Marsh Chapel Sermon Archive

Matthew 18:21–35

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light. 

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

(Robert Frost)

‘Let everyone be convinced in (their) own mind’

You owe it to yourself to be honest with yourself. Even, if you can be, apart from repression, from the mind’s way of sheltering us from lasting hurt in memory. You owe it to yourself to be able to look in the mirror. This is what conscience, the work of conscience, brings. Faith is the mysterious power to withstand what we cannot understand. Faith is the power to get up, stand up, start up, to take the promise of Sunday morning into every other day. One of the steps of faith, on the trail of faith, is awareness of conscience, the quickening of the conscience. Faith awakens conscience, and conscience guides faith, even when the walk is a walk in the dark. Luther: Faith is a walk in the dark.

We too are acquainted with the night, and walk, together, in the rain.  Hear Gospel this Lord’s Day, the good news of faith. The path, the sawdust trail of faith involves steps toward the mirror, toward what the wonderful old prayer names as the chance to serve God ‘with a quiet mind’.

There is such a step of faith, a growth in conscience, in the exercise of study, of sacred study, of exegesis, the careful study of Holy Scripture. The historical and critical study of Holy Writ, as practiced from this pulpit over 70 years, is a pathway to insight, interpretation, application–and sermon.

Samuel Terrien taught many the adventure of this labor, years ago, the search for the divine, for God: an elusive but real presence…not in nature but in history, and in history through human beings…a presence that does not alter nature but changes history through the character of women and men…a walking God not a sitting God, a walking God not a sitting God…nomadic, hidden, free…known in tent not temple, by ear not eye, in name not glory, in a spiritual interiority (we might say conscience)…that translates the love of God into behavior in society…demythologizing space for the sake of time…(phrases from The Elusive Presence: The Heart of Biblical Theology.)   Samuel Terrien.

We are left to wonder in conscience about things, to plumb the depths of Scripture. What are they?  We are on our own. There is no live interview from the heavenly conference room.  There is no point-by-point bulletin, with details promised at 11pm.  There is no footnote, or explanatory second conversation.  We are left on our own, by our Lord to wonder and study, relying on conscience. We are given a fair and good amount of freedom in doing so.

In conscience, do you wonder about things, as darkness falls, as the rain falls?

Through the year, from this pulpit, we have tried continuously to trace the moves Matthew makes in 85ad away from what Mark, his source, had written in 70ad.  Mostly, we want to be crystal clear about the way the announcement of the gospel changes, with the setting, changes with the occasion, changes, with the time and season and year. 

New occasions teach new duties. Time makes ancient good uncouth.  One must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

“Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe…the starry heavens above and the moral law within,” wrote the German philosopher Immanuel Kant at the end of his Critique of Practical Reason (1788), and these words were inscribed on his tombstone.

Of one conscience stirring sermon, Oliver Wendell Holmes did say, in five words, I applied it to myself.

We are left to wonder in conscience about ‘the things that are God’s’.  What are they?   Are they wonder and conscience—the starry heavens above and the moral law within?  Wonder and conscience?  Wonder and conscience, spirit and soul?

Our colleague offered a marvelous devotional to being our faculty meeting. Biblical, Johannine, exegetical and resting in a single Greek verb, the devotional implored us to abide, through difference, to remain, through disagreement, to wait and watch, through difficulty. It restored faith, it restored my faith—including my faith in the necessity, power and beauty—of devotions. It was a devotion that restored faith in devotions. It stirred the conscience.

There is such a step of faith in the exercise of study.

There is a step of faith, growth in conscience, in institutions, for the love of God and country both. Let your conscience be your guide.

So, today, Matthew, being Matthew. He is looking at institutional life, political and religious, governmental and ecclesiastical, all 2000 years before our own similar challenges today.  In Matthew we hear what we perhaps most need to hear in America, in October, in 2023, in the midst of political contest, even political mayhem.  Institutions matter.  Institutions matter. We are broadly or dimly aware, year by year, that institutions matter, but see so most sharply when they collapse. The collapse of shared truth. The loss of acute memory. When the my US Marine friend’s slogan, ‘leadership is example, period’, is discarded and disregarded. Covid took more than a million lives, in our country alone. But not only that. Covid removed the benefit of the doubt for inherited structures of civil society, including gathering, assembly, community, presence, religion

As we mortally and tragically are today.  Institutions, particularly those of civil society, really matter.  Volunteerism in a free society is not a luxury, but a necessity.  For the Christian, for the citizen in a free republic, faith involves ‘intelligent and conscientious participation in politics so that God’s will may be done as fully as possible’ (IB, loc. cit.).

Just in time, Marilyn Robinson reminds us: This country would do itself a world of good by restoring a sense of the dignity, even the beauty, of individual ethicalism, of self-restraint, of courtesy (NYT, 10/11/20).

One pastor delivered a powerful sermon on dreams, last week, relying on Jacob and his ladder, from centuries before. He invited the congregation to dream, to dream of new things for a bright future. The sermon cut through the wariness and distrust we have come to practice regarding religion, with the fine blade of honesty, love and truth. It stirred the conscience.

Midweek this week, one recalled our 2008 decision to hire a gay pastor to work directly with our BU gay community, out of our religious commitment to the full humanity of gay people. She did so for nine years with grace and faith. (It may be time again to refit and refill that part time position.). The memory brought encouragement. It stirred the conscience.

There is a step of faith, in participation in institutions, for the love of God and country both.

There is a step of faith, a growth in conscience, in respect of and for community, given through these institutions that shape community.  Community matters.  So.  Give of your life and breath. Till gardens you will never harvest.  Build schools in which you will never study.  Construct churches in which you will never worship.  And listen, listen to the voices that emerge in communal conversation, particularly those tart and salty.

Listen to lives that speak, for so the faithful gift of community abides, and guides us.

