{"id":1513,"date":"2017-01-29T11:00:05","date_gmt":"2017-01-29T15:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=1513"},"modified":"2019-09-24T14:18:45","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T18:18:45","slug":"for-the-time-being","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2017\/01\/29\/for-the-time-being\/","title":{"rendered":"For The Time Being"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to\u00a0the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

Matthew\u00a05:1-12<\/a><\/p>\n

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

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

He is the Way<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Follow Him through the land of unlikeness<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

You will see rare beasts and have unique adventures<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

He is the Truth<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Seek Him in the kingdom of anxiety<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

He is Life<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Love him in the world of the flesh<\/em><\/p>\n

And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For the Time Being<\/b><\/p>\n

For now. \u00a0For the time being. \u00a0Whether or not ethics are situational, they are certainly epochal. \u00a0Each time, each season brings another climate for decision, for life.<\/span><\/p>\n

New occasions teach new duties<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Time makes ancient good uncouth<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

One must upward still and onward<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Who would keep abreast of truth<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

A woman in pregnancy knows for sure the arrival of another epoch\u2014for the time being. \u00a0\u00a0A student in the struggle winter of freshman year, when novelty has given way to normalcy, and autumn to snow, knows for sure the arrival of another epoch\u2014for the time being. \u00a0A nation which has swung by political pendulum from liberal left to hard right, on the basis of 77,000 votes along the country roads of three states, knows for sure the arrival of another epoch\u2014for the time being. \u00a0A man in Shakespeare\u2019s seventh stage, or nearing it, sans sight sans hearing sans agility sans memory sans sleep sans energy, knows for sure the arrival of another epoch\u2014for the time being. \u00a0\u00a0Our conditions condition our decisions, epoch by epoch\u2014for the time being. <\/span><\/p>\n

For the time being, we shall want daily to recall Emma Lazarus and Martin Neimoller, to remember who and whose we are, in promise and in warning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lazarus: \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGive me your tired, your poor,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tossed to me,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I lift my lamp beside the golden door<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Neimoller:<\/span><\/p>\n

First they came for the (Communists, Socialists, Trade Unionists, Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, Jews ) and I did not speak out because I was not a (Communist, Socialist, Trade Unionist, Jehovah\u2019s Witness, Jew )<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Then at last they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

We have left St. Luke, now, to follow the trail of Jesus\u2019 life, death and destiny, this year, in the Gospel of Matthew.\u00a0\u00a0 Matthew relies on Mark, and then also on a teaching document called Q, along with Matthew\u2019s own particular material, of which our reading today is an example.\u00a0 He has divided his Gospel into five sequential parts, a careful pedagogical rendering, befitting his traditional role as teacher, in contrast to Luke \u2018the physician\u2019, whose interest was history.\u00a0\u00a0 We have moved from history to religion, from narrative to doctrine.\u00a0 Matthew is <\/span>ordering the meaning of the history of the Gospel, while Luke is ordering the history of the meaning of the Gospel.\u00a0<\/span><\/i> You have moved from the History Department to the Religion Department.\u00a0 Matthew has his own perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every word is meant for a particular time, but not for all time. \u00a0For all time, and for our time, we have the staggering responsibility to fit the teaching to a new era, another epoch. \u00a0Whether or not ethics is situational, it is certainly epochal. \u00a0Our response and resistance to a megalomaniacal regime can be guided by but not directed by these precious verses of Holy Scripture. \u00a0Their application is, to use a marvelous American idiom, \u2018up to you\u2019. \u00a0\u00a0And this will be difficult. \u00a0Policies we can adjust. \u00a0Fear mongering we must resist.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018A literary work or a fragment of tradition is a primary source for the historical situation out of which it arose, and is only a secondary source for the historical details for which it gives information\u2019 <\/span><\/i>(45). \u00a0(Wellhausen.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of that perspective involves a developing and developed Christology, an understanding of Christ.\u00a0 Matthew is apparently fighting on two fronts, both against the fundamental conservatives to the right, and against the spiritual radicals to the left.\u00a0 In Matthew, Gospel continues to trump tradition, as in Paul, but tradition itself is a bulwark to defend the Gospel, as in Timothy.\u00a0 Matthew is trying to guide his part of the early church, between the Scylla of the tightly tethered and the Charibdis of the tether-less. Our forebears taught us so.\u00a0 That is, with Matthew, they wanted to order the meaning of the history of the gospel.\u00a0 They aspired to do so by opposition to indecency and indifference.\u00a0 They attempted to do so by attention both to conscience and to compassion.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example: \u00a0we enter now a reading and rendering of the Sermon on the Mount, perhaps the most beloved and best remembered of Jesus\u2019 teachings. \u00a0\u00a0At the outset, we face a raging river to cross. \u00a0For when were these teachings meant? \u00a0For all time, for Jesus\u2019 time, for Matthew\u2019s time, for our time\u2014for the time being?<\/span><\/p>\n

