Marsh Chapel Sermon Archive

Sunday
October 4

Liberal Arts

By Marsh Chapel

There is a liberal art in generosity.

Jesus meets us today to challenge us, to confront us and to inspire us with the hope of something new. Faith in Him, and love for his fruitful community, and a life directed toward a final hope—all these lie before us in this holy hour.

Some years ago, in our first year after seminary, a very small act of mercy, of generosity, on the part of a colleague, began to show me the power of the new life, found in the doing of the faith. As the psychologists say, the heart follows the hand.

We had only been married a couple of years, and had more recently entered the working world. Some of you are there today, others remember those days, others expect them, one day. Our little house was gradually filling up, or being filled up, with the materials of early married life. A car in the driveway. Clothing on the line out back. A crib. Dog food bow in the kitchen corner. Wedding and family photographs in new albums. It all happens so quickly! Marriage, degree, job, house, child, car, dog, clothes. All of a sudden. It hardly seems real, or possible.

One day during this period in our early life together there came a most surprising bit of information. This news was delivered in the course of a simple supper, as the dog barked and the drying clothes flapped in the breeze and the baby upstairs cried on to sleep. The information was in sum a medical bulletin, one of those little messages from doctor to patient to patient’s family, an insignificant bit of news as far as the televised world news was concerned, just another report, and a report on a lab report. Soon there would be another mouth to feed. What excitement! It hardly seemed possible, or real.

But reality did set in.

And reality did set in, was ushered in, not surprisingly, by means of the checkbook. Ah the checkbook. Stern reminder of the limits of life. Unerring measurer of the various pursuits of happiness. Implacable judge of the ways of humans. The checkbook. Clothes, dog, child, car and all finally had to be paid for, from one source. Reality did finally set in. Both Paul and Matthew, by the way, today in our lessons, in their own way, are trying to convey a sense of reality.

So, it was in this period of early marriage, the period of judgment by way of the checkbook, when, I recall, a real kindness was done.

Among many other unmanageable expenses, our car needed new brake pads. I did check to see the price that would be charged to have them installed. I wondered how we would afford it. Which is where things sat on a late summer evening, in a small cottage-like parsonage, nearby one of the great Finger Lakes, with the clothes flapping on the line, the dog well fed and ill behaved, and the baby crying to the moon above.

The next evening I met with a neighboring minister, a man about 15 years older than I. We did our work, and then set to talking about life in general. The topic of cars and brakes and brake pads somehow wiggled to the surface, and with it all the manifold cares and worries of this life, about which the Scripture says, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”. This fellow minister then suggested that the next day, early in the morning, I bring the car to his house, where and when he would teach me how to change the brake pads on the car. This we did together. In the course of the morning we also talked through various strategies open to young married couples to avoid the stern, grim judgment of the checkbook. There are ways, it turned out, and he had been there.

I know this backwater tale of an unheralded act of generosity done in 1980 hardly constitutes earthshaking news. I guess it is just a matter of vineyards and harvest, of the prize of the upward call, of the way we ought to be, as people of faith. Such a recollection of such a simple generosity, a liberal art, one of the great liberal arts, hardly seems worth mention.

And yet it meant a great deal, and hovers in memory, years later, four decades later, as the very grace of God. Here is one doing what he and we ought to have done. Here is an act of compassion. Here is an act of mercy. Here is something new. Here is what Emerson meant: “virtue alone creates something new”.

Today, you may sense a hunger, a sharp hunger in the souls of women and men from all different walks of life. It is a hunger that does not abate with the ministrations of all that position and fortune and plenty can provide. It does not wilt in the face of pandemic, of climate, of presidential contest and calumny, of abuse of law in the name of order, of personal betrayals near and far. It is a hunger that reaches for God. It is a hunger for God. There is a hunger for God today in the souls of men and women that will not be filled by anything else. It will not be filled by anything other than God. Finally, the hunger and thirst for righteousness—and there is such a fine, fine hunger in your own heart—can only be filled by God, by love, by freedom, by grace. By the faith of Jesus Christ and by love for his community and by a life directed toward a final hope of glory.

We can and will proclaim this hunger from this pulpit. We can and will announce God’s gracious love from this pulpit. But in the end you will find it, or it will find you, in your own experience. One by one. Two by two. You are likely to be shocked to faith by no more than one real encounter with one real act of generosity at the hand of one real person. Or, said negatively, as dour Matthew might, if one real generosity does not point you to new life, will a hundred, or will a thousand? One grace note, rung and heard, is all it takes.

Here is the vineyard, still. Here is the wine press, still. Here is the harvest, coming still. There comes a time when our time is no longer our own. So today: Let your own hand guide your own heart. Act in kindness and you will find that you are kinder too. Act in generosity and you will discover a generous spirit within. Act with faith and faith will find you. Your heart will follow your hand.

We come to meet Jesus who meets us in deed, now, not only in word. He meets us in the central moment of life, the full giving that is real loving, the real loving that is full giving, the offering of life for life.

The question is, are we ready to receive Him today?

There is a liberal art in generosity.

There is a liberal art in humility, especially the humility of labored self-criticism, the humility of communal and rigorous self-assessment.

We shall try to muster some such this morning, to try to interpret the parable from St. Matthew, his own interpretation of what St. Mark left him. The last 250 years of rigorous, labored biblical self-criticism gives us the motive and the power to do so. Our predecessors in this work gave us a lasting and graceful example of humility, here the humility to put every passage of Holy Scripture to the test of historical, critical study, as a basis for theological, homiletical reflection. And this is an awesome gift, hard won, won with cost. But the fruit of it is grace and truth, and also a way in which to make some sense of parables like this, which, served raw, without historical critical cooking, will produce dyspepsia and disease. The humility to do so, since the 18^th century is a liberal art, call it the art of humility. So, we learn that Matthew writes in 85ad, rewriting Mark from 70ad, who wrote about Jesus in 30ad. So, we learn that ‘the stone the builders rejected.’ v 42, is from Ps 118 and is taken over from Mark. So, we learn that in Mark the rejected stone must be Jesus, but Matthew, adding vss. 41b, 43 makes it refer to Christians. The nation is the Christian church, composed of both Gentiles and Jews. So, we learn that the passage seems to have been a commonplace of early Christian preaching, since it is also found in Peter’s speech in Acts 4: 11 and 1 Peter 2:7. So, we learn that in 22:7 Matthew may also have the Jewish War in mind, and that vs 44 is not original. (IBD, loc. cit.).

Let Peter Berger, of blessed memory, remind us:

There is a huge literature about the problems raised by Biblical scholarship for faith and theology. The problems exploded with the rise of modern historical scholarship being applied to the Bible, beginning earlier but then progressing impressively in the nineteenth century. Much of this new scholarship took place in Protestant theological faculties, especially in Germany—a historically unique event of religious scholars applying the scalpel of critical analysis to the sacred scriptures of their own tradition (repeat). The meaning of “critical” here is clear: Biblical texts are analyzed in the same way as any other historical text, with the question of their revelatory status rigorously excluded from this exercise. Many Biblical scholars succeeded (and still succeed) in understanding the revelation being somehow preserved within the all-too-human processes that produced the text. (American Interest, blog).

I am one.

A good friend asked: ‘Why does Matthew say God tortures?’, referring to a gospel lesson from two weeks ago. And I wrote back to say I really couldn’t fully answer, except to note that Matthew’s dark side waxes as his gospel wanes, and much of that, in grief to humbly state it, is laced with ancient anti-semitism. That is, in the latter chapters, Matthew’s language turns decidedly grim. We hear that again today. Yes, we keep the rhetorical mode of hyperbole in mind. Yes, we recognize the religious penchant for odium theologicum,’theological hatred’. Yes, we can see the dark clouds of the terror of Emperor Domitian on the late first century horizon. But none of that alone will allow us to make sense of Matthew’s harshness here. For that, we will have to render and conjure what lies just underneath most of these later chapters. That is a fierce Matthean love for the church, protection of the church. That is a fierce Matthean love for the church, and viral commitment to fruit: “The fruits, unexplained in the text, are doubtless…good works, and the broad expression used shows that Matthew intends a general principle: in all ages, the Kingdom of God is only for fruit-bearers…the Christian church, insofar as it ‘bears fruit’…It is noteworthy that the emphasis Matthew feels he must add for the proper understanding of the parable is the very one commonly neglected or reinterpreted today”(that is, the command and demand to bear fruit, pronounced by the addition to Mark of vs. 43). Parables of the Triple Tradition (C. Carlston), 143.

St. Matthew’s fiercest passion, wells up out of the scripture for these weeks in September. Matthew holds a very high view of the church, far higher than we expect, far higher than yours and mine, we could add. In waxing religion today, the church is largely an expedient – to be used, often for good causes, but to be used to be sure, and then, if there is time, to be loved. If the horse is dead, dismount, says one. In waning religion, the church is often also an expedient – though here for causes more progressive than traditional, interests more mental than physical – to be used, often for good causes, but to be used to be sure, and then perhaps loved. This the fundamentalists and radicals have in common. What did Augustine say? We use what we should love and we love what we should use. Yet for Matthew, the church is empowered with the means of lasting forgiveness, with a mind for sound ethics, and especially with the real presence of Christ: “wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them”.

Matthew trusts this risen Christ and this voice of the risen Christ to free him to follow his bliss, to succumb to his passion. It is the passion of an evangelist who finds every blessed possible way to connect a Jewish Jesus with a Greek world. It is the passion of an evangelist who enlists an old missionary teaching tract (“Q”) to spread inspiration, truth, and joy. It is the passion of an evangelist who portrays your Savior among pagans, amid harlots, appended to the cross, about the resurrection work of compassion. It is the passion of an evangelist who sums up his Gospel this way: “Go make of all disciples”. The whole point of the gospel of St Matthew the evangelist is that he is an evangelist. He it is, not me, he it is, not we, who points you to a new passion, one you (plural) have not intimately known. Matthew’s passion? A people producing the fruit of the reign of God. Don’t just talk, do. Do you notice, and squirm? Matthew is moving the parable away from judgment on Israel toward judgment…on the church, if and as the church does not bear fruit worthy of repentance. On us, if and as we do not bear fruit. (repeat).

Generosity, Humility. Two Liberal Arts. Generosity, Humility.

Generosity. What two things shall you offer, gratis, this week, to God and neighbor?

Humility. What are the two truest, lasting criticisms of you that others see, but perhaps do not mention, the two areas of most needed personal growth?

In a moment we will hear again the ancient liturgy for eucharist. We are not together to receive together the bread and cup. But we are together in relationship, by memory, in hope, through prayer. And with a little imagination, with eyes closed and hearts open, we might allow the familiar, ancient prayers of communion, to bring us into communion.

So, travel with a little imagination…Imagine Eucharist at Marsh Chapel. Stand to sing… Pause to reflect… Step out into the aisle… Look at and look past Abraham Lincoln and Francis Willard…Receive cup and bread, bread and cup… Kneel at the altar to pray… Stand in communion with the communion of saints…Here is the bread and cup of friendship…Imagine, if you are willing, your own funeral, say right here, and a congregation reciting together a creed, a psalm, a hymn, a poem. Imagine, if you are willing, a congregation currently in diaspora, but just now, by the word spoken, a gathered and thus addressable community, you and I and all together.

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

posted in Liberal Gospel: Autumn 2020 Sermons, The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel on 10.4.2020 at 11:00 am

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Sunday
September 27

The Bach Experience

By Marsh Chapel

Click here to hear the full service

Matthew 21:23-32

Click here to hear just the sermon

The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill:

This Sunday we are confronted by one of the most endearing, and most alluring little parables in all of Scripture, maybe in all of literature.

How it fits with the rest of the lesson is not entirely clear. Nor is it clear how the lesson in Matthew fits with the other assigned readings for the day, Philippians and our Psalm, say. Dark sayings from of old, indeed.

But the collision of order and answer, of beckoning and response, has to haunt.

A man has two sons. Already, the plot is thickened, with rivalry, with competition, with family intrigue.

Then the preaching of the gospel occurs. The vintner—we will prefer vintner to father here—tells something, it is a statement that beckons, not formally a question nor even an invitation. Simply a command. Go.

He commands. Albert Schweitzer would be pleased.

