{"id":1124,"date":"2015-05-03T11:00:59","date_gmt":"2015-05-03T15:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=1124"},"modified":"2019-10-22T12:00:15","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T16:00:15","slug":"the-marsh-spirit-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2015\/05\/03\/the-marsh-spirit-8\/","title":{"rendered":"The Marsh Spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

John 15:1-8<\/a><\/p>\n

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

The Marsh Spirit\u2026<\/p>\n

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

We are a learning community, a teaching and learning community of faith. \u00a0\u00a0As branches to a vine, we attach ourselves to Way, Truth and Life, Learning, Virtue, Piety, Knowing, Doing, Being. \u00a0Notice the great teachers held with permanence in our Connick stained glass windows. \u00a0Select your favorite: \u00a0Comenius, Alexander Graham Bell, Osmon Baker, Borden Parker Bowne. \u00a0Perhaps best Augustine<\/i> of Hippo, whose heart was restless until it found rest in Him. \u00a0\u00a0Theological Inquiry asks about God, the nature of God, the essence of God. \u00a0\u00a0Our services this year, in pursuit of spirit, have utilized a prayer response, in that spirit, written by Robert Cummings Neville. \u00a0We feted this week Ray Lee Hart, and his teaching and his scholarship. \u00a0We heard again Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty. \u00a0<\/i>Learn something every day, at whatever age! \u00a0Read a book a day! \u00a0Yours is a spirit of inquiry.<\/p>\n

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

We are a singing community, those who sing to pray twice, qui cantat bis orat. \u00a0<\/i>As branches to a vine, we attach ourselves to Way, Truth and Life, Melody, Harmony, and Diction. \u00a0Notice the musicians about you. \u00a0Carved into the chancel wood. \u00a0And about me. \u00a0Here is Handel. \u00a0Here is Bach<\/i>. \u00a0And last weekend we heard Handel. \u00a0And two weeks before, Bach. \u00a0And in between? \u00a0Gospel! \u00a0Our ISGC sang, filled the room, mid April. \u00a0I have in my possession photographs of the dinner our church matriarchs\u2014Sandra, Cecelia, Carolyn, Melvena\u2014served the choir before their performance. \u00a0Not just pulpit, nor just sermon, not just preaching, nor just proclamation: \u00a0yours is a musical spirit, a spirit of hymnody. \u00a0Sing when the spirit says sing! Sing lustily! \u00a0Sing with the saints of glory! \u00a0Yours is a spirit of hymnody.<\/p>\n

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

We are a remembering community, a place with history, a future but also a past. \u00a0As branches to vine, we attach ourselves to Way, Truth, and Life, and Justice, Righteousness, and the better angels of our nature. \u00a0\u00a0Stands down there, as I walk toward him, Abraham Lincoln.<\/i> \u00a0Those who recommend slavery might try it for themselves. \u00a0Those who ignore brutality might think, try to imagine, being bound hand and foot, and thrown headlong into the back of a closed van and driven not to three but four separate places, and to arrive, at last, dead. \u00a0We began this school year with a forum on Ferguson, right here. \u00a0Autumn sermons and winter addressed the need \u2018to strive on to finish the work we are in\u2019. \u00a0We read Jesus and the Disinherited. \u00a0<\/i>Our summer preacher series acclaims The Beloved Community. \u00a0<\/i>We learned about business ethics from our esteemed Questrom Dean. \u00a0Many of you have commented on the blog about Ferguson, slavery, response, and the need for investment in community, particularly worshipping community, as we slog on toward freedom. \u00a0Cornell Brooks, head of the NAACP spoke here in Marsh Chapel in November. \u00a0He will speak for us again two weeks from today, Baccalaureate Sunday, right here in Marsh Chapel. \u00a0Where else would or could possibly place yourself, social location being so important, at 11am on May 17? \u00a0You will want to be here, right here! \u00a0Many things are optional. \u00a0Not worship. \u00a0Worship is not optional for the person of faith. \u00a0Come Sunday, Come! \u00a0Here. \u00a0Yours is a spirit of recollection.<\/p>\n

