{"id":1066,"date":"2015-01-25T11:00:36","date_gmt":"2015-01-25T16:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=1066"},"modified":"2019-10-22T12:40:19","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T16:40:19","slug":"the-courage-to-turn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2015\/01\/25\/the-courage-to-turn\/","title":{"rendered":"The Courage to Turn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

Mark 1:14-20<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to listen to the sermon only<\/a><\/p>\n

A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i><\/b>The Church Forms the Story<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Do you feel like you are loosing your grip on the pigskin of life?\u00a0 Do you\u00a0sense that you are loosening your grasp on the football of existence?\u00a0 Do you wonder if the air has gone out of you?\u00a0 That you are a couple of spiritual pounds of air pressure short of divine regulation?\u00a0 In a word, if I may, do you experience a little late January\u2026deflation?\u00a0 Aiming at conflation and avoiding inflation with others across the nation do you experience deflation?\u00a0 Do questions keep hounding you, even after you have repeated:\u00a0 \u2018I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I have told you everything I know.\u00a0 No. Nope.\u00a0 No Sir.\u00a0 No.\u2019 (No, no, never, never\u2026) Are you lower than a wet, deflated, muddy, cold football in the bowels of Gillette Stadium? \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Well then, tune in for 20 minutes, turn on for 2100 words and hear the good news in 7 verses!\u00a0 Turn to something ancient, good, holy and true:\u00a0 Mark 1: 14-20.<\/p>\n

The passage from Mark read a moment ago looks back forty years.<\/p>\n

Mark is writing in the year 70 or so.\u00a0 Jesus ministry in Galilee begins in the year 30 or so.\u00a0 What is remembered across four decades?\u00a0 (What do you remember about January 1975? <\/i>What do you remember from forty years past?)<\/i><\/p>\n

Very little.\u00a0 Nothing about the time of year in which Peter and Andrew found the courage to turn, to leave their nets.\u00a0 Nothing about the precise setting in which they chose to turn and follow.\u00a0 Nothing about the manner of their discourse\u00a0 with the Master.\u00a0 Nothing about the reactions of families.\u00a0 Nothing about the effect on the fishing business.\u00a0 Nothing about what caused, in this idealized recollection, such a sudden change.\u00a0 No, at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, as at its middle and at its end, we hunt in vain for clear memory of Jesus.\u00a0 The Gospels allude to the history of Jesus but they are not written to tell the history of events forty years past.\u00a0 And, in fact, they do not.\u00a0 A reading of the Gospel that tries primarily to upend the Gospels for such an alien agenda, misses the meaning of their message.<\/p>\n

Because.\u00a0 The scene before us today is an idealized memory, the memory of something that may or may not have happened in the way accounted, somewhere along the Tiberian shore.\u00a0 The story told today comes out of, is, as the wise men say, formed by, the church forty years later, shaped and formed by the church of the year 70, for reasons quite other than interest in history or biography or hagiography.\u00a0 The Gospel has bigger fish to fry than the Tiberian fish of April 30ad in the nets of Aramaic speaking laborers.\u00a0 The Gospel presents Jesus Christ, not Jesus.\u00a0 The Gospel presents Jesus Christ, the Son of God, not Jesus.\u00a0 The Gospel presents Jesus Christ, the crucified. \u00a0A powerful voice, a personal encounter, a perplexing adventure in faith\u2014the church formed our text out of its own early experience.<\/p>\n

The Gospel is not about Jesus, it is about you.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage was formed in the life of the early church.\u00a0 Somewhere in the lost past, all of the detail now worn away like the memory you do not have of what you were doing, eating, wearing, saying, fearing, praying in January of 1975, somewhere in the lost past something happened over time to bind Simon and Andrew to Jesus.\u00a0 The church needed to remember this, and so, in this idealized, skeletal, and didactic way, the church did so.\u00a0\u00a0 What is remembered, with accuracy or without, is recalled to meet a pressing need in the fragile life of a suffering church (repeat).<\/i>\u00a0 If we miss this formative effect of the church on this material\u2014the material mattered to a church struggling with the grim and glorious matter of life and death\u2014then we miss the point.\u00a0 Then the sacred Scripture becomes even for the church what it becomes in other settings\u2014parlor game fodder, material for debate over beer and skittles.\u00a0 But for us, here, the Scripture is the very Word of God.<\/p>\n

Something frightening and powerful is at work here.<\/p>\n

What crying need does the church experience, in the years near 70ad that occasions the forming of this scarecrow text?\u00a0 Why would the church want, at the very outset of the Gospel, to remember the hurt of leaving, and its requirement of the courage to turn<\/i>?\u00a0 Think about the hurt of leaving.\u00a0 It hurts to leave.<\/p>\n