Go and live, go and work, go and love, go and prune, go and pluck, go and tend your garden. Go. Up and Go!

Every day and every Lord’s Day, the word arises to us, singeing our nostrils. Go. The day accosts us with a challenge to the good, to a choice if John Dewey is right between goods.

You know, you may have a feeling about a feeling abroad.

Some of us sometimes have the sinking feeling that things are not going so well, that things are drifting or worse.

We see cultural wounds that do not heal.

We see environmental gashes that we rue, fire burning, burning, burning.

We see a national economy that leaves out at least 14 million people, the equivalent of the total population of New England. Maybe twice that when you get everybody counted.

We see a beloved country and respected government that can’t seem provide national leadership to face a national pandemic problem, countrywide leadership to face an invasion with now 200,000 dead. No national testing, no national equipping, no national protocols.

We listen again to the cries of anguish from minority communities, communities of color, stinging still from policing that harms rather than heals.

And, step lightly here, ten cuidado: It is hard to oppose without being shaped by what you oppose. Maybe to some measure impossible.

You know, then, there is an ennui abroad, measures of anxiety and depression, perhaps inevitable to some measure if one is aware, listening, thoughtful, a languishing in doldrums of pervasive malaise.

So, when the word comes. Come Sunday: Up! Go! You! Work! Vineyard! Today!

Uh…We pull up the covers and sleep in, or call in sick, or drive in late, or just are not really sure we can do anything about all these irremediable driftings.

What difference does it make what I do? So the despond whispers.

So, says son one, I will not go. Son two, the craftier of the two, evades, the compliant not the defiant one. He says Yes Mrs. Cleaver, but he doesn’t go. He never meant to. He just doesn’t like conflict. Well who does?

But the first son has a change of heart.

Now we find this so encouraging, heartening, lovely. Up front, he says, no way, no way Jose. He is defiant, and willing to say it. I don’t think so, Mr. Vintner, Mr. Father, Mr. Voice, Mr. Life, Mr. Daytime. I think I will just turn in my ticket. Thanks, but no thanks.

But…he has a change of heart.

Will you notice with me that the main thing we want to know is not told to us?

We want to know, what changed the heart? What did the trick? What sealed the deal? What moved the lever?

And the Bible says, ‘Address Not Known’. Edmund Steimle would be pleased. In other words, it is shrouded in mystery.

So, we are a little free to speculate. We do not know what brought the change of heart.

But we know what can bring a change of heart. And we are offered it today.

Beauty.

An experience of the beautiful can change the heart. A thank you note. A sunrise. A poem. A violin sonata. A student remembering a childhood hurt, and letting it go: there is a beauty in that moment. A cantata.

When you pause for prayer or worship on Sunday, you may be saying no. NO I WILL NOT. You may be not willing to have any change, let alone a change of heart. It is in that very condition that John Wesley went in the rain to Aldersgate Street, May 1738. NO I WILL NOT GO TO THE VINEYARD, not today, baby, not today. No, I will not send another check, make another volunteer phone call, engage another disagreement, write another letter to the editor, another op-ed, another sermon, another apparently futile attempt to change the direction of things, another prayer, another something. No, I will not try again to oppose vulgar, profane trash talk rising like a tide all around: let someone else take it on.

But…

You tune in to virtual worship, you listen for the regular rhythm of ritual, you receive again the confession of the church and…

Beauty.

Organ meditation. Hymn. Holy Writ. Word spoken. Bach.

Said Scott Allen Jarrett: “Music can say things that words never can.”

One of the winds beneath our wings comes from our music ministry. Yes, at Christmas and Easter, on Communion Sundays, for special University services like Matriculation and Baccalaureate and Martin Luther King Sunday and others, but also, and notably so for us, on our twice a term Bach Sundays. The word and music of these days keep us moving forward together.

Beauty is like that.

Dr. Jarrett, it is good to have you alongside this morning, to have your presence, faithfulness, voice, and talent offered to God and neighbor. It cannot be easy to lay down the weekly rhythms of choral music, so heart central to your work and our life. You have heard me quip before that what silence is the Quakers and Eucharist is the Catholics and Leviticus is the Bible Baptists, and the grim doctrine of predestination is the Presbyterians, and the Epistle to the Romans is to the Lutherans—singing, singing, singing is to us, as Methodists and as Marsh Chapel. So, we are grateful for the archival gifts and treasures that you have crafted over long time. Greet us and teach us this Lord’s Day…

Dr. Scott Allen Jarrett:

Thank you Dean Hill. On the radio the other day, a commentator asked listeners what they most looked forward to when the veil of pandemic is lifted. Among the respondents, a physician said she couldn’t wait to gather her amateur string quartet together once again. My heart smiled hearing this; perhaps yours does, too. Are we not all starved for Beauty, Dean Hill? Beyond revealing a crucial litmus of our values and the possibility of our strivings, the pursuit of Beauty so often models the best path forward and offers a way to make sense of it all — a reconciling Grace, if you will. We so sorely need this today. I can’t tell you how lonely it is to stand here in the Chancel of Marsh Chapel, flanked by Handel and Bach in the wood carvings to my right and left without the beloved members of our musical community alongside pursuing together the Beauty of which I speak. (pause)

Our archives recall one such highlight when the Chapel Choir and Collegium last studied and performed Cantata 179, Bach’s arched lesson on Heuchelei — Hypocricy. By all means, Go, Sow, Toil, Labor, get to your vineyard, but make certain that your pious airs are sung with a pure heart. For Bach, the Gospel text for Sunday, August 8, 1723, was the Luke story of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee, both praying in the Temple. Bach’s lesson is a heavy handed warning against the hypocrisy of the Pharisee, and an injunction to all to align inner and outer attitudes of faith. Furthermore, our own depravity of sin weighs us down, and it is only by acknowledging our sin before God that we may attain God’s mercy and grace. Listeners, I think you’d better get another cup of coffee.

We have come to trace the message of these cantatas as a move, broadly speaking, from orthodoxy at the beginning to personal or pietist devotion in the arias back out to the corporate expression of lessons learned in the final chorale. Let’s consider the two arias from the central portion of the cantata first. Each is preceded by a recitative in which Bach’s librettist reminds the listener of the elements of the Luke parable. The tenor leads off by indicting today’s Christians as puffed up, outwardly righteous, and ultimately lacking an inner purity of faith. He sings a scathing aria likening these hypocrites to Apples of Sodom, a fruit that dissolves into ash and smoke once they are picked. Though they gleam on the outside, they are filled with Unflat—filth—and in case you hadn’t guesses it, none of this will hold up before God.

The next pairing of recit and aria brings this message home, a more immediate and personal call to true piety and faith. The bass reminds us that the only way to attain relief from this sinful state is to acknowledge our sins before God. Next comes the most beautiful aria in the cantata. Sung by soprano with two hunting oboes – the oboe da caccia, today played by two English horns – the message is a plangent and pious prayer for mercy. The interweaving oboe lines played over the pulsing continue line setup the soprano’s fervent plea for mercy. In the middle of the aria, she describes the depths of her sin as coming from within her bones, and that they drown her in a deep mire. Listen for the text painting throughout this aria used by Bach to depict the weight of sin.

Without any turn toward promised redemption, the cantata concludes with the expected four-part chorale setting. Here, ‘Ich armer Mensch’ continues the distressed state of the soprano by sustaining the emotion, and thereby, the congregation takes up the soprano’s prayer.

The cantata is decidedly didactic start to finish, with the moral of the story appearing right at the front as the text of the first movement: See that your fear of God is not a hypocrisy, and do not serve God with a false heart. Bach sets this opening movement in an older style of polyphonic writing, and as much as the text is a ‘rule’, he sets it as a fugue. But there’s one element that truly takes this form to heights only possible in the hands of Bach: the second entrance of the fugue is in complete inversion of the original subject, an exact mirror image. Bach’s fugue bears the same message on the outside as on the inside, a musical device to prove the enduring lesson of the Gospel.

The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill

Listening again to Matthew and the parable, we recall that, you know, sometimes, we come saying no, but leave saying yes.

The envisioned mission of Marsh Chapel is be a heart in the heart of the city, and a service in the service of the city. Our use of President Merlin’s epigram means city as the global city, and service as worship and work. Our foci guiding this envisioned mission are voice, vocation, and volume. This year we take our lead from the new, refreshed Boston University Plan, especially its own five-fold foci: academics, research, globality, diversity, community. With Bach, we take research into a different direction and dimension.

Research…Twice a term the Director of Music, Dr. Scott Allen Jarrett, engages our collegium, choir, community and listenership in a full morning of teaching about JS Bach, and enjoyment of a Bach Cantata in worship. The Bach Experience (lecture, gathering, worship, and sermon (this dialogue between the Director and the Dean)), are novel and preeminent advancements in learning and performance, and our own offered sort of research. They also will contribute to the Dean’s emerging work in Biblical Theology, an ongoing multi-year study. We commit to enhancement of this project.

What changes the heart?

What baptizes the person, the heart, the spirit?

The beauty of the music this morning is itself a sort of baptism. We sometimes long to take a spiritual shower, to bathe ourselves in the living waters of grace, faith, hope, life, and love. Especially, it might be stressed, autumn 2020, the need for spiritual cleansing in the midst of sub cultural murkiness, is continual. We need both judgment and mercy, both honesty and kindness, both prophetic upbraid and parabolic uplift.

What pierces, transforms, moves the heart?

Beauty does.

It does.

It says, whispers, reminds:

There are a lot of things wrong. But there are a lot of things right. Somebody wrote this cantata—sheer beauty. Someone practiced and taught it—sheer beauty. Someone sang it and played it—sheer beauty. And here I am. I heard it. I heard it.

Music can say things that words never can.

Maybe number one son huffed no. Then…he saw moonlight on the sea of Galilee. Or…his wife was singing a lullaby as the children went to sleep. Or…he remembered a part of a Psalm. Or…he remembered the loving and lovely self-giving of a loved one—maybe that
of his father, now long dead. Or…a friend came by…or came through.

Then he thought…

Well, maybe, well, maybe

Maybe things are bad, but maybe they can get better, and maybe better is the only good there is.

Maybe that is what you will think, leaving today.

Beauty stands beside me

I hear, I hear, I hear

Maybe I will say yes after all, yes to a new challenge.

Maybe I will remember Camus’ doctor in The Plague: ‘decency consists of doing my job…the only way to fight the plague is with decency’.

Maybe Vaclev Havel’s proverb will seize me: ‘live within the truth’.

Maybe I will take deeply to heart my friend Dr. Reid Cooper’s definition of faith: ‘the personal positive answer to the question whether life has meaning’.

Maybe Jorge Luis Borges was right; ‘any life however long and complicated it may be actually consists of a single moment when a man knows forever more who he is’. (NYR 11/12/19)

Maybe this is that moment. Maybe I will turn around, receive a change of heart, and say…Yes.

-The Reverend Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel
-Dr. Scott Allen Jarrett, Director of Music

posted in Dr. Scott Allen Jarrett, Director of Music, The Bach Experience, The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel on 09.27.2020 at 11:00 am

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Sunday
September 20

Taking Precedence

By Marsh Chapel

Click here to hear the full service

Jonah 3:10–4:11

Philippians 1:21–30

Matthew 20:1–16

Click here to hear just the sermon

A friend of mine tells a story about their facilitation of a bible study on Matthew a few years ago. The study was held in a church in a well-off town just outside a major American city. For the first nineteen chapters of Matthew, there was lively discussion, and everything remained relatively calm. But when discussion started on the passage which is our Gospel text this morning, the tenor of discussion changed. There was anger, and resentment, and attempts to dismiss the story on various grounds, the chief ground being that it might be all right for the landowner to act like that in the kingdom of God, but in real life no one would work for them, and such behavior only rewards the lazy. The members of the study had all worked hard to get where they were, and the idea that late hires would be paid the same as those who had worked out in the sun all day was both an outrage and deeply distressing to them, especially as this was a God story. The vineyard owner’s claims were offensive. Did they have no respect for diligence and hard work? Did God have no respect for them in their hard work and diligence? Things got pretty heated. Then one of the members, who had not said much, suddenly said, “But haven’t any of us ever caught a break? That’s what happens to the late hires, isn’t it? It wasn’t their fault they weren’t hired. They caught a break from the landowner.” Well, this was a bible study that had been going for a while, and the members knew and trusted each other. So they thought about it. And little by little, “Well, when you put it that way …”, the stories began to come out: some about little and amusing breaks, some about life-changing ones, sometimes about breaks that saved a life or many lives. The concept of “catching a break” was examined, as something that was not expected, not necessarily deserved; and while it might involve someone else feeling affection or the desire to help another person out, it could be, as it is in the Gospel, purely due to the desire of the one who hires and has both the control and resources to provide the break, and they provide it because they can. The study session ended on the general understanding that everyone present allowed that they had experienced catching a break and they were grateful. And of course God could do whatever God liked. But they were honest enough to allow that while the kingdom of God was one thing; if they saw such behavior from their bosses, and if they were the ones first hired, it would still rankle.

