads can risk the safety of nearby threads as well. Tapestries are similar. Despite their strength, when threads fray or get pulled out, sections of the tapestry can be weakened.

Perhaps, the tapestry can serve as a metaphor for community. Ideally, threads work together, holding one another up. Each plays a part, drawing attention to each other. Each thread contributes in its unique way to some image or scene. Each thread matters to the whole but no one thread dominates the others. They are interconnected and interdependent. At the present, our social tapestry is frayed and fraying at a rapid pace. Loose threads are visible, and many have been pulled threatening the whole structure. The more this occurs, the greater the potential for continued degradation and destruction. Loosening threads threaten our social tapestry. We are coming to see what many around the world have experienced for much longer, societies are not always safe or stable. Many of you are already aware of the fraying tapestry. Perhaps, many of you also feel a sense of paralysis over what to do. Let us listen to the Gospel according to Luke for the inspiration of the Spirit who has weathered ages past and will see ages to come. We turn to Luke, not to escape our world and troubling situation but to remember the promise of the Gospel. Let us search for the good news.

Directly following the parable of the Good Samaritan, last week’s Gospel reading which ends with “go and do likewise” is a short scene involving two sisters, Mary and Martha. The text says that Martha invited Jesus to her house. Jesus was presumably traveling with the disciples and others so this may not have been a small invitation. A good-sized entourage was likely with Jesus. There was no texting so maybe Martha knew she would be hosting but perhaps she had no idea. Either way, it seems Martha was busy trying to get everything that involved hosting together. I sympathize with Martha here. Hosting is hard work. Cooking, cleaning, filling drinks, making sure it is not too hot or too cold, hoping the conversation, barely audible from the kitchen is entertaining for everyone present. Hosting is a big responsibility and has social norms and expectations. Hosting can be a high-pressure activity, even if a lot of the pressure is self-imposed.

The social norms and responsibilities were even greater in the 1^st century than they are today. In ancient Greek literature, we read about hosting in language reminiscent of the sacred and friendship. We also see examples of the high place of hosting and hospitality in the Hebrew Bible. Acts of hospitality or inhospitality feature prominently in the Genesis patriarch stories and in other places throughout Scripture. Hospitality was more than good manners, it was meeting the needs of guests’, often considered friends when under the roof. Meeting guests’ needs goes above and beyond warm smiles and being polite. It is caring for the person. Amid trying to get everything done and be hospitable, when Martha saw her sister Mary at Jesus’ feet, she questions what was happening. Perhaps, she wants help, perhaps she feels the impropriety of a woman learning at the feet of a man should be questioned. Possibly both.

Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” Martha would like help. Hosting is hard and she might be used to her sister doing the work with her. Interestingly, she turns to Jesus for that help. She questions Jesus about his care over her sister leaving her to do the work, even while it is her house. As host, Martha had the authority to request Mary’s help, but she defers to Jesus, her guest but also the Lord.

Teeming with gender roles and expectations, Jesus’ response, like the Parable of the Good Samaritan, defies typical roles. Women were not to learn at the feet of teachers, but Mary sat at Jesus’ feet choosing to defy the social and gender norms in normal circumstances, let alone when hospitality was involved. Expectations were flipped. Even still, it is important not to create a binary system of womanhood from this Lukan text. We should not go around labeling people Mary’s and Martha’s when it seems to me that Luke was pushing back against gender norms and societal expectations not creating a system of labels and boxes. This passage shows that there is more than one way to be but, perhaps we should go even further to remind ourselves that life and situations are complex. We embody a myriad of roles or positions throughout our lives, none of which have to be raised to ontological necessity. Sometimes, we embody the role of host and sometimes we embody the role of learner, and sometimes even both at times. Personhood, identity, and roles are more complex than labels. Labels can be useful, especially as they provide orientation. But it is important to recognize the role of the situation in our actions. We all perform different roles and actions in different situations and contexts. Rather than threatening our core senses of selves, the very situations we find ourselves in are the places where action and being come to fruition.

Along with homilician David Schnasa Jacobsen, I see this with the Gospel too. The Gospel is not completely understood as something apart from the situations we find ourselves in but speaks to, from, and with situations. That means that our present situation of a fraying tapestry is not without the Gospel. It pushes us to hold up where we are, context with our faith, text and belief in the hard work of discernment. In this way, the Gospel becomes something more than ancient creeds and words on a page, it incarnates through us into the world. This mode of discerning the Gospel has less surety and more openness which can make it uncomfortable, but it also holds the potential to be revelatory in this day and age.

After the parable of the good Samaritan, where someone typically looked down upon was the paragon in the parable, Jesus once again defies custom. He responds in favor of Mary. “10:41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 10:42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” Martha is concerned with hospitality. A good concern. A needed concern. God bless those concerned with hospitality. She wants to care for those who have come under her roof. Martha is actively doing. Like many others who invited Jesus to their house and showed hospitality, Martha does not want to miss the opportunity to show hospitality but unlike many others who order servants to do the hospitable work, Martha seems to be doing it herself. Feeding, washing, and caring are holy work.    Mary wants to learn from Jesus. Both are worthy and often Luke pairs a parable or a narrative with another parable or narrative which inform the other.

Maybe the Parable of the Good Samaritan, with its emphasis on action and the story of Mary and Martha, with its emphasis on listening, form a sort of pair. The Good Samaritan emphasizes action and this narrative listening at the feet of Jesus. Perhaps, each in unique and varying situations are needed. What is “better” for Mary may not have been better for Martha and vice versa. Perhaps, it is the very situation which determines which is “better” to use Jesus’ words. But no matter what, like the weft and warp of a tapestry they mutually inform and hold each other in place. The strength of the tapestry is not the weft or warp alone but their interconnected woven nature. The strength of faith in belief and action is also in their interconnected woven nature. Take away “Go and do likewise” or take away faith at the feet of the Lord and the tapestry falls apart. Each person contributes in their unique manner to the whole in a way that fundamentally matters. Uniqueness and diversity give the tapestry its beauty. Threads woven together, lend the individual strands their strength.

I spent the first summer in seminary working for the seminary grounds crew. There were about 6 of us Master of Divinity students who did everything from mowing to weeding and trash pick-up to planting. We spent one whole month weeding and mulching, weeding and mulching, weeding and mulching. Into the second week of mulching, we confessed that each of us had felt job envy at some point. You see, on the first day of mulching we all selected a part of the overall job. I used a pitchfork to get the mulch off the dump truck and into the wheelbarrows, three people moved the wheelbarrows from the truck to the flower beds, and two people spread the mulch in the flower bed. We all played our part but after a few hours of this day in and day out, it was easier to focus on the ease of other tasks and escalate the hardships of our own. We referred to this feeling as job envy. Envious of the desirable parts of others’ roles while neglecting the desirable parts of your own job. “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?”

We tried rotating jobs but really came to see that the initial jobs we had all chosen were the ones we wanted to do. So, we stuck with the same jobs and tried to keep the job envy at bay. The six of us all played a part in the overall work. Even while our attitudes toward each other and the work impacted our experience of each other and the work.

Community takes work and a desire or commitment to community. As I read old accounts of Methodist camp meetings and society meetings, lately I have been struck by the communal aspect of discernment. Faith and discerning the promise of the Gospel was not something done in isolation, it was communal by purpose. People gathered to read the ancient text, sing, and share their lives together. It was personal and communal balanced together. People affirmed, challenged, or illuminated in community with one another held together by a common desire to love God and neighbor and interpret the times. What I sense in these old accounts is an understanding that God’s promises to Creation, God’s promises to us are woven together. Because God is not my God alone and because I am not the only person in Creation, discerning the will and promise of God should be communal because the tapestry is strongest when the threads are interconnected. My understanding of God and life are enhanced through engagement with others. Woven promises connect and form strong bonds.