Life in faith means difficulty.\u00a0 It hurts to leave the womb.\u00a0 It hurts to have those first teeth leave their gums for the daylight of dinner and dentistry. (My friend the dean of Dentistry and I introduced ourselves one evening on an elevator, to which our fellow traveler replied\u2014\u201cGreat.\u00a0 Here I am riding along with the two things I hate most, dentistry and religion!\u201d) It hurts to watch your daughter get on the bus and leave for kindergarten. It hurts to see your son take the family car and leave for the evening with a young woman you do not know well or fully trust.\u00a0 We have been around college towns all our lives: it hurts to leave your parents and go in the dorm, to carry the sweaty boxes up the stairs, to fiddle with room arrangements.\u00a0 Here at BU on Labor Day, it gets to the point that I can not look at the same repeated scene: a dad and mom, hugging their boy goodbye, and leaving town.\u00a0 It was a holy, frightening, powerful scene.\u00a0 Like our Bible reading today. Now that we have physically left home and in are in college, say, we may need to turn, to turn our minds and hearts and souls toward the challenge of this new situation, really to turn, to leave home in spirit as well as body.\u00a0 The fall term freshman year you physically leave home.\u00a0 But now the snow is falling. The spring term freshman year you spiritually leave home.\u00a0 You begin to fashion another part of your identity.\u00a0 What an adventure!<\/p>\n

The Bible is not about some oddball potpourrie of cluttered historical facts regarding fishing rights near Capernaum in the first century.<\/i>\u00a0 The Bible has bigger fish to fry.\u00a0 Even regarding fish the Bible has bigger fish to fry, as Gershwin said of Jonah, which is the outreach edge, the evangelism and ecumenical high water mark of the Prophetic tradition, the inclusion even of the Ninevites:\u201d<\/p>\n

It ain\u2019t necessarily so<\/i><\/p>\n

He made his home in that fish\u2019s abdomen\u2014<\/i><\/p>\n

It ain\u2019t necessarily so<\/i><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s story is about turning.\u00a0 The gospel gives the courage to turn.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Somehow, in the life of the early church, leaving became an issue for attention.\u00a0\u00a0 How could it not?\u00a0 Look at all the leave-taking in the formative early period.\u00a0 Jesus leaves life.\u00a0 Peter leaves Galilee.\u00a0 Andrew leaves home.\u00a0 Paul leaves Judaism.\u00a0 The church leaves Palestine.\u00a0 Every time they turned around, someone was leaving nets.\u00a0 Someone was turning.\u00a0 Someone was turning up, turning around, turning out, turning down, turning.\u00a0 To everything there is a season\u2014turn, turn, turn.<\/p>\n

The church remembered or crafted this scene out a dire need to teach disciples that discipleship bears a certain cost, and a certain cast:<\/i> now and then one is invited to summon the courage to turn.\u00a0 The life of faith is an adventure, but an arduous one.\u00a0\u00a0 Faith, the gift of grace, when accepted and lived will ineluctably lead to risk.\u00a0 Risk is a part of what we mean by faith.\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/b>B.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i><\/b>Mark Tells the Story<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Returning to Mark for a teaching moment.\u00a0 We have followed Luke in 2013 and\u00a0Matthew in 2014.\u00a0 Now the lectionary guides us through Mark.\u00a0 Notice, as you have in other settings five personal interests, five finger prints, present in this first chapter, but carried through the length of the Gospel, which you will hear this year:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i><\/b>A Secret<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Mark\u2019s messianic secret is a reminder to us that following the Christ means leaving the familiar for the unfamiliar, the present for the unforeseen future, the ready and easy for the unknown.\u00a0 His is not a cozy Christ.\u00a0 His Christ is One who calls upon us to summon the courage to leave. (1:24, 1:34, 3:12, 1:43, 5:43, 7:36, 8:26, 8:30, 9:9, 7:24, 9: 30, 10:48 [total 12, at least])<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/b>2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i><\/b>Galilee of the Gentiles<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The interest in evangelism, out of which the Gospel is written, is imprinted upon us in this very early passage.\u00a0 When you hear Galilee, think un-churched, think, outsider, think the nations, think the unreligious.\u00a0 With Paul, Mark asserts that Christ had died for the ungodly.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/b>3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i><\/b>The Cost of Discipleship<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Mark reminds us that transformation begins with the courage to leave.\u00a0 The moment of letting go and leaving is both awesome and agonizing.\u00a0 Ask Abraham, Sarah, Moses; ask Amos, Micah or Jeremiah; ask Peter, Andrew or James; ask Paul, Silas or Barnabas.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i><\/b>Jesus Christ, Crucified<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The suffering that Jesus endured was to be a watchword and warning for the first Christians.\u00a0 Mark teaches in this passage that at the very outset of the journey there is the experience of loss and bereavement that comes with leaving, changing, with turning<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i><\/b>Apocalyptic Right Side Up<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

In sayings like this (\u2018I will make you fishers of men\u2019)\u2014in the calling of disciples, there is a harbinger of what is to come.\u00a0 Mark tries to put the Christian hope right side up, (perhaps correcting for his community, the reading today from 1 Cor. 7, a time grown short and a form passing away), culminating in the warning of Mark 13 that of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the Son, but the Father only.<\/p>\n

Here is the Gospel hand reaching for you in 2015\u2014holding a secret, loving the Gentiles, counting the cost, preaching the cross, right-wising apocalyptic.<\/p>\n

