{"id":1552,"date":"2017-04-16T11:00:32","date_gmt":"2017-04-16T15:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=1552"},"modified":"2019-09-24T14:16:40","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T18:16:40","slug":"a-quickened-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2017\/04\/16\/a-quickened-life\/","title":{"rendered":"A Quickened Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Romans 4: 17b<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Preface<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cGod, who gives life to the dead, and who calls into existence the things that do not exist\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The gift of resurrection is faith.\u00a0 The rightness of God, is given, from faith to faith, from the faith of Christ, the faithfulness of Christ, to you.\u00a0 In the darkness, light.\u00a0 A quickened life by faith, of faith, in faith.<\/p>\n

St. Paul, in his magnum opus, Romans, beckons by faith to faith your faith and my faith.\u00a0 Some of us have been auditing the course in life and faith long enough.\u00a0 This is Easter.\u00a0 It may be time for you to quit auditing the course, and sign up and register and pay the tuition go to class and do the homework and sit for the final and receive a grade.\u00a0 I\u2019ll settle this morning for attendance and tuition, Sunday worship and tithing, to start.\u00a0 However will you hear faith without worship?\u00a0 However will you find faith without community?\u00a0 However will you know faith without study?\u00a0 However will you receive faith without giving in faith?\u00a0 Let this be your first Sunday of worship over the next year, not the last.<\/p>\n

A Quickened Life by Faith<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Some years ago, well before winter dawn, I had crossed the border into Canada, driving north and east, 90 minutes, in the driving snow, in pursuit of a McGill PhD, and headed for the Mercier Bridge\u2014such a nice name for such a rickety bridge\u2014\u2018prier pour mois, je conduit sur le pont Mercier\u2019.\u00a0 At the border there were pronounced the usual four questions.\u00a0\u00a0 Your life, your faith, bring answers to them, every day, one way or another.\u00a0 Life is short.\u00a0 We will leave to Dr. Hobbes the question whether life is also and more so \u2018solitary, nasty, poor, and brutish\u2019.\u00a0 Short, no doubt.\u00a0 And another day, and the border questions, including Easter Morn: \u2018What is your name?\u00a0 Where are you from?\u00a0 Where are you going?\u00a0 Do you have anything to declare?\u2019\u00a0 One day, in full, we shall answer.\u00a0 Today, Easter day, we answer in part, affirming our faith.<\/p>\n

That 30 below zero snow cascading morning, those foolish enough to drive did so with care, inching along beside the St. Lawrence river.\u00a0 Ahead loomed the headlights of a tractor trailer.\u00a0 The lights flashed, and the truck slowed to stop, and the driver opened his window.\u00a0 \u2018Pardone moi: Ou est le frontier?\u2019\u00a0 Glad to see some other lights in the tundra, glad to have tracks in the snow road to follow, glad to hear a human voice, I picked through my meager basket of French words to cobble up a response.\u00a0 \u2018Bon, Le Frontier est prochaine, ouest\u2026\u2019\u00a0 But before I could finish my soliloquy, worthy I expected of Marcel Proust at his dour best, the driver smiled and laughed and said, \u2018Oh, buddy, thank goodness, you\u2019re an American!\u00a0 I can tell by the way you don\u2019t speak French!\u00a0 Excellent.\u00a0 How do I get out of this wilderness?\u2019<\/p>\n

The gift of resurrection is faith.\u00a0 The rightness of God, is given, from faith to faith, from the faith of Christ, the faithfulness of Christ, to you.\u00a0 In the darkness\u2014surprise!–light.\u00a0 Romans announces the Gospel.\u00a0 The Gospel reveals itself only through faith, and it leads to nothing other than faith.\u00a0 Think slowly through the Gospel, in the full letter to the Romans:<\/p>\n

To bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>I am not ashamed of the Gospel.\u00a0 It is the power of God for salvation to all who believe, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.\u00a0 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.\u00a0 As it is written, \u2018the righteous shall live by faith\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

God gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.<\/em><\/p>\n

Therefore, since we are justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ\u2026Suffering produces endurance, and endurance character, and character hope, and hope does not disappoint us because of the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by faith through the Holy Spirit.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hope that is seen is not hope.\u00a0 Who hopes for what he sees?\u00a0 We hope for what we do not see, and wait for it with patience.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018What then shall we say to this?\u00a0 If God is for us, who is against us?\u00a0 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?<\/em><\/p>\n

Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?\u00a0 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.<\/em><\/p>\n

For I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed, by the renewal of your mind.<\/em><\/p>\n

Let love be genuine.\u00a0 Hate what is evil.\u00a0 Hold fast to what is good.\u00a0 Love one another with mutual affection.\u00a0 Outdo one another in showing honor.\u00a0 Never lag in zeal.\u00a0 Be ardent in spirit.\u00a0 Serve the Lord.\u00a0 Rejoice in your hope. Be patient in tribulation.\u00a0 Be constant in prayer.\u00a0 Contribute to the saints.\u00a0 Practice hospitality.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A quickened life, by faith.<\/p>\n