This is a different view of faith and spirituality from the strong “personal relationship with Jesus” language of my youth. I still see some merits in that image and language, but I also think it has its limits. God is not my personal God but God over everything. My view and understanding of God are enhanced by listening to others and engaging others. I think if faith is going to continue to be a voice of goodness and purpose in the world, it will do so through more communitarian ideals. It will do so by returning to a vision of faith discerning in community and with community; rather than, highly individualistic manners. At a time when the social tapestry is frayed and fraying, the church can lend strength to the threads of life. No matter what isolated individualism would have us think, our lives are woven into Creation and into the lives of others. Just as my family, friends, and people I’ve encountered are a part of my memories, I am a part of other’s memories. The social tapestry is complex.

Colossians invites us to be reconciled with Christ, the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all Creation. The one present at Creation and who it is through that Creation came to being. “1:17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” To be a part of God’s tapestry is to recognize that Christ is part of what holds the threads of Creation together. Christ’s promises are not ours alone to possess but are directed toward all of Creation. Which calls us toward responsibility. We are not responsible for the whole tapestry but perhaps, with wisdom, guidance, and love we can be threads which strengthen; rather than, fray. Perhaps, we can be threads that help hold the threads around us together in strength and love.

When we care for one another, the tapestry of Creation strengthens. When we listen to those who need to be heard, the tapestry strengthens. When we encourage and promote self-care and mental health, the tapestry strengthens. When we participate in loving communities and churches, the tapestry is strengthened.

Amos knew something of the need for a strong tapestry. In fact, the Amos passage for today begins with fear over a frayed social tapestry. Fear that inequality was irreversible without divine intervention and fear over how God will intervene to end the inequality of the day to right the iniquity of the time. Amos speaks of buying the poor for cheap prices, using weighted scales, and padding grain with useless bit unfit for eating.

-The Rev. Scott Donahues-Martens, PhD Candidate, BU STH

posted in Guest Preachers on 07.17.2022 at 11:00 am

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By Marsh Chapel

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Luke 10:25–37

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Against a dark background of economic need revealed in violent thievery, our Gospel sings out a majestic ode to mercy.

Against a dark background of cultural violence revealed in highway robbery, the taking of what is not one’s own, our parable pronounces a poetic ode to mercy.

Against a dark background of racial contest, revealed in the starring role of the Samaritan, our Lord acclaims a gemlike ode to mercy.

Against a full and darkly difficult background of taking what is not one’s own, Luke’s own biblical theology starkly epitomized in chapter 10, perhaps and rightly the best known and most beloved passage in Scripture, gives melodic voice to an ode to mercy.  We listen this beautiful Sunday morning, first for a moment to Luke, and second for a moment to the Samaritan.

What meets us in St. Luke this summer?

Luke was written nearly a generation later than Mark, by most estimates, Mark in or near 70, Luke in or near 85-90 of the common era (though there is now some significant resistance to this view).  Traditionally ascribed to Luke the physician, its author and that of its sequel, the Acts of the Apostles, is finally unknown to us.  We know him only through the writing itself.

What do we find?  Or what shall we find in prayerful conversation with Luke across the summer?

Luke is made up of a mixture of ingredients.  First, Luke uses most of Mark: like Matthew, Luke knew and repeated most of the earliest gospel, Mark. But he made changes along the way, or construed the gospel according to his own desires and emphases.  This is hopeful for us, in that it is an encouragement for us to take the gospel in hand, and interpret it according to our time, location, understanding, and need. This requires that so long left behind over fifty years, a sound liberal biblical theology.  Second, Luke uses a collection of teachings, called Q, as does Matthew.  An example is our Lord’s Prayer, later in the service. Luke’s version is slightly different from that in Matthew, as is his version of the Beatitudes and other teachings, found in the ‘sermon on the plain’, rather than the ‘sermon on the mount’.  Third, Luke makes ample use of material that is all his own, not found in Mark or elsewhere. The long chapters from Luke 8 or so through Luke 18 or so, very much including the pinnacle parable this morning, are all his. Examples include some of your favorite parables, like today’s Good Samaritan, and like the lost sheep, and like the Prodigal Son, and like the Dishonest Steward.  We have Luke to thank for the remembrance of these great stories. Luke brings us a unique mixture of materials, and makes his own particular use of them.

Luke weaves together his own perspective and materials with that of the rest of the Scripture.  Luke has a passion for compassion, and sings out as today a song, an ode, an accolade through and through to mercy.  To justice.  Real religion, by Luke’s measurement, is not ever very far from justice, from a concern for justice, for the just cause, the just word, the just deed, the just perspective.  Including today.  Luke draws from the whole, the whole of Scripture to craft his two books, the Gospel and Acts.  So, look for a moment at the rest of Scripture.  Tragically, sadly, in this last month, we may be closer than we have been in a long time to real, though harshly administered, reflection on matters of interpretation of ancient documents, whether the Holy Bible from thousands of years ago, or the US Constitution, from hundreds of years ago.  Interpretation really matters.  Biblical theology, a sound mode of interpretation, really matters, counts, and lasts. A purely originalist view, whether for Constitution or Scripture, will bring its own maladies, as bear witness following the Supreme Court decision, leaked earlier, but announced last month.  Are we to read these documents only as collections of topics from the past, cemented in antique times and places?  Or are we to read them regarding their themes, their living themes, not just their topics, and the lasting, growing, consequential outworking of these themes, in both history and theology, or in both history and philosophy?  Topics of themes?  Origin or meaning?  There is a biblical theme, today, undergirding the Samaritan, the most marvelous of parables, the theme of justice.  It lives throughout Scripture.

Read the books of the Law, like Exodus 23:9: “You shall not oppress a stranger; you know the heart of a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt….For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat.”

Remember: the Hebrew Scripture, our Older Testament, was largely composed in the dark days of a later slavery, the bondage of Babylon.  In that moment of memory, the community of faith recalled keenly their earliest history of God’s love and power, the God who brought them up out of the land of slavery to the land of milk and honey.   They mused:  We know what it means to be poor, to be oppressed, to be outcast, to be downtrodden. Once we were ourselves. THEREFORE, there will be justice in our land for the poor. You and you all know that too, and may need to search your extended family histories and memories for what happened to your people in the Great Depression.   We learned something, or were reminded of something, then, as were the Israelites dragged again in chains to Babylon in 587 bce. Luke writes in earshot of Babylon.

Read together the books of the Prophets, the very heart of the Old Testament.  In all of religious literature, in all human history, there is nothing quite as sobering, as piercingly and stingingly direct, with regard to justice, as these 16 voices, four the louder and twelve the lesser.   Malachi teaches tithing. Isaiah affirms holiness. Hosea preaches love. Micah shouts, ‘do justice, love mercy, walk humbly’. Together the prophets consistently rail against human greed, human selfishness, human covetousness, human apathy.  The harvest here for our theme is so plentiful it is difficult to select an exemplar, there are so many.

Perhaps Amos will do best, our lectionary guest this morning. In the eighth century BCE, a shepherd boy from Tekoa went down to the gates of the big city, Jerusalem, and cried out against it.  He pilloried the shallow religion of his day. He assaulted the reliance, the naïve over-reliance of his government on weapons of war, he bitterly chastised the amoral, post moral practices of human sexuality of his day.  But he saved his real fierce anger for injustice.

“I will not revoke the punishment, because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes—they that trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and turn aside the way of the afflicted” (Amos 2:6-7).  “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies…Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness as an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5: 21-24). Recall Martin Luther King reciting these verses, down in the sweltering little jail house of Birmingham Alabama, 1963.

Read together the books of Wisdom, especially, as we do each Sunday, the book of the Psalms. Let us read together the books of Wisdom.  Love is for the wise, and justice is the skeleton of love.

“When the just are in authority, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan…The just man knows the rights of the poor; a wicked man does not understand such knowledge…(Proverbs 29)

‘Because the poor are despoiled, because the needy groan, I will now arise’, says the Lord; “I will place him in the safety for which he longs’ (Psalm 11: 5).    “You would confound the plans of the poor, but the Lord is his refuge’ (Psalm 14:6).