C.\u00a0 We Are Invited to Live the Story<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It is not just the church that formed this passage that knew about turning.\u00a0 It is not just the Evangelist who tells the story of departure that knew about turning.\u00a0 We too know about turning.\u00a0 Leaving nets, neighbors, niceties. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It takes a courage to turn.\u00a0 Students live and know this.<\/p>\n

From 40 years ago I recall a courageous Spanish student, Guzman Garcia Arribas, who turned away from Francisco Franco and turned toward a freer life.\u00a0 From 30 years ago I recall a graduate Syracuse Forestry student, Keith Parr, who turned from studies to service with his Air National Guard in the Gulf War. \u00a0From 20 years ago I recall an architecture student, Barry Jordan, who turned and traveled with us in mission to Honduras.\u00a0 From 10 years ago I recall a BU undergraduate, David Romanik, who left the nets of historical study to turn to ministry in the Episcopal Church.<\/p>\n

Last week we remembered the struggles of Rosa Parks, Andrew Young, Edward Brooke, Martin Luther King, who found the courage to turn enshrined in the best of our traditions:<\/p>\n

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all<\/i><\/p>\n

And thus the native hue of resolution<\/i><\/p>\n

Is sicklied over with the pale cast of thought;<\/i><\/p>\n

And enterprises of great pith and moment<\/i><\/p>\n

With this regard their currents go awry<\/i><\/p>\n

And lose the name of action<\/i><\/p>\n

The courage to turn is the courage to lay hold, to register, to sign up, to rent to buy, to take on real weight.<\/p>\n

To lay hold of faith, you may just have to turn.\u00a0 You may have to leave the nets, or leave the nest.\u00a0 To lay hold of the future you have to let go of the past.\u00a0 To lay hold of life we may need to summon the courage to leave.\u00a0 To leave the inherited for the invisible.\u00a0 To leave the general for the particular.\u00a0 To leave existential drift for personal decision.\u00a0 To leave the individual for the communal.\u00a0 To leave renting for ownership.\u00a0 To leave auditing for registration. (Some of us have been auditing the course on Christianity long enough.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to register, buy the books, pay tuition, take the course for credit, and get a grade!)\u00a0 To leave engagement for marriage. \u00a0(Where is Engagement Ohio?\u00a0 Half way between Datin\u2019 and Marryin\u2019) To leave intimacy for pregnancy.. And that takes the courage to turn.<\/p>\n

Faith, as human response, is a decision, a choice, that inevitably includes some risk.\u00a0 As D. Bonhoeffer wrote on this passage, \u201cWhen Christ calls a man he bids him come and die.\u201d<\/p>\n

And A. Schweitzer:\u00a0 \u201cHe comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same words: “Follow thou me!” and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.\u201d<\/p>\n

And E. Kasemann said, \u201cFaith means a continuous exodus from established positions.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the exquisite recent film, The Theory of Everything,<\/i> there comes a moment to turn.\u00a0 Said his first wife, as she turned away from him, to Steven Hawking:\u00a0 I have loved you\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

It takes courage to turn–to morning prayer, to daily study, to weekly worship, to monthly giving, to yearly faithfulness.\u00a0 It takes a kind of courage to turn, to get up from a dormitory bed on Sunday morning, and file past all the sleeping sleepers, and get ready, and walk down Commonwealth Avenue, and find a seat in the back of the chapel, and bow for prayer.<\/p>\n

A courage to turn, to turn away, to turn again, to turn out, to turn up.\u00a0\u00a0 To take another turn:\u00a0 in a relationship, in a church membership, in a roommate relationship, in an abusive relationship.\u00a0 Have we the courage to turn<\/p>\n

As a society, when shall ever find the courage to turn away from gun violence?\u00a0 Again this week, in Boston, we have ample reason to ask, and ample reason to seek the courage to turn, to turn away, to turn a corner, to turn round right.\u00a0\u00a0 People know this.\u00a0 85% of Americans agree that back ground checks should be used for purchases at gun shows.\u00a0 And:\u00a0 81% of gun owners agree.\u00a0 When will we ever learn?\u00a0 When will we ever learn?\u00a0 As a people we await the courage to turn.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Gospel comes from a church that held onto a memory of departure, from the evangelist who reflected on departure, and from a recognition in our own experience that includes the courage to depart, to leave, to turn.<\/p>\n

When true simplicity is gained<\/i><\/p>\n

To bow and to bend we shan\u2019t be ashamed<\/i><\/p>\n

To turn, turn will be our delight<\/i><\/p>\n

Til by turning, turning, we come round right<\/i><\/p>\n

-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel<\/a><\/p>\n

For more information about Marsh Chapel at Boston University,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For information about donating to the Chapel,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to the full service Mark 1:14-20 Click here to listen to the sermon only A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Church Forms the Story Do you feel like you are loosing your grip on the pigskin of life?\u00a0 Do you\u00a0sense that you are loosening your grasp on the football of existence?\u00a0 Do you wonder if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1066"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1070,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066\/revisions\/1070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}