{"id":1296,"date":"2016-01-24T11:00:44","date_gmt":"2016-01-24T16:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=1296"},"modified":"2019-10-08T11:30:45","modified_gmt":"2019-10-08T15:30:45","slug":"the-architecture-of-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2016\/01\/24\/the-architecture-of-prayer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Architecture of Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Luke 4:14-21<\/a><\/p>\n

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

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

To illumine the imagination by the beauty of God. \u00a0To quicken the conscience by the holiness of God. \u00a0To warm the heart by the love of God. \u00a0To devote the will to the purposes of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

An architecture of prayer. \u00a0A house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. \u00a0The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let us pause for moment along the trail. \u00a0Our journey of faith, cradle to grave, carries us along, headlong, day by day. \u00a0In this year, this school year, this calendar year, this liturgical year, this particular year, we have attended together to prayer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now we have had other fish to fry, to be sure. \u00a0Various thematic Sundays in the fall, from Matriculation to Thanksgiving. \u00a0The seasons of Advent, and Christmas, and the New Year, and the legacy of Martin Luther King, as well. \u00a0We have our struggles\u2014with health, with direction, with trauma, with worry, with change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet our common mind, our shared intention, here, has this year been to deepen, to broaden, to strengthen, our life in prayer. \u00a0\u00a0Prayer makes the mind still before God. \u00a0Prayer is certain sitting silent before God. \u00a0Prayer is the strain to think God\u2019s thoughts after God. \u00a0Prayer is the hurt of loneliness become the joy of solitude. <\/span><\/p>\n

Prayer puts eternity into time by the memory, which like a lasso casts its circle around a day past. (Not to go all Marcel Proust on you!) When we can truly evoke a day past, today, when we can see and hear a day from the dead past in the experience of this hour, then time has given way, and we are raised from the dead. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>That is the glory of an education. \u00a0With it you are freed from the present. \u00a0You are transported out of this time, and into another. \u00a0January is a good month, but not a great one. \u00a02016 is a good year, but not a great one. \u00a0The 21<\/span>st<\/span> century is a good century, but not a great one (at least not yet). \u00a0\u00a0So, we want of course to learn all we can about context and contexts, about integration and synthesis, about analysis and critique of our time\u20145%. \u00a0The rest is an escape from today, a liberation from the now, into the eternal now. \u00a0For those in theology it is biblical, historical, philosophical, pastoral study, and the chance to see the desert stars with Amoun of Nitria, to walk the North African sands with Augustine, whose Latin was great and whose Greek was not, to immerse yourself in love with Bernard, in grace with Luther, in vital piety with Wesley, in short, not to be stuck at in January 2016. \u00a0Behold: \u00a0you may skate on the pond of eternity if you truly leave the present and enter the past.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you pray? \u00a0How do you pray? \u00a0How shall we pray? \u00a0Do you know the Lord\u2019s Prayer, the 23<\/span>rd<\/span> Psalm, the Apostles\u2019 Creed, the 10 commandments, the beatitudes? (A mind is a terrible thing to waste). What is the architecture of your house of prayer?<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Step first with me into an open dazzling spacious room, glass before and above, light all light filling the parlor. \u00a0Such a room is like a beach, like the sand and surf and open big blue of the shoreline. \u00a0Pause. \u00a0Light streaming in from the higher windows. \u00a0Light, sunlight or light with shadow, entering the parlor from the lawn and from the street. \u00a0Light, moonlight, starlight, light at night joining with candles and lamps. \u00a0The Scottish call the moon \u2018the lamp of the poor\u2019. <\/span><\/p>\n

In God\u2019s light we see light. \u00a0Light opens life, and prayer initially turns to the light, like the weary soul turns east when the dawn has come. \u00a0\u00a0Prayer illumines the imagination.<\/span><\/p>\n

Luke loves to open Jesus\u2019 story. \u00a0At every turn Luke adds. \u00a0His main addition is half his gospel, from Luke 9 to Luke 18. \u00a0But that does not surprise us because he does so all along the way. \u00a0He follows Mark, but paints in extra accounts. \u00a0Today, where Mark simply has Jesus show up in synagogue, teach, and be rejected, Luke has added a sermon of sorts, a mixed quotation from Isaiah 61. \u00a0He hears Jesus this way. \u00a0Luke hears Jesus announcing deliverance from human hurt, and especially deliverance for the poor. \u00a0\u00a0He adds to the gospel as he writes his gospel.<\/span><\/p>\n