In an odd way, the most sobering judgment about justice is offered by Ecclesiastes, who speaks least directly to the theme.  But his philosophy is clear, his thematic emphasis.  He looks at all the toil of the sons of men, and sees—vanity.  He warns: that for which you strive will not last, that for which you suffer will not endure.  “What has a man for all the toil and strain with which he toils beneath the sun?  For all his days are full of pain, and his work is a vexation; even in the night his mind does not rest’’(Ecc. 2:23).  As an Indian proverb puts it:  ‘In his lifetime the goose lords it over the mushroom.   But in the end, they are both served up on the same platter’.  Each a reminder:  Justice lasts, not acquisition.

More: to understand, or interpret, the Good Samaritan, this magisterial parable, one needs more than origination, more than topics, more than the geography between Jerusalem and Jericho.   One needs to hear it in the heart of Luke, and in the fullness of Scripture.  One needs a sure grasp of the great themes of Scripture, not just the topics.

So, listen second, this morning again to the Samaritan.  Against a full and darkly difficult background of the taking what is not one’s own, Luke’s own biblical theology is starkly epitomized in chapter 10, perhaps and rightly the best known and most beloved passage in Scripture, which gives melodic voice to an ode to mercy.  An ode is:  something that shows respect for or celebrates the worth or influence of another (Webster).  An ode in the general sense, and one…full of surprises.  Surprises…Notice them…In Luke 10…

 The breadth of life promise, do this and you will live…

 The honesty about random peril, hurt, along the road of life…

 The abject failure of the clergy—priests, levites-- to respond…

 The heroism of the excluded, the heroism of the Samaritan…

 The touch, time, treasure, tenacity of the care (seeing, anointing, bandaging, carrying, paying, returning)…

 The timely, welcome open space at the inn unlike Christmas…

 The jarring turn of neighbor from object to subject (not who to care for but, who cares)…

 The questioning of the questioner…

 Such a Diamond! Gem! Masterpiece! Parable…

In our own moment, we may be nourished by such an ode.  How dearly we need that nourishment.

For we now awake every morning, unlike those mornings prior to November of 2016, when still there lingered the prospect of a common hope, arising to see in every direction--the taking of what is not one’s own.  Pollution, Putin, Pandemic, Politics, Prejudice, Pistols, and Pain.  Climate pollution, the taking of the green earth by one generation, when it surely belongs to future generations.  The taking of land by one country, in inch-by-inch slaughter of another.  The taking of public health, like water and air a common good, not one’s own, but taken nonetheless, mainly by not facing it as a whole, as a nation, together, as in the pandemic. The taking of political activity, engagement, and truth, and making of it into a seedbed for autocracy.  The taking of the tragic history of racial injustice—THE HALF HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD—and making of it into a mode of argument, jousting, contest.  The taking of freedom from fear of gun violence, a freedom owed children in schools and at parades, as if their freedom from trauma were ours to take.  And now, in addition, the taking of women’s bodies, and the coming frightful multiplication of needless and heedless pain.  Women’s bodies are women’s bodies.  The theme underlying all these: the sordid taking of what is not one’s own, the rapacious seizing of what is another’s, what belongs to another.

How utterly, staggeringly different, our Samaritan gospel today, the picture judging us from antiquity, the account of love of neighbor.  Yet, there are glimmers of encouragement, in every day and week.  We have had a week and more of reminders, like that of the Samaritan himself, of how good life can be.

One loves his northern neighbor by the honoring of Canada Day with a Maple Leaf flag…

One loves her next door neighbor with anniversaries and birthdays with strawberry pies… 

A community loves the neighborhood by funding block parties for dancing, county fairs for the dairy princesses, symphony concerts on village greens with the star-spangled banner all standing, some Strauss some dancing to it, the requisite John Williams compositions all nodding, and a Sousa march as cherry on top…

 Our own existential plumb line inherited from Amos and the truth of Holy Writ, of biblical theology, is not entirely forgotten, in our common culture, nor is our own existential call to mercy in the glorious example of the Samaritan.  And that is truly good news.

What shall we do?

 Jesus answers, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho…

 What shall we do?

 But you are doing it.  By private prayer.  In attendance on ordered worship. In a ministry of outreach to the shut in and home bound.  In preparation for a holiday barbecue.  In the planning for choirs and programs, and study groups to come.  In offering a kind word. In charitable, generous giving. In noticing hurt and offering help.

 What shall we do?

 Jesus answers, learn from the Samaritan…

Jesus answers, show mercy

And Jesus gives us something we can do to preserve a glimmer of personal encouragement, the practice daily of the love of neighbor

 An Ode to mercy…

Go and do likewise…

 An Ode to mercy…

Go and do likewise…

 An Ode to mercy…

Go and do likewise…

-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel

posted in The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel on 07.10.2022 at 11:00 am

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By Marsh Chapel

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Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

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The Summer at Marsh chapel is a slower time of year – our weekly programming takes a hiatus in between semesters. We spend our time focusing on planning for the next academic year and continuing to worship together each Sunday morning. One of the regular opportunities we have for student engagement over the summer is during orientation sessions. BU is a large institution, which means each entering class is several thousand students. In order to accommodate the number of new students and give them and their parents the appropriate amount of information they need before they start their first year, there are several sessions throughout the summer where students meet other first year students, do team building activities, and go to sessions about student accounting, safety, and general college life. Our involvement during orientation is to welcome students and explain what religious life entails at the university. We offer information about the many religious life student groups we have and our times for worship and engagement at Marsh Chapel. This year, we’ve been doing this by setting up a table on the plaza and offering Marsh Chapsticks and candy to students. Honestly, results have always been varied when we do this. Religion isn’t necessarily a flashy draw to young adults. Most of the time people avert their gaze away from us when we make eye contact or say “Hello” but then walk hurriedly past.

If you’ve ever been in a position of engaging the general public to get interested in a cause, your place of work, or even just to take some free promotional items, you know what a challenge it can be. People are wary of strangers approaching them, as they should be in a lot of cases. Trusting someone you’ve never met before is difficult. Making sure they’re not trying to deceive or harm you should be a concern. When you’re on the side of trying to provide that information to people it’s even harder to get them to engage you. You have to be non-threatening. You have to invite them over and say “no problem” or “thanks for your time” if they say no to you. Your job is not to force them to listen to you, but to offer an invitation for engagement which they can take or leave.

If they do take up your offer to talk, you have to be willing to listen to what they say and offer your truth to them in a way that isn’t judgmental or coercive. If it’s information they want, then give them that information. If it’s deeper questions about what you do, try to answer that in a way they can understand. Every once in a while you make a connection – someone who is looking for a place of worship, looking for how to practice their faith now that they're leaving home, or how to go about exploring new or different faiths. Those are the highlights, but more often than not we encounter folks who are sometimes even embarrassed to talk to us because, in their own extremely apologetic words “Sorry, I’m not religious!” The expectation that there’s going to be some sort of judgment from us as to whether someone is religious or not might seem difficult to grasp for those who are involved in our community at Marsh, but in the wider world the judgment for not holding the same beliefs can result in conflict.

As we’ve been exploring Lukan Biblical theology together for the past few weeks, we’ve witnessed Jesus rejected again and again. In the first story, even though Jesus has committed a great act of healing by casting out demons in a man marginalized by society, the community which had rejected the man does not accept Jesus either because they are afraid of the power he possesses. Instead of the man joining the disciples, Jesus tells him to go back to his community and show them what God has done for him. Jesus is rejected but he doesn’t let that stop him from continuing with his ministry. He deploys the man as an apostle, sharing the Good news of God’s kindom with the world.

Last week, at the beginning of our narrative, Jesus sends messengers to a village of Samaritans in order to prepare a place for him to stay. The Samaritans will not allow Jesus to stay as their way of life is so different from the Jewish way of life. In response, John and James want revenge on the Samaritans. How could they not accept Jesus? How could Jesus not be upset? Well, in fact Jesus was upset, but with James and John. They missed the point of what Jesus is trying to do in his ministry, share glimpses of the kingdom of God with those around him. And if people don’t accept it right away, then he moves on to the next village to proclaim his message there. Jesus teaches his disciples about his mission in the world, they follow him, but when left to their own devices, they often miss the mark of what it is they are supposed to be doing.