Someone or something that “takes precedence” is someone or something that is more important than the people or things around them. Or it is someone or something with somehow a right to preferential treatment. Religious, academic, state, community, or family, processionals or seating arrangements often demonstrate the importance of some people taking precedence over others, through formal organization hierarchy. And, taking precedence is often claimed, or given informally by individuals or groups, or given to certain people, as the members of the bible study gave precedence to the early hires over the late hires with regard to who deserved the most pay from the landowner.

Some things, commitments, and feelings also take precedence, even over things, commitments, and feelings that are also important. The Book of Jonah describes a case in point. Previously in the book to our story this morning, Jonah has been called by God to go and preach warning and repentance to the capital of the Assyrian Empire, the great, wicked city of Nineveh. For reasons that are unclear at the time, Jonah goes overland to the place farthest from Nineveh, and then he takes a ship to go even farther away. A storm blows up, Jonah tells the sailors that the storm is his fault for disobeying God, and he allows the sailors to throw him overboard so that they will not be harmed. Jonah goes overboard, the sea calms, and Jonah is a swallowed by a great fish, or a whale. He spends the fabled three days in the whale’s stomach. Then the whale spews him up onto dry land.

Our Scripture this morning, then, is post-whale. Jonah has, it seems, decided to obey God’s call, and goes to Nineveh. He has a spectacular preaching tour. He only repeats one phrase, and the people and even the king pay attention. They fast, repent in sackcloth and ashes, and turn from their evil ways. God accepts their repentance, changes the divine mind, and does not overthrow the city.

Amazingly enough, Jonah is angry at the results of his work, work that he had been called by God to do. He is angry with God. He is specifically angry with God’s character and nature.: God’s grace, God’s mercy, God’s slowness to anger, God’s abounding in steadfast love, God’s readiness to relent from punishment. The same qualities of God that he remembered as he prayed in repentance from inside the whale, when they are turned toward his enemies, he is so angry with God that he wants God to kill him, because he would rather die than live in such a situation. God asks Jonah if he has a right to be angry, but receives no answer, and Jonah goes to a lookout to see what becomes of the forgiven city. A bush grows over Jonah’s head and shades him, but a worm comes and kills the bush, and in the renewed heat Jonah again asks God to kill him. God asks again if Jonah has the right to be angry, this time about the bush, and Jonah says he is angry enough to die, which is better than to live. Jonah has allowed his anger and hatred of the Ninevites, and his concern for his own comfort, to take precedence: precedence over his call from God, precedence over what he knows is the character and nature of God, and precedence over the great transformation of a wicked and violent city into a place concerned with repentance toward a right relationship with God and others. For God, however, what takes precedence is the welfare of one hundred and twenty thousand people who are confused and fearful; and let’s not forget their animals, because God does not forget them.

The message of this morning’s two stories is that God’s idea of who or what takes precedence is different from Jonah’s; and as Jesus declares in his God story, it is different from that of the early hires. God, who created everything, can in divine generosity do whatever God wants, for whoever God wants, and the people who are called to God’s mission both are taken care of and also will catch some breaks. In these things, these stories are similar. For our purposes this morning, we will note some differences between other aspects of the stories.

While there is some scholarly warrant for the possible existence of a “Jonah son of Ammitai,” and the enmity between Assyria and Israel is a matter of historical record, debate rages over who actually wrote the Book of Jonah. Debate also rages over why, where, and when the author wrote it. There is even debate over what category the book falls into: history, parable, satire, and/or political/religious persuasion toward a more universal concept of God’s presence and love. What we do know for sure is that Jonah’s is a story that was included in the Hebrew Bible, is referenced in both Matthew and Luke in the Christian scriptures, and has captured the imagination in books, song, and art for centuries. And, the picture of Jonah it paints is both absurd, and in our time a bit too close to some of what we see at loose in the world: a man who insists that what takes precedence, what is more important, is his own hatred of others, his anger toward those who change for the better and toward God,, and his preference for death, rather than life in a world where human repentance and divine generosity and mercy are possible.

Jesus’s story has noticeable differences. It is an everyday story of marginal day workers and a disconcertingly fair and also generous employer. We recognize its issues in our own reactions as to which workers should or should not take precedence in our own workplaces. And we recognize its issues in our national labor policies that affect millions of lives and futures. If we are like the members of the bible study, we will also remember the times when someone allowed us to take precedence and gave us a break, and the warm feelings up to and including incoherent relief with which we received that break.

In the Gospel of Matthew the tax collector, this story is set in a whole section of stories which emphasize the fact that God’s idea of who or what takes precedence is not necessarily what we or the world think takes precedence, think what is more important. In the stories that precede our story this morning: Jesus insists that little children be allowed to come to him, because it is to those like them that the kingdom of heaven belongs: Jesus encounters the rich young ruler who would not follow him because of his riches, and acknowledges that it is hard for rich people to enter the kingdom of heaven; when Peter asks what will they get, who have left everything to follow Jesus, Jesus says that they will have more than they need, and, in this case too, that “ … many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” In the verses following our story this morning, Jesus tells his disciples that he is going to Jerusalem to die; the mother of the sons of Zebedee does their work for them and asks Jesus to put her sons to the right and left of him when he comes into his kingdom; Jesus tells James and John that they don’t know what they are asking, and anyway that’s not his to grant; when the others are angry with James and John, Jesus tells them all that whoever wants to be great among them must be their servant, and that Jesus himself, who comes to serve, is the embodiment of God’s upending of worldly ideas of what takes precedence, of what is more important

We have noted before that the Gospel of Matthew is in part a manual of instruction, a teaching Gospel, that teaches through the example of Jesus what his followers need to know: about God and Jesus, about themselves, and about their neighbors. The Gospel teaches about God’s invitation and inclusion, about God’s ideas of who and what takes precedence, about who and what is more important. The kingdom of heaven, present and coming, is like this: a place where everyone is included, where everyone is important, and where at any given time and in any given situation, some people change places, so that the first shall become last, and the last shall become first, so that love and justice can prevail.

These stories come at an interesting time for us. The Covid-19 pandemic also upends our ideas of what takes precedence, of what is more important. It reveals the deep fissures in our society, which in turn reveal disdain and hatred, and as well mercy and generosity. Now I want to be very clear here. I am not saying that God caused either the virus or the pandemic. From what I gather from the science, medical , and political communities they are likely the result of a combination of natural processes and the consequences of human denial, fear, and short-sighted choices around environment, our relations with other species, and public health. I am also not saying that God has sent us the virus as a punishment. The pain, sorrow, fear, and despair this virus has caused and continues to cause is suffering enough to go on with for anything. And these all are exacerbated in turn by uncontrolled wildfires, racial injustice and unrest, a frightening economic situation, and the background of climate change. Our faith does not promise us that we will be punished for anything through natural processes or their consequences. What our faith does promise is that God’s presence, guidance, and help are with us, to help bring us through, and to help us learn.

And we are learning a lot now, in deeper and richer, and yes, in more challenging ways. Some of what we are learning is that those who we may have overlooked or taken for granted take precedence in importance to our well-being, if we are to eat, to continue to function as individuals and a society, and to recover and get well. We are learning that some, through no fault of their own but through being discounted in their human being and dignity, suffer more deeply and widely than others, and that certain changes must take precedence over the status quo if this extra suffering and blatant injustice is to end. We are learning how important each individual person who has died was, to their loved ones and to their communities. We are learning how important we who live are to each other, as we long for physical presence, contact, and energy. We are learning how human relationship, and human relationship with the natural and wider world, take precedence over so much of what we thought was more important. And we are learning the importance each one of us has and can have to God and to our neighbor, in actions both large and small.

Paul writes about this in his own inimitable way in his letter to the church at Philippi, a church for which Paul has a particular affection. His letter is full of friendship and rejoicing in and for them, even in the midst of the sufferings they variously face, and he recounts his dilemma in the face of their friendship in Christ. He does not know which to prefer: to die and be with Christ is what he would prefer as the best of all situations; but if he continues to live, he has fruitful labor to do, and that is more necessary for the church at Philippi, which he loves. So, he will remain alive and in the flesh, to continue with them in progress and joy, and so that they may all boast in Christ when they can be together again. Since life take precedence over death for Paul in his call from God, he will do his work toward fruitfulness, endure his sufferings in faith, and enjoy his time with his friends.

Covid-19 is no respecter of precedence or people. But as long as we are, like Paul, still alive and in the flesh, our life with God, self, and neighbor takes precedence even over our fear, and accompanies our grief and the many other emotions of this time. Now more than ever, we are called to consider what will take precedence, what will be more important, in our lives. We are called to be fruitful in the work we are called to do. We are called to rejoice in our friends and companions in Christ. In all this we are called to be guided by God’s ideas of what takes precedence, rather than our own or the world’s. And when we do, we are promised that our world will be the more interesting, the richer, and the more just for it. May we rest in God’s mercy and generosity, and may we extend God’s mercy and generosity to as many others as we can. AMEN.

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

posted in The Rev. Dr. Victoria Hart Gaskell, Minister for Visitation on 09.20.2020 at 11:00 am

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Sunday
September 13

Liberal Grace

By Marsh Chapel

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Matthew 18: 21-35

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Please forgive the intrusive nature of this sermon. For I want to begin by taking a walk with you into the attic of your soul. Though we are friends, it is not my right to initiate such a visit. Though we are pastors and parishioners, it is not our right to force such a trek back up through the mist of time. You would need to make an invitation, yourself. Even to suggest the climb, without any initiative on your part, is rude of me. I apologize.

The Gospel, however, intrudes upon our very souls, whether the preacher has a right or not. As kingfishers catch fire, and dragonflies draw flame, so truth—that liberal grace, that light in which we see light—advances upon us. So we go ahead. We walk together upstairs to the landing. You kindly have turned on the hall light. Thank you. I wonder if this is a sign from you that you will welcome this joint venture? We pull down on the chain that loosens the attic portal. You know how that little door in the ceiling falls open, and slowly a flank of wooden stairs comes down, and down, and down, and touches our feet. We are ready to climb up into the darkness.

Watch your step. You have not been up into the cobwebs and the dust of memory, the mothballs and the coverlets of history, the grime and the darkness of the past. It is a little slow going. This is your attic, though. You know it as well as you know your own past. In fact, it is your past, box by box, and crate by crate. I have no right to be here, and if you ask me, I will leave. A man has a right to his own regrets. A woman has a right to her own regrets. They are not common property. They are yours, these boxes and labels and shoes and hangers and records and amulets and souvenirs from the dusty past. One of you is looking over at an old service uniform from the great war—brown and rumpled. Another sees bobby sox and a political poster—I LIKE IKE. She has stumbled past three old Beatles albums—greatest hits, Abbey Road, the White album. I notice a Jim Croce tape. I wonder if it still plays? He thumbs through a pile of other newer albums. She has a 2004 World Series Fenway ticket. He has a ball marked deflate-gate. Of course there are lots of photographs. What kind of an attic would it be without boxes and records and photographs?

This is the attic of memory. No, we won’t stop at the wardrobe

Today. The wardrobe is for another day, a day of hope and imagination. Lions and witches come from wardrobes. Today we are looking back, though. We are going to stumble and claw our way over into the back corner. There is not much light here. It is a long time since anyone came back in, all this way. Dust, cobwebs—it makes you sneeze.