He praises, adores, loves, enjoys, celebrates the divine light splashing upon human life! \u00a0\u00a0This is the first room in the great architectural design of prayer. \u00a0\u2018When I consider the work of thine hands\u2026\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>You may be neither fully a theist nor technically an atheist, neither fully an existentialist nor technically a naturalist. Neither naturalist nor supernaturalist, though if you allow one definition, \u2018supranaturalist\u2019 might work. \u00a0Repeated citations of Chesterton, Sockman, and Hammarskjold, regarding wonder will have to suffice. \u00a0You may think we can say less than most of the theists say, and more than what most of the atheists say. \u00a0You may think atheists know too much and the theists too little. \u00a0You may think the atheists say too much and the theists say too little. \u00a0You may recall JB Phillips\u2019 little book, <\/span>Your God is too Small; <\/span><\/i>or maybe on the contrary it is Wordsworth who touches you, \u2018to see eternity in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower\u2019 \u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>We are not really in a position to say what God can or cannot be, nor what God can or cannot do. \u00a0We are surrounded, shadowed, embraced, and faced by mystery. \u00a0Great, deep, fathomless mystery. \u00a0\u00a0We know neither less nor more of God, in one sense, than did the psalmist, or Paul, or Nehemiah or St. Luke.<\/span><\/p>\n

Illuminating prayer begins with hymnic praise, hence the gift of Methodism, the singing Methodist. \u00a0<\/span>The heavens are telling the glory of God\u2026<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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

Now walk with me into another room, this one small and austere. \u00a0It might be a library in a large home. \u00a0It is quiet more than the books, here, that apprehends us. \u00a0A lamp, a chair, a painting. \u00a0Yet the books, large and small, ancient and modern, Bible and Shakespeare, stand before us to embed our prayer in the range and wealth of human experience. \u00a0Of human suffering. \u00a0Our lot is more to suffer than to settle, more to suffer through things than to settle things.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Here we can make a list of mistakes, ancient and modern, personal and collective, and learn from them.<\/span><\/p>\n

But are we ever fully free, heart and spirit, to see and be and be awed by the sunrise, to at and be entranced by the night sky, to love and be in love with the beloved, to swim in the fresh water of freedom, grace and love? \u00a0Do we live to work or work to live?<\/span><\/p>\n

The world does not revolve around your inbox. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What if meaning is not in connectivity but in dis-connectivity, being truly plugged in is going unplugged, real surfing is really surfing, with ten toes not fingers, and faithful wisdom inspires a courage to \u2018tune out, turn off, drop in\u2019?<\/span><\/p>\n

With a little quiet, we too as a people can recall the language of compunction, the grammar of contrition, the syntax of lament, the alphabet of confession. \u00a0Our current grotesquerie of rhetoric in the public, political sphere, was not born last night. \u00a0Such unspeakable speech comes up out of a long, pained, tragic history. \u00a0It comes from somewhere. Listen for its march. \u00a0As our friend Ed McClure asks, is our rhetoric that of confrontation or conciliation?<\/span><\/p>\n

In the library, lamp lit, psalter open, quiet around, we might get better acquainted. \u00a0With ourselves. \u00a0In the new, lovely movie, CAROL, the protagonist declares (in a library), \u2018I am no good to anyone if I cut against my own grain\u2019. \u00a0We will add the footnote to Dean Thurman.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

<\/span>Here is a third step forward, yet another room, but this one with a hearth. \u00a0Neither parlor nor library, here is a den, and fire behind a grate. \u00a0The embers lift off of the logs. \u00a0The wood crackles. \u00a0The ancient experience of firelight warms us. \u00a0As it did for you on first camping trip, or your first winter hike. \u00a0Sit for a moment in the January cold and thaw out. \u00a0Dry your mukalucks, tuc and gloves. \u00a0Here is a grate. \u00a0Here is a fire. \u00a0Here is a chimney drawing well. \u00a0Prayer brings us back before love. \u00a0What do you love? \u00a0Whom do you love? \u00a0How do love? \u00a0You tell me how you love and I will tell you who you are.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hear the Gospel. \u00a0St. Luke does not here commend to us an agenda, some work, a proper policy and procedure. \u00a0\u00a0He announces, before the fireplace. \u00a0He announces what God has done. \u00a0The prophetic is a part of the Gospel but not the heart of the Gospel. \u00a0The Gospel is God in Christ, reconciling the world to God-self. \u00a0Paul says the same in 1 Corinthians. \u00a0He does not admonish or direct. \u00a0He does not say, \u2018become a body, become the body\u2019. \u00a0He does not write a book of discipline. \u00a0He announces. \u00a0You are the body. \u00a0This is given to you. \u00a0Like an architecture of prayer\u2014parlor, library, den, kitchen\u2014you are the recipients of grace.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Warmth, warmth, warmth, we are dying of cold, not of darkness. \u00a0It is not the night that kills, but the frost\u2019 (Unamuno). \u00a0\u00a0It is not the night of ignorance that kills as much as the frost of hatred. \u00a0It is not the night of unknowing that kills as much as the frost of unfeeling.<\/span><\/p>\n