This week we transition from learning about what discipleship looks like to what it means to be an apostle. Now it is commonplace that people will often use these two terms interchangeably. However, they do mean different things. A disciple is a learner of Jesus. An apostle is one who is sent out by Jesus. The important thing to remember about this is that the two are not independent of each other. Exegetical scholar Brian Stoffregen notes “Discipleship without apostleship leads to stagnation. Apostleship without discipleship leads to burnout. A life-giving faith requires both: the inflow from disciplined learning and the outflow of being sent into the world with a message.” We are called to follow Jesus but we are also called to go out into the world and bring along messages of peace and God’s kindom. Disciples and apostles are two faces on the same coin, bringing the reality of God’s Kindom into the world by living out Christ’s teachings.

In this week’s Gospel, Jesus is ready to send out the seventy in pairs to each town as apostles, making the way for him as he will eventually reach each of these towns. Much like discipleship there will be hardship in being an apostle. They are lambs being sent out amongst wolves – the world around them will be hostile to their message. Not only that, but he tells them to go without any sort of supplies and to rely on the hospitality of strangers to survive in each town. They are at the mercy of those they encounter – they are not to conquer in the name of God, but to be welcomed in and show graciousness to their hosts by sharing God’s peace with them. Their goal is simple, to bring news and action of the Kingdom of God into reality for those they encounter. They announce a message of peace, which sometimes will then rest upon those who receive it and sometimes will not. He also indicates that they will possess the ability to heal others and have demons submit to them. These are powers Jesus himself has but as his representatives, they also possess them.

Despite the fact that they have these cosmic gifts, Jesus warns them about rejection and getting lost in their power. Again, they are to bring a message of peace. If their message is not received, they should shake the dirt off of their shoes and move on to the next town (sound familiar from last week’s reading?) They are also not supposed to get too caught up in the power that God has given them. Their power ultimately lies in heaven, in the faith they have in God, not in their ability to cast out demons or heal people. They’re not to revel in these abilities but instead continue doing the work of God’s Kingdom by bringing the love that God shows to the world through Jesus.

Amy G. Oden, a Church History and Spirituality scholar, succinctly states what Jesus’ instructions are to the seventy:

“Jesus does not instruct them to argue, convince, or threaten if they are not welcomed. He does advise them to signal their moving on by shaking dust off their shoes (verse 11). In this way, they are not weighed down by rejection, or paralyzed with trying to figure out what they did wrong or could have done differently to produce a different outcome. Instead, Jesus invites them to move forward in the confidence of these two proclamations, “Peace to this house!” and “The kingdom of God has come near.”

Jesus sends the 70 out into the world and this should also be an invitation to us. First, we don’t know who the 70 are. It doesn’t say if they are a specific gender, because we know that Jesus attracted followers regardless of their gender, which means any person can do this work. Second, 70 is a lot of people! This isn’t some select group who can know and share this good news – it’s everyone! Also, he doesn’t expect them to get it right. We know from Jesus’ interactions with the disciples that they often still don’t understand what God or Jesus is up to, even if they are willing to follow Jesus’ teachings. These apostles are sent out with the simplest message and, if they trust in God, they will be able to share that message with others. The 70 apostles will make mistakes because they are human, and human desires are constantly in battle with what God wills for the world – that is the nature of sin.

The power of the apostles evangelism lies in God. It isn’t their responsibility to change what God offers to fit to the demands of the people. Instead their role is to embody God’s peace and to offer the knowledge that God’s kingdom has come near to the people they encounter. As Christians today, this kind of apostleship seems foreign to us. First of all, many of us in mainline protestant denominations, particularly in new England, cringe at the thought evangelism. Perhaps it’s because our culture has repeatedly told us that religion is something you do not discuss in polite company or perhaps because we are challenged by the ways some of our more evangelical brothers and sisters go about evangelizing. But evangelical, despite the connection with more conservative forms of Christianity in the United States actually means “those with good news.” It’s why Martin Luther preferred to use this term to describe his movement in the early years (before others started calling them “Lutherans”) during the protestant reformation, because it was a return to the good news, the Gospel, rather than the abuses of the Catholic church at the time. Jesus is calling the apostles to be evangelicals. We are also called to this task in sharing our experiences of God with others and listening deeply to their stories and experiences.

Despite this, often times evangelism gets corrupted into coercion. In fact looking at our current national situation, it would appear that this coercive type of Christianity has a grip on our national politics. Jesus doesn’t say to argue with people about being a Christian – he says to offer what God has offered and if it is not accepted, move on. The Gospel speaks for itself. Jesus isn’t a part of the powers that be, it’s why he’s constantly reminding the disciples and now the apostles that they are lambs among wolves. Christianity that comes to serve the interests of individuals is not Christianity, it coopts the message of the Gospel, which is to point toward the kingdom of God rather than the powers of individuals here on earth. When people use God as a means to oppress others, they are not proclaiming the Gospel. When they push their ideology on others without considering how it fits into God’s message of peace and what Jesus has taught about the Kingdom of God, it is no longer evangelism on behalf of God. The idea of forcing beliefs on others is not what Jesus instructs. Jesus is not here to declare revenge on those who reject him, he is in the process of establishing a new creation that radically transforms each and every one of us.

God doesn’t grant us dominion over one another – see Paul’s letter to the Galatians. We are to work together, not create divisions, in order to fulfill the Gospel. We are made new in Christ and in that newness of creation we develop new ways of relating to one another that look nothing like our human-centered hierarchies. Our mission is to invite people into this new creation; to live in the world in a way that is completely different than anything we can imagine. Our vision of a new creation helps others to become a part of something that is beyond our current comprehension.

It begs the question, how will we show up for God in the world in such a way that others feel welcomed to our community. How can we continue the tradition of brining the Kindom of God near to others that they will feel compelled to learn more? We should be good enough  apostles that we create new disciples, receiving the peace of Christ and experiencing the Kindom of God on their own to then share it with others. We do not to coerce but invite. Not oppress but to liberate through the gospel. Not to harm or conquer, but to share love and healing in a reciprocal relationship. Our conception of evangelism need not be forcing people to submit to the will of God, but instead showing through our actions, our invitations, our mere presence as a Christian that we welcome and affirm all people and encourage them to explore their faith without intimidation.

Going back to the beginning of this sermon, tabling for student attention doesn’t get easier as the years go by. But each year, nevertheless, we meet people, few in number, who find a home in Marsh Chapel. Maybe it’s on Sunday morning, in the choir, or during community dinner on Monday evenings. But what I will tell you is that for most of the students who come to our activities for the first time, they say “wow, how come more people don’t know about this?” That is a question that should stick with you. How come more people don’t know about this? And what can we do to help people recognize the peace offered here in ways that will encourage people to learn more? Marsh Chapel is not perfect, none of us are, but we help create places where students can be their authentic selves and connect to something larger than themselves. We might feel ill equipped to do this work, but Jesus shows us that you don’t need to have anything to be able to share his message with others except an attitude of humility and a willingness to engage people where they are. By living out our faith, by showing hospitality and grace to others, we continue Jesus’ commission to “Go on your way.”

-The Rev. Dr. Jessica Chicka, University Chaplain for International Students

posted in The Rev. Dr. Jessica Chicka, University Chaplain for International Students on 07.3.2022 at 11:00 am

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By Marsh Chapel

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Luke 9:51-62

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Good morning. What a week. Any pastor or preacher will tell you that what you think your sermon for Sunday might look like on Monday or Tuesday can be radically different than what actually develops by Saturday evening. Consider this sermon to be the work of the Holy Spirit in a hurting world. Consider it living into the reality of being a person who must navigate between being living in the world that we have created as human beings and a member of God’s eternal kindom. If we’re being extra specific, consider it me living out my Lutheran identity as both sinner and saint, of this world and the next, of one freed by Christ and bound to serve and love my neighbor because of that freedom.