Over some years now, one of the treasures and delights of living in Boston is the grace, and care, with which lives are remembered in our Boston Globe.  No other paper, to our memory and experience, does so well, so consistently and so personally.  Our community is one of memory, as well as of hope.

We lost many friends and congregants to Covid. Those who were front line COVID workers and victims have had right, ample remembrance, here, on our behalf.  As have those once among us who now rest from their labors. Our first loss, in March of 2020, was C F Richardson, whose husband Neil, an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls, taught Hebrew Bible first at Syracuse University and then here at Boston University. She, Faith, was for decades the secretary to the local bishop. It was rumored he would make a decision about who to appoint to what pulpit, and then reverse the decision after talking to Faith. She was a grand soul, a person of faith, whose conscience was her guide.

Greeting our new class of students in the school of theology, our new faculty member concluded his welcome sermon by telling students not only to study the high ranges of theology, but also to make space for the touch, for the tactile, for the physical, for photographs, for pets, for plants. By gracious accident, as the doors opened, his hearers were greeted by our chaplains, passing out—plants! There was a gardened altar call, unplanned but so timely! It stirred the conscience.

There is a gift of faith, in respect of, and for, community.

There is a step of faith, a growth in conscience, in the joy of discourse, of conversation.  Of all our losses in the last several years, this has been the greatest.  John Wesley even named conversation a means of grace.  All need warm, personal, true, glad hearted, genuine dialogue.  Especially, leadership needs dialogue, leaders need dialogue.

Leadership, said my friend, ‘is disappointing people at a rate they can accept, or survive, or endure. At a rate they can handle.’ Justice is a part but not the heart of the Gospel—justice is a part but not the heart of the gospel; equality and justice are not the same thing; public safety on the streets matters to all; poor children of every hue need and deserve our care in health, in education, in protection, in nurture, and in respect.

We will pause and ask questions like: Why is there so much distance between theology and ministry, theory and practice, when there is not such in medicine, dentistry, public health, hospitality, education, engineering, arts, social work and communications? Why?

In September of 1995, newly installed as the senior minister of a very large church, I hurried out for a breakfast meeting to meet and get to know with our church’s investment advisor. My earlier church had also an endowment, small and stowed away in card board boxes, or at least in impregnable savings accounts and CD’s. Now I had some responsibility for a real, or a large, endowment, and more detailed strategies for investment.

Over breakfast, a bright well-dressed fellow explained the current funds, their places of investment, risks and rewards. About half way through the fine talk, I noticed that his lapel button was not buttoned. This produced a moment of conscience. I did not know the man, I did not want to offend him, and I did not thereby point out his sartorial error. We parted to go on to the rest of the day. I wondered how someone so well dressed and spoken could come out the door unbuttoned. Who dresses you, I mused.

But you know, life is funny, and will teach us, if we let it.

Returning to my office, I stopped in front of a mirror there. Here is what I saw: my own lapel button was unbuttoned. His and mine, both. He had gone on to his day thinking what I had before—why this otherwise well-appointed person going about with his shirt unbuttoned? Conscience would have leaned over in both directions and righted the wrong. The look in the mirror stirred the conscience.

You owe it to yourself to be honest with yourself, to look in the mirror. There is a step of faith in the joy of discourse, of conversation. Our friends give us back ourselves. And a look in the mirror can move us along.

Study, institution, community, conversation—steps along the walk of faith that quicken the conscience, steps of faith that quicken the conscience, steps of faith that quicken the conscience.  Sursum Corda.  Hear Gospel this Lord’s Day. God walks with us, in the rain, in the dark, in sadness—at night, at night, at night.  A walking not a sitting God. God walks with us in the rain.

‘Let everyone be convinced in (their) own mind’

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

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

posted in The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel on 09.17.2023 at 11:00 am

Sunday
September 10

Well Begun is Half Done

By Marsh Chapel

Matthew 18:15–20

Faith is the power to start over, in the midst of anxiety, and even in the throes of despair. Faith is God’s gift, and the message of the Spirit of the Christ. What the reason can never fully capture, and what the law can never fully define, faith gives: the power to struggle free of despair. Faith says: ‘Start again’…

Faith inspires forgiveness. Of yourself. And of others.

The church is where the deep gladness of faith meets the world’s deep hunger for forgiveness. Where forgiveness takes root, indwells, has a home, is known. Where you are called to learn and speak the language of pardon, in all its glorious grammar, syntax and spelling.

‘And throughout all eternity, I forgive you, you forgive me’ (Blake). You are invited to growth in faith. Faith has as a first step, or at the least a very early step, in pardon, in clemency, in forgiveness. So today, in your first autumn steps, walk the sawdust trail of forgiveness. ‘And throughout all eternity, I forgive you, you forgive me’.

So the fierce prophet Ezekiel warns us and all. Turn back. Seek pardon, offer pardon, start with pardon. And watch for first steps in pardon. Your calling—is it your calling?—is pardon, clemency, forgiveness. We begin so each Lord’s Day, every single week, with the prayer Jesus taught, ‘forgive us our sins (catholic), debts (presbyterians), trespasses (methodists), as we forgive’. The hallmark of faith, the hallmark of the community of faith, is forgiveness.

You have ample space for practice. All communities inevitably are riddled with endless contention and intractable difference. A family, a dorm suite, a team, a business, a church, a country, a globe: endless contention, intractable difference. And the prophet warns, warns, that an honest, true, hard word needs sometimes to be spoken. You need to stop that, because if you do not, the future is not good, for you, or others, or us, or all. Ezekiel is a later prophet, on the edge of the divide between prophecy and apocalyptic, between politics and religion. ‘Turn back, turn back’.

If you had told me in 2015 that we as a country would spend the next nine years in verbal contest with one another, regarding three presidential elections, with no end in sight, with focus on and apotheosis even of a most disreputable cadre of personalities, cacophony of vitriol, and cascade of venom, I would not have believed it. But I have now heard, and seen, and watch the worry birds fly morning by morning. Things change.