Over in the corner there is a small, low box, carefully closed, and tied around with a little bailer’s twine. This is yours. No one else knows it is here, or if they do, they have forgotten or never understood or just don’t care. But you know and remember and understand and care. I really do not want to be here, and you probably don’t want to either. I—for it is not my business. You—because in black ink, now dusty, is penned across the top of the box a single, awful, hellish word—regret. Regret is a short synonym for hell. And up here in the attic of memory, off in the corner, sits this stupid box, which means nothing to anyone, except to you. There it is—a single box labeled “regret”.

Open it.

Go ahead. Try it. If you want. I think you have wanted to come up here, but just never had 20 minutes of quiet to do so. Remember last summer when you thought about the box? And remember that early morning dream? That was a strange thing. I want to encourage you to open it. Hold it in both hands. Untie the twine. Loosen the top. Turn it over, and let it all fall out.

Good. That was a gutsy thing to do. Good for you.

The reason the box was marked “regret” is that this is one thing you regret. You have a regret. That is part of being human. Can you live with being human? Can you live with being a little lower than the angels? How do I know all this? As my great aunt would say, “If you’re so smart how come you aren’t rich?” A real good question. I know because I have boxes in my attic too. They too are covered with cobwebs. I too make my visits, my attic climbs, very seldom. And, yes, I know about regret. Not just vicariously, either. There is nothing quite as bitter. If only…If only…If only…

I asked to come up here with you for a reason. Up in the attic here, with that swinging bare light bulb and the Johnny Mathis record, and the 2018 election lawn sign, and all this dust, we may feel God.

Look at the box again, and all its contents spread across the floor. In the dark I cannot see the floor, but after 44 years and 10 pulpits I truly doubt if any of it would surprise me. After reading the Bible and Shakespeare and a few decades worth of the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, there is not much that surprises. But it is different for you. This is your attic, your memory, your box, your regret. It is YOURS. In a way, this box is more yours than any of the others.

In this box are the articles of impeachment brought by life against us. They are multiple and they are damning and unlike civil and criminal law, the laws of the soul do not give way to lawyerly cunning. And there is no vote, no 2/3 majority needed. And the impeachment may not have led to conviction, except in the heart. Yours.

What is that you say? Not you? Never a cutting word? Never a selfish deed? Never an unhealthy habit? Never a compulsive trend? Never a myopic judgment? Never a temptation accepted? Never an ungenerous year? Never a vote you wish, truly wish, you had not made? You meant one thing, it meant another. Never a non-giving decade? Not you? Never a misspent dollar or day or dream? You don’t go to enough funerals.

But the box doesn’t lie. Nor does the conscience. Nor does the memory. Nor does life.

It simply spells “regret”. That, I regret.

There is something that both can and must be said, as we pack up the regret box. Read about it sometime in Matthew 18: 21-35. It is not a human thing to say, though we are the only saying beings around so we do the best we can. It is a God word. And only God speaks God words.

First, looking down at the dusty cardboard of past regret—something that if not removed can fester and infect and cripple—first there is this. God forgives you. It is, according to the Scripture, the divine promise and intention to forgive and to forgive. It is the first and last and only unreplaceable word of faith. Abraham felt it. Miriam sang it with all her might. Joseph practiced it. Hosea proclaimed it. Jesus taught us to pray for it. And for 2000 years the church has tried to exemplify, embody this one word. God forgives. John Wesley asked his preachers one initial question. “Do you know God to be a pardoning God?” Now that, in the face of a box marked “regret”, that is good news. In the face of the worst rejection and the most regrettable misjudgment on earth, God practices a powerful forgiveness.

You know in the midst of all the harshness of the religious right and the flightiness of the religious left, it can be hard to hear the central truth about God and about us. God forgives.

God forgives before we are up in the attic at all. God forgives when we realize what we have to regret. God forgives as we carry the regret around. God forgives when we hear and when we do not and it does not depend on our hearing.

Do you know God to be a pardoning God? If so, you know God, the God of Jesus Christ.

Here are some Scriptures worth memorizing about God who forgives….

If you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Lord how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times? … I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.

But maybe that is not what keeps you awake, not what makes you linger today in the attic. You may well believe and trust that God forgives. But what about those you have regrettably hurt?

This can be particularly hard for those who have grown up around especially hardened parents and other adults. If you have not heard an encouraging word much growing up, it can be hard later in life to believe that those other humans around you can practice a liberal grace, that they can be gracious.

They can be.

As a matter of fact, most of the time they are. More than most of the time. People forgive, more than you know and more than you may think you deserve. It really delights me. People have a profound capacity to forgive and forget. It is God given, and it is real and it is good.

I think of the waiting father and the prodigal son.

I think of Paul forgiving Peter’s two-faced behavior.

I think of Augustine’s mother forgiving his selfishness.

I think of Erasmus forgiving the wayward Popes.

I think of Grant and Lee at Appomattox.

I think of Abraham Lincoln walking through Richmond.

I think of the Marshall Plan and rebuilding of Germany and Japan in the 1940’s.

I think of women and men, night after day, for millenia.

You may have to ask sometime for forgiveness. You probably should. Say, “I’m sorry”. Like the ancient TV character ‘The Fonz’, who could never utter the word, “I was wrong..” But my experience is that most people most of the time when confronted with a heartfelt, sincere apology from a person of integrity will simply, directly and kindly say, “Don’t worry about it. I forgive you.” It is one of the greatest things about other people. You may have to give it a little time. You may have to pray about it. You may have to trust a little. You may have to try more than once. But—other people will forgive you.

But that may not be what holds you here in the attic. As a matter of fact, I bet that the box is still up here, wrapped in twine and covered with dirt and marked regret, for another reason. It’s one thing for God to forgive you. It’s one thing to accept another’s kindness. But in the end, that still leaves you a few sandwiches short of a picnic, and a few french fries short of a happy meal. God has forgiven you! Your neighbor has forgiven you! Now comes the hard part.

You have to forgive yourself. You have to let yourself off the hook. You have to find a way to admit to yourself that you are not 101% perfect. You have to, well, accept your own acceptance. And that can be a lot easier said than done. Because we have a way of holding onto what poisons us. Why is that? We have a way of clinging to that which poisons us. We have a way of just wrapping ourselves in a miserable kind of self-conceited self-condemnation. Up in the attic.

Sunday is a good time to dump your guilt. God doesn’t want it. No neighbor finally has much use for it. So why is it still in the box? What good is it? Get rid of it. When it doubt, throw it out.

God forgives you. So does your neighbor. Forgive yourself.

Matter of fact, while we are here, up in the attic—let’s just take that box out of here. I’ll hold the ladder for you while you are coming down. You can carry it, with a little homiletical help. If we hurry we can get out on the curb before noon. The heavenly garbage truck always comes by this part of your mental world Sunday at noon. There, it’s out on the curb, and soon it will be gone for good. Sang

William Blake:

And throughout all eternity

I forgive you, you forgive me.

And throughout all eternity

I forgive you, you forgive me.

And throughout all eternity

I forgive you, you forgive me.

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

posted in Liberal Gospel: Autumn 2020 Sermons, The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel on 09.13.2020 at 11:00 am

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Sunday
September 6

Liberal Breeze

By Marsh Chapel

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Matthew 18: 15-20

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Keep a clean wind blowing through our hearts Gracious God

Keep a warm wind blowing through our hearts Gracious God

Keep a liberal wind blowing through our hearts Gracious God

Keep a summer wind blowing through our hearts Gracious God

Matthew 18: 15-20 involves communication, especially in the practice of forgiveness in community, with precise advisements, directions, and instructions. Presence is important. Listening is important. Voice is important. Collegiality is important. Second tries are important. There is no mention of technology, neither that of the first nor that of the twenty first centuries. Forgiveness is personal, human, spirited, and real. It requires human not sub-human communication. And, as we shall see next week, forgiveness includes forgiving yourself. We can note, to our possible discomfort, the Scriptural root and basis for the religious practice, following unsuccessful mediation, of shunning. One antique but Scriptural answer is in the practice of shunning. Another sermon for another day…

In verse 15, Matthew begins to give advice about how to live in community. Community involves difference, but also can involve hurt. Communication makes community. Matthew’s Jesus teaches us to speak to each other in our presence and not of each other in our absence—to each other in our presence not of each other in our absence.

Some time ago I received a triangulating e-mail. It came from the leader of an organization I dislike, seeking support for a person I do like. I loathe one and love the other. The triangulation in the communication forced me either to support an organization I do not like or to disappoint a person I do like. What do you do in such a situation? The kinder approach from the organization would have been a visit, or a phone call, in which sensibilities could be explored. But now we have the e-document, email: eternal, irretrievable, international, indelible. And hence the tangled triangle. It would take 3 hours or more to unbind and loosen this knot. You know, there was a time when people had to come and see you before they so complicated your life. I think on inquiry, that Matthew 18: 15 teaches me how to respond. I should not send a steaming reply, tempting as that would be. I should not reply from a distance at all. I should go and see my interlocutor. I should make a visit to the author of such an e-mail and find a way through the horns of the dilemma, the Scylla of support for an organization I dislike and the Caribdis of hurt to a person I do like. A cartoon this week pictures a man saying to his friend, “I used to call people, then I got into e-mailing, then texting, and now I just ignore everyone”. Get things moving, get the community walking together!

In verse 16, Matthew quotes from Deuteronomy 19. That is, he goes back to the basics, back to the starting point, the Hebrew Scripture, the Old Testament, back to kindergarten, if you will, as many are going this week. Read again Robert Fulghum’s, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kingergarten. Get things moveing in the community—get people walking together!

In verse 17, Matthew provides a further suggestion, to use if the earlier ones fail. Tell the whole church, his Jesus says. We are clearly hearing overtones of what was needed in Matthew’s community, toward the end of the first century. Jesus may well have taught in such fashion, though the use of a Greek word like ‘ecclesia’—twice here—probably indicates this is later material placed on Jesus’ lips. But the import remains—gather the community for deliberation. Get things moving in the community—get people walking together!

In verse 18, Matthew strongly affirms the lasting power of such church considerations, even saying, similar to our reading two weeks ago, in the phrase, ‘the keys to the kingdom of heaven’, that what is bound on earth is bound in heaven, what is forgiven on earth is forgiven in heaven. Get things moving in the community—get people walking together!

In verse 19, two or three, when truly together, suffice to form a judgement. Our English words ‘symphony’ and ‘pragmatic’ are rooted in the Greek here for agreement and matter. Get things moving in the community—get people walking together!

In verse 20, to conclude, the gospel further celebrates the precious joy of common life in the present, in the here and now, and it only takes a few, ‘wherever two or three ARE gathered in my name, there I AM as well.’ Get things moving in the community—get people walking together. As our friend and colleague Dean Mary Elizabeth Moore wrote this week:

Breathe in the Spirit of Life
Breathe out your best selves
Breathe in the newness of the year
Breathe out your deepest hopes
Breathe in possibility
Breathe out acts of compassion and justice.

Yes, a liberal breeze is blowing all about us.

The farm stand up the road from us summer by summer offers vegetables and fruit, as the summer season evolves. Beans, peas, berries to begin, and corn, tomatoes, squash to follow. They make their own maple syrup candies from the spring syrup. It is a family operation, careful in cleanliness, in presentation, in pricing, and in conversation. For all the pandemic changes, the pandemonium of policing troubles, the pugilism of the presidential contest—of about equal balance by the way in our county—our farm stand is an oasis of unchanging grace, natural abundance, civil discourse, and, especially, delicious foodstuffs.

A woman waited on me, with mask and distance and hand sanitizer, bringing out blueberries and two dozen ears of corn, half butter and sugar, half yellow, all melt in your mouth yummy good. They now take a credit card, but when asked if they preferred cash said, ‘thank you for asking; no, now with this special (something, a metal clip or other) either one is fine’. Carefully mowed lawn, decidedly smart packaging, good pricing though not cheap, signage at a quarter mile radius, NSEW, and happy eye contact welcome at the counter: natural grace, at least 50 years in service, a still summer point in the soon to come autumn turning world. And a liberal, summer breeze blowing across the lawn.

