{"id":1435,"date":"2016-09-11T11:00:37","date_gmt":"2016-09-11T15:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=1435"},"modified":"2019-09-24T14:21:43","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T18:21:43","slug":"a-tenebrous-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2016\/09\/11\/a-tenebrous-edge\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tenebrous Edge"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Luke 15:1-10<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to listen to the meditations\u00a0only<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Faith walks along a tenebrous edge\u2014a dark, shadowed, cliff walk.<\/span><\/p>\n

We all survive the birth canal, and so have a native survivors\u2019 guilt. All seven billion.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

We all need daily two things, bread and a name. (One does not live by bread alone). All seven billion.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

We all grow to a point of separation, a leaving home, a second identity. All seven billion.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

We all love our families, love our children, love our homes, love our grandchildren. All seven billion.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

We all age, and after forty, its maintenance, maintenance, maintenance. All seven billion.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

We all shuffle off this mortal coil en route to that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.\u00a0 All seven billion.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Today, September 11, 2016, in memory and honor, we remember our ancient and future hope, a hope of peace.<\/span> Faith walks along a tenebrous edge\u2014a dark, shadowed, cliff walk.<\/span><\/p>\n

Along our way, this Lord\u2019s day, as we hike in faith along the tenebrous edge of life, we do so in dire need of memories\u2014of Jeremiah, of America, of Luke, of Nine-eleven.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Remember Jeremiah.<\/span><\/p>\n

The prophet Jeremiah excoriated his people, hoping against hope to keep them in faith along a tenebrous edge. For four decades he challenged, criticized, and vilified his beloved country, and its leadership, and its people. \u00a0They heeded him not.<\/span><\/p>\n

The prophet was the victim of the nationalistic hysteria of those who favored revolt, a rejection of their own best selves. \u00a0Untrue to themselves and to their history and to their God, and heedless of Jeremiah\u2019s words, his beloved people subsequently suffered the great distress of 587bce, in which the northern Assyrians conquered them, their city was burned, their temple destroyed, their nation buried, and their population deported to Babylon. \u00a0Judah became a vassal state, a province of Babylon. \u00a0Yet for four decades before this disaster, Jeremiah spoke truth to his wayward people, four decades of unheeded sermons.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Jeremiah lived from about 650 to 580 bce. \u00a0King Josiah in 621, heeded his word in part, but himself was killed in 609. \u00a0And then the defeat in Carcamesh in 605, and then the partial deportation in 598, and then, the end, apocalypse 587bce. \u00a0Along the way Jeremiah counseled diplomacy and even capitulation, to no avail. \u00a0He was condemned to death, but survived, thrown in a cistern, yet prevailed, until his own deportation, and probable death, in Egypt. \u00a0Anatoth, 2 miles from Jerusalem was his <\/span>home;<\/span><\/i> Hosea was his <\/span>model;<\/span><\/i> harlotry the main <\/span>image:<\/span><\/i> \u00a0\u2018Again and again he exhorted his countrymen to obedience and persisted in his call to repentance and change of heart although he came to feel that their moral sense had become so atrophied that repentance was impossible.\u2019 \u00a0He urged the people not to listen to the <\/span>optimistic predictions<\/span><\/i> of the prophets. \u00a0Jeremiah\u2019s opponent, the prophet or pseudo-prophet Hananiah wrongly predicted the defeat of Bablyon, wrongly predicted the return of exiles and wrongly predicted the restoration of the temple treasures. \u00a0Is there any word from the Lord, plaintively King Zedekiah asked Jeremiah? <\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, Jeremiah whispered, there is: \u00a0<\/span>You shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon. <\/span><\/i>(37:17). <\/span><\/p>\n

Jeremiah exclaimed: False prophets deceive people with their optimism. \u00a0The temple has no efficacy in and of itself. \u00a0The true circumcision is not of body, but of mind and heart. \u00a0Even the Bible can lead astray: Even the Torah may become a snare and a delusion through the false pen of the scribes.<\/span><\/p>\n

By the way, notice some of the themes from the sixth century bce: \u00a0Deportation, false optimism, betrayal of heritage, forgetfulness of history, ineffective leadership, personal failings which damage the nation, turning of a deaf ear toward the voice of God.<\/span> “<\/span><\/i>For my people are foolish, they do not know me; they are stupid children, they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but do not know how to do good.”<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Jeremiah, whom we have heard in the background of our worship and preaching for some weeks, speaks to us today, and continues into late October. \u00a0He warns of the tenebrous edge. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

May his memory help us.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Remember America.<\/span><\/p>\n