James Baldwin: ‘Nothing is fixed forever and forever, it is not fixed. The earth is always shifting and the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down the rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them, because they are the only witnesses we have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to one another, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with each other, the sea engulfs us, and the light goes out’…from Nothing Personal, 188)

You may need to say a straight word to a roommate, teammate, suitemate or fellow inmate: ‘one of us is wrong and I think it’s you’. Then follow with, ‘but maybe I am wrong, let’s talk’. The moment we break faith with each other the sea engulfs us, and the light goes out.

The Psalms are chock full of pardon, clemency, forgiveness. David, however many Psalms he did say, sing or write, knew the first step of faith, the first word in faith. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Psalm 51: 10. Sometimes we need to start over, begin again. Sometimes that early step in faith invites a measure of mercy, a feeling for forgiveness.

Annie Dillard: ‘The line of words is a hammer. You hammer against the walls of your house. You tap the walls, lightly, everywhere. After giving many years of attention to these things you know what to listen for. Some of the walls are bearing walls. They have to stay, or everything else falls down. Other walls can go with impunity; you can hear the difference. Unfortunately, it is often a bearing wall that has to go. It cannot be helped. There is only one solution, which appalls you, but there it is. Knock it down. Duck. Courage utterly opposes the bold hope that this is such fine stuff the work needs it, or the world. Courage, exhausted, stands on bare reality: this writing weakens the work. You must demolish the work. AND START OVER. You can save some sentences, like bricks. It will be a miracle if you can save some paragraphs, no matter how excellent in themselves, or hard won. You can waste a year worrying about it, or you can get it over with now. (Are you a woman or a mouse?) (The Writing Life, 73).

Oh. How I hate to scrap that sermon and start over. I do. But. It cannot be helped. It might have been good, but it is not good enough. Scrap it. But it cannot be helped. When it doubt throw it out.

Faith means starting over, in life, in relationships, in work. Every day.

Which brings us to our gospel.

Our gospel dives deeply into the dark waters of pardon, of forgiveness, that for which we pray every Lord’s Day and every day.

Matthew relies on Mark, and then also on a teaching document called Q, along with Matthew’s own particular material, of which our reading today is an example. He has divided his Gospel into five sequential parts, a careful pedagogical rendering, befitting his traditional role as teacher, in contrast to Luke ‘the physician’, whose interest was history. We have moved from history to religion, from narrative to doctrine. Matthew is ordering the meaning of the history of the Gospel, while Luke is ordering the history of the meaning of the Gospel. You have moved from the History Department to the Religion Department. Matthew has his own perspective.

You may be interested or saddened to know that these several Matthean verses are found summarized from in this half verse from Luke: if your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him (Luke 17:3). Brevity is the soul of wit. And the word church is used only twice in the Gospels, both in Matthew. This is the life of the early church on display, late in the first century. (Jesus after all loved both Gentiles and tax collectors, with passion and abandon.)

The word ‘ouch’ has a place in our lexicons and in our lives.

The teaching is to begin alone, to speak privately to your sinful, trespassing, debtor sibling. Then the teaching is to involve two or three others in the conversation, Then, finally, the teaching is to turn to the whole ecclesia (hear ecclesiastical), the community as a whole. One, few, more, many. Okay.

But what if the gospel here, in full and in fine, is not so much about tactics, but about mindset? What if the way to forgiveness is not so much 1,2,3 as it is something far more universal, more permanent, more personal? What if the real marrow of Matthew here is something like—‘when you have a problem, experiment; when you try one thing and it doesn’t work, try something else; in something as precious and lasting as forgiveness, maybe what most counts is not 1,2,3—go alone, go with a few, go with the community—as it is try some different things, experiment, if at first don’t succeed, try again, but in a different way?

Maybe we are meant to hear, here, a summons to varieties of religious expressions.

Hardly anything in life calls out experiment, creativity, and soul more than does forgiveness, whether we are talking about personal life or political life.

This calling you may be feeling toward forgiveness, clemency and pardon this morning may require some creativity, some freedom of thought, some novel approach. And you may be just the person to conduct the experiment. Good for you. In fact, you may be able to expand all of our repertoires of grace.

Matthew is apparently fighting on two fronts, both against the fundamental conservatives to the right, and against the spiritual radicals to the left. In Matthew, Gospel continues to trump tradition, as in Paul, but tradition itself is a bulwark to defend the Gospel, as in Timothy. Matthew is trying to guide his part of the early church, between the Scylla of the tightly tethered and the Charybdis of the tether-less. The people who raised us, in the dark, in the snows of those midnight blackened towns along the train tracks of the Lake Shore Limited, Albany to Buffalo, and on to Chicago, knew this well. That is, with Matthew, they wanted to order the meaning of the history of the gospel. They aspired to do so by opposition to indecency and indifference. They attempted to do so by attention to conscience and compassion. Matthew emphasizes the role of law, of the law, of laws. He is a legalist, whether or not he was Jewish (the general assumption, though some (I) would argue otherwise). The church affirms and protects the conscience (repeat), in a personal way.

“His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save his people from their sin.”

Many years ago, in late November a 26 year old woman died, a death tragic and needless. She had come in the early snows of that November to our little church, for a few Sundays. So the family asked us to do the funeral and burial, which we did. But we learned later that they also had a long time earlier attended another church in a neighboring town, and a connection with the minister from that church, John, who had baptized the girl 25 years earlier, and who was, and probably felt, left out. A week later the Episcopal priest nearby called and invited us to lunch. ‘I just wanted to catch up with you both’. The door opened on a priest in his clerics, a linen covered table with fine China and crystal, and a full meal. We dined and talked. And there was real grace. Brushing the snow off the windshield that afternoon, I realized this older pastor was just trying to bring a little pardon, a little mercy, a little grace into a time of loss. It didn’t build his congregation, or expand his budget, or add to his Sunday attendance. He just had a sense, a calling to offer some mercy, in a time of hurt, over a common meal. And 39 years 8 months later the memory is as clear as a bell.