We send warmth to our listeners in Washington DC, in northern Virginia (including my attorney brother John) and in New York City, this morning. \u00a0We have been there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last Monday our MLK speaker was the US poet laureate Juan Herrera, who came to Boston from sunny California. \u00a0His presence warmed us. \u00a0His voice warmed us. \u00a0His humor warmed us. \u00a0\u00a0He helped us get up again to face hard things with hope. \u00a0You are here out of love, to face hard things with hope. \u00a0He remembered elementary school in San Diego. \u00a0He spoke almost no English. \u00a0In the third grade his teacher was Mrs. Sampson. \u00a0She taught him, but more, she cared about him. \u00a0She could see that he would survive the night on his own, but not the frost. \u00a0One day, he remembered vividly, in the third grade Mrs. Sampson looked at him. \u00a0Mrs. Sampson called to him, in the back row. \u00a0She said, \u2018John, you have beautiful voice. \u00a0John, you have a beautiful voice. \u00a0Come up here to the front of the room. \u00a0Come up here to the front of the room. \u00a0Sing for us. \u00a0Sing \u2018three blind mice\u2019. \u00a0Sing for us. \u00a0You have a beautiful voice. \u00a0You have a beautiful voice. \u201c<\/span>I write while I\u2019m walking, on little scraps of paper,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I have a melody going, I can feel it for days.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A melody like Rilke\u2019s:<\/span><\/p>\n

Flare up like flame<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

and make big shadows I can move in.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

-Rainer Maria Rilke<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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

We end in the kitchen. \u00a0Why does everybody always end up in the kitchen? \u00a0You can spread your guests and pastries through all the house, and into every room, but all gather, in the end, in the kitchen. \u00a0A place of labor, of production, of distribution, of nurture, or community, of shared affection, the place for the community of faith working through love. \u00a0Water splashing, knives cutting, plates filled and unfilled. \u00a0\u00a0My grandfather stationed himself at the sink, following dinner, to wash while others dried and stored the dishes. \u00a0How vibrant that after dinner conversation, now many decades gone!<\/span><\/p>\n

No meal is perfect. \u00a0In the kitchen we gather for devotion to shared divine tasks. \u00a0To feed the hungry. \u00a0To clothe the naked. \u00a0To visit the sick. \u00a0To release the prisoner. \u00a0We make our mistakes here and we acknowledge our regrets here and we move forward together here. \u00a0To devote the will to the purposes of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of our doing may involve reshaping our work life. One accomplished journalist, Janet Malcolm, recently (6\/7\/13) expressed <\/span>regret<\/span><\/i> about her chosen profession: \u2018I learned over time that journalism is morally indefensible\u2026it is a moral anarchy that willfully places a text\u2019s necessities over and above a person\u2019s feelings\u2019. \u00a0She came \u00a0to the ability to face the hard and hardened truth of her occupation, from one perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes it takes calamity, micro or macro, to teach us devotion and purpose. \u00a0As Proust wrote, <\/span>Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed: \u00a0to kindness, to knowledge we make promises only; <\/span><\/i>pain we obey<\/span><\/i> (II, 104). \u00a0Thomas Hardy: \u2018a certain provincialism of feeling is invaluable\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

We are committed here, speaking of devotion and purpose, to the shaping of a community that honors, or tries to, the freedom and soul and personhood of young adult women and men, but also the \u00a0privacy and safety and security of emerging young adult women and men. \u00a0Our work with women, with communities of sexual minorities, with survivors of predatory behavior on campus, with themes, now either neglected or denigrated, of honor of morality of virtue of sensibility of respect, continues today. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the kitchen, prayer helps the work continue.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Prayer illumines the imagination by the beauty of God. \u00a0In the parlor.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Prayer quickens the conscience by the holiness of God. \u00a0In the library.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Prayer warms the heart by the love of God. \u00a0In the den.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Prayer devotes the will to the purposes of God. In the kitchen.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Though what I dream and what I do<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In my weak days are always two<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Help me, oppressed by thing undone<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

O Thou whose deeds and dreams are<\/span><\/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 Luke 4:14-21 Click here to listen to the sermon only Preface To illumine the imagination by the beauty of God. \u00a0To quicken the conscience by the holiness of God. \u00a0To warm the heart by the love of God. \u00a0To devote the will to the purposes of God. […]<\/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\/1296"}],"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=1296"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1298,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296\/revisions\/1298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}