Culture<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

For us, as part of a national culture now careening toward decay, our memory is failing us. Rhetoric and rancor that befit no civilized people we have somehow accepted, acceded to, accomodated. We forget Emma Lazarus and prefer demagoguery. \u00a0We forget Lincoln and support nativism. \u00a0We forget King and accept narcissism. \u00a0We forget Jesus the crucified and cleave to the cry of triumphalism, out of fear and out of exhaustion and out of amnesia, both a cultural and a Christological amnesia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet on the horizon today we hear and see demagoguery\u2014America First, Birtherist, Misogynist, Racist, Xenophobic, Narcissistic (don\u2019t you love all these Greek rooted words?) bigotry. \u00a0<\/span>I sure did that well. \u2018Low Energy\u2019. \u00a0That was a one day kill. \u00a0Words are beautiful things.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Over time, we get the leadership we deserve.<\/span><\/p>\n

We desire a faith amenable to culture, and a culture amenable to faith. \u00a0For what good is a baptized cleansing if we are simply thrown back into the mire? Personal and social holiness are married to one another. \u00a0Loving faith expects loving culture.<\/span>
\n<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Philosophy<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

Some express surprise, a sense of mistake, regarding the willingness of a grand old party, a party of Lincoln, to nominate a particular candidate. Yet there is no surprise or mistake about the nomination in question. \u00a080% of voters in that party agree with these three propositions: \u00a0Muslims should be banned. \u00a0A wall should be built along the Rio Grande. \u00a0Undocumented immigrants of all ages and stages should rounded up, arrested, jailed, and deported. (New York Review of Books, p 8-10, June, 2016) If you are in conversation with a member of such a party, chances are 4 out of 5 that you are in conversation with these views. \u00a0No surprise. \u00a0No mistake. \u00a0You see? \u00a0The shadow falls on us. \u00a0Shadow. \u00a0Dark. \u00a0Twilight. \u00a0The tenebrous\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Pause, Boston, to remember who and whose you are. \u00a0\u00a0How, why and for what purpose did your forebears arrive here in 1630, and in the years thereafter? \u00a0Why did Jonathan Winthrop drift and write out in the Boston harbor that year? \u00a0To deport immigrants? \u00a0To erase religious freedom? \u00a0To wall off and wall up borders? \u00a0Hardly. \u00a0Their original hope, so often expressed only in the breach in years to come, was the very opposite. \u00a0Not to deport immigrants\u2014they were themselves immigrants, as were your people. \u00a0You Lutherans in Wisconsin and Iowa. \u00a0You French Canadians in New Hampshire and Maine. \u00a0You Irish and Italians in Albany and Buffalo. \u00a0You Scots and English in North Carolina and Florida. \u00a0Not to deport immigrants\u2014they were themselves immigrants, as were your people. \u00a0Not to deny religious liberty, but to find it and live it, in a new land, a New World, where your creed could be yours indeed. \u00a0Not to fortify borders, but to expand them, and expand them they did, so that the original dream would be city set on a hill, a last best hope, like the moon, a lamp of the poor. \u00a0We walk along a precipice, a philosophical cliff, a tenebrous edge. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

May this memory help us.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Remember Luke.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though no one says so, and to my knowledge no one has yet so written, Luke 15 may be the most Gnostic of chapters in the New Testament. \u00a0\u00a0As the Gnostics taught, we are trapped in a far country, a long way from our true home, and moved from light to darkness, from found to lost. \u00a0As the Gnostics taught, we are meant to get home, to get back home, to get back out from under this earthly, existence, and back to higher ground, to heaven, to the heaven beyond heaven, to the land of light, like a sheep or coin being found and returned.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is jarring, I give you that, to admit that this most traditional and most popular and most orthodox of parables may well have grown up outside the barn, outside the fences of mainstream Christianity: \u00a0\u2018I need to get back home. \u00a0Back to the land of light. \u00a0Back to the pleroma. \u00a0Back to the God beyond God. \u00a0Find me!\u2019 \u00a0No \u2018Christ died for our sins\u2019, here. \u00a0No \u2018lamb of God\u2019, here. \u00a0No settled orthodox Christology here. \u00a0No cross, no gory glory, no Gethsemane, no passion of the Christ, here. \u00a0It all comes down to the safety of being found, and included again in the great light of Light. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Gospel challenges us to come out from hiding. \u00a0Our Sheep parable is also found in Matthew 18: 12-4. \u00a0Luke moves the story from an if to a when and from strayed to lost, and from a functional rescue to a joyful recovery\u2014communal rejoicing! <\/span><\/p>\n

Just how far is Luke from Jeremiah? \u00a0Marcion thought so far that the two preached different divinities, and, listening today, you can sense a bit of why that was\u2014one God of anger, wrath, judgement, justice, and fear, one God of love, mercy, embrace, acceptance, and grace; one God of creation, one of redemption; one of the Old and one of the New Testament. \u00a0We have Marcion to thank, by the way, for our Bible. \u00a0He proposed the first one, around 150ad, made up of Luke (like today) and the letters of Paul. \u00a0But the church, rightly, added the Hebrew Scripture, other Gospels and other Letters and other books. \u00a0The church spoke of God as both Creator and Redeemer, and so do we. \u00a0Moreover, if you listen carefully to Luke, you hear of the darkness there too.<\/span><\/p>\n