The pinnacle of our readings from Holy Scripture this Sunday is in Romans. Paul, as he does in 1 Corinthians 13, so here in Romans 13, sings praise to the God of love, to love, for love, in love. Forgiveness guides us to love. Forgiveness is the heart of love, and love of forgiveness. Forgiveness is the uber driver who gets us to the street of love.

Mark Helperin: ‘I was graduated from the finest school, which is that of the love between parent and child…In this school you learn the measure not of power, but of love; not of victory, but of grace; not of triumph, but of foregiveness’ (Memoir from Antproof Case, 298)…

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.

The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

Besides this you know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed;

The night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light;

Let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. https://www.christianity.com/bible/rsv/romans/13-14

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Well begun. Begin with forgiveness. You’re half done, when so well begun.

This in a particular, personal way may become your calling. You may look in the mirror and see and say, ‘as hard as this is for me in general, I feel that I am called to be the salt of forgiveness and the light of pardon for those about me…Even though I am not good at it, I still feel called to it, called to grow in pardon, called to know well the grace of clemency, called to practice forgiveness.’

Frederick Buechner’s simple lines are oft-quoted, and should be:

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

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

posted in The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel on 09.10.2023 at 11:00 am

Sunday
September 3

Alma Mater

By Marsh Chapel

Matthew 16:21–28

Class of 2027! Family, and friends, and siblings and parents and all! Welcome today to Boston University, which in a few short years you will come to name, come to call Alma Mater, soul mother, your soul mother. The place where your young self gives way to your own-most self, your first self gives way to your second self, your early self gives way to your later self, where, may it be so, you come to yourself, you find yourself, you become aware, maybe fully for the first time, thanks to your soul mother, of your very soul.

By their fruits ye shall know them. As our President Kenneth Freeman said not long ago, we want to cultivate a sense of gratitude, an encultured sense of thanksgiving. We do so by giving energy and wings to a simple phrase in American English, a lovely tongue, thank you. Say thank you in prayer, in memory, in speech, in note, in letter in cyber text. Let’s give some energy to ‘thank you’ this year.

As our Provost Kenneth Lutchen said not long ago, we are here to form guide and shape others, not only to be an become intelligent people, but also to become intelligent people who go forth to make the world a better place. Intelligent people who go forth to make the world a better place. The founders of Boston University, those Methodists of 1839, would smile to hear him say that.

Every school and college in this BU community of 42,000 souls, has a role to play, and we say our own thank you, in advance, for the freedom, the financial and temporal and special and personal freedom to study, and for the fruit such study will produce:

For the study of education

Whose fruit is both memory and hope

For the study of communication

Whose fruit is truth

For the study of engineering and computational and digital science

Whose fruit is expanding global connection and safety

For the study of management, business and economics

Whose fruit is community

For the liberal, metropolitan and general studies of art and science

Whose fruit is freedom

For the study of social work

Whose fruit is systemic compassion

For the study of law

Whose fruit is justice

For the study of art—music, dance, painting, drama, all

Whose fruit is beauty

For the study of hospitality

Whose fruit is conviviality

For the study of military and physical education

Whose fruit is security

For the study of medicine, dentistry, public health and physical therapy

Whose fruit is wellness

For the study of theology, the queen of the sciences, and its practices of religion

Whose fruit is meaning, belonging and empowerment

In this year may the family of Boston University—students, faculty, administrators, staff, alumni, neighbors all—become, by grace, thankful, thankful thankful for the freedom of such studies, which may make us::

healthier, more just, more connected, fairer, truer, sturdier, freer, gentler, deeper, safer, more compassionate, and more aware

And how?

All the world’s a stage.

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one (person) in his time plays many parts

(W Shakespeare)

And how?

Walk. Listen. Read. (repeat)

Walk

There is a great rush, a wind of life, energy, and hope with which every school year begins. May we not ever miss the privilege and joy of this Matriculation moment. Here you are, having bid farewell to mother and father, and said hello to your roommates. Your own life, your own most life, your second but truly first life now begins, or commences in another way. We should, all, remove our sandals, for this holy ground. ‘I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ In this moment of Holy Worship, Holy Scripture, Holy Communion, let us recall, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts, heaven and earth are full of God’s glory.

Spiritual life in college, as in all life, but in a particularly particular way, causes you to walk, to walk pretty, to walk in a certain way. You will walk in a moment down Commonwealth Avenue, whose more Eastern blocks Winston Churchill called ‘the most beautiful street in America’. He was not wrong. Like the heart beating lub-dub, like spirit and flesh engaged together, like ear and eye, mind and heart, sol y sombra, one two, one foot two foot, hay foot straw foot, you are on the trail. I take my hat off to you, and bow before you, as did St Vincent De Paul before his students, with the dim awareness that in your midst is genius, somewhere someone somehow.

Boston is the country’s best walking city, a pedestrian palace of nature and culture. You know from the SAT the French phrase, ‘flaneur dans le rue’, to saunter down the street with no especial task, just the breathing joy of breathing, and so you are a flaneur of the spirit. Walk. Walk at dawn. Walk. Walk in the mid-day. Walk. Walk in the evening. Walk in the sunshine and especially the snow. But walk. And for those otherwise abled, guide the walkers with a sense of strength in difference. Saunter on Newbury Street, and in the Public Garden, and all the way out the Emerald Necklace.

Come Sunday, that’s the day, walk to worship, walk to church, walk to the Chapel. It is the one walk most needed, on which all the rest in some balefully unappreciated measure does depend. The ordered public worship of Almighty God is not a matter of indifference, at least to the current Dean of Marsh Chapel. You are child of God. Walk here and hear so. And remember what it feels like. Every three months my friend is given an knee injection to relieve pain. On the day of the shot, he says, ‘at least for a time, I remember what it is like to walk pain free’. That is what walking can do, and that is what worship is for, to remind you of who and whose you are.

