{"id":2047,"date":"2018-09-02T11:00:08","date_gmt":"2018-09-02T15:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=2047"},"modified":"2019-09-17T12:00:36","modified_gmt":"2019-09-17T16:00:36","slug":"2047","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2018\/09\/02\/2047\/","title":{"rendered":"Communion Meditation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

James 1:22-27<\/a><\/p>\n

Mark 7:1-8<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear the sermon\u00a0only<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As you enter this year of study, every day you will have a chance and a need for some pause, some moments of quiet.\u00a0 Use your familiar devotional reminders to bring peace of mind and encouragement of heart.\u00a0 Recite the decalogue.\u00a0 Recall the creed.\u00a0 Repeat the beatitudes.\u00a0 Rely on the Lord\u2019s Prayer.\u00a0 Remember Paul\u2019s admonitions.\u00a0 One of our student choristers brings you our sincere,\u00a0 communal and heartfelt word of welcome.\u00a0 Maggie?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

Maggie:\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>Welcome to the varied ministry of Marsh Chapel at Boston University, fall 2018!\u00a0 We look forward to getting to know you, as you sign up to sing in a choir, as you volunteer to usher or greet, as you attend a fellowship or study group, and especially as you worship with us on Sunday at 11am!<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The envisioned mission of Marsh Chapel is to be \u2018a heart in the heart of the city, and a service in the service of the city\u2019.\u00a0 To that end Dr. Jarrett will invite you to vocal expressions of faith in the life of our music program.\u00a0 To that end Ms. Chicka will invite you to global outreach in our work with International students.\u00a0 To that end Br. Whitney will invite you to take part and take leadership in campus student ministry.\u00a0 To that end Mr. Bouchard will solicit your support for work and works in hospitality.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This year, with our emphasis on \u2018voice, vocation, and volume\u2019 in our shared life, we are using as a focus for our work the word \u2018hope\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 Our summer, fall and spring term worship and community life are laden with expressions of hope.\u00a0 We trust and hope that each and every Sunday Morning will become an occasion for the speaking and hearing of \u2018a word of faith in a pastoral voice toward a common hope\u2019.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Where we can be personally helpful to you, and where our staff, chaplains, and campus ministers can be a benefit and blessing to you, do not hesitate to call up on us.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John Wesley famously called for a means of grace to \u2018spread scriptural holiness and reform the nation\u2019.\u00a0 Now that was a big dream! May grace expand and extend in meaning for us in the fall term, 2018!<\/em><\/p>\n

To begin, as you enter, as you \u2018matriculate\u2019, today and this week, we offer you, in communion meditation, three thoughts on adventure, regret, and faith.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. <\/em><\/strong>Adventure<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

    We will keep ourselves in good balance by a daily quiet, a regular silence.\u00a0 In this time we may recall and recite the ten commandments, the apostles\u2019 creed, the Lord\u2019s prayer, and the beatitudes.<\/p>\n

    In so doing, we may be able to remember, to recollect, to regather ourselves by reference to our best selves, to our own-most selves.\u00a0 We have, for instance, had three years of shouting about a wall to be built along the Rio Grande.\u00a0 But even once, or at all, have you heard a reference in all this hollering to the Monroe Doctrine?\u00a0 The Monroe Doctrine expressed a singular, particular interest, on the part of the United States, in the whole of the Western Hemisphere.\u00a0 It privileged, rather than denigrated, our relationship with the peoples and lands from Canada to Mexico to Chile.\u00a0 Have you heard it quoted, or referenced in the last two years?<\/p>\n

    We happily have a rising senior, who is a student leader at Marsh Chapel, and an international studies major, who can help us remember the Monroe Doctrine.\u00a0 Denise, what can you tell us?<\/p>\n

    Denise:\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>The Monroe Doctrine, authored by James Monroe in 1823, is in the main a statement of American commitment to the welfare and well-being of our northern and southern neighbors, Canada to Chile.\u00a0 It has waned and waxed in actual influence, and at times has been tragically abused.\u00a0 Theodore Roosevelt added his own corollary about 100 years after the original.\u00a0 The Monroe Doctrine expresses American commitment to protection and defense of our neighbors in this hemisphere.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