So first, a check in. How are you? If you just said “good” I bet you were just trying to exchange a pleasantry with me. I once had a therapist who would start every session by asking me “how are you?” to which I would reflexively respond – “good.” We had to work on that. So let me try this again, How are you? Take a second to think about it. The world has been an extra difficult place to be in the past few years, if not the past few weeks and months particularly. If you are a woman, a person of color, a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, a parent, or any combination of these identities you may be finding it especially difficult right now.  How are you doing? When is the last time you checked in with yourself to really truly explore how you’re feeling? When is the last time you had a conversation with God? When is the last time you felt supported, whole, cared for? When is the last time you felt the Holy Spirit guiding you forward, or took time to see if you could sense it’s work? It may be hard to identify right off the bat. But really think about a time recently when you have felt God’s presence close to you, making things clearer or more obvious.

As we continue our exploration of Lukan theology this third Sunday after Pentecost, we find ourselves on the road. We might think that this passage is more appropriate for Lent – Jesus setting his face toward Jerusalem where he will die. But in this season after Pentecost, when we are constantly reminded of the presence of the Holy Spirit at work in the world, it is helpful to journey along with Jesus and the disciples. These summer months we will journey with Jesus toward Jerusalem, meeting people, hearing their stories, and experiencing Jesus’ teachings and love along the way.

When Jesus is rejected by the Samaritans for a place to stay, John and James are upset. In fact, upset might be too timid a word. They want to condemn the Samaritans by having fire rain down upon them from heaven. They are angry. You might relate to them on any number of issues right now when you feel rejected or displeased with something in our society that shakes your core beliefs. John and James are ready to show the Samaritans what they believe God’s power can do – after all Elijah had done this in response to soldiers who had tried to stop his prophetic mission. But Jesus isn’t Elijah. Jesus isn’t bothered by the Samaritans rejection – he has been rejected by his hometown and this rejection by the Samaritans doesn’t appear to be worth his time. His ministry is not one founded on vengeance – it is one focused on restoration and transformation. He continues on his journey. He moves forward. He can only do what he is called to do if he advances to the next village, the next stop along the way, preaching and teaching to each he comes along. Jesus shows us that while sometimes anger and fury are necessary (see Jesus in the temple) that one must also keep in mind what is at the heart of God – a transformational love which will establish a kin-dom far different than anything we experience out of our own creation.

The gospel lesson once again leads us to see how radically different God’s kin-dom is from our reality when the question of discipleship arises. Jesus is very harsh with those who would be disciples. He reminds them and us how difficult being a disciple really is – no place to call home, no adherence to cultural norms, no time to even say goodbye to your family. Jesus commands a radical shift in understanding what a good life, what a life rooted in God, really is. Jesus’s ministry and the disciples who follow him must be focused on the future and the important task of proclaiming God’s kingdom to the world. Jesus and the disciples are single-minded in the task they have set before them – they cannot be distracted by the worldly demands of what is good or comfortable.

God’s good can be very different from the “good” our social conventions tell us to seek out. Our human good is often rooted in sinful power structures, particularly in using or stratifying people by economic worth, race, or gender. These power structures serve to focus us on human wants and needs over the call of God’s love and justice. It is easy for us to reject those things we consider to be evil in order to be followers of Christ, but sometimes what is more difficult is to reject the things we are told to see as good that keep us from our call to love God and neighbor. We have to be willing to be uncomfortable and even reject some of the things that help us have what our society deems to be the “good life” if we are to truly follow Christ’s command to love.

Lutheran theologian and ethicist Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, author of Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation, puts into perspective our drive toward sin and the redemptive quality of Christ’s love in the paradox that is the life of a Christian:

“We are alienated from God and as a consequence of this alienation (sin), we will betray (to some extent) the ways and will of God. Instead of living according to God’s commandments to love God, self, and others, we will live as “selves curved in on self,” captive to self-interest. The profound paradox is that simultaneously, we are saved by God. Salvation frees us from living as “selves curved in on self,” and saves us for loving God, self, others, and this good Earth. God renders us living abodes of God’s justice-making love. This paradox reverberates with power for the good. It means that regardless of our implication in cruel forms of oppression, human beings also are capable of and called to lives of justice-making love.”[1]

Just because there is sin, just because there is harm and hurt and destruction does not mean that we are not capable of seeking the ultimate good.

“If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” These are good words to hear this week. It reminds us that as followers of Christ we are not only called to live in line with the Spirit’s ways but that we are to be dynamically involved with the Spirit, moving through life guided by it. Like Jesus who continues to move forward in his ministry even when he encounters obstacles, Paul urges the Galatians to continue their spiritual journey guided by the Holy Spirit. Paul’s letter to the Galatians has some very important lessons that can be interpreted for the modern-day church. Paul highlights the tendencies of human nature which continue to repeat themselves generation after generation. Last week, the section of Paul’s letter to the Galatians addressed the false ways human beings try to create hierarchical structures of who is considered to be more or less Christian, or in or out from society, who has power and who is powerless according to their own standards in the name of God. If that doesn’t sound at all familiar, you haven’t been paying attention recently. Our human existence is plagued by the drive toward sin, toward that which directs us away from or interferes with our relationship with God. This week, Paul reminds the Galatians that their commandment from Christ is to love one another, which is obviously something easier said than done.

How will we love our neighbor as ourselves? How? How are we doing it right now? If you are a conscious breathing human adult living in the world today, you can see the many, many, many ways in which we are failing at this. We turn a blind eye to the harm created by exploitative systems. We blame poor people for not wanting to work when the wages offered are not enough to survive on. We witness an unjustified war, rooted in nationalism and economic gain. We fail to give equitable access to healthcare to all people. We helplessly look on as mass shooting after mass shooting after mass shooting takes place and then are deflated when laws that have been proven to lower gun violence are declared unconstitutional. We are left stunned when bodily autonomy is taken away even when we knew it was coming. There are so many hurting and upset people in this world right now. As we continually experience trauma after trauma, we might begin to feel numb about knowing what to do next. We grieve our present reality and look to the past for guidance on where we’ve been and how we got to this very confusing and challenging place. However, we cannot get stuck on focusing on things that have already happened. We have to face toward the future. Jesus knows that his future lies in Jerusalem. He sets his face toward it. He will spend the next ten chapters of Luke on that trek, teaching and healing people along the way. The work of God’s kindom calls us to continue to move forward in an ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit and our community in order to seek God’s love and justice.

To move forward from this place of despair, our understanding of God must be relational. We cannot hope to have a glimpse of the Kindom here on earth if we refuse to be in relationship with one another. We need to be reminded of the ways that the Spirit is present in our lives and look for its fruits as a means of identifying that which brings us into fuller relationship with one another and with God. Our discipleship is a journey, but it is also an opportunity to learn and care for one another. Listen to the fruits of the spirit again: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. None of these mean anything outside of being in relationship with God and with one another. When one of us is harmed, all of us are harmed. When we have in-fighting about who is right and wrong we run the risk of destroying all. Think back to last week’s reading in Galatians – Paul emphasizes that all of the divisions between people, particularly the ones we place on each other, dissolve in the body of Christ. If we succumb to in-fighting over these human made structures, we weaken our expression of God’s love and ultimately destroy ourselves.

One of my favorite parts of my Lutheran heritage is Luther’s 1520 treatise, The Freedom of a Christian. Luther builds upon the concept that Paul points out to the Galatians in his epistle – you are freed by Christ by the grace of God but with that freedom you are to care for and be in service to your neighbor. The freedom gained through God’s redeeming love in the death and resurrection of Jesus binds us to one another. We are to be in service to, to look out for, to love each other in the way that God loves us. That is what we are here to do. That is what our baptismal vows call us toward. We have to be able to look our neighbor in the eye and treat them with the dignity they deserve in all of their complexities as human beings.