Listen

Now the spiritual life takes shape. Here you are. Come and listen. Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century set out his orders for his order, beginning with the first and most important. Listen. It is not what you see but what you hear that matters, lasts, counts, gives meaning. Faith comes by hearing not scanning. Hearing comes by the Word of God, not the words on a screen. The keyboard is not the window of the soul. What holds, molds, scolds, folds, for youngs and olds, is in the hearing. We have several regular worshippers, sight impaired, who will remind you, in their faithfulness, of the primacy of the ear. Listen.

Listen for what is not said, for the dog that does not bark. Listen for what engages, and for what enrages, both. Listen to the sounds of silence. Listen for a word of faith offered in a pastoral voice toward the prospect of a common hope. Listen for a word of faith offered in a pastoral voice toward the prospect of a common hope. “Dad, I heard something fantastic the other day. It went like this…’ We have two ears, and one tongue.

What Jesus said in 30ad is written down at last, and with a healthy dollop of interpretation, by Matthew in 85ad. There was a long line of listening, hearing, sharing, speaking, long before the writing. The Scripture offers 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.   These sayings were written down together in Matthew 16 because they shared a tag word—life. What can you give in exchange for your life?

One side of the message is conservative: 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. The other side of the message is liberal: splash around with generosity, give with no thought of return, take up the cross, follow. The two teachings together are a paradox, an antimony, even, by some measure they are at daggers drawn. Which one for which day on which way will you say? I give you an unusual idiom, out of the freedom of American English: It’s up to you. It’s up to you. Over time you will need them both, the more liberal and the more conservative. Over time, you will need them both. Listen. Tune your ear to God.  To learn which to choose and when demands, requires, the training of the ear

Our dear friend, and ninth BU President, now of blessed memory, who died yesterday, Dr. Aram Chobanian, longtime Dean of our Medical School, the school now named in part for him, could listen. He had the gift, the knack of that physician’s grace, the grace of listening, of the artful bedside manner.

Read

As today, so every Lord’s day, much is read, come Sunday. If you come to church here every Sunday for three years, you will hear the whole Bible, more or less, four lessons per week. Free of charge! You will hear. One will read, read to you. A love of reading conjured in college—for this we pray for one and all.   Not scanning. Reading.  Not speed reading. Reading every word. Reading will take you out beyond and behind the twin towers of your birth. You have come of age in the shadow of the mists of COVID, class of 2027.   You were raised in part in the shadows of anxiety, depression, alienation, loneliness. Masked. You came to age under the aspect of ZOOM. The loss was not face, the loss was voice. The loss of voice to the omnivorous screen. But now you are at last in college, in part again to find your voice.

Read. Thereby you escape the confines of the early 21st century. Are there no other escape routes? No. You read. While other party, you read. While others drink, you read. While others play, you read.   You will come to a great land that has been awaiting your arrival. It is the land of memory. It is the land of hope. See the meadow, bright in the morning! Memory. Hear the chorus of birdsong at dawn! Memory. Now you are ready to move into memory in reading.   Pick a favorite verse. Read it well enough to commit it to memory. One said last week, When you start to memorize you start to notice the things you notice, your own habits of attention, your habits of reading. As the congregation knows by frequent infliction, today’s epistle is one of mine. (Romans 12: 9-13). Reading will take you to a land of memory, the location of a deeper story.

Read. Start with Edward Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. You dwell in the tenth floor of a building whose first three stories were constructed with stolen land and enslaved labor, free land and free labor, for the benefit of anyone who had or used money, then or now.

Read. You have the subsidized freedom, for four years or more or less, to think. Think things through. Think from the top down and the bottom up. Go where others are trying to think, and think with them. Challenge them. Question them. Press them. See what lasts. I am not afraid of the Gospel. It is the power of salvation to all who believe, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, ‘the righteous shall live by faith’. You remember what the bereft mother of a college age daughter said,in Charlottesville six years ago, quietly, said, gently, said truly, Think before you speak. Think.

Read. Spiritual life—walk, listen, read, think—spiritual life true to your own-most self, is the only primary nourishment you will need for the next four years. Or the next forty. For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? ‘We are not simply to bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke in the wheel itself’ (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Our Chapel leadership, Rev. Dr. Chicka, Rev. Dr. Coleman, Dr. Jarrett, Mr. Lee, will invite you: to Create Space on Tuesday afternoon, and to 5pm Monday Dinner, and to Eucharist and Dinner on Wednesday, and to Choir on Thursday (auditions this week). You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone.

Amen.

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

posted in Matriculation, The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel, Uncategorized on 09.3.2023 at 11:00 am

Sunday
August 27

A Moment of Inspiration

By Marsh Chapel

Matthew 16:13–20

Inspiration.

A moment of inspiration.

Peter was seized by a moment of inspiration.

And you?

Are we?

Are we open to a moment of inspiration?

Have you faith?

Have you faith in Christ?

Are you going on to wholeness?

Do you desire to be made healthy in love in this life?

Are you earnestly striving after it?

Over the years, you, Marsh Chapel, have provided reasoned hearing for moments of inspiration, so not to be conformed, but to be transformed by the renewing of the mind, as Paul has it. Think in four strands.

Some special ones have come as friends or students of ours, a strand of students from BU, as alumni if you will of Marsh Chapel have over time taken leadership in campus ministries near and far. Your inspiration has borne fruit, with colleagues engaging campus life at Bates, at Tufts, at Bentley, at Emerson, at Middlebury, at St Paul at Syracuse, at American, at Emory, at University of Chicago, and elsewhere.

Your inclination to inspiration has borne fruit in voices of truth and love, here, over many years. The historic strand of Methodism. The gift largely of our time, though dating to Anna Howard Shaw decades ago, the strand of women in the pulpit. International, and global strands, ecumenical and interreligious strands, all sharing an inclination to inspiration.