    Who knows?\u00a0 Perhaps some part of our matriculating class of 2022 will engage in the adventure of rebuilding culture, society, economy and politics in our international neighborhood.\u00a0 Listen again to the love poetry in the Song of Songs.\u00a0 The voice of my beloved!\u00a0 Behold he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. Voice\u2026Beloved\u2026Leaping\u2026Bounding!<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 Life is just full of potential, of possibility!!\u00a0 Life is an unending set of adventures!!\u00a0 Why we could as a country, for instance, rebuild the Central American societies and economies that are sending parents and children fleeing for their lives north to America.\u00a0 We have the means.\u00a0 We have the motivation.\u00a0 Bridges are better than walls.\u00a0 In safety and with jobs, people could stay in their own countries.\u00a0 What an adventure that would be, to see the Monroe Doctrine refit for the 21st<\/sup> century!\u00a0\u00a0 You might want to venture in adventure to study abroad, even perhaps south of the border.<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. <\/em><\/strong>Regret<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

       <\/p>\n

      We will keep ourselves in good balance by a daily quiet, a regular silence.\u00a0 In this time we may recall and recite the ten commandments, the apostles\u2019 creed, the Lord\u2019s prayer, and the beatitudes.\u00a0 In so doing, we may be able to sharpen our capacity to the tell the difference between the true and the false, between the decent and the scurrilous.<\/p>\n

      You probably remember the phrase, \u2018Methinks the lady protesteth too much\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 In hindsight we gain insight though often the insight is painful.\u00a0 Where is this remembered phrase found?\u00a0 In Shakespeare.\u00a0\u00a0 It expresses doubt in another\u2019s sincerity (for those older than I), or authenticity (for those of my own generation), or capacity for irony (for those coming into the student ranks today).<\/p>\n

      We happily have a rising junior, who is a student leader at Marsh Chapel, and an English major, who can help us remember Shakespeare\u2019s play, Hamlet, from near the year 1600.\u00a0 Tom, what can you tell us?<\/p>\n

      Tom:\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>Well, actually, Dean Hill, the quotation, though often put as you did, is more accurately, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks<\/strong>“.\u00a0 The line so spoken is a little subtler and has an irony to it.\u00a0 Here Queen Gertrude remarks on the insincerity, the overstatement within the \u2018play within the play\u2019 that Prince Hamlet writes.\u00a0\u00a0 The play itself shows guilt and insincerity, as does the famous line about \u2018protesting too much\u2019.\u00a0 We use it in everyday speech to say that someone is lying. <\/em><\/p>\n

      By the way, if you have to choose, along the way, what in college to read, read some Shakespeare and read some Scripture.\u00a0 The Bible and the Bard are the best, in the long run.\u00a0 Both know about regret, a short or one word definition of hell.\u00a0 Hell is regret, and regret is hell.\u00a0 Hardly anyone escapes this life with no regrets.\u00a0 They befall us all.\u00a0 But we can at least be aware of them.\u00a0 We can least strive to minimize them, both in quantity and in quality, both in number and size.\u00a0 These years, if it be possible, we pray, let your regrets be few, so that your fulsome sense of irony and authenticity and sincerity will shine through.\u00a0\u00a0 The thing about social media, the newer technological forms, is that it is possible to represent yourself as someone a bit other than yourself.\u00a0 For a time.\u00a0 But over time, the truth, the hard truth, comes out.\u00a0 When you look others in the eye and speak.\u00a0 And they look in you in the eye and listen.\u00a0 That is when you don\u2019t want to have to \u2018protest too much\u2019.\u00a0 As the Bard also wrote, trite but still true, \u2018to thine own self be true\u2019.\u00a0 At least as much as possible!\u00a0 When I lie, I hurt most myself.\u00a0 Regret, the recognition of a lived moment of lying, hurts not others, but me.\u00a0 Eschew regret.\u00a0 Limit regret.\u00a0 May your regrets be few and far between.<\/p>\n

