{"id":1115,"date":"2015-04-26T11:00:32","date_gmt":"2015-04-26T15:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=1115"},"modified":"2019-10-22T12:15:08","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T16:15:08","slug":"easter-remembrance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2015\/04\/26\/easter-remembrance\/","title":{"rendered":"Easter Remembrance"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

John 10:11-18<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Frontispiece<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

What if the power of Easter, the point of Easter is more about our past than about our future?<\/p>\n

What if Easter, and the gospel of resurrection, means more to us about our remembrance than about our expectation, more about our recollection than our anticipation, more about whence than whither, more about what God has done than about what God will do?<\/p>\n

You may find this an odd, or contrarian point of view. \u00a0After all, you rightly reason, the promise of Easter is the promise of new life, eternal life, resurrection life, hope, joy, and peace in Christ whom God raises from the dead. \u00a0All, seemingly, in the future. \u00a0Fair enough. \u00a0But consider, for a brief few minutes this morning, Easter remembrance. \u00a0\u00a0Consider, if you will, what Easter means for what has been, what Easter means for your remembrance.<\/p>\n

So many people can live chained to a broken remembrance, to a mistaken remembrance, to a Lenten remembrance. (Lent is good discipline, but life is not meant for Lent. \u00a0Life is meant for Easter.) So many can live caught in a bear trap of implacable memory, trauma, or hurt. \u00a0So many live haunted by ghosts of days and nights and people and harm from the past. \u00a0\u00a0Easter comes around once a year to free us from the past, not in forgetfulness but in resurrection, not in a futile attempt to change the facts, but in a spiritual discipline of right remembrance.<\/p>\n

Proust and Memory<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

As some of you know, in the summer of 2003 I went with a friend to a country book store, and for 25cents bought the first 1200 page half of Marcel Proust\u2019s Remembrance of Things Past.<\/i> \u00a0About six years later I spent another quarter at the same shop for the second 1200 page half, of which I have now read 500 pages. \u00a0Proust tests memory. \u00a0He probes our habits and deceits and perspectives with regard to remembrance. \u00a0It is detailed, lively, and exhausting to read, for me, about 3 pages or so a couple of times a week. \u00a0That is plenty. \u00a0But the project itself is life long, and may take in my case a lifetime of reading. \u00a0Proust wrote: \u00a0But sometimes the future is latent in us without our knowledge and our words which we suppose to be false forecast an imminent reality (II, 31).<\/i><\/p>\n

The author of the Gospel of John is also, and mightily, engaged in remembrance. \u00a0Imagine a home, in Ephesus, 60 years after Golgotha, at night, candle lit, with forty people present. \u00a0Prayer, singing, a shared meal, and quiet all precede a moment of speaking. \u00a0Then in remembrance, somewhere near the year 90ad, 60 years after the first Easter, a preacher stands in the room and speaks. \u00a0He speaks for Jesus. \u00a0He speaks in the Spirit. \u00a0His voice is that of the Risen One. \u00a0He says, \u2018I am the Good Shepherd\u2019. \u00a0And in that utterance, that prophetic utterance, a new remembrance is born. \u00a0The community of the beloved disciple determined that their original memory of Jesus was wrong, or not right enough, or not big enough to describe what He had meant for them, become for them, revealed to them. \u00a0They loved him and they remembered him and–they worshipped him. \u00a0\u00a0His personal presence, I AM THE\u2014Way, Truth, Life, Shepherd, Door, Resurrection, Bread of Life, all\u2014gave them a new way to remember, a better, truer, clearer memory.<\/p>\n

I wonder, this Easter tide, as you think of the Good Shepherd watching over his beloved in love, as we too are to do with each other and for each other, though not to each other, I wonder if there is some maturation in memory, your memory, emerging for you? What is back there holding you back? \u00a0What is rattling around loose in the back of your mind that needs minding, or mending? Is there something you want to leave behind, to let go? \u00a0Or something you want to restore, to reclaim, to recast? \u00a0Sometimes our hoarding of things is minor compared to our needless and useless hoarding of cluttered, disordered, mistaken memories. And sometimes our memories need a spring cleaning or two. \u00a0It is not a matter of forgetting. \u00a0It is a matter of placing things in an Easter light.<\/p>\n

How? \u00a0In a morning quiet prayer. \u00a0In an honest chat with a trusted friend. \u00a0In a private moment of pastoral conversation. \u00a0In a more formal, planned hour of counseling, of therapy, of spiritual grief work. \u00a0In worship, come Sunday.<\/p>\n

Martyn on Minear<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Some years ago one of my teachers did so, as he remembered one of his own teachers. \u00a0He shared the memory with me in 2007. \u00a0Sometimes, when I remember to, I take it out and look it over again. This is J L Martyn preaching at Yale at the funeral of Paul Minear. (Memorial Service for Paul S. Minear, 3\/24\/07<\/i>;A Personal Word of Thanksgiving \u00a0\u00a0(J. Louis Martyn))<\/i><\/p>\n