God seeks out the uncomfortable. In Christ, we know that God is intimately familiar with the suffering we endure. God also knows what it means to be in opposition to the human power structures that divert us from God’s will and how costly following Christ can be in those circumstances. God de-stablizes the status quo. God causes us to question those in power about what their motives really are – to use their power for freedom, justice, righteousness, or to hold on to power for power’s sake – to control, to harm, to be indifferent about the suffering of others. If the world does not care about seeking justice for all, we must commit ourselves to live out the body of Christ in the world. In the words of Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, being the body of Christ in the world is a “form of God’s overflowing love embodied in community that acts responsibly in the world on behalf of abundant life for all, especially on behalf of those who are persecuted or marginalized.”[2]

We must continue forward following the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Our sightline is set on God’s Kindom, a place where joyful abundance, justice, and peace is set forth for all people. We may share in John and James’ fury at being denied what we believe to be the right course of action, but we follow Christ, through the challenges, through the discomforts, through the hardships clinging to one another as siblings sharing in God’s grace and unconditional love.

In closing, I would like to share a prayer from the Rev. Micah Bucey for times such as these. Rev. Bucey is a minister at Judson Memorial Church in New York City and is author of The Book of Tiny Prayer (you can also find him on Instagram @revmicahb). The prayer is titled “A Tiny Prayer (for those who need to fume today)”:

Let us pray:

May you give yourself the permission you require, knowing that the ground feels shaky, the air feels thick, the future feels scarily uncertain, and then may you reconstitute this anger into action, connecting with those who are also transforming their rage into a radical recommitment to love, trusting that this sparking electric current presently flowing through your body is simply seeking redirection in order to refuel your continued participation in our hopeful revolution.

Amen.

-The Rev. Dr. Jessica Chicka, University Chaplain for International Students

[1] Moe-Lobeda, Cynthia D.. Resisting Structural Evil : Love As Ecological-Economic Vocation, 1517 Media, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bu/detail.action?docID=3380907.

Created from bu on 2022-06-25 13:04:39.

[2] Ibid.

posted in The Rev. Dr. Jessica Chicka, University Chaplain for International Students on 06.26.2022 at 11:00 am

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By Marsh Chapel

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Luke 8:26-39

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Jesus sent him away, saying, "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you."

This summer we listen for good news in the biblical theology of St. Luke.  We do so with the aid of minds and voices of proven preachers, who have earned or are earning doctoral or graduate degrees in theology, our blessed and dear colleagues here at Marsh Chapel, Rev. Drs. Coleman, Chicka, Gaskell and Rev. Donahue-Martens, ABD, and Mr. William Cordts, who together bring a confluence of five rivers of loving grace, five tributaries and contributaries of loving freedom. Further, this summer, we follow the lectionary, or rather, the multiple lectionaries of our life here:  that of the Scripture, say Luke 8; that of the University, say Baccalaureate or Matriculation; that of our nation, say Juneteenth or Fathers’ Day; and that of the Chapel itself, say Independence Sunday and barbecue (July 3 this year).

What does Luke say, and how does he say it?

This will take us all summer and more to unravel.  We shall strive do so, one step at a time, one Sunday at a time, one parable, teaching, exhortation, miracle, or, as today, one narrative at a time.  Still, there are some outstanding features of the Lukan biblical theology, which we may simply name as we set forth. First, Luke displays a commitment to and interest in history, and orderly history at that.  Both Luke and Acts are cast in a distinctive historical mode. In fact, Luke has his own schemata for sacred history, in three parts: Israel, Jesus, Church: the time of Israel, concluding with John the Baptist; the time of Jesus, concluding with the Ascension; the time of the church, concluding with the parousia, the coming of the Lord on the clouds of heaven, at the end of time.  Second, Luke employs and deploys his own theology, or theological perspective, including this emphasis upon history and the divine purpose in history.   Third, Luke highlights the humanity and compassion of Jesus in a remarkable way. The Christ of St. Luke is the Christ of magnificent compassion, embodied in the humility of a birth among shepherds.  The poor, women, the stranger, the injured, those in dire need all stand out in Luke, as the recipients and subjects of Jesus’ love, mercy, grace and compassion. Fourth, Luke carries an abiding interest in the church.  Ephesians says that ‘through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principles and powers.’ That catches the spirit of the author or the third gospel and of the Acts to follow.  History, theology, compassion, and church are hallmarks of Lukan biblical theology.

Our apocalyptic passage today, so colorful and wild, still, at heart, fully acclaims the gospel as did St. Luke so long ago.  That is, indicative precedes imperative.  Indicate precedes imperative, in history, theology, compassion and church. We first use the indicate mood, long before, and in some cases entirely without, our currently preferred theological mood, the imperative.  The gospel, happily, acclaims in the indicative, not the imperative.  The gospel is about what God has done, first, not about what we might do, a distant second, if that.  Indicative precedes and preempts imperative.  What God has done outlasts, outshines, overshadows, outranks, outdoes what we might do, or not.  That is what makes the gospel good news, rather than just news.  It is a large loss that so much biblical theology, including Lukan biblical theology, of our generation has lost this sense, and has eclipsed the indicative of the divine compassion with the imperative of the human.   What God has done.  What God has done. Jesus sent him away, saying, "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you."

And let us hold most closely the divine compassion in Luke.  At every turn, there is a return to the least, the last, the lost; those at the dawn of life, those at the twilight of life, those in the shadows of life.

Notice, record, the way Luke puts it, beginning, middle and end:   He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree, he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away…The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor…Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God…What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?…Sell your possessions and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old…When you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind…You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just…Said Zacchaeus, ‘behold Lord the half of my goods I give to the poor’…They contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty…

In all this, and more, Luke draws on the well-springs of inheritance from the Older Testament, the Hebrew Scripture.  The Bible, fore and aft, trumpets justice, economic justice, justice for the poor, and for all! If all we had were the poetry of that shepherd boy from Tekoa, Amos, that would be sufficient.

Compassion resides in the heart of St. Luke’s gospel, a passion for compassion that wells up into a yearning for justice, one the five rumors of angels our beloved Peter Berger, of blessed memory, did acclaim.  Justice delayed is justice denied.  Let justice roll down as waters.  We now have further voice and space to recognize the arrival of justice, in remembering and celebrating Juneteenth, now a national holiday

Our own Andrea Taylor, BU Senior Diversity Officer,  reminded us on June 13, 2022:

Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Jubilee Day, memorializes June 19, 1865. On this day, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform enslaved Black people that slavery was formally abolished by President Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Still, two and a half years later, Black people in Galveston toiled under the horrors of slavery until Union soldiers came to enforce the President’s order.  

Dean Elmore views this change as a sign of hope.“I say I’m hopeful from the standpoint of people digging into the narrative and understanding the wisdom and knowledge Black folks have.” He believes the celebration can be an opportunity for individuals who are not familiar with the holiday to learn more about Juneteenth and engage with its history…   

…And, then, on  6/15/22: This year, as individuals and communities seek to reunite as we come out of the pandemic and as you enjoy normal family connections and gatherings, try to imagine the depth of feeling experienced by slaves in the 19th century when they were freed and able to reunite with family and friends separated by slavery and subsequent family disruption in the Jim Crow era. 

Or listen to our own Rev. Dr. Karen Coleman:

Juneteenth and Emancipation Day—both markers of history—signified freedom for enslaved people in America. What I thought as a child was that Lincoln freed the slaves and one day you were enslaved and the next day you were free. While in the beautiful mind of a child one would wish that was the truth, what I learned from my family’s oral stories was that, unlike the fast rate of speed of news stories today, it was word of mouth carried by those who journeyed trying to find their missing family members. But once former enslaved people heard the word, they mobilized into action and began to set a course for their independent lives.

As individuals, and as a country, we continue to try to grow in our own passion for compassion, now including the celebration of Juneteenth, and our ongoing appreciation and understanding of its meaning and significance.  It is a glimmer of hope, of some substance, to add this to our shared calendar.  For all our natural and inevitable worries, morning by morning, about pollution, Putin, pandemic, politics, prejudice, pistols and pensions, the seven or seven of our daily anxieties, yet we can recognize and celebrate that some change, some progress, some days, does come.  This is one.

Our forebears, our mothers and indeed our  fathers, whom especially we honor today, did guide us forward.

