Marsh Chapel Sermon Archive

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

Sunday
July 30

The Likeness of Being

By Marsh Chapel

Matthew 13:31–33, 44–52

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

-The Rev. Dr. Stephen Cady, Senior Minister, Asbury First United Methodist Church (Rochester, NY)

posted in Guest Preachers on 07.30.2023 at 11:00 am

Sunday
July 23

On the Law

By Marsh Chapel

Matthew 5:21–30, 38–48

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

-Mr. William Cordts, MDiv., Alumnus of the Boston University School of Theology

posted in Guest Preachers on 07.23.2023 at 11:00 am

Sunday
July 16

Summer Camp and the Reign of God

By Marsh Chapel

Matthew 13:1–9, 18–23

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

-The Reverend David Romanik, Rector, Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest (Abilene, TX)

posted in Guest Preachers on 07.16.2023 at 11:00 am

Sunday
July 9

Rest for the Soul

By Marsh Chapel

Matthew 11:16-19,25-30

Upon this summer Sunday, let us meditate on discipleship, and its gifts, and its expenses...its costs. Our gospel begins with the playful imagination of children in the marketplace. St. Paul wrote in a similar way to his Corinthian congregation:

God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty

Discipleship costs more than wisdom alone. The walk of faith evokes and involves a rest for the soul, embracing imagination, the free play of insight, the province of children and saints.

What a gift are the parables of Jesus! He taught them in parables, says the Scripture, and without a parable he taught not one thing.

Jesus stands in the marketplace. He sees two warring groups of children. All community is endless contention and intractable difference. One group wants to play a game called ‘weddings’: we have our pipes, we are ready to dance, come and join us, and let us play the game of weddings. Another group wants to play a game called ‘funerals’: we have our tears, our wailing, our gathered mourning clothes and forms, come and join us and let us play the game of funerals. One game for the enjoyment of life preferred by Jesus himself, one game for the dour, self-discipline for life, preferred by John the Baptist. Come and join!

Yet neither group will give way. Groups, as Reinhold Niebuhr taught us in Moral Man and Immoral Society, have a hard time changing direction, or giving way, or forgiving, or summoning an imagination ready for discipleship. That requires a childlike heart. It requires an imagination soaked discipleship. It requires the person whom you are meant to become. And it costs.

Did you ever know and love somebody who was always a bit on edge? I mean a beautiful person with a heart of gold, who was run raw by the gone-wrongness of life? This can be a rough world for a sensitive soul. Someone who has an unquenchable passion for getting things right and for knowing when things are wrong. A little of that can go a long way. If your very hunger is for what establishes, rests, the soul, you can sometimes go hungry.

Imagine with her eyes: Every child in the community was attending a safe, well-lit, quiet school, where virtually all could read at the sixth grade level by the time they finished the sixth grade level. Every sick person in the community had ample medical care, most of it preventive, and all of it shot through with a heavenly infusion of time, talent and money. Every person of color in the community felt confident entering the public spaces—theaters, churches, stadiums, stores—in every corner of the community. Every person is seen and heard as a real human being. That is her—and perhaps your—vision.

But around us, other. Around us a frightfully warming planet. Around us the generations deep effects of poverty. Around us horrific hourly slaughter in Ukraine, without even a single honest report of total deaths 500 days later. Around us the senseless needless shootings, gun deaths, to which we become inured. Around, yes, and within us, the anxieties and distrusts of our time. Imagine with her eyes, and feel with her soul.

Today the gospel offers her, and you, a word of promise, with a note of challenge, a word of challenge with a note of promise. Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden (challenge), and I will give you rest (promise).

Here at the University, at the fountain of youth, we are blessed with intelligence, vigor, freedom, and reason.