Yet. However. Nevertheless. Sin embargo…

The stand is at the southeast corner of the intersection of routes 26 and 12B. In June of 1966, as we were preparing to move from Hamilton all the long way north, all 16 miles north, to Oneida, an itineracy at the time grave and global to the 11 year old psyche, a woman was nearly killed at the crossing. In a brand new car, dressed for celebration, she was driving south to her own high school reunion, had the green light and right of way, and was hit by a drunk driver, the car obliterated. My father was still the minister in town, and I can remember the horror of the incident, and his visits to the little, then new, town hospital through her recovery. Just a few years ago, by happenstance, I came to know her family and enoy their friendship. Natural grace, but a stone’s throw from high way carnage, in drunk driving. And why the drunken driving? We could speculate abut the young man in the truck. A life of milking early and late every single day perhaps, , 12 hour days, perhaps, low income, limited possibilities perhaps, the forgotten folks left to tend the sheep while the shepherds went off to the city temple, perhaps? Lurking there, beyond my younger capacity really to see, was the vast historical conspiracy of these United States against the full humanity of poor white people, in the fields and harrows of cultural life. White children make up the largest racial group of poor children in America (4.2 million): (“among America’s poor children, 4.2 million are white, 4 million are Latino, 3.6 million are African American, 400,000 are Asian, and 200,000 are American Indian”: NCCP, 475 Riverside Drive, NYC, NY). Natural grace, but a stone’s throw from class discrimination, in income, housing, education, health care, and respect.

On the northwest corner of the same intersection, nestled against the shoreline of Leland Pond, there was and still is a mile by half mile quadrangle of vegetable farming, owned by others. In autumn each year there would arrive for about three weeks, a traveling company of African American pickers, whose children would come to our school for those weeks. They started in northern Maine earlier in the year and just followed the advancing harvest south, leaving our little town for the next stop in Pennsylvania, and then following the Susquehanna river further down into Maryland. I can see the families walking row by row, gathering the cabbage and other vegetables. The film Cider House Rules decades later gave a bit of further insight. Lurking there, beyond my younger capacity really to see, was the vast historical conspiracy of these United States against the full humanity of black folks, a conspiracy still deeply rooted in the fields and harrows of cultural life. Black children make up the highest percentage rate by race in poverty (33% of black children) (In the 10 most populated states, rates of child poverty among black children range from 29% in California and Florida to 47% in Ohio. NCCP, 475 Riverside Dr, NYC, NY) Natural grace, but a stone’s throw from systemic racism, in employment, housing, education, health care, and policing.

How on earth did the rightful longings and lost dreams of poor white people on the southeast corner of that intersection get opposed to the rightful longings and lost dreams of the poor black people on the northwest corner of that intersection? Excellent work, Wormwood, you devil you. You make your Uncle Screwtape so proud.

Take heart, dear souls, take heart: A liberal breeze is blowing all about us. There is a new day coming.

This cleansing summer wind blows away the spurious, silly, hate-filled attempts of national leaders to set at odds the urban and the rural, the manufacturing and the agricultural, the city and the country, the heart land and the coast. What ridiculous falsehood. Childhood piano lessons I took were given by a farm wife who then returned to the barn. Sermons early on in ministry were endured by men who had been milking at 4am and were glad for a nap at 11:20am come Sunday. Our best parishioners then and later knew the back-breaking labor of haying, and took on our teenage sons for such a week’s summer work. One September evening we left a magnificent meal in the farm kitchen, to help with and see the birth of a calf in the barn next door, then to return for dessert. In August one parishioner rode her horse to church in those years. The idea, the flagrant false idea, that these saints are marks to be conned into belief by pseudo leaders who have not a whisker of belief themselves is absurd. The idea that these good people are sitting ducks to be convinced to hate on the basis of race, to control on the basis of gender, to reject on the basis of ethnicity, nation, income, education or accent—the thematic thrust of some recent political discourse--is as appalling as are its spokespeople. The dairy farmers we knew would have been inclined to take care of them, refine their education shall we say, perhaps out behind the barn, in no uncertain terms. Of all my homiletical regrets and failings this one stands out in this season: as one who has lived half his life in great city streets and the other half in great country meadows, I have somehow failed to make clear our lived experience that, when it comes to good faithful people urban and rural, there is so little lasting difference. It is a hoax. It is a hoax! And yet, somehow I and others who know better have not been able, yet, to make that case, and make it stick. Rural people are not sexist rubes, racist dunces, greedy materialists, or fundamentalist flakes. Urban people are not permissive snow-flakes, flighty nincompoops, unrealistic and clumsy airheads, any less interested in law and order and prosecution for wanton property destruction, or celebrants of Willie Horton. You are being conned, America, you are being conned. Take care to think through with care just who benefits from such false, adroitly engineered division. Again: shades of Wormwood and his affectionate uncle. The best good people, in the city and in the country, can know each other in spirit in a heart-beat. They would know each other in a New York minute, and enjoy each other until the cows come home. They would know each other in a New York minute, and enjoy each other until the cows come home. (I pause to break the fourth wall and to point out to budding preachers the structure and phrasing of the sentence, New York…cows…see? Say what you say by the way you say it.) Such saints would, can and will happily greet each other,on this side or on the farther home side of glory, with A METHODIST HANDSHAKE. In heaven. And for all of us, it’s later than we think, and Heaven-New Creation-Glory is closer than we ever fully project or expect.

Around us is blowing a gentle, summer wind, a lasting liberal breeze. While creation groans, and while love suffers long and is kind, we shall need a little of the third person of the ancient trinity along the way. A liberal breeze, a liberal breeze.

By the way, the asperity with which the Holy Scripture summarizes creation is only matched by the asperity which the creeds of the Church summarize creation. ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’. Period. ‘I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth’. Period. Scripture and creed say what reason and experience know: we have the brute fact of the brute creation. Period. The rest of the Holy Scripture, all 65.9 other books, and the rest of the creed, the long second paragraph and the shorter third, go on from there. The love of God comes accompanied by faith and hope. Creation is the occasion of love but does not occasion love, does not occasion faith in love, and does not occasion a hope for a loving future. God is Love is profoundly about the second person of the Trinity, the Christ of God, not about the first person of the Trinity, and the creation of God. Creation alone will never get us to heaven. In pandemic, it will take the Second Person of the Trinity to get us free from the fallen creation of the First, guided hourly by the RUAH, the PNEUMA, the spirit, the wind, the liberal breeze of life.

Keep a clean breeze blowing through our hearts Gracious God

Keep a warm breeze blowing through our hearts Gracious God

Keep a liberal breeze blowing through our hearts Gracious God

Keep a summer breeze blowing through our hearts Gracious God

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

posted in Liberal Gospel: Autumn 2020 Sermons, The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel on 09.6.2020 at 11:00 am

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Sunday
August 30

Liberal Heart

By Marsh Chapel

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Matthew 16:21-28

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Change can happen. Real change, for the good, in real time, can come. There is in the human heart, sometimes dormant but always present, the capacity to turn around, to repent, to move again forward, to change. Change can come. Jesus Christ and Him Crucified is at the mysterious heart of All, of Life, and of Change. Jesus the Son of God, the Word of God, the Lamb of God, the Presence of God, can bring change. To you. Simon Peter found his life immeasurably altered by a word or two, fitly spoken. He found a liberal heart. You can too. He found a liberal heart. We can too. He found his own heart opened, and forever remade, by the liberality, grace, freedom, generosity and love of God. We can too. Peter following this change still struggled to appreciate and bring apperception to the Person of Jesus, the Presence of Jesus, the Power of Jesus. But the change was permanent. He was given a liberal heart, a heart of wonder, a heart of vulnerability, a heart of self-abandon. God is calling you to open your heart today to that kind of change, that scope of change, that force of change. Change can happen. Real change, for the good, in real time, can come. There is in the human heart, sometimes dormant but always present, the capacity to turn around, to repent, to move again forward, to change. Change can come. Let us pray.

Gracious God, Holy and Just
Thou who art loves us into love and frees us into freedom

In the mystery of thy presence we pause at the beginning

The beginning of a new season, of a new year, of a new adventure

Thankful for the wise leadership of our University, and for the chance to learn and study together this autumn

Now at Matriculation 2020 we offer our common prayer

We pray for safety, health, and wellness for all

We pray to become good stewards of, protectors of, the safety, health and wellness of others, to be our sister’s keeper, our brother’s keeper

We pray for the disciplines of courage, and of responsibility, and of compassion that together we shall need, and that together we may find

We remember in prayer those who got us here, who raised us, taught us, loved us and supported us, and who yearn to see us through

Bless Boston University this year we pray, bless those who study and those who teach, those who lead and those who support, bless each and every one of us we pray

With a joy in learning, a regard for virtue, and an inclination to piety—a joy in human knowing, a regard for human doing, and an inclination to human being

Grant us thy peace, grant us thy peace, grant us thy peace. AMEN.

Our Holy Scripture takes flight first this Lord’s Day with Moses’ fear. The prospect and the present potential for change bring a quaking in the boots, a quaking in the heart, a quaking in the very soul. You are right to worry and wonder a little bit about a Matriculation Sunday sermon, and whether it might bruise or cut a little bit. Alma Mater carries the sense of birth, of child birth. The mysterium tremendum, all about us, the HOLY HOLY HOLY. And Moses, God love him, first, fears. For the Divine Presence brings change. Real change is real hard, but it comes in real time when real people really work at it: I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey. But there is no theological exam here, nor any doctrinal requirement. There is just the chance for change. It is a very broad brush, a big canvass, a wide and wild painting, big enough for cameo appearances by fearful humans, including Moses, and you, and me.

Our Holy Scripture sails and soars second this Lord’s Day with Paul’s wisdom. These verses you need to memorize. Romans 12: 9ff. They are neither heavily theological nor pointedly doctrinal. They are existential. They include. They involve many, and various, and different and all. The church survived and grew for 150 years before it had a Bible, from 30ad to 170ad, at least a Bible of the sort we have today. It had the Law, Prophets and Writings, but no Gospels shared, no Letters agreed upon, no Apocalypses acclaimed. The Holy Scripture proved itself Holy, over time, in context, with debate, out of friction. The Godfather of the New Testament was a gnostic heretic named Marcion, in opposition to whose Bible of Luke and some Letters of Paul the Church instead accepted in addition the Hebrew Scripture, in addition the other Gospels, in addition the other Letters, and even an Apocalypse or two. Scripture came to life in and through life. So, you would not blithely disparage it. It comes with blisters and sores and cuts. Paul finds change in these 13 very simple, transparent advisements, let love be genuine…practice hospitality.

Our Holy Scripture lands at Peter’s feet, in the call to change, to a change of heart. What will it profit if one gains the whole world yet loses one’s soul? Somewhere between world and soul, Peter discovered a liberal heart. What Jesus said in 30ad is written down at last by Matthew in 85ad. There was a long line of listening, hearing, sharing, speaking, long before the writing. In part we know this because the two saying here are at odds, one offering to hearing and faith the paradox of saving and losing life: you only have, only possess, only truly hold what you have the power, grace, freedom and courage to give away. If you do not have it, you cannot give it. If you give it, truly, you then show you have owned it. The sayings were written down together in Matthew 16 because they shared a tag word—life. What can you give in exchange for your life? (Here the message is careful: hold on, flee false forfeit, prize life now you have it). Whoever saves his life will lose it, and whoever loses is life will find it. (Here the message is caring: splash around with generosity, give with no thought of return, take up the cross, follow). The two teachings are there to balance each other. Which one for which day on which way will you say? It’s up to you. Over time, you will need them both. Just this week, in the tragedies of Kenosha Wisconsin, Jacob Blake’s mother was doing the same, balancing justice and order, the caring and the careful: On Tuesday, Mr. Blake’s mother, Julia Jackson, had told reporters that she opposed the sort of destruction that had been left by protests spurred by her son’s shooting. Ms. Jackson told reporters that she had been praying for the country to heal.“I’ve noticed a lot of damage,” she said. “It doesn’t reflect my son or my family.” (NYT, 8/26/20). So, Listen. Tune your ear to God. Life is short. This high peak passage, Peter’s Confession, rightly evokes the deep heart of faith, of gospel, of Scripture, of change. It is the keystone, the lynch pin, the center in some measure of the Gospel we preach, we teach, we depend upon in life, in death and in life beyond death. What will it profit if one gains the whole world yet loses one’s soul?