Senator Rafael Warnock, whose mentor Dean Lawrence Carter of Morehouse is part of our extended Marsh Chapel family, remembered his father the other day, in moving oratory.  It was a call for us to do the same, to see in those who raised us a measure of what God has done.  In prayer I trust you will do so this afternoon.

To wit, in the spring of 1973 six freshmen from Ohio Wesleyan University drove a large Oldsmobile in the rain, across eastern Ohio and Central Pennsylvania, bound for a lake cottage in upstate New York.  We had planned to meet my father there for a late dinner, and the beginning of a summer break.  But in the driving rain on route 80, the car went over an embankment.  Passengers and luggage went in all directions.  I had been bringing two white lab mice, in an open bucket equipped with a drip water dispenser, as some sort of gift for my younger sister.  After the crash the mice were gone, the car drivable but without windshield wipers, and the six freshmen rightly frightened.  We inched along in the rain in silence.  Memorably and humorously, about an hour into the silence a roommate in the front seat started shouting and screaming at the top of his lungs.  It turns out that at least one of the mice had survived, and was crawling up his left leg.  We inched along in the rain in further silence, one headlight, no wipers.  Near dawn we turned down the camp road to see lights burning, and a little smoke coming from the chimney.

Dad had paced all night, after we had called to tell him our delay, and greeted us with a fierce joy.  He fixed us a lumberjack breakfast.  As we went to sleep, I could see him stoking the fire, before going off to work, to meet the challenges of 1973, after a sleepless night.  The challenges of 1970’s, by the way, included war, reproductive rights, racism, nuclear weapons, impeachment, division, and inflation.  Hm. A familiar list. Just before dozing off, I heard him singing, heading off to work: “Every time I feel the spirit moving in my heart I will pray.  Every time I feel the spirit moving in my heart I will pray”.

This was a mere twenty years after he was graduated from BUSTH, 1953, having arrived in summer 1950, just six months after Marsh Chapel was dedicated in March 1950.  (We have an upcoming 75^th anniversary of this dedication to celebrate here in a few years).

That song at the hearth and from the heart still resounds, rings out, true of Dad’s life and faith.  It is important for us, and especially for the coming generations, to remember clearly how our forebears lived, and what they lived for. Take a moment to do so this afternoon.  COVID has stolen much of such communal remembrance. Lost are those who lose access to their own best past.  Happy are those who find access to their own best past.  In that personal song of spirit, experience, and prayer were many of the cherished beliefs and values for which he lived, by which many have lived, by which many of your forebears lived.

Here are some of them.

Dad lived in the openness, the magnanimous freedom of grace, the freedom for which Christ sets us free, on which we are to stand fast, and not to be enslaved again.

He lived convinced of the lasting worth, the ultimate value of persons and personality.

He lived and taught that love means taking responsibility.

He placed the highest premiums on marriage, family, children, and friends.

He had a rare, great capacity for friendship.

He could be restless with and critical of those perspectives which narrow the wideness of God’s mercy.  And he could be restless with and critical of those practices in personal and institutional life which did not become the gospel, were not becoming to the gospel.

He trusted that wherever there is a way, there is Christ, wherever there is truth, there is Christ, wherever there is life, there is Christ.

He honored his own conscience and heart, and expected others to do the same, for  the conscience of the believer is inviolable.

Many could testify to the toughness of his love and to the love in his toughness.

And as I heard him say, circa 1990, during a meeting in the Oneida Methodist church sanctuary, ‘because I am loved, I can love’.

Dad nearly died in September of 2008.  In November of 2008, as he recuperated, I saw him one morning learning to walk all over again, with my mother ever present and loving alongside.  It was a miraculous sight, as was the rest of his healing.  As is all healing.  He told us in those days about a vision or dream he had had, in the coma.  I share it with you to close, not as evidence of eternity, for heaven neither needs nor admits of evidence from us, but rather as evidence of a longing for eternity, and so a comfort and an encouragement.  What I would give to see my parents again. He said that in the hours near death he saw a kind of light, shining through what he described as a lattice work.  “Behind and around me I could hear voices”, he said…so…

 And he said, “Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; ¹² and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.

 Sursum Corda.  Hear the Gospel: Jesus sent him away, saying, "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you."

-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel

posted in The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel on 06.19.2022 at 11:00 am

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By Marsh Chapel

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John 16:12-15

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Today is Trinity Sunday.  Today we celebrate our God who is Triune, a Trinity in a Unity, Three in One and One in Three, One God in Holy Community, co-equal, co-eternal, distinct as Persons and of one essence, nature, power, action, and will.  Where one Person of the Trinity is active, the other two are always present.

This is a lot to explore in one Sunday of the year, even more so a lot to explore in one sermon. So the lectionary compilers have chosen three texts for this morning to describe a particular activity of each Person of the Trinity.  And, these texts together also suggest the unity of the Trinity’s activity, to promote the expansion of love and justice in our everyday life of faith.  In the particularities of the texts and in their togetherness, the lectionary compilers invite us to consider the affinity that we as people of faith do have with the Trinity of God.

“Affinity”, from the Latin ad fini, “to border”.  Its current usage is now diverse in a number of areas of human life.  For our purposes this morning the most applicable definitions are four: (1) understanding or close connection because of similar interests, ideas, or qualities; (2) kinship, either by blood or adoption; (3) a natural attraction to or liking for someone or something; (4) a likeness based on relationship or causal connection.  Our “Trinity Affinity”, our connections/likenesses/attraction – kinship even – with each Person of the Trinity can be seen in specific ways from our texts this morning.

The Psalmist praises God as Creator:  creator of the universe, of human beings, of earthly creation, of human dignity and purpose.  God as Creator has given human beings everything that they need, from daily provision to the beauty of creation to divine mindfulness and care.  And while some of us no longer claim dominion over creation, just as God does not claim dominion over us, we experience affinity with God the Creator:  in the satisfaction of being creators ourselves, in the appreciation of the great benefits of all kinds provided by the diversity inherent in the earth itself and in our companion creatures, and in the mutual caring and being cared for in our relationships with God, self, neighbor, and creation,

Paul in his letter to the church at Rome describes the life and ministry of Jesus Christ as “obtaining for us” – the grace of God in which we stand, and the peace with God we experience, as people of faith in Christ.  Our affinities with Jesus are based in his sharing of our human life and body, and in the transformation of our human slavery to sin and death to a life of hope.  So we can even boast of our hope of our sharing in God’s glory.  We can even boast of our sufferings, our affinities with Jesus in his sufferings.  Because with him we come to know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.  And the hope we have, in grace and peace, does not disappoint, because we have been given the Holy Spirit, who pours God’s love into our hearts toward new life and possibility.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth, who will guide us as people of faith into all of the truth that we have from Jesus, and through Jesus all of the truth that we have from the Person that Jesus called “father”.  For us, just as for the first believers, that truth will be revealed as we can bear it.  Our affinity with the Spirit lies in its truthfulness – we have explored before the evils of falsehood, and truth is something we increasingly need and are drawn to, for our personal lives, for our communities, for our nation – even if it is hard to bear and it often seems so unbelievable in its having no precedent.  Our affinity with the Spirit lies also in Its promise of guidance, and thus Its promise of companion-

ship, of close connection, of continuing communication with God in faith and trust, of continuing empowerment.

These three texts each describe a particular activity of one of the Persons of the Trinity.

Each person, of course, also manifests many other activities in our lives of faith.  So how do these individual qualities suggest the unity of the Trinity’s activity in our lives?  What does this unity look like in relation to us?

We are now in a preaching series on Lukan Biblical Theology, in case you didn’t know.  Luke’s Book of Acts is an account of the life of the very early church, which was made up first of the first Jewish followers of Jesus, and then began to expand to include Gentiles – that would be most of us.  And while our text from Acts is not part of the lectionary readings for this morning, it is Lukan, and it serves as one example of the Trinity’s activity in Peter’s life and in the lives of a number of others at the time.