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

We are a longsuffering, a patient community. \u00a0As branches to vine we attach ourselves to Way, Truth, and Life, Creativity, Organization, Expanding the circle of freedom. \u00a0Daniel Marsh<\/i> has his own window in his own chapel. \u00a0And well he might. \u00a0It took him a generation to get to build the building his most wanted, this one. \u00a0He came in 1926. \u00a0Marsh was built in 1949\u2014after arrival, after depression, after World War. \u00a0At last. \u00a0Labor Omnia Vincit.<\/i> \u00a0Think about that, working for 25 years at last to get where you want to go. \u00a0Academic communities do tend to have lengthened cycle times, it is true. \u00a0But all of us benefit from patience. \u00a0You come for prayer before worship, and patiently sit. \u00a0You pause for postlude after worship, and patiently sit. \u00a0Friday, honoring the Hubert Humphrey scholars, we heard Humphrey\u2019s niece speak, in \u2018the Castle\u2019, about his patience. \u00a0Hubert Humphrey. \u00a0His voice is one we need today. \u00a0\u2018There will be no hedging. \u00a0We need come out of the long dark shadow of states\u2019 rights and into the bright shining sunlight of human rights\u2019. \u00a0That is Philadelphia, 1948. \u00a0Could someone whisper that to the nine justices in Washington today? \u00a0It is every bit as apt. \u00a0\u2018People have a right to health, education, employment, protection, and a peaceful old age.\u2019 \u00a0Humphrey worked on Medicare for 20 years before its adoption in the mid sixties. \u00a0Yes, he could excoriate his opponents: \u00a0\u2018uh uh, o no, go slow, veto\u2014that is the way of our opponents\u2019, he could rant. \u00a0But he also had patience. \u00a0To build coalitions. \u00a0To create alternative structures. \u00a0To legislate. \u00a0He worked at it. \u00a0No surprise. \u00a0He was a Minnesota Methodist, grandson of Methodist preachers. \u00a0And he lives on this campus, in the program given his name. \u00a0I mean he really lives in these scholars from all over the globe! \u00a0Yours is a spirit of patience.<\/p>\n

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

We are a living community, tracing the spirit of life, in this and every new dawn. \u00a0Even when weary feet refuse to climb. \u00a0As branches to vine, we cling to life, the spirit of life, Way, Truth and Life, Children, Students, All. \u00a0It is the life of Jesus Christ, the Living One, which is our true vine, and we the branches. \u00a0James Bashford<\/i>\u2014bishop, college president, preacher, watches us from his balcony window every Sunday. \u00a0I have stood beside his in Oak Grove Cemetery, Delaware, Ohio. \u00a0A kind man. \u00a0Our commencement speaker will be Meredith Vieira. \u00a0You know of her roots in Rhode Island. \u00a0You know of her honest, happy form of journalism. \u00a0You know her face and voice. \u00a0Her celebrity. \u00a0But we think of her differently, in our family. \u00a0She is a close friend of a close friend. \u00a0Our step father, who adored her, and who has been ill, until his recent death, received, unexpectedly, a signed photograph from her, a lengthy note, a personal greeting, which stands still above his desk. \u00a0Ministry is service. \u00a0Ministry is to place oneself at the disposal of others. \u00a0Ministry is to give life by giving life, beginning with time and kindness. \u00a0Don\u2019t you have a phone call you might make? \u00a0Don\u2019t you have a letter you might send? \u00a0Don\u2019t you have a visit you might offer? \u00a0Don\u2019t you have a check you might write? \u00a0Yours is a spirit of life.<\/p>\n

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

We are a secular community, tracing the sacred in and within the secular. \u00a0As branches to vine we affirm that nothing human is foreign to us, and hold onto Way, Truth, Life, Community, Fellowship, Culture. \u00a0Notice The Star of David. \u00a0<\/i>In his spirit, stretch your legs and walk Commonwealth Avenue, wonder and wander through the commonwealth of the Gospel. \u00a0\u00a0The Marsh Spirit awaits a faith amenable to culture and a culture amenable to faith. \u00a0Yours is a cosmopolitan spirit, one that envisions Christ transforming culture\u2014not just Christ against Christ above or Christ in or Christ across culture. \u00a0Christ who brings not just theological reformation but also cultural revolution. \u00a0Christ the Extraordinary incarnate in the ordinary. There is a particular spirit of this place and community. You honor both the lectionary of the church and the lectionary of the culture. \u00a0You know that there are many ways of keeping faith, as our THIS I BELIEVE Sunday again this year will emphasize. \u00a0Our Hillel community at BU is in a season of resurgence, in part through a reconnection to the community, the society, the culture of Boston and Boston University, through its Director, David Raphael. \u00a0Yours is a spirit of secularity.<\/p>\n