Life

In September of 1976, forty-four years ago, like many of our young colleagues on arrival this week for Matriculation, I had found my way to another great city—New York, along another great river—the Hudson, to the center of another great urban university—Columbia. A sermon that week in James Chapel at Union Seminary was brought uptown from the minister near Greenwich Village at Washington Square. It has stayed with me, because it was true to life, and true to change in life, and especially true to Moses and Paul and Matthew today. He commended wonder, vulnerability and self-mockery. Change of a healthy spiritual sort is not primarily theological or doctrinal, though it might become so. It is existential. It is life coming alive. It is a heart become a liberal heart. Call it a liberal art heart.

A liberal heart radiates wonder. Borden Parker Bowne: Philosophy begins in wonder. G.K. Chesterton: the world does not lack for wonders, but only for a sense of wonder. Charles Wesley: changed from glory into glory, ‘til in heaven we take our place, ‘til we cast our crowns before Thee, lost in wonder, love and praise. Between Matriculation and Commencement there is chance for a change of heart, a chance for the emergence of a liberal heart, a heart open to wonder, charged with wonder, delighting in wonder. What we will lead us in part away from anxiety, depression, ennui, acedia, loneliness and despond is in part this sense of wonder. Some ongoing connection with the natural world, a regular walk along the emerald necklace, say, may aid you here. Some chance to see the ocean, close at hand, on a regular basis, may help you here. Some occasional visits to the BU rooftop telescope may help you here. The joy of reading, the thrill of music, the mystery of friendship, all may bring a new rebirth of wonder. Even in a fallow, covid time: we watched one 11 year-old neighbor read 35 books this summer.

A liberal heart owns vulnerability. Death makes us mortal. Facing death makes us human. We are utterly vulnerable creatures, from birth to the beyond. If nothing else, our current pandemic has indelibly placed such vulnerability before us. The question is whether we will own it. Whether we will wash and wash the hands, whether we will attain, maintain and retain social distance, whether we will take up and take on the hourly masking that will protect others vulnerability, and our own. Our physical vulnerability may also, just may bring a Petrine change to our proclivity to pretend invulnerability. Somehow Peter came to see life from a different angle, not from the vantage point of power but from the perspective of love. How? Who can say? But in some measure it may well have been a readiness, a willingness to admit his vulnerability, even as he curses his Master’s. We have a shared vulnerability that should shock us into commitments to communal protections. We will need shared, common behaviors, educational and health investments, global and national planning and spending to get prepared for the next virus, as have not at all been for this one. That will take the liberal heart to admit vulnerability.

A liberal heart has a measure of self-abandon, of self-awareness, even of self-mockery. Take yourself lightly, so that you can fly, like the angels. Take yourself lightly, so that you can fly, like the angels. The church has loved Peter for so long because he is so human, so prone to mistake, and yet with such a courage to admit error. Most students will make a mistake or two in their college years. No one recommends it. All work against it. And yet. We learn, to measure we learn most, from our mistakes. When they come, if they do, take some time to learn from them. And then get up, dust yourself off, and be able to live with a little lightness, a little self-mockery.

Gracious God Holy and Just

Thou from whom we come and unto whom our spirits return

Thou our dwelling place in all generations

Rest upon us in the silence of this moment we pray

Dry the tears of those moved to emotion in an hour of separation

Illumine the skyline of opportunity that lies behind the rain clouds of worry

Carry young hearts open to friendship into seas of friendship

Help us hear for our time the voice of the Prophet

‘What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly’?

Help us we earnestly pray to prefer justice to judgment

Help us we earnestly pray to love the merciful more than the material

Help us we earnestly pray to walk humbly not haughtily

May the degrees we earn turn by degrees the wheel of life from judgment to justice

May the courses we choose inspire in choices later a keenness of mind matched by a fullness of heart

May the learning we gain afford us the gain of humility, the honest desire to give credit where credit is due, and not to tip the scale

May the friendships we make in their turn make us less inclined to judgment and more enamored of justice

May the regrets we acquire then incline us to mercy, as we have felt mercy, and not to material measurements alone

May the adventures we bravely pursue give us the wisdom to know our condition, mortal, frail, prone to harm others, frail, mortal

May all our acquisition of knowledge chase us toward justice, toward mercy, and toward humility

And the wisdom to welcome, later, perhaps much later, the recognition that

The larger the body of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of mystery that surrounds it

Amen.

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

posted in Liberal Gospel: Autumn 2020 Sermons, Matriculation, The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel on 08.30.2020 at 11:00 am

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Sunday
August 23

Liberal Church

By Marsh Chapel

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Matthew 16:13-20

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A healthy institution of any sort, particularly of any religious sort and certainly of any Christian sort, is a community that is learning together. As Albert Camus said, the healthy society is a circle in which all are seated and each reminds the other: ‘You are not God. I am not God. You are not God. I am not God.’ You are the recipients, the inheritors of that liberal tradition, the legacy of the liberal church. As such, we are learning together, every single day, every Lord’s Day, every one day.

We are learning together.

Moses teaches us.

We learn together from these glorious narratives, offered us week by week in this year, from Genesis—think of Joseph last week—and today from Exodus. The uncanny, the unexpected, the spirited entrance into life, by and through human imagination and courage, of grace, of freedom, of love. And Pharaoh’s daughter took a little prophet out of the bulrushes, Moses by name. There come times when a new Pharaoh arrives, one ‘who did not know Joseph’. There come times when the odds are set up against the real and true and good. There come times when it is hard to name a fully good thing from any day or week. There come times when both nature and history appear to conspire together, against grace. And then along comes a recollection of the self-giving courage of a mother, setting her basket into the rippling waters of bulrushes along the Nile. Loving by letting go. There are some eyes with tears right around here this week, some parents turning away and giving children to the unforeseen future. No matter the age or stage, it takes courage, it takes the uncanny, the unexpected, the spirited entrance into life, by and through human imagination and courage, of grace, of freedom, of love. The community of faith knows change, knows itinerancy, knows loss that becomes gain and gain that becomes loss. That is the legacy of the liberal church.

Moses teaches us.

Paul teaches us.

Here is a sweet memory to share, now more than twenty years old, but it is clear as a bright August morning, even so. For how happy we were one Saturday in Rochester to hear an excellent sermon on today’s epistle, Romans 12 from our former pulpit, given at a divinity school graduation by the Rev. Mr. Peter Gomes, Harvard Chaplain. Do you remember The Good Book, his 1996 essay on the interpretation of Scripture? Really, his hymn of love for the Scripture. We were really proud to have him in our Rochester pulpit, and to hear his message.

If memory serves, it included some standard homiletical devices—a foundational text (Romans 12:2), a theme (endings are beginnings), repetition, litanies, epigrams, some old and new humor, making use of natural “oppositions” that come to the mind of the hearer and then addressing them, a little poetry (TS Eliot—“Little Gidding”), a quotation or two, and an exhortation to the congregation to be transformed “by the renewing of the mind”. Be ye not conformed but be ye transformed by the renewal of the mind.

What most appealed was the design of the message. Following an extended introduction, and preceding a simple conclusion, the preacher offered three memorable points. Hah! In the living church, much national debate and new homiletical theory to the contrary notwithstanding, there is—and especially there was on that Saturday—still room for a good three-point sermon, even one that concluded with a poem. From Aristotle to about 1970, this design had endured, and reports of its death in the last decades have been, in Twain’s term, “exaggerated”. Three points and a poem still work.

Gomes challenged the graduates, the students, and by reflection the church and by extension all Christians, not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewal of the mind. How?

First, by noticing the difference between wisdom and knowledge.

Second, by practicing meekness, whose opposite is not strength, but pride.

Third, by protecting space and time for relaxation, prayer, reading.

Now, it would be nice to have the note page on which was summarized the message. Somehow, though, between the past and present, the paper disappeared. No matter—his design preserved the message for me—wisdom, meekness, relaxation. Let us try to remember and, in Justice Holmes good phrase, try to give it the benefit of five great words: “I applied it to myself.” Care to join me? That is your legacy in the liberal church.

Paul teaches us.

Matthew teaches us.

We are disciples. The word means student. Disciple means student. Salve Discipuli. Salve Magistra. Discipleship means studentship. The model of faithfulness recommended, particular in Matthew, and especially in Matthew 16, is the model of the student. Perhaps if we simply said ‘studentship’ rather than ‘discipleship’, we would do better. Perhaps we should and could see the courageous arrival of the class of 2024 as exhibit a, exemplum docet.

Living right means learning together—in voice, in thought, in conflict, in Scripture. Learning together.

It is this driving preachment that causes Matthew to eviscerate Mark here. Matthew in 85ad has taken a passage from Mark in 70ad and turned it upside down. It is not so much the detail, by the way, of the manner in which Matthew and Luke revise Mark, chapter by chapter, which is important. What matters is that they happily re-gospelled the gospel for their own day, to a fair thee well.

No? No? Oh Yes. Yes, indeed. Yes.

Mark in the passage calls Peter ‘Satan’. Matthew calls him Rock. Mark has no mention of any church of any kind. Matthew uses the word, the greed word for church, ecclessia—not likely something Jesus would have said, and gives Peter keys to the kingdom. Mark has Jesus tell the disciples—the students—to keep it all secret. Matthew rejects that secrecy, except for the title, messiah, and says, ‘preach it’. Why? Why does Matthew eviscerate, confound, gut, overturn his legacy, this inherited passage from Mark? Answer: he and his community are learning together. From voices. From thoughts. From conflicts. And Matthew sternly tells his people: to become fully human you will need institutional grounding, support, protection, and sustenance: family, neighborhood, school, church, university, country, globe. And let me be clear about the church, he adds: the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.

Just more thing, as we are learning together in voice, thought, conflict and scripture. Like Peter Falk used to say, in his character as Colombo, the absent-minded professor-like detective, turning as he left, ‘Just one more thing…’

Who do you say He is? In your life. Notice the passage crashes away from the general and the philosophical—what do others say (general) about the son of man (philosophical). Some say (general), the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the Prophets (philosophical). Notice the move to the specific and the personal. Who do you say I am? Meaning for you today: how are you going to live? A life of studentship, or not? Said Peter, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” And you? Remember this. Peter is the one who most needed forgiveness, and full pardon he did receive. There is forgiveness in life (repeat). And the church is the place where people like Peter, like you and me, who need forgiveness, find themselves forgiven. That is your legacy in the liberal church,

Matthew teaches us.

Moses, Paul, Matthew—they teach us how to live in the liberality of the gospel, wherein we worship God who is loving us into love and freeing us into freedom. The passages become Holy Scripture, in that they make us more whole, more ourselves, more our own healthy, safe, well, best selves, holy because whole. Scripture teaches us. And, so does experience, sometimes both together.

Our long-time friend and virtual, radio congregant, Dr. Kris Kahle, in New Haven, Connecticut, often sends along something of interest, a passage from Camus, say, maybe from THE PLAGUE, or a paragraph from Barth’s Church Dogmatics, which he has been reading alongside his COVID 19 medical practice. He and family are part of our extended family, an example of so many, far and near, who are with us in spirit, together in spirit, come Sunday. Perhaps you are one such. Grateful we are, thankful we are for Dr. Kahle and others, who share with us at Marsh Chapel, the freedom and love of the church, who share with us at Marsh Chapel, the fellowship, koinonia, commonwealth, partnership of the Gospel. What began in the bulrushes of the Nile, and then was taught to the Romans by the Apostle to the Gentiles, and then, and now, today, in the Holy Gospel is acclaimed—this is the good news of ‘the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Earlier in the summer Dr. Kahle took a moment apart from his medical teaching and practice to send me the video of John Lewis’s funeral, or rather, one of the eulogies therein. We otherwise might have missed it, given the backwoods lack of technological connection—a summer blessing in the main—with which we live or don’t live, in the woods of upstate New York, come summer. We trail technologically behind the Little House on the Prairie for some of the summer. So, we would have missed it. He sent it. What a gift.