We want to be careful, and caring, though, so we pause here. We educators sometimes tend to leave civil society to the rest of society. We have much freedom, but how we choose to use it, in relation to the rest of community and society, is another matter. We after all have that next paper to write, 50 pages of small print not including footnotes, titled with some version of the title, ‘Obscurity Squared’. To do that, one needs a capacity to spend 12 hours a day alone in a library or in front of a computer screen. To do that, to write that series of scholarly papers become books become resume become tenure become professor, can risk leaving aside, if we are not careful, or leaving to others, if we are not careful, the imaginative stewardship of forms of civil society…

Girl Scout cookies. Umpire work for the Little League. Pinewood derby leadership. A seat on the PTA. Sunday worship. Neighborhood watch. Refugee resettlement work. These we have to leave in the hands of others, or at least we think we do, those basic cultural building blocks that rest on a willingness to sit quietly in dull meetings, hoping against hope for the blessed refrain, ‘I guess we’re done for tonight’. In civil society we have the chance to influence others, to be influencers, and to be influenced among others, in lasting, personal ways. You want to speak to others, to convince others, to educate—good. But. You cannot speak to others until or unless you speak for others. To speak to requires first to speak for. Others will not hear or heed you, and should not, in your speech to them, if they do not, with utter confidence, feel, feel, that you speak for them as well. To speak for, you have to be with. At breakfast. Playing golf. In book club. In church. At the YMCA. Then, only then, will you have enough funds in the relational bank when you need to withdraw some to say something that may then be audible. If you want people to hear you, preacher, you have to go and be with people, in visitation, on their turf, in community. If you want to speak to others, educators, you will have to find a way to speak for others, not just to others. This is the whole genius of American civil society, from the time of De Tocqueville. Whether we will find, in the humiliations of an era whose leadership is shredding inherited forms of civil society on an hourly basis, the humility to go out and suffer with and for others, over the better part of the next decade, in order then to speak, is an unanswered question. To get to an answer we may just need some imagination, costly imagination, in our discipleship, and some rest along the way. Finding it, it will find us in receipt of a glorious rest for the soul, one of the real gifts of summers—the point of summer.

Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds, saith the Lord. In challenging promise, and in promissory challenge. Our Gospel lures us and lures our imagination forward, for discipleship. Have we yet learned the lesson that what one meant—by an act, a word, a statement, a vote, say—is not all that such an act means?  We have experienced this lesson this tough truth, in the last several years. The lesson, that is, that what you in your heart meant by an act, a word, a statement—a vote, is not in fact the limit of what that act, word, statement or vote means:  in fact it is a small part, the greater part of the meaning being found in the effect, the impact, the historical influence of the deed. Wisdom is vindicated, known, in her deeds. Said our onetime Boston University Dean Ray Hart, The meaning of a text is found in the future it opens, the future it imagines, the future it creates. So too, the meaning of an act, a word, a statement, a vote, say, is found in the future, bright or dark, which it creates.  What you meant is not what it means.  For that, we have to listen to those harmed, or helped, by it.  Meaning is social, not merely individual, hence our use of words, our developed language, our investment in culture, our life in community.  You may have meant it one way, but its meaning is found along another.  Such hard, tragic lessons, to have to learn and re-learn, in our time. And relearn again, in 2023 and in 2024.

Here, Jesus is our beacon not our boundary. Here Jesus is rest for the soul. Imagination is a costly dimension of discipleship that is waxing not waning, needed not superfluous, crucial not peripheral. Our lessons today, Genesis, Psalms, and Romans, presage the Gospel, and draw our imaginations to forms of authority, and our engagement with them. In Genesis, the authority in ancestry. In Psalms, the authority in government. In Romans, the authority in conscience. In all these, the writers struggle to imagine a way forward, following the promising light of the beacon across the challenge of the boundary.