It Means What it Does<\/b><\/p>\n

In July of 1976, a small congregation gathered just up the hill from New Hope Mills, a pancake flour maker, an old grist mill. \u00a0That Methodist church had endured the fumblings of an untrained, unordained minister all summer. \u00a0One Sunday he mistakenly, errantly left his sermon, titled, \u2018Forgiveness\u2019, across the road in the parsonage. \u00a0Mumbling something about forgiving and forgetting, he left the pulpit and hustled across the road to retrieve the homily, as the choir, four in number, soprano in voice, sang several favorite verses of <\/span>In the Garden, <\/span><\/i>in any case a weekly occurrence. A cow mooed in the field beside the church. \u00a0Later that week, he stopped to see the young family of the volunteer Fire Chief in New Hope. \u00a0It happened that short comment, innocuous, had been made about fire protection, in the sermon. \u00a0To what remarkable end that illustration may have been sent out, we know not, remember not. \u00a0Said the wife, \u201cJohn and I heard your sermon very clearly on Sunday, and, taking it to heart, have decided that he will quit his role as chief and resign from the department\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0The sermon, sadly, meant nothing of the kind, in the preacher\u2019s intention, in his heart of hearts, in his preacherly imagination. \u00a0But the sermon means what it does, not what its intention meant. \u00a0The preacher is responsible, not for what he says, but for what he is heard to say. \u00a0What it means is not what it meant but it what it does. We clarified in conversation, what was misspoken in homily: \u00a0a note to the wise about the critical importance of visitation, and the critical homiletical need to avoid misunderstanding if at all possible. \u00a0The sermon\u2019s meaning is not in the purified intentions of the preacher, but in what it means\u2014what it does\u2014in life. \u00a0Are children thereby baptized? \u00a0Do any learn to tithe? \u00a0Do newcomers receive welcome into worship? \u00a0Is God glorified? \u00a0Have you fruit? \u00a0<\/span>But Mr. Wesley, I meant well<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0But did you do well?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018What it means is what it does\u2019—act, word, speech, deed, all. \u00a0This year has provided an expensive way for 340 million people to learn a first lesson in biblical hermeneutics and theological interpretation. \u00a0\u00a0You voted. \u00a0You may have meant one thing. \u00a0The meaning of your word or deed is something else. \u00a0The road to hell is paved with\u2014good intentions. \u00a0We don\u2019t need to recount as much as we need to recant. \u00a0Jeremiah, it appears was right: \u00a0you only learn humility on the far side of humiliation.<\/span><\/p>\n

And now, for the time being, we will simply have to live it through. \u00a0Not all order is godly, especially when purchased with the counterfeit currency of oppression and injustice. \u00a0But a quiet and peaceable life itself requires order, and when we have such, we are right to give thanks. \u00a0\u00a0Especially in the later New Testament writings there is preserved for us a mature recognition of the value in things done \u2018decently and in order\u2019. \u00a0The body. \u00a0Birds of the air. Lilies of the field. \u00a0Reminders of what Marilyn Robinson might call \u2018the givenness of things\u2019. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A Common Longing<\/b><\/p>\n

We offer a common prayer, a prayer that our warming globe, caught in climate change, will be cooled by cooler heads and calmer hearts and careful minds.<\/span><\/p>\n

We offer a common prayer, a prayer that our dangerous world, armed to the teeth with nuclear proliferation, will find peace through deft leadership toward nuclear d\u00e9tente.<\/span><\/p>\n