In Paul Minear\u2019s testimony there was no<\/i><\/p>\n

pious escapism from every-day life.<\/i><\/p>\n

There was in fact a stark realism.<\/i><\/p>\n

But it was emphatically a <\/i>double<\/i> realism.<\/i><\/p>\n

A <\/i>disturbing<\/i> realism about the multiple forces that choke the life<\/i><\/p>\n

out of huge numbers of God\u2019s children,<\/i><\/p>\n

and a <\/i>daring<\/i> realism about the power of God<\/i><\/p>\n

to bless those who mourn,<\/i><\/p>\n

and to make even the paralytic stand up and walk.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Let me give <\/i>one<\/i> example.<\/i><\/p>\n

As he was teaching us to read the Bible,<\/i><\/p>\n

he spoke to us in unforgettable terms about time.<\/i><\/p>\n

Time was clearly a Biblical subject that fascinated Paul, and<\/i><\/p>\n

his fascination with that subject proved to be contagious.<\/i><\/p>\n

How are past, present, and future related to one another?<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

We<\/i> often think about our present as the child of our past.<\/i><\/p>\n

And to some degree the past<\/i> is<\/i> the generative parent of the present.<\/i><\/p>\n

But what, then, do we actually mean,<\/i><\/p>\n

when in churches such as this one<\/i><\/p>\n

we speak to God in the Lord\u2019s Prayer,<\/i><\/p>\n

saying \u201cLet thy kingdom <\/i>come<\/i>\u201d?<\/i><\/p>\n

Could it be that when we pray the Lord\u2019s prayer,<\/i><\/p>\n

with that clause — \u00a0\u201cLet thy Kingdom come\u201d \u00a0—<\/i><\/p>\n

we confess the power of God\u2019s grace in a new way?<\/i><\/p>\n

Is God\u2019s grace evident <\/i>precisely<\/i> in its coming <\/i>toward<\/i> us from the future?<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Are we, in God\u2019s grace, led to sense that<\/i><\/p>\n

the ultimately determining parent of our present is not <\/i>our past<\/i><\/p>\n

but rather <\/i>God\u2019s future<\/i>? \u00a0\u00a0Could it be that<\/i><\/p>\n

we bear witness to that fact when Sunday by Sunday we say to God,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cLet thy kingdom come\u201d?<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

A good number of you will remember the period in which<\/i><\/p>\n

Rudolf Bultmann was in Germany \u2013 in fact, in Europe \u2013<\/i><\/p>\n

the scholar who had pointed out that<\/i><\/p>\n

the New Testament documents reflect what many moderns call<\/i><\/p>\n

a mythological world view.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

When we read the New Testament, we encounter angels<\/i><\/p>\n

who speak and act among human beings on earth.<\/i><\/p>\n

We hear of demons who take up residence in certain tormented people.<\/i><\/p>\n

We find references to Satan, to principalities and powers,<\/i><\/p>\n

and to \u201cthe god of this world\u201d as a powerful actor <\/i>in<\/i> human affairs.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Recognizing these so-called mythological elements<\/i><\/p>\n

in the New Testament,<\/i><\/p>\n

Bultmann devised an interpretive method<\/i><\/p>\n

that involved what was called \u201cdemythologization.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

When this highly respected colleague came from Germany to Boston,<\/i><\/p>\n

the local Christian theologians arranged a meeting for general discussion,<\/i><\/p>\n

and they selected one of their own number to provide<\/i><\/p>\n

a final focus to the conversation. \u00a0That climax came, then,<\/i><\/p>\n

when Minear said with deep respect:<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is between us, Mr. Bultmann, much in common.<\/i><\/p>\n

And<\/i>, as is always the case, what we have in common<\/i><\/p>\n

makes plain the major difference between us.<\/i><\/p>\n

You have as one of your chief concerns<\/i><\/p>\n

to demythologize the New Testament,<\/i><\/p>\n

while I have as one of my chief concerns<\/i><\/p>\n

that the New Testament demythologize us.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