Our parable brings us an invocation, a summer call to rest, rest for the soul. Pause and meditate a little this summer on your own enjoyment of play. Our esteemed Boston University colleague and beloved mentor, now of blessed memory, Peter Berger did so, in rumination about discipleship, years ago in his little book, A Rumor of Angels. He noticed moments of rest for the soul. I see some too. 1. I see grown men enthralled on a green field following a wee little white ball, which seems to have a mind of its own, for three or four hours in the hot sun. 2. I see grown women shopping together without any particular need, but immersed, self-forgetful, in the process of purchasing, God knows what. 3. I see emerging adults fixed and fixated, days on end, in a large puzzle on a long table. 4. Can you remember playing bridge in college all night long, to the detriment of your zoology grade? Peter Berger: A. In playing, one steps out of one time into another…When adults play with genuine joy, they momentarily regain the deathlessness of childhood. The experience of joyful play is not something that must be sought on some mystical margin of existence. It can readily be found in the reality of ordinary life…The religious justification of the experience can be achieved only in an act of faith…B. This faith is inductive—it does not rest on a mysterious revelation, but rather on what we experience in our common, ordinary lives…Religion is the final vindication of childhood and of joy, and of all gestures that replicate these. Last winter, one sophomore, breaking from study, said: “I played basketball today, on the intramural team—it was awesome.” Rest to, and for, the soul.

A wisdom vindicated, justified by her deeds, is a cost of discipleship. (St. Luke in his version has changed the ending to ‘justified by all her children’—maybe an even closer memory to the marrow of, the history of, the parable.). There is always a possibility of and for good. In every day, there is a possibility of and for good.

Hear again the imaginative wisdom of Boston University’s own one time personalist philosopher, Erazim Kohak, in The Embers and The Stars, with whose epigram we conclude, this summer morning, to kindle and draw on a rest for the soul:

‘Humans are not only humans, moral subjects and vital organisms. They are also Persons, capable of fusing eternity and time in the precious, anguished reality of a love that would be eternal amid the concreteness of time. A person is a being through whom eternity enters time.’ Op. cit. 208

Sursum Corda! Receive the Divine Gift of Rest for the Soul! A challenging promise, and a promissory challenge.

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

posted in The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel on 07.9.2023 at 11:00 am

Sunday
July 2

“Welcome”

By Marsh Chapel

Matthew 10:40–42

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

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

posted in The Rev. Dr. Jessica Chicka, University Chaplain for International Students on 07.2.2023 at 11:00 am

Sunday
June 25

Making Sense with Matthew

By Marsh Chapel

Matthew 10:24–39

The Rev. Dr. Jennifer Quigley:

Good morning, Marsh Chapel! It is so good to be with you and back in Boston. Our deep thanks to Bob, Jess, Karen, Jonathan, Scott, Justin, Heidi, and Chloe for the invitation to preach and the hospitality here at our beloved alma mater. It’s been a few years since we’ve lived in Boston and served on the staff here, but we are still connected, even across the distance; that is what community can do.

Wooh, Soren, we just really won the lectionary lottery for this summer preaching series on Matthew and the Costs of Discipleship, huh? Swords, slavery, sin, separation from family. Soren, how do you think about how to deal with difficult biblical passages?

The Rev. Dr. Soren Hessler:

For nearly a decade, I’ve had the privilege of wrestling together with difficult sacred texts with Jewish colleagues at Hebrew College. And for the last five years, I’ve navigated difficult Christian texts as the instructor of Hebrew College’s Introduction to Christianity course. I’ve learned that we navigate difficult texts best when we do so openly and in community and in dialogue with one another.