What made President Obama’s eulogy for Congressman Lewis so powerful? It was a grand, high moment, a soaring eagle moment in American rhetoric. Was it the reminder of what gracious eloquence can mean in leadership and life? Yes, but not only that. Was it the painful but real measure of civil society, of what ground we have lost, much ground, much real and rhetorical and religious ground we have lost in these past few years? Yes, but not only that. Was it the sense of the cost of progress, the willingness to work toward ‘a more perfect union’, recognizing, with sober honesty, the myriad imperfections that beset us? Yes, but not only that. Was it the generous sense of common hope, that which can sustain the least and the last and the lost, as well as the rest of us? Yes, but not only that. Was it the personal honor, in cadence and story and honesty and heart? Yes, but no only that. Was it the humanity—recalling Bill Clinton lifting his hand and pointing to the casket of Coretta Scott King in 2006, and stepping off his prepared text to shout, ‘for all these kind fancy words, don’t you forget, there’s a woman in that box.’ Yes, but not only that. What was it, at depth, that made Barack Obama’s eulogy for John Lewis such a tremendous gift to me from Dr. Kahle? Let’s cogitate a minute on that while the sermon meanders and unwinds toward its conclusion this summer morning.

What was it that made President Obama’s eulogy for John Lewis so trenchant and true? Scripture, Holy Scripture, The Church’s Book, The Book on and of the Church. In the main, along with other ingredients mentioned, the power in his personal ability, rightly to choose and use timely verses of Scripture, the Holy Scripture taught and learned in the learning community of the liberal church. The setting—Ebenezer Baptist—spoke the same truth, in the languages of architecture, history, pulpit, choir and people. Yes, the church is both a representation and a distortion of the divine (Tillich). But if for some reason the church were to disappear overnight, in a cultural tsunami, it would come back. Even the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Somehow, we would find a table, and somehow a chair or two, and somehow some bread and wine, and somehow a Bible and an hour or so, and we would start again, as, in a way, we do every Sunday, which is especially and vividly apparent to us now in this pandemic. We start over. We would start with Holy Scripture. It is this Holy Scripture in the Holy Church that rose up like a lion in the Obama eulogy for Lewis, the right verse in the right time in the right way. James! ‘Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.” That is the courage of the Book of James. Corinthians! (SECOND Corinthians, let us be clear), We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. Acts! “Do not be afraid, go on speaking; do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.” (Acts 18).

It was the right handling of the word of truth that brought power and love, freedom and grace to life. And it still does. He concluded in eulogy, summarizing his three points, James, Corinthians and Acts: And that’s where real courage comes from. Not from turning on each other, but by turning towards one another. Not by sowing hatred and division, but by spreading love and truth. Not by avoiding our responsibilities to create a better America and a better world, but by embracing those responsibilities with joy and perseverance and discovering that in our beloved community, we do not walk alone.

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

posted in Liberal Gospel: Autumn 2020 Sermons, The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel on 08.23.2020 at 11:00 am

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Sunday
August 16

Resilient Love

By Marsh Chapel

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Matthew 15:21-28

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In the 1992 classic movie, The Mighty Ducks, a successful lawyer was sentenced to 500 hours of community service. He ended up coaching a ragtag group of children how to play hockey and how to be a team. In typical Disney fashion, this helped the coach, Gordon Bombay, to connect with the childhood loss of his father. Before the team’s success though, Bombay lost the trust of most of his team. In a pivotal scene of the movie, he revealed to one player that he frequently replays losing the championship game for his childhood hockey team. Bombay was selected to take a penalty shot which he missed and the team went on to lose the game in overtime. He says that he missed the shot by a quarter of an inch. Throughout the movie, the missed shot is shown multiple times and the viewer sees the puck hitting the goalpost.

While missing a shot in a children’s hockey game by a quarter of an inch seems utterly insignificant given everything going on in our world, the movie viewer is given the sense that things might have been different for Bombay if he had just scored the goal. After recounting the missed shot and saying that, a quarter of an inch would have made the difference, one of Bombay’s players says “‘Yeah, but a quarter inch the other way and you'd have missed completely.” Bombay responds, “I never thought of it that way.” Just like that, Bombay’s outlook is re-oriented by this line. This new perspective changes him. He can’t go back and take the shot again, but he has some say in how the memory shapes his life. He permits to accept that he missed the shot and that changing what happened, either for success or for greater failure, was impossible. While a quarter of an inch one way would have led to success he could have just as easily missed completely if it went a quarter on an inch the other way.

Throughout life, we must learn to deal with failure and success, as well as the margin between success and failure. As a hospital chaplain, I consistently listen to stories that people tell me. These stories often contain triumphs and despairs. Part of my chaplain training is to learn to recognize the degree to which these memories shape the present. It is clear to me that the past continues to impact the present. I have learned not to take for granted the impact that memories or events can have, even ones that seem insignificant to others. Unrequited love from 30 years ago, moving to a new state, the loss of a pet, or a missed hockey shot. People respond to events in life differently. We are unique and people interpret life and events out of their individuality. There is no measuring stick by which we can definitively determine how events or memories shape us. There is no measuring stick by which we can definitively determine how much pain or for how long painful events linger.

What is clear is that tragedies and hardships of varying magnitudes, can leave marks on our minds and souls. Some have taken to calling these marks soul wounds. Soul wounds are invisible marks left from traumatic or troubling events. They can be memories that refuse to be integrated into identity. Events that linger far beyond what is considered conventional. Feelings that flood the mind at unwanted times and overwhelm the sense of self. Strung out emotions and isolation pervade as powerlessness and a lack of agency abound. Soul wounds are serious. Sometimes, the wounds are so deep and strong that they make people question their whole understanding of reality. Then, there are times when people are unaware of the potency of soul wounds. Often times because they remain hidden beneath the surface. In these situations, they are hidden but powerful and impactful. Escaping recall and language but shaping reality.

Soul wounds can impact anyone regardless of race, class, or gender. They are not bound by geographical location or education. Numbers 1-9 on the enneagram, any combination of letters from Myers Briggs INFJ, ESTP, anyone can be hurt and that hurt can linger far beyond the initial wound. Recognizing the ongoing impact of soul wounds, of losses and failures would be easier if we could see the scars that these events leave. Unlike our bodies which often retain marks of serious injuries that can be seen by others, soul wounds are invisible. You can ride the T with a train full of people experiencing myriads of misfortune and not know. Certainty, there can be the visible signs drooping heads, sluggish shoulders, and misty eyes but for the most part soul wounds are obscure. Their obscurity helps them persist. Their obscurity also reminds us that soul wounds are often outside of our direct control. Soul wounds can lead to a sense of powerlessness and a lack of autonomy over the self. These wounds though, do not determine who we are nor are we completely defenseless against their impact. Coping tools and resiliency, of which faith can be a major contributor, can help in times of trouble. Certainty, new perspectives, love from others, and other forms of support can mitigate the impact and effects of the wounds. Yet, it is hard when every day it feels like pieces of the self are under threat from various sources.

The encounter recorded in Matthew 15 with the women in the districts of Tyre and Sidon is complicated. The text says that she is a Canaanite woman. Like many of the women of the Bible, her name was not deemed worthy of being written down, after all, papyrus was expensive.

While her name was not worth mentioning, her ethnicity was worth recording. She was a Canaanite. The supposed ancient enemy of the Israelite people. This marker of identity, this label given to her by the narrator, is not polite. It isn’t even neutral. It is downright troubling. It is, to be frank, an ethnic slur. A racist slur. The mistreatment and prejudice did not end with the narrator though. After revealing that her daughter was being tormented, she was ignored. She was not deemed worthy of a response, other than by the disciples who want to send her away. Her suffering was deemed an inconvenience. It was deemed an inconvenience to those with privilege. Even when her suffering was named and put out in the open, there was no compassion from the disciples. “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” They do not even say, heal her daughter and send her away, for she keeps shouting after us. Just send her away. Her shouting, her suffering is bothering us. They did not want to see or hear it. Her wounds, her tragedies, her very life and the life of her daughter were measured and deemed inconsequential.

With all the resiliency and tenacity that comes from living on the margins where a quarter of an inch is the difference between life and death, this woman pushed. In the midst of an unsafe situation where she was outnumbered by a group of men who do not care what happened to her or her daughter, who do not look quite like her, who do not speak quite like her, she risked her life out of love for her daughter. Beloved, if you want to know what Gospel love is, perhaps in Matthew 15 we ought to look at this woman who refused to accept what the world and religious people told her about herself. She refused to accept what the people in places of power said.

If we want to see Gospel love, perhaps it is the insistence that Canaanite lives matter and that when one group has the means and resources to save others, “no” is not an acceptable answer. She refuses to accept “no”, she refuses to accept that the position has been filled, the house has just been sold, or that things will be better for the next generation. She offered her daughter resilient love that would not stay unseen and unheard.

She pushed. We cannot say exactly why but she pushed surely partly out of love and desperation for her child. What loving parent would not push for the sake of their child? We must be careful though not the make her suffering redemptive for that too easily becomes co-opted by power and privilege. There is such a thing as redemptive love and suffering can be redemptive but here we see resilient love. It is not suffering that saves but resiliency in the face of adversity. Resilient love that demands to be seen and demands to be heard. Resilient love that claims a place at the table. Resilient love, not a feeling that comes and goes, waxes and wanes, but a way of being. This is resilient love. Resilient love is Gospel love.

The story is complex. This encounter is complex. People are always more complex than they are made out to be. Jesus is more complex than he is often made out to be. It would be a much easier story without versus 24 and 26. You see, these verses seem to reveal that Jesus bought into the racialized ideologies of the time. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” This is not only Israel first, but it is Israel only. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Nevertheless, she persists. She came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” These are not the words of the narrator, these are not the words of the disciples. These are red letters and that does not stop them from being another racial slur. Jesus refuses to heal when he can and refuses to see the women in front of him as a person. “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Sure, the Greek is diminutive which is perhaps more appropriately translated as puppy instead of dog but the inference is no better. He does not see her because he does not have to see her. He compares her sick daughter to a dog.

Michelle Obama, in a recent podcast, shared that she feels the ongoing racial strife, and lack of response to the pandemic in the nation, has left to her experiencing low-grade depression at times. While I do not think that depression and soul wounds can be correlated or equated, there certainly can be similarities. And, her sharing her experience names the wider truth of what is going on across the country and world. Whether it is soul wounds, depression, or trauma the nation is facing a challenging time. People are facing challenging times. A time when a quarter of an inch in any direction can have monumental ramifications. The ongoing water in which we currently swim, the soil in which we are attempting to draw nutrients, provides additional challenges to individual and communal thriving. How can plants thrive when the soil is sick? How can fish swim when the water is poisoned? Although, many of the challenges have always been present and have been unacknowledged by those in places of privilege.

Between the myriad of pandemics the country is facing, and the personal challenges, this season feels a bit like the state of Narnia is C.S. Lewis’ The Lion the Witch and Wardrobe. When the Pevensie children first arrive, they learn that the fictional country of Narnia is in a perpetual state of winter. They are told that it is always winter and never Christmas. We have had summer without beaches and barbeques, virtual fireworks for the Fourth of July, and empty churches for Easter. We have watched death and destruction on the news and streamed on the internet. We are living in an age of dislocation. It is almost as if someone forgot to turn the calendar from Lent to Easter and then to Eastertide. Always winter and never Christmas. Christianity has a place for trauma, tragedy, and soul wounds but we usually prefer it to stay compartmentalized. Death and silence are acceptable topics on Good Friday and Holy Saturday but Easter has come and gone. It is now time for hope, joy, and love. It is now time for the resurrection. But what do you do when it seems like the resurrection just will not come? Perhaps even harder, what do you do when the resurrection has come and gone but it does not seem like anything is different? Is it now a time when it is always lent and never Easter? Sorrow, grief, anguish, despair, and isolation are refusing to be contained and controlled. They are refusing to stay silent. The impact of their discordance is seen across individuals and communities. In the face of such, we must learn resilient love. Resilient love clings to hope in order to fan the flames of change. Resilient love recognizes brokenness, trauma, and tragedy. It does not force joy and triumph before they are welcome but it does not give up.

The power of the cross is a location of redemptive love in triumph but the cross is also a location of resilient love in brokenness. The cross is a symbol of tragedy, and not just triumph. Life is a process of interpreting meaning. There are times when events and situations align. There are times it seems that nothing goes right. Everything seems broken beyond repair. Sometimes the difference between the two is just a quarter on an inch. Faith reminds us that life is meaningful and purposeful in seasons of Lent and seasons of Easter. Faith calls for redemptive and resilient love.