Your inspiration has also borne fruit in a fine, particular African American strand of preaching, dating to Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King (whose ‘Dream’ speech turns 60 tomorrow). I can hear guest voices from that strand, that rich tradition, and picture them in our pulpit. I close my eyes and hear their cadences, their inflections, their pauses, their voices. Bobbie Mcclain. Peter Paris. Lawrence Carter. Cornell William Brooks. Elizabeth Siwo. Dale Andrews. Peter Gomes. Jonathan Walton. Walter Fluker. Christopher Edwards. Robert Franklin. Preeminently Robert Franklin. Ken Elmore. And, after some serious pestering, without pause, of his gracious administrator, a wonderful gracious woman, our former Governor Deval Patrick. (She called on Friday to schedule a talk on Monday, saying…’You will be happy’. Happy indeed!)

For this summer of 2023 the strand was from your extended family, your spiritual children, the children of Marsh Chapel who now lead and teach and preach, whether here or at Harvard or at Vanderbilt or in Rochester. You have cast your bread upon the water, and some has come back to you, this summer. We are still rightly judged by the kind of people we produce. And grateful we are to Jessica Chicka, Soren Hessler, Jen Quigley, Bill Cordts, Stephen Cady, Regina Walton, and Karen Coleman. Marsh Chapel: this summer our own family came home. And they came to inspire us, and to remind us. To remind us, to inspire us by reminding us. Drew Faust, former Harvard President, has just done so with her autobiography, NECESSARY TROUBLE.

Most of us most of the time need more reminder than instruction. So, as you think about discipleship and its costs, say each of these twice every morning…
Faith is not a prize to achieve but a gift to receive.
The gospel is not about success and failure but about death and resurrection.
Cultural, racial and religious divisions are hard and real, today, and in first century Palestine. They must be faced and addressed.
Sometimes the divine voice is and has to be harsh, like when a Father warns his son not to touch a hot stove.
Food matters, really matters, and so, as in the sacrament is at the heart of our faith and faithfulness.
Love brings happiness as those four young men from Liverpool reminded us: all you need us love. Love is the way to happiness. Nostalgia can block out curiosity. Nostalgia can eclipse curiosity.

Love includes. Faith does not exclude. Hope includes. Love, faith and hope are like communion at Marsh Chapel. All are included. Sometimes an anthem can and will interpret the Gospel for the day, alongside the sermon.

You can see and hear these at your inclination, for your inspiration. And, now, thanks to one of our staff, whose name I cannot give you but whose initials are Chloe McLaughlin, you can listen to 799 services on podcast, starting with August 2008. You can listen for 47 days and 7 hours straight. Hm…that might be an ideal requirement for theology students…

Matthew teaches us, as does all Scripture.

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 2027 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 have the courage to do so, that they happily re-gospelled the gospel for their own day, to a fair thee well.

No?  No?  Oh Yes. Yes, indeed.  Yes.

(1)Mark in the passage calls Peter ‘Satan’.  Matthew calls him Rock.  (2)Mark has no mention of any church of any kind.  Matthew uses the word, the Greek word for church, ecclessia—not likely something Jesus would have said, and gives Peter keys to the kingdom.  (3)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…in a new time…in a different setting.  So they are learning, as are we. From voices.  From thoughts.  From conflicts.  And Matthew sternly tells his people:  for inspiration to take hold, take root and last, for us to become fully human we will need institutional grounding, support, protection, and sustenance:  family, neighborhood, school, church, university, country, globe.  And let me be clear about the church, Matthew’s Jesus adds, for all its troubles in every age:  the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.

And one more thing, as we are learning together in voice, thought, conflict and scripture. 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.”  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.

That is, the tradition in Matthew 16, of Peter, the rock, on which the church—the commonwealth, the koinonia, the fellowship, the sharing, the community of faith, including right here and right now—is based, in Peter, on one thing. Inspiration. Are you open to a moment of inspiration?

Peter was is called the rock, not for his consistency, not for his pedigree, not for his perfection, not for his physical strength, and certainly not for his swimming ability, where he is the rock as in sink like a rock. Jesus calls him out because he is open to inspiration. He has a moment of inspiration, and in that kind of inspired moment faith and the community of faith are born and bred. ‘You are---the Christ’. An indelible moment, of inspiration. And for such inspiration, come Sunday, come any day, we need the gifts of the church: the gift of quiet, the gift of courage, the gift of others around us to correct and challenge, and then, yes, scripture and architecture and music and liturgy and sacrament and all manner of grace, to keep us within earshot of…breath, the breath of God, spirit, inspiration.

Our experience includes many fallow times and seasons, including these just now waning, if they are waning, from COVID. But there are also powerful Petrine moments of inspiration. That is the good news. That is the gospel. All, especially our arriving 18 year olds, need very much to hear this. Every day invites inspiration. Remember Wilder’s Emily Webb, returning for one day to the land of the living:

‘O Mama, look at me one minute as though you really saw me.  Mama 14 years have gone by.  I’m dead.  You’re a grandmother Mama.  I married George Gibbs.  Wally’s dead too.  His appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway.  We felt just terrible about it–don’t you remember?  But, just for a moment now we’re all together, Mama.  Just for a moment we’re happy.  LET’S LOOK AT ONE ANOTHER’

‘So all that was going on and we never noticed.  Grover’s Corners.  Mama and Papa. Clock’s ticking. Sunflowers.  Food and coffee.  New ironed dresses and hot baths.  Sleeping and waking up.  Earth! You are too wonderful for anybody to realize you.