It is out of those shared commitments that I flew into Boston last Sunday to participate this past week in a concurrent meeting of the International Council of Christians and Jews (the ICCJ) and the Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations (CCJR). The ICCJ is the umbrella organization of over 30 national Jewish-Christian dialogue organizations. Founded as a reaction to the Holocaust, “the ICCJ and its member organizations world-wide over the past seven decades have been successfully engaged in the historic renewal of Jewish-Christian relations.” In recent years, the ICCJ and its members have promoted Jewish-Christian dialogue and provide models for wider interfaith relations, particularly dialogue among Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

“The Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations (CCJR) is an association of centers and institutes in the United States and Canada devoted to enhancing mutual understanding between Jews and Christians. It is dedicated to research, publication, educational programming, and interreligious dialogue that respect the religious integrity and self-understanding of the various strands of the Jewish and Christian traditions. [Its] members are committed to interreligious dialogue, the purpose of which is neither to undermine or to change the religious identity of the other, but rather seeks to be enriched by each other's religious lives and traditions.“

The gathering of approximately 150 people, from over 20 countries, was hosted by the Boston College Center for Jewish-Christian Learning and Hebrew College’s Miller Center for Interreligious Learning and Leadership. The conference theme was “Negotiating Multiple Identities: Implications for Interreligious Relations,” and, of course, our meeting coincided with the national holiday of Juneteenth.

There were plenary sessions and academic lectures, interactive workshops (which included shared text study), various opportunities for critical engagement with the arts, and excursions across the city for deeper learning. Marsh Chapel was one of several sites around the city that hosted conference participants this week.

As I mentioned, there is much in Jewish and Christian sacred texts that we choose not to read often or altogether skip over in the regular cycles of our appointed weekly readings. One workshop I attended titled, “’By the Waters of Babylon’: Intersectional Readings of a Classical Biblical Text” focused on Psalm 137 and shared several new multi-media resources on the themes of exile, homecoming, retribution, and justice from an international digital Psalms project, Book of Psalms: Calling Out of the Depths, hosted by the Miller Center at Hebrew College. Together my colleagues Dr. Andrew Davis, Associate Professor of Old Testament at Boston College, and Rabbi Or Rose, Founding Director of the Miller Center at Hebrew College, explored their shared study of the Psalms and their engagement with this Psalm and others with classrooms of Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish students in the BTI over the last several years. We read together the full text of Psalm 137 in Hebrew and in English, and after the second reading of the Psalm, a participant in the workshop, an elderly Jewish woman who has been involved in Jewish-Christian dialogue work for more than 50 years exclaimed, “I never knew the last two verses of this Psalm!” She had sung other parts of the Psalm in different Jewish liturgical contexts, but not these final two verses, which are translated in the NRSV as

Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you
according to what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

These words are never set to music. The workshop participants wrestled with the value of these words. The leaders of the workshop shared various rationalizations of the text, including by Augustine, that the author of these words must not have meant them literally. Nevertheless, on their face, they are quite terrible. At best, these final verses give voice to the experience of rage in the midst of oppression. The workshop leaders attempted to contextualize the likely context of the authorship of the Psalm, but ultimately concluded that a literal enactment of the exclamation of the Psalm is inconsistent with the other values and commitments espoused by Jewish and Christian communities. In short, our sacred texts are the products of particular people and contexts. Sometimes we simply don’t understand the full context of the text, and sometimes, the texts themselves are just problematic.

I raise this because I think that today’s passage from Genesis merits at least a bit of attention today. Had it not been the chapel’s summer practice to read all four lectionary texts, I would likely have omitted the Genesis text from the liturgy today. In any event, in our Genesis text, our author recounts God as condoning Abraham’s decision to cast out his wife’s slave, Hagar, and the son she had born for Abraham. Sarah’s ownership of Hagar and Abraham’s sexual access to his wife’s slave are, perhaps, issues for another day, but we have in Genesis today, a recollection of God affirming Abraham’s decision to cast out Hagar so that her son cannot inherit from Abraham alongside Abraham’s other son, Isaac. The heroization of Abraham in the Genesis text is at one of its lowest points in today’s text. It seems that the author can find no other satisfactory reason that Abraham would agree to cast out Hagar and their son than that God reassured Abraham it was a good idea because God would bless and multiply Ishmael’s offspring and make of him a great nation?! This is not a flattering depiction of the divine, and Abraham is not winning any points in my book with his decision today.