We race in hearing to the joy of discovery. \u00a0But anyone who has lost or been lost knows otherwise. \u00a0The fright of despair that loss will be permanent. \u00a0The darkness of dismay that what is hunted is not immediately found. \u00a0The terror, the tenebrous terror, at what that loss of sheep or coin, of person or value, will ultimately mean. \u00a0There is more Luke in Jeremiah than you think, and there is more Jeremiah in Luke than you think.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fall of freshman year can include a sense of loss, and of being lost. \u00a0There is more loneliness in college than we usually calculate. \u00a0So the daily processes, now underway right here, Lukan they are in spirit and ethos, are so crucial: \u00a0to find and help others find and be found; over time to connect and be connected. \u00a0Our chaplains Friday offered a table of small pots to paint and flowers to plant, small natural green room decorations, and a gathering for conversation and friendship along the way. \u00a0Luke here and in general reminds us that evangelism ever trumps pastoral care, that outreach ever trumps contemplation, that the minister is present for those who are not yet present. <\/span><\/p>\n

May his memory help us.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nine-eleven<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Along with Jeremiah, America, and Luke we today remember Nine-eleven, as we did so here in 2006 and 2011. \u00a0We print again in your bulletin the names of those Boston University alumni who were lost 15 years ago. \u00a0In a moment <\/span>we pause in prayer and quiet to honor them, with an abiding sense of hope.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rightly to honor those lost and those loved, and fitly to meet this moment, we shall need briefly to look out toward the far side of trouble. \u00a0There is, we hope, a far side to trouble. \u00a0We may watch from the near side, but there is a far side to trouble as well. \u00a0That is our ancient and future hope. \u00a0Dewey spoke of a common faith. \u00a0Thurman preached about a common ground. \u00a0Today we recall a common hope.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the hope of peace. \u00a0We long for the far side of trouble, for a global community of steady interaction, an international fellowship of accommodation, a world together dedicated to softening the inevitable collisions of life. \u00a0This is the hope of peace.<\/span><\/p>\n

Without putting too fine a point upon it, this hope is the hallmark of the pulpit in which we stand, and the place before which we stand. \u00a0If nowhere else, here on this plaza, and here before this nave, we may lift our prayer of hope. \u00a0There is a story here, of peace.<\/span><\/p>\n

Methodists like Daniel Marsh, a wide and diffuse denomination, committed to a handshake and a song, and that shared \u2018creed\u2019 of \u2018<\/span>that which has been believed, always, everywhere, and by everyone<\/span><\/i> (so, John Wesley), have honored a common hope of peace.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mahatmas Gandhi, walking and singing \u2018Lead Kindly Light\u2019, embodied this common hope. \u00a0Ghandi wrote<\/span>: \u00a0\u201cI am part and parcel of the whole, and cannot find God apart from the rest of humanity\u201d<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0A common hope of peace. \u00a0Ghandi inspired and taught the earlier Dean of Marsh Chapel, Howard Thurman.<\/span><\/p>\n

Howard Thurman, hands raised in silence, later wrote: \u00a0<\/span>\u201cThe events of my days strike a full balance of what seems both good and bad. \u00a0Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/i>A common hope of peace. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thurman taught King, whose stentorian voice fills our memory and whose sculpture adorns our village green. \u00a0King wrote: <\/span>\u201cI believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality<\/span><\/i>\u201d. \u00a0A common hope of peace. Martin Luther King inspired generations of ministers, including the current Dean of this Chapel.<\/span><\/p>\n

He (Robert Allan Hill) wrote and said (9\/16\/01, 9\/11\/06, 9\/11\/1, 9\/11\/16):<\/span><\/p>\n

Have faith, people of faith.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Terror may topple the World Trade Center, but no terror can topple the World Truth Center, Jesus the Christ.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The World Trade Center, hub of global economies may fall, the economy of grace still stands in the World Truth Center, Jesus the Christ.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The World Trade Center, communications nexus for many may fall, but the communication of the gospel stands, the World Truth Center, Jesus Christ.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The World Trade Center, legal library for the country may fall, but grace and truth which stand, through the World Truth Center, Jesus the Christ.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The \u00a0World Trade Center, symbol of national pride may fall, but divine humility stands, through the World Truth Center, Jesus the Christ.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The World Trade Center, material bulwark against loss may fall, but the possibility in your life of developing a spiritual discipline against resentment (Niehbuhr) still stands, through the World Truth Center, Jesus the Christ.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

– The Reverend Doctor, Robert Allan Hill, Dean.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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