We offer a common prayer, a prayer that our culture, awash in part in hooliganism, will find again the language and the song and the spirit of the better angels of our nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

We offer a common prayer, a prayer that our country, fractured by massive inequality between rich children and poor children, will rise up and make education, free education, available to all children, poor and rich.<\/span><\/p>\n

We offer a common prayer, a prayer that our nation, fractured by flagrant unjust inequality between rich and poor children, will stand up and make health care, free health care, available to all children, poor and rich.<\/span><\/p>\n

We offer a common prayer, a prayer that our schools, colleges and universities, will balance a love of learning with a sense of meaning, a pride in knowledge with a respect for goodness, a drive for discovery with a regard for recovery.<\/span><\/p>\n

We offer a common prayer, a prayer that our families, torn apart by abuse and distrust and anger and jealousy and unkindness, show kindness and pity to one another.<\/p>\n

We offer a common prayer, a prayer that our decisions in life about our callings, how we are to use our time and spend our money, how we make a life not just a living, will be illumined by grace and generosity.<\/span><\/p>\n

We offer a common prayer that, over time, and by hard experience, we may learn that the meaning of a word, a deed, an act is not found in the sentiment or feeling in which it was uttered or offered, but just in what it does for others, not in what we meant by it, but in what it does to others.<\/span><\/p>\n

We offer a common prayer, a prayer that our grandfathers and mothers, in their age and infirmity, will receive care and kindness that accords with the warning to honor father and mother that you own days be long upon the earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

We offer a common prayer, a prayer that women\u2014our grandmothers, mothers, sisters, daughters, granddaughters, all\u2014granted suffrage less than 100 years ago, will be spared any and all forms of harassment and abuse, verbal or physical, on college campuses, in homes and families, in offices and bars, in life and work, and long having suffered and now having suffrage, will in our time rise up to be honored, revered, and compensated, without reserve, but with justice and mercy.<\/span><\/p>\n

We offer a common prayer, finally a prayer not of this world, but of this world as a field of formation for another, not just creation but new creation, not just life but eternal life, not just health but salvation, not just heart but soul, not just earth, but heaven. <\/span><\/p>\n

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

For the time being\u2026our Holy Scripture, including our beloved Sermon on the Mount, the most cherished of the Lord\u2019s remembered teachings, may guide us but cannot direct us. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Brueggeman: \u00a0not just moving people from outsiders to insiders, but also moving people from forgetters into rememberers and from beloved children to belieful adults (Biblical Perspectives\u202694). \u00a0You need to read.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hoekendijk: \u00a0<\/span>The first task of the church is not to speak but to be the church, a community, where object lessons in Christian life and faith are given unintentionally\u2026The effective way of evangelism is to be the church and to pioneer in the field of social relationship and community service. The gospel is not good advice, but good news. <\/span><\/i>You need to worship.<\/span><\/p>\n

One specific: \u00a0join us tomorrow on Marsh Plaza at 3pm in support of our Boston University Arabic Society, or say a prayer, read a psalm, send a note or check at 3pm<\/span><\/p>\n

In sum, while our blessed Sermon on the Mount can and does guide us, it does not direct us, in the end. \u00a0We are charged, challenged and required to make sense of our own epoch, and by faith to live in faith. \u00a0While this is exhilarating in its freeing of the will, it is staggering in its requirement of the man or woman of faith.<\/span><\/p>\n

You may feel empty. \u00a0Note the fullness promised emptiness in the Beatitudes. \u00a0\u2018The reality of the vessel is the shape of the void within it.\u2019 (Lao Tze)<\/span><\/p>\n

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him. <\/span><\/i>2\u00a0<\/span><\/i>And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

3\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u201cBlessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

4\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u201cBlessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

5\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u201cBlessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

6\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u201cBlessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

7\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u201cBlessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

8\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u201cBlessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

9\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u201cBlessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

10\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u201cBlessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness\u2019 sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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

Click here to listen to\u00a0the full service Matthew\u00a05:1-12 Click here to listen to the meditations\u00a0only Preface He is the Way Follow Him through the land of unlikeness You will see rare beasts and have unique adventures\u00a0 He is the Truth Seek Him in the kingdom of anxiety You will come to a great city that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513"}],"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=1513"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1900,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513\/revisions\/1900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}