A Quickened Life of Faith (Romans 4: 17b)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

And of faith\u2014a quickened life of faith.<\/p>\n

This month, among other pursuits, the icy back roads of an utterly foreign dominion, The Epistle to the Romans, have beckoned, coming to Easter.\u00a0\u00a0 Paul has something to say to us at Easter.\u00a0 Something about faith.\u00a0 The resurrection frees up the church\u2019s gospel preaching, the offer of the gift of faith. Have you faith? Do you know God to be a pardoning God?\u00a0 Are you moving on to wholeness?\u00a0 Do you expect wholeness in this lifetime?<\/p>\n

Tucked away in the winding, ice laden back roads of Romans, you come upon a sharp, almost a U-Turn, at Romans 4: 17b.\u00a0 The next stretch of highway is no picnic, either.\u00a0 You tell me what it means to believe \u2018in hope against hope\u2019, for example.\u00a0 But here, in an astonishing curve, Paul lets slip a side angle view of God.\u00a0 Tell the truth, said Dickinson, but tell it slant.\u00a0 Slant Paul says it here.\u00a0 The verse, one must honestly admit, as does your preacher this Easter, finally resists at depth a final rendering.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace\u2026in the presence of the God\u2026(get ready for it)\u2026who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.\u00a0 <\/em>Pause for just an Easter second right here.\u00a0 Paul spells God by resurrection first, and creation second.\u00a0 Paul names God in resurrection first, and creation second.\u00a0 Greek, like German can abide varieties of sentence word orders (In German all is fair as long you remember the verb at the end of the sentence to put!) Here, Romans 4: 17b to be exact, Paul at the pinnacle of his powers, cedes the first word about God to the resurrection, and makes creation a sub-set of resurrection.\u00a0 Who raises the dead, and creates out of nothing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Your resurrection is too small, to paraphrase JB Phillips. A quickened life is a faith life of height and breadth and depth\u2014resurrection above all, resurrection in all, resurrection under all! \u00a0Here you are given a fatter Easter, a more robust raising, an ampler hope, a wider mercy.\u00a0 I love the word \u2018stout\u2019.\u00a0 Here is resurrection, stout.\u00a0 Bigger than\u2026all outdoors.<\/em>\u00a0 I wonder if our resurrection faith could stand a little expansion, a bigger suit size, 42 not 40 long, say, another notch out in the belt, say, an un-hemming of the hem, say?<\/p>\n

On closer inspection, Romans 4: 17b that is, there is more.\u00a0 For an unexplained reason, Paul does not use his usual go-to verb for raising here, eigeiro<\/em>, which everywhere else in letter he does.\u00a0 He uses another, zoapoiountos.<\/em>\u00a0 This means enlivens, quickens, gives life.\u00a0 And there is more!\u00a0 The rest of the verse, \u2018non-being into being\u2019, is a reckoning, beckoning, harkening to the creation ex nihilo<\/em>, the creation from nothing.\u00a0 Under every frosty evergreen, along every pre-dawn snow belted path, in and through all creation is the power of something from nothing which is best known in resurrection.\u00a0 The Easter is not an add on to whatever other remarkable things one can hear in life, learn in college, and remember in dotage.\u00a0 Resurrection is everywhere, everything, all the time, without measure, itself subsuming the creation, as does the creation of the creation. \u00a0Alkier: \u2018<\/em>Faith\u2026without any validation. Barth (ETTR<\/em>): \u2018faith brings the known condition and status of human life into relation with the unknown God.\u2019\u2026<\/p>\n

Paul speaks sparingly but stoutly of resurrection in Romans (e.g.1:4, 4:24, 6:5, 7:4, 8:11).<\/p>\n

Resurrection stands up faith.\u00a0 Be upstanding, faithful ones, be upstanding.\u00a0 As we stand for the Gospel every Sunday here at Marsh Chapel, you be upstanding in life, abstaining evil, practicing good, worshipping God.\u00a0 Go to church on Sunday and tithe, for starters.\u00a0 And great ready to cross the existential border!<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A quickened life, of faith.<\/p>\n

A Quickened Life in Faith<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And in faith\u2014a quickened life in faith.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>What is your name?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Our name is given in baptism.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In baptism.\u00a0 One part cross, one part resurrection.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 In baptism.\u00a0 Recall the trials of the week past.\u00a0 Betrayal (Judas).\u00a0 Denial (Peter).\u00a0 Judgment (Pilate).\u00a0 Struggle (bearing the cross).\u00a0\u00a0 Pain (Crucifixion). Trauma (Crucifixion). Humiliation (Crucifixion).\u00a0 Suffering (Crucifixion).\u00a0 Injustice (Crucifixion).\u00a0 Defeat (Crucifixion).\u00a0 Torture (Crucifixion).\u00a0 Despair (Why?).\u00a0 Rejection (burial).\u00a0 Scorn (burial).\u00a0 Death (burial).<\/p>\n