A long time ago, by grace, a moment of inspiration arrived at the right time, and in the right way. With one child at 18 months, and another on the way in a few more months, the draw toward doctoral studies would not abate. We looked at the usual suspects, Boston and Harvard, Yale and Union, Drew and Duke, but for varieties of reasons nothing fit, nothing worked. Then, one early winter snowy day, looking through the brochures of schools in the village library, a red booklet marked McGill came to hand. And there, snow falling, of a sudden, that real kind of lived inspiration, a moment of inspiration, arrived. The second largest French speaking city in the world, le Europe prochaine, the Europe next door, an excellent faculty, within geographic reach, at least south of the border, for our Bishop to arrange for service in churches there. We could afford it. We could imagine it. We could reach it. We could do it. For all the challenges, it was doable. The world is full of possibilities. Life is full of unforeseen opportunities. An hour of quiet, a different perspective, a little snow to still the soul and open the spirit, and, then, a moment of inspiration. The shadow of Peter, the Rock, is not mainly in the administrative structures of the ecclesia, important as they are. His shadow falls with delicacy and grace on you.

Inspiration.

A moment of inspiration.

Peter was seized by a moment of inspiration.

And you?

Are we?

Are you open to a moment of inspiration?

Have you faith?

Have you faith in Christ?

Are you going on to wholeness?

Do you expect to be made healthy in love in this life?

Are you earnestly striving after it?

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

posted in The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel on 08.27.2023 at 11:00 am

Sunday
August 20

What will it take?

By Marsh Chapel

Matthew 15:10–28

The text of this sermon is not available at this time. We apologize for any inconvenience.

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

posted in The Rev. Dr. Karen Coleman, Chaplain for Episcopal Ministry on 08.20.2023 at 11:00 am

Sunday
August 13

Sink or Swim?

By Marsh Chapel

Matthew 14:22–33

The text of this sermon is not available at this time. We apologize for any inconvenience.

-The Rev. Dr. Regina L. Walton, Denominational Counselor for Anglican/Episcopal Students and Lecturer, Harvard Divinity School

posted in Guest Preachers on 08.13.2023 at 11:00 am

Sunday
August 6

Feasting Together

By Marsh Chapel

Matthew 14:13–21

Good morning, Marsh Chapel! I’m glad to be back in the pulpit again for our summer preaching series as we enter into August (it’s August already, can you believe it?)

We continue our exploration of Matthew and the Costs of Discipleship this morning. Last week we heard about the kingdom of heaven in Matthew’s gospel. Through many metaphors, Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven as a mustard seed, as yeast, as a net catching fish, as a treasure that is hidden. As Rev. Dr. Stephen Cady pointed out to us, in using these metaphors, Jesus is teaching us that the kingdom of heaven can be realized on Earth. Jesus comes to us to teach us how to live and in doing so shows us that love is the way of life. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is depicted most strongly as a teacher. He instructs the disciples on how to minister to others. He instructs the world on what the central message of his teaching is, to recognize God’s sovereignty and the importance of love and care of one another.

In this week’s text, Jesus continues his ministry not through parables or metaphor, but through concrete action. Jesus shows us what the kingdom of heaven is actually like using bread and fish. Using compassion and patience. The story of the feeding of the 5,000 is a familiar one to our ears. We’ve encountered it before as one of Jesus’ miracles. In fact, it is the only one of Jesus’ miracles, except for the resurrection, that is recounted in all four Gospels. The writers of the gospels all share this story because it demonstrates a central importance to Jesus’ ministry and the message Jesus is sending to the world through his actions. It also provides many avenues from which we can understand the significance of this story. In fact, some scholars believe that while this may not have been a concrete historical event, its ability to be interpreted through many different lenses offers the opportunity for us to find meaning in a variety of circumstances. Morality, social justice, physical need, and our understanding of the Lord’s supper all influence how we read this text.

For the disciples, this event is a challenge to their understanding of their way of life. The kingdom of heaven pokes its way through into our reality through Jesus’ actions. First, Jesus, although tired and seeking some refuge in time away from the demands of his ministry (something that we should know is necessary to continue to do one’s work well) is drawn back into that ministry by a crowd of people who followed him and the disciples to a deserted place. I’m sure you can relate to how the disciples might have felt in this situation. Who among us has been eager to take a rest, to find a quiet space, only to be drawn back into the world by the needs of another? I know for parents this is particularly true. In this case, he people come, and some of them are sick, so Jesus shows compassion and heals them rather than taking his rest.

There must have been many sick people, because Jesus’ healing work goes into the evening. The disciples, not necessarily out of a desire to get rid of the crowd, but perhaps out of concern for their ability to find food and shelter, ask Jesus to send the crowd away. They are, after all, in a deserted area and while the disciples know they have food for themselves, the likelihood that others have brought food or will be able to find anything to eat where they are is slim. It makes sense then, to let them go back to where they can have food. Jesus’ response to them is almost as if their request doesn’t make any sense. He tells the disciples to feed them, knowing they only have five loaves of bread and two fish.

Now, nowhere in this gospel reading does it say that Jesus somehow makes piles of food. It tells us that he blesses and breaks the bread, but he leaves it up to the disciples to distribute the food to those in need of a meal. While they do so, they find that there are not running out, but that there is enough food for all. So much so that there is bread to spare at the end. Everyone is able to eat until they are full, something that might have been a rarity for the marginalized members of that society. Because the food doesn’t appear suddenly in a big pile, there isn’t some moment where the crowd is amazed by what is happening or in awe of what takes place. Instead, this miracle is happening in real time as both the disciples and the crowd realize that there is more than enough for everyone.

The feeding of the more than 5000 (remember, 5000 was only the number of the men in attendance, we’re told there were also women and children present as well) gives a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven. In the moment when it appears that there is no solution to meeting the basic needs of the people in his presence, Jesus shows that in the kingdom of heaven there is more than enough for all. Trusting in God, having faith in God, allows for this miraculous event to happen. In moments of challenge, Jesus teaches us to discern what’s possible when we look at the world with eyes that are not yet adjusted to the kingdom of heaven.

There are two examples of challenge in our current contexts that tie into today’s gospel nicely, even if at the outset they seem like two very different problems.