It was a respectful comment.<\/i><\/p>\n

It was also a telling summary,<\/i><\/p>\n

for <\/i>in Minear\u2019s work<\/i><\/p>\n

the New Testament does demythologize us,<\/i><\/p>\n

doing so in part by<\/i><\/p>\n

its Golgotha earthquake,<\/i><\/p>\n

that is by moving the ground under our feet<\/i><\/p>\n

in unsettling ways,<\/i><\/p>\n

in order to open up to us a new world,<\/i><\/p>\n

the utterly <\/i>real<\/i> world,<\/i><\/p>\n

bringing, in fact, the dawn of what <\/i>the Apostle<\/i> calls<\/i><\/p>\n

God\u2019s New Creation<\/i> in Christ.<\/i><\/p>\n

We are not afterward the same.<\/i><\/p>\n

After 35 Years<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Our experience, our own experience, is what we have, and in one sense all we have. \u00a0Your experience is meant to be honored, respected, cherished, trusted, and then given over to an Easter Remembrance.<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, speaking of remembrance, a note came from the church we served in Ithaca NY, beginning in 1979. \u00a0They are rehearsing their history at their 100th anniversary. \u00a0The writer is a Cornell professor\u2019s spouse, who came into the community at that time. \u00a0They are giving a vignette in worship each week, a remembrance of things past. \u00a0My own memory of those busy years of young adulthood focuses on work, worship, activities, children born, things to do and do. \u00a0In some ways, those years stand out for overly active but not necessarily fruitful service. \u00a0But her recollection, jarring, and difficult, in its difference from my own, is an Easter remembrance, and a lesson, or a warning, about what lasts, in memory:<\/p>\n

#12, April 19:<\/i><\/b>\u00a0 The Chapel was served by part time ministers until its 64<\/i>th<\/i> year, when Bob Hill, newly graduated from seminary, served as our very first full time minister from 1979-81.\u00a0\u00a0 (Bob was, young, full of the most wonderful enthusiasm, rode his bike around the neighborhood (according to Sue Cotton), drew a young congregation and the Chapel thrived.)\u00a0 Today he is Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University.\u00a0 I especially remember him for something only related to his ministry here, namely his presence at a performance of Brahm\u2019s German Requiem, given by the Ithaca Community Chorus in 1981.\u00a0 He stood quietly in the back of the concert hall, and wept when he heard these words:\u00a0 \u201cBehold, all flesh is as the grass, and all the goodliness of man is as the flower of grass.\u00a0 For lo, the grass withers, and the flower decays.\u00a0 Now therefore, be patient O my brethren unto the coming, the coming of the Lord.\u00a0 See how the husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience, till he receive the early rain and the later rain.\u00a0 So be YE patient also.\u201d\u00a0 (Elizabeth Mount)<\/i><\/p>\n

Last night, here in Marsh Chapel, as the choir and collegium finished THEODORA with magnificent and mellifluous duets, with orchestral and choral flourishes, I thought again of that different memory, that different perspective in memory. \u00a0\u00a0Just what are we doing here? \u00a0It may be, Marsh Chapel, that your presence, your standing presence, your presence in weeping and rejoicing, your musical and beautiful presence, here, in Easter Remembrance at least, is what matters, lasts, counts, and has meaning.<\/p>\n

Easter invades our past, or our sense of the past, or our partial understanding of the past.<\/p>\n

Coda<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

What is Easter and its mysterious power doing in your life this year? \u00a0Does this Easter tide bring a rearrangement in remembrance for you? \u00a0A willingness to let the Good Shepherd help you to let something go? \u00a0A recognition of a dimension in memory partly neglected? \u00a0An honesty about trauma but also about grace? \u00a0Has God\u2019s future in the Easter gospel somehow invaded your past, and offered another reading, another angle of vision, another perspective? \u00a0A saving one?<\/p>\n

It would not be the first time. \u00a0At Easter, Peter remembered his cowardice, but remembered it with courage, on which the church then was built. \u00a0Paul remembered his falsehood, but did so with a confidence in grace, on which the church was then built. \u00a0Mary remembered her blindness in the garden, but did so with a keen sight, on which a vision of a different kind of church then was built. \u00a0And you? And you and your remembrance? \u00a0And you like old Citizen Kane clutching his snow sled Rosebud? \u00a0Are you ready, right now, just now, in this here and now, to bask in the light of an Easter Remembrance? \u00a0Bask gently. \u00a0Emily Dickinson wrote:<\/p>\n

By a departing light<\/i><\/p>\n

We see acuter quite,<\/i><\/p>\n

Than by a wick that stays.<\/i><\/p>\n

There\u2019s something in the flight<\/i><\/p>\n

That clarifies the sight<\/i><\/p>\n

And decks the rays\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —<\/i><\/p>\n

Success in Circuit lies<\/i><\/p>\n

Too bright for our infirm Delight<\/i><\/p>\n

The Truth’s superb surprise<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

As Lightning to the Children eased<\/i><\/p>\n

With explanation kind<\/i><\/p>\n

The Truth must dazzle gradually<\/i><\/p>\n

Or every man be blind \u2013<\/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 John 10:11-18 Click here to listen to the sermon only Frontispiece What if the power of Easter, the point of Easter is more about our past than about our future? What if Easter, and the gospel of resurrection, means more to us about our remembrance than about […]<\/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\/1115"}],"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=1115"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2366,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115\/revisions\/2366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}