But the rest of the pericope recollects God coming to the aid of Hagar and Ishmael when their water had run out, and Hagar was certain that her young son would perish. God’s mercy is on full display in the latter portion of the pericope, but that doesn’t make the former portion any less problematic. As a United Methodist, I read scripture through the lenses of tradition, reason, and experience. Tradition and experience tell me that the text’s characterization of the divine in the initial verses of today’s passage in Genesis is either simply wrong, incomplete, or perhaps asserted for some other narrative purpose. Plain readings of hard texts do a disservice to the complexity of the tradition and our own religious experience, which brings us to the Matthean text today.

The Rev. Dr. Jennifer Quigley:

What a difficult set of readings for these times, and what a difficult set of verses to make sense of in Matthew. Here in Matthew 10, we find ourselves in the midst of the instructions from Jesus to the disciples as He sends them out to travel from place to place, proclaiming the good news, healing, and casting out demons as they go. These logia, these sayings gathered in Matthew 10 partially echo bits of Mark and Luke, but their compilation here and their full content are unique to Matthew’s gospel. Matthew finds it useful to collect these teachings and present them without significant commentary, leaving us to make sense of them. And they make about as much sense smushed together as sayings in the Gospel of Thomas, a noncanonical gospel in which the narrative of the gospels are left out in favor of a series of sayings, such as “Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death." Jesus said, "Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."

The point of sayings like these in Thomas, and like our passage in Matthew today, is to get them, faith seeking understanding, the goal is the contemplation of them; they are constantly elusive, or troubling, or astonishing, but there is also something powerful about them, there is something about the eternal to them, and they invite constant return.

You might feel some of these passages in your bones in these days. I know I do. After all, this is a time of division and polarization. You might have friends or family or former classmates or colleagues you can’t talk about politics or faith with any more; or maybe you can’t as often without conversation devolving into conspiracy theory or conflict; or maybe you can’t really talk at all.

It’s also a time of disaffiliation in our own United Methodist denomination. Across the United States, and to a much more limited extent around the world, some of the most conservative churches of the denomination have left the denomination. I have heard texts like our gospel reading today used to justify these departures. I have heard interpretations of passages like Matthew 10 in these conversations along the lines of, isn’t Jesus saying, with verses about hating your family, and division, and persecution at the hands of religious authorities, speaking straight to our moment and endorsing disaffiliation? Isn’t a text like Matthew about holding fast to a pure, unadulterated, gospel that must be preserved, defended against constant attack? Isn’t this text all about leaving?

When hearing interpretations like these, and the swirling disinformation amidst disaffiliation, I am reminded of the words of the Rev. Dr. Krister Stendahl, Lutheran Bishop, Harvard Divinity School Dean, and New Testament Scholar. One of the last things he wrote was a short essay, titled “Why I Love the Bible.” I assign it every year in my introduction to the New Testament class. Stendahl says he loves the bible because “The Bible is about me, and the Bible is not about me.” Stendahl first loved the Bible because it was about him, it spoke to him, it formed his faith and the way he worshipped and prayed and the hymns he sang. It was personal. But then, Stendahl learned to love the Bible because it was NOT about him.

“This was the time when I was naïve and arrogant enough to identify with the people I read about, or whose writings I read…. It was about many other things—in the long run, much more interesting things. It was about many things in many distant lands, from many distant ages…. Now it spoke to me from a great distance, of centuries and cultures deeply different from my own. And it began to be, just by its difference, that the fascination grew, that it had a way of saying to me, there are other ways of seeing and thinking and feeling and believing than you have taken for granted. And it just added to my love—for love is not just fascination. When I short-circuited my reading in those earlier days of having it just be about me, I slowly learned that this was a greedy way to deal with the richness of the scriptures.” (Stendahl 2007, xx).