One example of how we might see today’s gospel applied to our lives is how we conceive of the church (that’s Church with a big “C” – inclusive of all Christianity) in today’s world. There’s a lot of conversation about what the future of the Church will look like these days. As protestant denominations continue to see a decline in membership and individual congregations face the challenges of limited funds, aging buildings, and shrinking numbers, the options available are, in a word, hard. Some congregations, lacking funds and people, have no choice but to close. Others go through the process of merging with one or two other congregations who share life in ministry together. Most places are having a hard time envisioning what the future will bring for them. The studies and research on religious affiliation aren’t encouraging, either. Younger generations aren’t as actively involved in religious organizations as older generations had been at their age. While younger generations may be willing to identify as spiritual, but not religious, they aren’t actively participating in communities of faith in the same ways as previous generations.

Another concerning aspect of our current global situation is the level of food insecurity found around the world. We see it in our own country and even in our own communities. With inflation increasing the prices of everything, including basic needs like food, food insecurity is on the rise. The latest data from the USDA which is from 2021 indicates that 10.2 % of the population is food insecure with 3.8% having very low food security. These statistics are higher for households with children, those living in metropolitan areas, for black and persons of color households, and for those headed by a single woman.1 Globally, international markets affect the distribution of food to the point that it becomes scarce. African countries in particular share the burden of the most food insecurity.2 The frustrating aspect of all these cases of food insecurity is not that there isn’t enough food to go around to feed the world’s population. No, in fact, we have more than enough food. Global markets and systems which see food as a good rather than a human need prevent access through pricing and distribution.

Both cases of the future of the church and global food insecurity are just two examples of challenges that feel like desperate situations in our current world. While there is a fear of “not having enough” in both situations – either young people to carry on congregational life or “enough” food to go around for those in need – the reality is that there is enough. Today’s gospel teaches us that what might feel like a hopeless situation actually calls on us to live into the kingdom of heaven mentality that Jesus encourages the disciples to experience. Perhaps the church, as it is now, is in the process of changing and in a place where it needs to more actively meet the needs of those marginalized or who have felt excluded. Some of these communities already exist, and their impact is greatly felt by the surrounding community and those whom the church may not usually reach. While we might not be able to affect change on a global level when it comes to food insecurity, there are opportunities to engage the local community in efforts to ease the stress of food insecurity for all.

One such opportunity which ties together both of these issues in a movement within Mainline Protestant denominations within the past 10-15 years. Recently, upon the suggestion of a graduate student here at Marsh Chapel, I read the book We Will Feast by Kendall Vanderslice. In it, Vanderslice, a gastronomist who studied here at BU, explores the dinner church movement as an alternative church experience which centers worship around a meal that involves the Eucharist. Vanderslice also has a keen interest in theology, most recently identifying within the Episcopal/Anglican tradition, but also having experienced other types of worship throughout her life. In her words, her book “explores what happens when we eat together as an act of worship,” through various case studies of churches who incorporate a meal as part of their liturgy (21). As a gastronomy student, she was interested in seeing how food was intertwined with faith and how new communities were forming with feeding people as part of their goals. As she states “..in God’s love for the beloved creation God called it good, and in the narrative that continues through Jesus, humanity received a ministry of meals.” (3) Eating, or feasting, is central to the church’s history, including in today’s gospel.

Vanderslice’s case studies include a variety of congregations – some located in storefronts in urban centers, welcoming all who want a meal and community to join in, and some in actual gardens, where the emphasis on connecting the land and what it produces becomes a bigger aspect of the meal. Instead of the standard stock liturgy she experienced in her regular congregation, she was welcomed into communities which shared the responsibilities of preparing and eating a meal together while also having an opportunity to hear scripture and participate in communion. Every aspect of the meal came from the community – from the bakers who made the bread from scratch to those who would come to set the tables and prepare the food, to those who would cleanup afterward. People were encouraged to have conversation and to share in the intimate act of eating with one another. In Vanderslice’s words “something powerful happens at the table.” (4) People go from strangers to opening up to each other in conversation and taking the time to be fully present to one another during the meal. They share in the bread. They serve each other the wine or grape juice. They provide sustenance, physically, socially, and spiritually. As relationships form, divisions that may have previously existed begin to dissolve and the body of Christ becomes one again.

Furthermore, dinner church changes the way in which one thinks about the eucharist. Eating is a central part of Jesus ministry; It is also a central part of our own worship. Remember that in today’s gospel, we encounter the familiar scene of Jesus blessing the bread and breaking it, which will be echoed in the narrative of the last supper. Tying this act to our own celebration of the eucharist reminds us that we are not only spiritually fulfilled when we come to the table, but that we also have a responsibility to show compassion and care to others to make sure that they are physically filled and able to live full lives.

Will every community benefit from hosting dinner church? No, of course not. Vanderslice herself does not think that all churches would be better off if they became dinner churches. But, she tempers this opinion with a statement:

“I do, however, believe that every church and every Christian should understand the power of food and should expand their vision of what Jesus intended when asking his followers to eat and drink in remembrance of him. And I do believe these examples of worship around the table should inspire thoughtful reflection about who feels welcome or unwelcome in our churches, whom we see and whom we fail to see, who leaves lonely and who leaves grounded in community.” (166)

Jesus’ ministry is steeped in feeding and taking care of those in need. In so much of our holy scripture, God comes to people in moments of challenge through feeding – to the Israelites when they were in the desert longing for food with Moses, to the five thousand in the wilderness with Jesus, to the table at the last supper, when Jesus instructs his disciples to feed others just as he is feeding them.

Today we will celebrate the Eucharist with one another. As we do, I urge you to think about what it means when Jesus tells us to “do this in remembrance of me.” While we are spiritually fed, how can we aid others in being spiritually, socially, and physically fed? Jesus instructs us that when we have some, we should be willing to share with all. That is what the kingdom of heaven is like.

“Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’”

Amen.

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

posted in The Rev. Dr. Jessica Chicka, University Chaplain for International Students on 08.6.2023 at 11:00 am