Our text is Peter’s summary of what happened:  first, of what led him to visit with uncircumcised men and their community, ie., Gentiles, and to eat food with them, from who-knew-where it had been; and then second, of what led him to have to give an account as to why he had done these things.  The details of these events are in the previous chapter of Acts 10.  In our text this morning Peter describes what he was asked to do, and how he was asked to do it.

First, as he prayed, he was given a vision, the same vision three times, so it was important:  a sheet came down from heaven, holding all kinds of animals, birds, and reptiles.  A voice told Peter to get up, kill one or some of the animals, and eat.  Peter refused, as he had never eaten anything unclean.  But the voice told him that if God has made something clean, Peter must not call it profane, unclean in the sense of not holy or unsanctified.  Immediately after the three-time vision, three strangers arrived from Caesarea in Judea, which was a major port city that served as an administrative hub for the occupying Roman Empire.  Peter very matter-of-factly states here that the Spirit told him to go with them, and not to make any distinction

Between them and Peter and his six companions.  They all went to Caesarea and ended up at the house of Cornelius, not only a Gentile but a Roman centurion of the occupying forces.  There they met him, his relatives, and his close friends.  As Peter began to witness to them about the life and work of Jesus, the Holy Spirit came to these Gentiles just as it had to the Jewish believers at Pentecost.  Peter then remembered the words of Jesus, that believers in him would be baptized with the Holy Spirit.  Peter then realized that God was at work in giving these Gentiles the same gift of the Spirit that the apostles and brothers and sisters and uncircumcised believers and their families had been given.  He acted on what he had learned, and baptized Cornelius and his family and friends.  He even stayed with them for a while longer, and continued to eat their food.  For, as he said, “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”  Peter and his companions had learned that God now intended to expand the fellowship of believers even to the Gentiles, that new experiences across societal and cultural boundaries await them.  And at the end of the story, those who called Peter to account were silenced, and in that silence chose to learn too, and praised God for their new reality of Gentiles as companions in faith in the church.

In this text, all three Persons are present, and while again there are particular aspects of each of their Person active and recognizable, they all also are present as the Unity in what they invite Peter and his companions to do.  And by extension, they are present as the Unity in what they invite those who questioned Peter’s actions to do.  The Creator is present with Peter as he prays, and in a three-time version of the diversity of creation in food that previously Peter would never have considered as acceptable nourishment.  The Creator is present in a voice inviting him to accept this diversity as good and nourishing, because God by creating it as edible had declared it to be so.  Jesus is present with Peter, alive again with him in Peter’s witness to Cornelius and

his family and friends of Jesus’ life and work, and alive again with him in Peter’s memory of what Jesus taught him about the Spirit – helping him to trust that what was happening with Cornelius and his family was indeed of God the unity of God, and that what Peter was moved to do was the right response.  The Holy Spirit is present with Peter, in prayer, in the guidance through vision and strangers and direct communication, in Cornelius’ witness to what was happening in his life, and unmistakably in the Spirit’s gift of its baptism to Gentiles.  The Unity of the Three Persons of God is at work with one purpose:  to expand the fellowship of believers to include the Gentiles, to create a new unity that would be strengthened and enriched by the diversity now included in the new reality of the Church.

The Triune God in this text, one God in Holy Community, shows itself both as Persons and as Unity to have one character as well.  That character in this text is one of invitation and inclusion: of individuals and of communities, across societal, cultural, even religious and political, boundaries.  In that invitation and inclusion, The Trinity’s presence and activity, in Persons and in Unity, often lead to consequences.  Two of them are particularly noticeable in this text.

One is disagreement, even conflict.  Those who called Peter to account were upset not only because he visited with Gentiles – Romans, even.  But because Peter visited with them and ate Gentile food, they also saw Peter as violating the dietary and ritual laws of their culture and society and their view of their religion.  And while these particular believers in the end also chose to learn what Peter had learned about the purposes of God, and chose to accept the inclusion of Gentiles into the fellowship, these disagreements about the necessity of circumcision and food taboos for Gentile believers lasted in the rest of the church for a long time, as noted in the letters of Paul.

The other consequence, more far-ranging even than disagreement, is change.  In order to continue in the life of faith, everyone in this text is facing change to a rather high degree.  Cornelius and his family and friends are entering a new life of faith, with all the disconnects from their familiar religious, societal, cultural, and even political surroundings that that new life will entail.  It will take time and persistence to become a part of this new community, and some of it will not be easy.  And, there are also the possibilities and opportunities such change brings with it:  the peace and grace that Jesus has obtained for them; the truth, guidance, companionship, communication, and empowerment of the Holy Spirit; the expanded vision of God’s creation and their place and purpose in it.  Peter and the apostles and the first Jewish believers must face change too.  With the inclusion of Gentiles into the fellowship, they are invited to welcome these strangers who God has given, and help them to integrate into the community.  At the same time, they must make their own changes:  as to what they may have thought was possible, as to what they now must learn to get along and to appreciate these strangers and the different perspectives they bring, as to how they see themselves now in relationship to an expanding inclusive God and their own place and purpose in the world, and as to how to move into sudden uncertainty from sure and certain familiarity.  And, there are also the possibilities and opportunities that such change brings with it:  the power and possibilities that just more people can bring; new ideas and experiences that increase the wonder of God, self, neighbor, creation; a shaking of stodgy ways into new enthusiasm and creativity; an expanded vision of creation and their place and purpose in it.

Of course, our world now is very different from the world of Peter and the early church and its changes.  And, it is not different at all.  God still invites and includes, and that presence and activity of invitation and inclusion still has consequences:  of conflict and change, and of opportunity and joy.  As people of faith, we are still asked to do what Peter did:  to pray, to be open to and learn from visions given by God in their many forms, to respond to strangers and make no distinctions between us and them, to get up, to go, to visit, to listen, to witness, to look for the signs of creation, incarnation, and truth in the world – signs of the Three and the One of God, to learn from them and act on them, to expand our thinking and cross boundaries, to continue to expand God’s work of invitation and inclusion.

And we still celebrate the Triune God on Trinity Sunday.  Because with all of this, not only does God in the Three and the One invite us to accept them into our lives.  God in the Three and the One invites us into Their lives too, into the diversity of their glory as Persons, and into their Unity which is the great paradox of holy freedom.  On this Trinity Sunday of 2022, as people of faith surrounded by holy and not so holy consequences of conflict and change, may we relax into both these invitations.  May we accept with renewed intent God’s invitation to accept them into our lives as Persons and Unity, with trust and confidence in their creativity, understanding of our human life, and continuing provision, companionship, and empowerment.

And may we accept with renewed intent God’s invitation to join Their life in its glory of diversity and its paradox of freedom in unity, to join in the dignity and purpose of their work of love and justice in the world and take it for our own as well, with thanksgiving and joy.

Amen.

-The Rev. Dr. Victoria Hart Gaskell, Minister for Visitation

posted in The Rev. Dr. Victoria Hart Gaskell, Minister for Visitation on 06.12.2022 at 11:00 am

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By Marsh Chapel

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John 14:8–17, 25–27

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A written text of this sermon is currently unavailable.

-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel

posted in The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel on 06.5.2022 at 11:00 am

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By Marsh Chapel

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Luke 24:44–53

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-The Rev. Dr. Karen Coleman, Chaplain for Episcopal Ministry

posted in The Rev. Dr. Karen Coleman, Chaplain for Episcopal Ministry on 05.29.2022 at 11:00 am

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By Marsh Chapel

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Text of The Honorable Marylou Sudder's Address is not available.

-The Boston University 2022 Baccalaureate speaker was The Honorable Marylou Sudders, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Commonwealth of Massachusetts

posted in Baccalaureate on 05.22.2022 at 11:00 am

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By Marsh Chapel

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John 13:31-35

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Text of the reflections is unavailable at this time.

posted in The Rev. Dr. Jessica Chicka, University Chaplain for International Students, The Rev. Dr. Karen Coleman, Chaplain for Episcopal Ministry, The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel, This I Believe on 05.15.2022 at 11:00 am

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