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

We are a rigorous community, unwilling to let the pale cast of thought completely overcome the native hue of resolution. \u00a0As branches to vine, we cling to Way, Truth and Life, Courage, Change, Heart. \u00a0One of my favorite windows is that of the four chaplains,<\/i> Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, who gave their life jackets and their lives that others might survive a naval tragedy in WW II. \u00a0Their tradition in chaplaincy, and in self-giving, was continued here a generation later by James Carroll. \u00a0You know him as a writer\u2014Boston Globe columnist, esteemed novelist, historian and cultural critic. \u00a0But as he told us this week, he really came alive here at BU, and found his way here. \u00a0He left the priesthood, but not the church. \u00a0He married and raised children and grandchildren, but also stayed wedded to his faith. \u00a0\u00a0He directly and valiantly opposes religious wrong, but also rejoices in religious right (though not THE religious right!). \u00a0He was our Catholic Chaplain here for six years, through 1974. \u00a0With Robert Hamill, third Marsh Chapel Dean, he brought the weekly Catholic Mass from Morse Auditorium to this nave, where it lives still today. \u00a0Couples, one Protestant and one Catholic, can come to Marsh Chapel for 11am Protestant worship and 12:30pm Catholic Mass, and be home by 2pm. \u00a0\u00a0Your remember his elegant pastoral sermon here, for the class of 1970, in 2010. \u00a0With rigor he has followed in the footsteps of the Master. \u00a0And, as he reminded us, God is Compassionate Love. \u00a0\u00a0You can believe in God as Compassionate Love! \u00a0You can worship at that altar. \u00a0And you do. \u00a0Yours is a spirit of rigor.<\/p>\n

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.<\/i><\/p>\n

Morning Prayer<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/i><\/b>15 prayers for the class of \u201815\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

May you finish your papers, wake up for your finals, and pass your courses<\/i><\/p>\n

May you find a job when you are hunting for one, and be found by a calling when you are not (hunting for one)<\/i><\/p>\n

May you remember your mom on Mothers\u2019 Day, nine days from today<\/i><\/p>\n

May you recall that there are two ways to be wealthy: \u00a0have a lot of money, or, have \u00a0very few needs.<\/i><\/p>\n

May you honestly face death, as together we did two springs ago, and so discover the precious value of every breath, as together we also did two springs ago.<\/i><\/p>\n

May you, with the Greeks, see in tragedy the seedbed of nobility.<\/i><\/p>\n

May you bring a sense of purpose to days and events which lack both (sense and purpose).<\/i><\/p>\n

May your return your overdue library books. \u00a0May you find your overdue library books.<\/i><\/p>\n

May you with Samuel Johnson keep your friendships in good repair, with John Wesley and Mother Theresa remember the poor, with Lord Baden Powell do a good turn daily, and with Bill Coffin take yourself lightly so that you may fly, like the angels, and with Martin Luther King have a dream<\/i><\/p>\n

May you as a generation live a common hope, \u00a0find the wisdom to design a better world, acquire the power to build a better world, and have the goodness to want a better world.<\/i><\/p>\n

May you have a life long, rapturous, torrid love affair\u2014with Boston, dear old Boston, the home of the bean and the cod, and bring your first born child to Fenway Park, and remember the radiant happiness of this Senior Breakfast all your days.<\/i><\/p>\n

May life be good to you, and may you be good to life.<\/i><\/p>\n

My dear ones, my dear friends, who so resemble my own dear children, may you be safe, may you be well, may you be happy.<\/i><\/p>\n

May it be so.<\/i><\/strong><\/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 15:1-8 Click here to listen to the sermon only The Marsh Spirit\u2026 Inquiry We are a learning community, a teaching and learning community of faith. \u00a0\u00a0As branches to a vine, we attach ourselves to Way, Truth and Life, Learning, Virtue, Piety, Knowing, Doing, Being. \u00a0Notice the […]<\/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\/1124"}],"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=1124"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1126,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124\/revisions\/1126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}