I love the Bible, and I love wrestling with difficult texts because I am honest about their distance. The Gospel of Matthew, written perhaps in 80-90 CE, emerges from real crisis. Both what becomes Judaism and what becomes Christianity emerge in the aftermath of the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE. The Gospel of Matthew vividly shares collective memory about this cataclysm, and those who compiled, circulated, and told these stories about Jesus did so with real risk in mind and communal memory.

Some Christians around the world are more proximate to experiences like that today, but here in the United States, this is simply not the case, despite disinformation to the contrary. Hear it from this Christian, United Methodist Pastor, Christianity is not under attack in the United States in 2023. Living in a religiously pluralistic and democratic society with folks who disagree with you, and facing consequences for your speech in public is not religious persecution. Not getting to censor public libraries, public schools, and other public goods does not mean you are being silenced. Jesus and his disciples knew real persecution, and those who first circulated our gospel today some half century later knew what could happen from a violent empire. Why is the constant appeal of a persecution narrative so appealing, any evidence to the contrary? The story of Christianity and the cross makes meaning out of loss, finds power even in its powerlessness, and finds a way to make community even when faced with suffering. These are some great building blocks for theology that can help us find meaning, power, and community today. But the lens looks different when our backs aren’t against the wall, to paraphrase Howard Thurman. These building blocks can be built out of true, to craft a theology that thinks that losing is winning, and that being under threat means you are somehow blessed. Then there is incentive to overlook whether you might be backing some folks against a wall, or to flip the script so that you are always the persecuted, faithful remnant, constantly on defense against the world.

Because I love the Bible, and notice my distance from it, I have freedom to find proximity to it again. Matthew calls us again to contemplate these teachings.

The Rev. Dr. Soren Hessler:

Jen, I think Thurman’s own reading of the Bible, his love of it, his distance from it and others’ commentaries on it, and his ability to find proximity to it offer a glimpse of understanding the Matthean text today.

On Tuesday, I had the privilege of convening and moderating a panel discussion about the life and work of the Reverend Howard Thurman, the distinguished African American preacher, writer, educator, and pastor, who played a key role in the Civil Rights Movement and who was a groundbreaking interreligious and cross-cultural leader, a leader that the Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill is fond of describing as one hundred years ahead of his time fifty years ago. Together with three Thurman scholars, my colleagues Nick Bates, the recently appointed Director of the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground at Boston University; the Reverend Dr. Shively T. J. Smith, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Boston University’s School of Theology; and Rabbi Or Rose, we screened a recent brief documentary about Thurman and discussed Thurman’s work and legacy. On Friday, Or published an article in Patheos reflecting on the panel and the long relationship of his mentor Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi with Thurman and other Christian religious leaders.

Or writes:

“I first learned of Howard Thurman some years ago from my beloved teacher, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (d. 2014), founder of the Jewish Renewal Movement. Long before Reb Zalman (an informal title he preferred) emerged as a modern Jewish mystical sage and international religious figure, he began an idiosyncratic spiritual journey that took him from the more insular world of HaBaD-Lubavitch Hasidism into dialogue with an array of practitioners from the world’s religions.

“Among his earliest and most influential interreligious and inter-racial interlocuters was Dean Thurman, whom he first met in 1955, as a graduate student at BU’s School of Theology. By the end of that academic year, Reb Zalman lovingly referred to him as his ‘Black Rebbe’ (the customary term for a Hasidic master). In describing Thurman’s influence on him, Reb Zalman said that his BU mentor caused him to ‘redraw his reality map.’ To put it plainly, the emerging (already off-beat) Hasidic rabbi had not yet met a non-Jewish religious figure like Thurman, whose intellectual, pedagogic, and pastoral abilities he would come to admire deeply. In the ensuing years, Reb Zalman would meet several other individuals and groups, like the great Catholic monk and writer Thomas Merton (d. 1968) and his Trappist community, who would further alter his perception of non-Jews and of non-Jewish religious traditions.