      My esteemed friend Professor Andrew Bacevich, speaking to the graduating class of our own BU Academy some years ago, said:\u00a0 \u2018Now you are going off to college.\u00a0 You will sometimes find yourself in a situation where a little soulful radar sounds inside you.\u00a0 You know that something is afoot that just might not be right.\u00a0 Listen to the beeping, the conscience, the sound of that soulful radar\u2019.\u00a0 The hardened and stern lessons of the Letter of James stand in this tradition: \u2018be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves\u2019.\u00a0 <\/em>It is not just what you learn or hear, it is what you do or don\u2019t do that makes a life, a college career, and a person.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Faith<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

        We will keep ourselves in good balance by a daily quiet, a regular silence.\u00a0 In this time we may recall and recite the ten commandments, the apostles\u2019 creed, the Lord\u2019s prayer, and the beatitudes.<\/p>\n

        We are living through a national debate about whether honor is necessary to leadership, or not.\u00a0 Here in Mark 7 honor comes in two varieties, the one of the lips and the other of the heart.\u00a0 Said one this week, speaking of his work place, \u2018What is missing there is heart\u2019.<\/p>\n

        May your adventures be many, and may your regrets be few.\u00a0 The power to see things through, both when you need the accelerator and when you need the brakes, the capacity to balance the two, goes by the name of faith.\u00a0\u00a0 As the Gospel today emphasizes, it is the inside of the cup, the heart, the sense of honor, over time, that matters most.\u00a0 Faith is the courage to continue to lean forward, when adventure is in the balance, and the courage to continue to lean backward, when regret is in the outcome.\u00a0 Whatever, says Paul, is not of faith, that is sin.\u00a0 So we gather for prayer every Sunday, and are led by lay leaders like Sandra, who often prays with and for us, as she does this morning.\u00a0 Sandra?<\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n

        Sandra:\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>Gracious God Holy and Just<\/em><\/p>\n

        Thou from whom we come and unto whom our spirits return<\/em><\/p>\n

        Thou our dwelling place in all generations<\/em><\/p>\n

        Rest upon us in the silence of this moment we pray<\/em><\/p>\n

        Dry the tears of those moved to emotion in an hour of separation<\/em><\/p>\n

        Illumine the skyline of opportunity that lies behind the rain clouds of worry<\/em><\/p>\n

        Carry young hearts open to friendship into seas of friendship<\/em><\/p>\n

        Help us hear for our time the voice of the Prophet<\/em><\/p>\n

        \u2018What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly\u2019?<\/em><\/p>\n

        Help us we earnestly pray to prefer justice to judgment<\/em><\/p>\n

        Help us we earnestly pray to love the merciful more than the material<\/em><\/p>\n

        Help us we earnestly pray to walk humbly not haughtily<\/em><\/p>\n

        May the degrees we earn turn by degrees the wheel of life from judgment to justice<\/em><\/p>\n

        May the courses we choose inspire in choices later a keenness of mind matched by a fullness of heart<\/em><\/p>\n

        May the learning we gain afford us the gain of humility, the honest desire to give credit where credit is due, and not to tip the scale<\/em><\/p>\n

        May the friendships we make in their turn make us less inclined to judgment and more enamored of justice<\/em><\/p>\n

        May the regrets we acquire then incline us to mercy, as we have felt mercy, and not to material measurements alone<\/em><\/p>\n

        May the adventures we bravely pursue give us the wisdom to know our condition, mortal, frail, prone to harm others, frail, mortal<\/em><\/p>\n

        May all our acquisition of knowledge chase us toward justice, toward mercy, and toward humility<\/em><\/p>\n

        And the wisdom to welcome, later, perhaps much later, the recognition that<\/em><\/p>\n

        The larger the body of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of mystery\u00a0 that surrounds it<\/em><\/p>\n

        The larger the body of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of mystery that surrounds it<\/em><\/p>\n

        Amen<\/em><\/p>\n

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

        Click here to hear the full service James 1:22-27 Mark 7:1-8 Click here to hear the sermon\u00a0only   As you enter this year of study, every day you will have a chance and a need for some pause, some moments of quiet.\u00a0 Use your familiar devotional reminders to bring peace of mind and encouragement of […]<\/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\/2047"}],"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=2047"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2201,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047\/revisions\/2201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}