In baptism.\u00a0 Today is Easter, the day of resurrection. We celebrate with gladness Jesus\u2019 resurrection from the dead, in concert with the church universal, the church militant, and the church triumphant.\u00a0 Our hymns evoke gladness, our prayers hope, our gatherings promise.\u00a0 Today in faith we affirm the triumph of the invisible over the visible.\u00a0 We hear the voice that is no voice, the words that have no hearing, the range of declaration that stretches out through \u2018all the earth\u2019, as our psalm says.\u00a0 The resurrection of Jesus makes possible the preaching of the church.<\/p>\n

We all have ways down the road we can learn and teach, teach and learn, the care of the earth.\u00a0 Someone gave you a name, in baptism and in birth.<\/p>\n

Where are you from?<\/em><\/p>\n

We are from, out of, a cloud of witnesses, the church, the church militant and the church triumphant, the church of the majestic brass\u2014militant, and the church of the lilies in honor and remembrance\u2014triumphant.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0 church. \u00a0Hunsinger:\u00a0 <\/em>Indicative not imperative; gift not possession; conformation not imitatio Christ; <\/em>resemblance not equivalence; suggestive not technical; ecumenist not \u2018modernist\u2019<\/p>\n

The church. (Theater) gets us in a room, breathing the same air, thinking about how to be human together (NYT Laura Collins-Hughes 4\/10\/17).\u2019\u00a0 Worship does the same, along with other things.<\/p>\n

The \u2018church\u2019.\u00a0 Abraham Heschel: \u201cOur goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ….get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.\u201d \u2026\u201cWhen I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.\u201d \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The church. My father-in-law Pennock, Malone NY, 1965, preached on the theme The Need of Intensity.\u00a0 <\/em>And he is here today?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Where are you headed?<\/em><\/p>\n

We are on a journey, headed for a promised land, earthly and heavenly.\u00a0 We are walking on a journey together.<\/p>\n

A journey. Our baccalaureate speaker last year, heard the resurrection music in the hallway downstairs, and went on to run the peace corps. The <\/em>Baccalaureate<\/em><\/a> talk last spring by Peace Corps director Carrie Hessler-Radelet (CAS\u201979, Hon.\u201916), who called on BU graduates to \u201cembrace the cause of humanity with optimism and enthusiasm.\u201d (BU Today, June 2016).\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

A journey.\u00a0 Arts of Democracy: Active listening; Creative conflict; Mediation; Negotiation; Dialogue; Evaluation.<\/p>\n

A journey. Think of Eugene Lang, PS 121 NYC, who paid for college for any of the 6th<\/sup> graders he spoke to at their graduation, 1981.\u00a0 Half of the 69 6th<\/sup> grade graduates went to college.<\/p>\n

Do you have anything to declare?<\/em><\/p>\n

Out of the marathon bombing horror in 2013 came acquaintance, friendship, love and marriage.\u00a0 Hope springs eternal in the human breast.\u00a0 Roseann Sdoia (lost leg 4\/16\/13) met Michael Materia (took her to hospital). \u2018He was kneeling on the ground, trying to hold me from sliding, trying to hold himself, and trying to hold the tourniquet.\u00a0 And then here I am, telling him to hold my hand.\u00a0 So the poor guy had a lot going on\u2019. <\/em>After a couple of months, a friendship between the two bloomed into romance. \u00a0\u2018There was an interest growing in each other, kind of quietly, until we talked about it\u2019 (Roseann).\u00a0 <\/em>Nantucket, 12\/4\/16 engagement.\u00a0 Then, in full gear he, and slow and steady leading with the left leg she, climbed 1576 steps to the observation deck of the Empire State Building, 86th<\/sup> floor.\u00a0 We\u2019ve spent a lot of time together and from that we got to see each other\u2019s characters and really just bond. <\/em>(NYT, 12\/16).\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Coda<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The gift of resurrection is faith.\u00a0 The rightness of God, is given, from faith to faith, from the faith of Christ, the faithfulness of Christ, to you.\u00a0 In the darkness, light.\u00a0 Faith is a quickened life.\u00a0 A quickened life, by and of and in faith.<\/p>\n

St. Paul, in his magnum opus, Romans, beckons by faith to faith your faith and my faith.\u00a0 Some of us have been auditing the course in life and faith long enough.\u00a0 This is Easter.\u00a0 It may be time for you to quit auditing the course, and sign up and register and pay the tuition go to class and do the homework and sit for the final and receive a grade.\u00a0 I\u2019ll settle this morning for attendance and tuition, Sunday worship and tithing, to start.\u00a0 However will you hear faith without worship?\u00a0 However will you find faith without community?\u00a0 However will you know faith without study?\u00a0 However will you receive faith without giving in faith?\u00a0 Let this be your first Sunday of worship over the next year, not the last.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod, who gives life to the dead, and who calls into existence the things that do not exist\u201d<\/em><\/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 Romans 4: 17b Click here to listen to the meditations\u00a0only Preface \u201cGod, who gives life to the dead, and who calls into existence the things that do not exist\u201d The gift of resurrection is faith.\u00a0 The rightness of God, is given, from faith to faith, from the faith […]<\/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\/1552"}],"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=1552"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1882,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552\/revisions\/1882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}