“Part of what impressed Reb Zalman so much about Dean Thurman, was the fact that his love and reverence for Jesus of Nazareth led him to conclude that all human beings are children of God, and that there are many ways—all imperfect—to live meaningful and conscientious lives in relationship with the Divine.”

Ultimately, I think that is what our Matthean text is getting at today.

The Rev. Dr. Jennifer Quigley:

That deeply personal and personalist claim that we are all children of God draws my eye to two other places in our gospel today. These are also at the heart of the gospel: Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

And a verse after our reading ends (sometimes the lectionary limits our imagination), Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”

Soren and I recently returned from our home conference, the West Ohio Annual Conference, the messy middle of United Methodism, which has always wrestled with politics, theology, ethics, in ways that represent the multiplicity of voices that occur when community gathers together. At this last annual conference, over 200 churches completed a process to leave the denomination, bringing our total numbers over the last year to about a quarter of our collective. But we also voted, for the first time ever, and albeit aspirationally, to welcome LGBTQ+ folks into ministry in our conference; such a vote would have been unheard of even five years ago.Over our days in a convention center in Dayton, we sat at several 10 person tables, over a hundred in the cavernous room. You never knew if you’d sat next to someone about to disaffiliate or someone in conference leadership, next to someone from the Appalachian foothills or the heart of Columbus. We met folks who represent the full spectrum of United Methodism there, and our conversations help me to make sense with Matthew.

On the day of disaffiliation votes, we sat next to an elderly white man in khakis and a polo shirt. He looked deeply grieved, and his tag identified him as a local pastor. Quietly, and carefully, in the breaks between votes, he told us that he was a pastor for many years in the Wesleyan Church. He joined the United Methodist Church, he said, even though his full credentials wouldn’t transfer and he would spend a lifetime pastoring part time and for lesser pay on the side because, “I wanted to be at a bigger table.” I wanted to be at a bigger table, and that’s why, he told us, even though many friends were disaffiliating and many churches in his rural part of the state were disaffiliating, he and his small, part time congregation held fast to the United Methodist church. “I want to be at a bigger table.”

Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Even the hairs on your head are counted.

Another day, after historic votes on LGBTQ+ inclusion, we sat for the service of ordination and retirement next to an African American man and woman who were lay leaders at their historically black church in Dayton. The woman was a retired teacher, which she told us meant she had more time for work for the church and community. During the service, it is customary to stand for an ordinand or retiree whose name is called if they have influenced you. One of the longtime LGBTQ+advocates, a pastor of the conference and a partnered, now married gay man, retired this year, the same year that this vote was taken. I made eye contact across my table when we all stood for David’s retirement. “He is our brother,” she said quietly.

We don’t know who will sit with us at the Lord’s table, but when I hear the verse about families divided, I hear it alongside these teachings, “whoever welcomes you welcomes me, even the hairs on your head are counted,” and I think that following Jesus means that sometimes we might need to welcome folks that our parents might not like.We might end up at a bigger table than we expect.

I’m not really sure I can fully make sense of these verses today, Soren, but maybe I can make some sense with Matthew. Logia like these aren’t meant for single use, single meaning only talismans, no more than other biblical or extra-biblical sayings you might find meaningful. To paraphrase a parable, They are like a lost coin found again, turned over in the hand to notice a new glint, a rough edge, a smooth face, joy and delight and intense focus all at once.

Do not be afraid. Even the hairs of your head are all counted. Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me.

I want to be at a bigger table. He is my brother.

Let those who have ears to hear, listen. Amen.

-The Rev. Dr. Jennifer Quigley, Assistant Professor of New Testament Vanderbilt Divinity School

-The Rev. Dr. Soren Hessler, Director of Recruitment and Admissions Vanderbilt Divinity School

posted in Guest Preachers, The Rev. Dr. Jennifer Quigley, The Rev. Dr. Soren Hessler on 06.25.2023 at 11:00 am