I sometimes wonder how different life would be if people were able to see soul wounds. We can show each other physical scar and wounds. We can see when people are physically bleeding and hurt. When pointed out, people often share the story behind the wound but soul wounds often remain unseen and un-narrated. On the one hand, this protects the agency of the person by preventing unwanted vulnerability, on the other hand, it too often allows the harm that caused the wounds to persist. Would we be more compassionate to each other if we knew the weight of pain and sorrow we bore? Would we bear each other’s burdens with more care if we knew? We cannot see soul wounds but we can learn to be more attentive to emotional, spiritual, and physical needs of those around us, including our own. We can learn to give and receive resilient love.

Like many outside of places of privilege and power, the woman in Matthew 15 learned to survive on crumbs. She learned how to glean on crumbs that others did not want. Crumbs from the masters’ table. This is what she asked for from Jesus. She asked for crumbs and knew that she would work hard to live on less. On the one hand, she gets what so many others miss. That a crumb from the Messianic Banquet is enough to sustain life, on the other hand, her story asks why do some get seats at the table and others crumbs that fall.

I confess that as a white person, I am tempted to want to celebrate that Jesus changed here. I want to make the story better by saying that the ending ties everything up; however, we must resist such interpretations of texts and life. It is too neat. The change does not negate the harm. It is good that Jesus did change as a result of his encounter with this woman. He affirms her faith. He heals her daughter. There are other sayings and stories that reveal a more inclusive ministry; however, Jesus’ changed perspective may not be what the text is about for us today. This is a story of a mother’s resilience who persisted in the face of prejudice and privilege. This is perhaps a time, where Jesus learned about Gospel love from another person. From an outsider who was written off. This is the Gospel as the resilient love of a mother who advocated through adversity, who refused to accept no as an answer. Thanks be to God for the Gospel of resilient love.

-The Rev. Scott Donahue-Martens

Ph.D. Student in Practical Theology: Homiletics

Boston University School of Theology

posted in Guest Preachers on 08.16.2020 at 11:00 am

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Sunday
August 9

Faith and Fear

By Marsh Chapel

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Matthew 14:22–33

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A text copy of the sermon is unavailable.

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

posted in The Rev. Dr. Karen Coleman, Chaplain for Episcopal Ministry on 08.9.2020 at 11:00 am

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Sunday
August 2

Good Trouble

By Marsh Chapel

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Matthew 14:13-21

Genesis 32:22–31

Romans 9:1–5

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Preface

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful; be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month or a year; it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get into good trouble, necessary trouble.”

John Lewis, 1940 – 2020

Faith is the affirmative answer to the question whether life has meaning.

Faith is the affirmative answer to the question whether love is real.

Faith is the affirmative answer to the question whether struggle is redemptive.

Faith is the affirmative answer to the question whether friendship is nourishing.

The Hebrew Scripture

Our psalm and lesson from the Hebrew Scripture recoil around us to recall for us the place of struggle in life. In pandemic and pandemonium, in political and presidential reckoning, in personal and familial realignments and choices, we right now may benefit from such a reminder. After all, why return Sunday by Sunday to ancient writings, if not for a chance to orient our own selves and lives by the light of what our forebears have seen and done?

One the great gifts of Boston University to our life has been the immersion and inclusion in a tradition of struggle, redemptive struggle. Over dinner, courtesy of the Gotlieb Center, perhaps six years ago, we sat with John Lewis. Dime con quien andas, y te dire quien eres, say the Spaniards. Tell me with whom you walk, and I will tell you who you are. After the meal he quietly told stories which had the aspect, for one who tells stories, of frequent narration, as overtures to good trouble. In particular it brought a full smile to hear his childhood dream of being a preacher, a story that was new to us, but well known to others, and now to the world. He would come home and preach to the chickens as he fed them, and baptize them as they were born, and bury them with dignity and the end of their egg producing days. Hence, Lewis picked up the nick name, Preacher. Yet it was really his life that spoke, and that commitment to a sense of redemptive struggle.

Now Marsh Chapel, you remember that on May 19, 2018, Mr. Lewis sat right here in the second pew before the pulpit of this nave. You remember that he sang the hymns of faith, and heard the words of Holy Scripture, and prepared himself to address 20,000 at Commencement. You remember his lingering among us on the Plaza, as the bus driver nervously waited. You remember that, like any good preacher, he was willing to take the time to take you seriously. Said the parishioner, ‘I just wish that the preacher in his sermons would take my life seriously’. Well, by the echoing hallelujahs sent his way later that day, from the voices of the class of 2018 and others, you could hear that he did. Take their lives seriously, I mean. You remember the climax of his address. Yes, class of 2018, you will get jobs and find work and buy cars and build homes and raise families and take trips. Good. But what else? What else are you going to do? What else are you going to do in the brief span years you have? Will you help make this world a better place. And to do that, will get into some good trouble along the way? In my years at BU Commencements, it was the rhetorical high point, and that’s saying something. Later, in the President’s gracious lunch, we stood next to him for a photo (I was uncertain whether to interfere so, but Jan said, ‘No, let’s get a picture). And I looked at it again this morning, from two years ago, and wept. One the great gifts of Boston University to our life has been the immersion and inclusion in a tradition of struggle, redemptive struggle. What an inheritance, what a legacy, Marsh Chapel, you have to share.

Now recall just a few of the words offered in memorial across the nation to John Lewis:

Moral authority…aggressive yet self-sacrificial…animating a mass movement…non-violent protest grounded in the principal of ‘redemptive suffering’……from the Rev. James Lawson…and Mahatma Ghandi…’something in the very essence of anguish that is liberating, cleansing, redemptive…opens us and those around us to a force beyond ourselves’…the essence of the nonviolent life is the capacity to forgive…’even as a person is cursing you to your face, even as he is spitting on your, or pushing a lit cigarette into your neck’…At bottom, this philosophy rested upon the belief that people of good will—the Beloved Community—would rouse themselves to combat evil and injustice…in March of 1965—Bloody Sunday—Lewis suffered a fractured skull…the voting rights act…was signed into law that summer…the Supreme Court crippled the act in 2013…colleagues…we can best honor his memory by picking up where he left off… (NYT on J Lewis, July 2020)

Now hear the words written by our own congregant, friend, Marsh Chapel community member Kwame A. Mark Freeman, just this last week:

“I had the honor of meeting Mr. Lewis on a few occasions over the years. The last time I spoke with him was at Metcalf Hall in the George Sherman Union at Boston University.

Mr. Lewis was a humble man in the truest sense of the word. He was one of the last living civil rights titans of his generation who more than virtually anyone, had a grasp of the institutional memory of both the turbulent and tragic but yet triumphant period of Black people living in the United States during the period of the civil rights movement. The work Mr. Lewis engaged in on behalf of Black people is indelible and stretches over six decades beginning in February of 1960, at a lunch counter in Nashville, Tennessee.

I want to thank Mr. Lewis for all that he has done for Black and brown women and men living in the United States. Just importantly, I want to thank him for what he has done for all of humanity by his clarion call for justice, both now and until the day and time when -injustice- becomes a fleeting memory and a tragic but yet another triumphant footnote in the annals of Black history in the United States.

God bless Brother John Robert Lewis, and may his soul rest in peace.”

Meanwhile, back in the Bible, in Genesis Jacob receives a new name, One Who Struggles With God: Israel. There is a redeeming quality in struggle, so much so that one’s full identity emerges in a different way, with a different name. Jacob recalls for us the power of community, the formative range in the struggle of each community, including his own. We sure need such a reminder this summer, in this summer of uncertainty. The summer, be it remembered of the use of unmarked cars and camouflaged federal agents in Portland. We are on the brink of lawlessness from the highest offices in the country. What shall we bring to this struggle? A little honesty and a whole lot of ownership? But also, a critical caution, in our choices?

In the spring of 1972, graduating soon from High School, I was watching as various communities were struggling, including that of the USA itself. My father had bought a pool table that winter, the first of its sort to adorn that Methodist Parsonage. Looking back, I think he had some idea to try to connect more fully with a teenage son who was about to leave home. And it worked. We spent some evenings playing pool and talking about nothing and about everything. It was down in a pretty dank basement full of the things you throw in a basement. He would smoke his pipe and I would talk about things I really knew nothing much about. But I had opinions. That spring there was a protest against the War in Vietnam, and I had decided to go, and we discussed it. It was to be held outside his old high school, where he had been elected class president in 1949. He had gone on to serve in the Air Force as a chaplain, so he was a military person but was himself also and strongly against the war. Yet when I told him about the protest, well, he did not try to talk me out of it, but he filled his pipe and racked the balls for another game. I could tell he was trying to tell me something, or teach me something, or something, without being too parental. Anyway, the gist of his question, as I remember it in the haze of faulty memory and pipe smoke, was, ‘Do you know who is organizing this? Who is running this? For what reason?’ Well, we did not argue. I went ahead and attended the thing, such as it was. But that careful, critical edge, that question, who is really doing this and why, stayed with me. I cannot begin to number the times, in so many different situations, when that basic question—who is really behind this?—has come back to help me. And this is still a struggle today, across the land, trying to do and know how to do, the right thing at the right time, in the right way. Good trouble. It is almost like that hymn, ‘You Got Good Religion?” Or not. ‘You Got Good Trouble?’ Or just trouble?

The New Testament

Likewise, our two New Testament passages, lesson and gospel, guide us in redemptive struggle. In Romans, Paul is about to launch into two chapters of farewell to his own beloved religious inheritance, his own spiritual legacy, his mother tongue, the law. Religious faith sometimes means leaving things behind, shaking the dust from one’s feet, and moving on. In a way, every day has some measure of that leave taking, of saying ‘Thank You’ and of saying ‘Good Bye’.

In our weekly staff work here, we are guided by a set of values, in which we embed our ministry, music and hospitality, and which share a curious quality of leaving some things behind. We try daily to 1 build trust, to 2 foster consensus, to 3 seek unity (not uniformity) in peace (not dishonesty), 4 to review all communication that speaks to or for the whole 5 to avoid any secrets, surprises or subversion, 5 to live a life that becomes the gospel 6 to speak to others in their presence not of others in their absence, 7 to bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the Christ law, 8 in teaching to search the Scripture, 9 in daily work to reflect on our envisioned mission (‘a heart in the heart of the city’ and our primary foci (voice, vocation, volume)10 in liturgy to be informed by the hymnal and book of worship, by Methodism and the ecumenical consensus 11 in all things to look for charitas, 12 to encourage by example regular worship, tithing, and interpersonal faithfulness, 13 to be punctual, frugal and industrious but not to worship work, for we are saved by what we receive not by what we achieve, 14 to offer attention to outsiders, first, as a matter of course, 15 to remember that the staff supports the mission of the chapel not the other way around. 16 To believe that God loves us into loving and frees us into freedom. 17 In working with staff our reigning interest is: “Tell me what best exposes your authentic self (baptism) and what unshackles your fiercest passion for life and ministry (vocation)?” We can build some real future around this. 18 In communications, we hope to model dimensions of spiritual health and honesty, specifically by responding promptly to voice-mail (same day or next day), e-mail (three days), regular mail (one week), interoffice memos (same day if possible). 19 Also, we believe that a good meeting lasts no more than 90 minutes, and preferably no more than 60. 20. We expect to be people who are “happy in God” (Wesley).

That is, we hope, a to find a way into ‘good trouble’, not just trouble. Our community here at Marsh Chapel will continue to go through changes in rhythm. Remember that once we thought we would be together again the day after Easter, April 13? Hm. With the insight, foresight and hindsight of Paul in Romans, we shall also need, for the long haul, the remembrance of Matthew, the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 with two fish and five barley loaves. Not much to go on. And yet, all were fed. And more miraculously, according the Scripture, not only were all fed, but all were all satisfied. All were satisfied. Along with values to guide us, we shall need, Marsh Chapel, the gospel promise to keep us. Satisfied. Hm.

Coda

Our virtual congregant Milton Jordan in Texas reminded us this week of John Lewis’s words:

John Lewis, 1940 – 2020

Faith is the affirmative answer to the question whether life has meaning.

Faith is the affirmative answer to the question whether love is real.

Faith is the affirmative answer to the question whether struggle is redemptive.

Faith is the affirmative answer to the question whether friendship is nourishing.

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

posted in The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel on 08.2.2020 at 11:00 am

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