{"id":2109,"date":"2018-12-16T11:00:43","date_gmt":"2018-12-16T16:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=2109"},"modified":"2019-09-17T11:44:12","modified_gmt":"2019-09-17T15:44:12","slug":"the-mark-of-being-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2018\/12\/16\/the-mark-of-being-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mark of Being Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Zephaniah 3:14\u201320<\/a><\/p>\n

Philippians 4:4\u20137<\/a><\/p>\n

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

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

\u2018Worship is the most elementary mark of being alive\u2019 (J Moltmann, 209).\u00a0\u00a0 Praise, singing, prayer\u2014the primary forms of worship\u2014are the most elementary marks of being alive.\u00a0\u00a0 You want to live.\u00a0 You will want to find your way to worship, to inhabit its location, to learn its language, and to adopt its listening.<\/p>\n

Where we are, our location, shapes who we are, our recollection.\u00a0 Spaces, places, sounds, scents, tastes\u2014these directly affect, impact who we are.\u00a0 Location shapes recollection.<\/p>\n

For some weeks, off and on, I had been struggling, without success, to remember a name.\u00a0 I take it you will know the struggle.\u00a0 Off and on, and who knows the switches for either or both, I would conjure the memory of a person whom I have not seen in a decade or so.\u00a0 He was an impressive spirit.\u00a0 A tall African American gentleman with a rich baritone voice, he would attend worship\u00a0 here, now and then.\u00a0 His daughter in those years was an undergraduate at BU and on occasion they would attend together.\u00a0 He was a world-renowned vocalist, and taught voice here at the University.\u00a0 For some reason, every so often this fall, he came to mind.\u00a0 But not his name.\u00a0 I would reach out in recollection, but fall short, and give up, on to other things. \u00a0\u00a0He, my unnamed friend, was a generous, gracious soul, with his talents, his time, and his treasure.\u00a0 He had founded a small school elsewhere to support recent immigrants.\u00a0 What was his name?<\/p>\n

Then last week, it happened, I found myself stopping in our College of Fine Arts, to bring a greeting to the new dean there and to drop off some extra post cards as invitations to our Lessons and Carols service.\u00a0 Almost 1,000 of you attended the services, with tens of thousands more with us by radio and internet.\u00a0 You may remember the experience of praise, hymnody, choral beauty, prayer.\u00a0 It is the elementary mark of being alive.\u00a0 I left the cards and loped down the long stair case.\u00a0 At the turn, I remembered his name.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t been trying to remember, but the name came, unbidden\u2014bidden or unbidden, God is with us.\u00a0 A rush of gladness captured me, in stairwell descent.\u00a0 His name: Simon Estes.\u00a0 The recollection of his name:\u00a0 due to the location of that day, a return to the building where I had called on him in his office, now and then.\u00a0 The physical power of the physical location gave me the recollection I did not and could not gain elsewhere.<\/p>\n

To collect ourselves, we rely on recollection.\u00a0 You may return to read St. Augustine on this one day.\u00a0 Being in a particular space is the difference so often between hearing and not hearing, knowing and not knowing, remembering and not remembering, breathing and not breathing\u2014life and death.<\/p>\n

Zephaniah and Isaiah both call us to the recollection of praise, of singing, of prayer, the elementary mark of being alive.\u00a0 Worship.\u00a0 But here is the blunt, Advent, John the Baptist word: your recollection depends on your location.\u00a0 To know the Presence you need to be present.\u00a0 In church.\u00a0 Somewhere.\u00a0 All of the unspoken allusions to God, before whom in prayer, we remember ourselves, are conveyed in saving measure, in location.\u00a0\u00a0 Here we sing, preach, and pray in the same space, the same room, the same seats, the same sanctuary as did Howard Thurman.\u00a0 Right here.\u00a0 We admire him.\u00a0 We aspire to learn with him.\u00a0 We hope to acquire his faith, especially at Christmas, when the song of the angels is stilled.\u00a0\u00a0 Yet here is the John the Baptist challenge:<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without prayer<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without song<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without hymns<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without spirituals<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without meditation<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without candles<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without study<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t very close to Howard Thurman without Scripture<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without gathering<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without community<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without meaning<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without belonging<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without empowerment<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without preaching<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without praise<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without Psalms<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without worship<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without\u2026RELIGION<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without\u2026RELIGION<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Howard Thurman without\u2026RELIGION<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Our gospel today goes deeper, still, from location on to language.\u00a0 Worship is the most elementary mark of being alive (J Moltmann, 209).\u00a0\u00a0 Praise, singing, prayer\u2014the primary forms of worship\u2014are the most elementary marks of being alive.\u00a0\u00a0 You want to live.\u00a0 You will want to find your way to worship, to inhabit its location, to learn its language, and to adopt its listening.<\/p>\n

Not one of us can learn a language without labor, without attention and work.\u00a0 Think of your Latin conjugations and declensions.\u00a0 Think of your study of the periodic table, of the Kings and Queens of England, of theorems and formulae.\u00a0 Worship, the elementary mark of being alive, has a language too, which bears practice, bears learning, bears knowing, bears discipline.<\/p>\n

Later last week, a friend \u00a0and I were talking. For some inexplicable reason, I asked him to remember the theology he studied in the School of Theology.\u00a0 He named a book from some years ago, by George Lindbeck, titled The Nature of Doctrine.<\/em>\u00a0 Lindbeck was a Yale teacher, and a good writer, too (not that those two are at odds, by the way).\u00a0 Inspired so I vainly hunted for my own dog eared copy of years ago, hunting in the usual suspect places, four in number, to no avail, and retreating to get a library copy, then sitting in a different posture suddenly spied my own book on the third shelf after all.\u00a0 Anyway.\u00a0 Lindbeck produced a couple hundred pages of dense argument, easily summarized in this way.\u00a0\u00a0 Faith comes from knowing the grammar of faith, the syntax of faith, the spelling of the nouns and verbs of faith.\u00a0 Coming to faith is like learning Japanese or Koine Greek.\u00a0 In worship we learn a new language.\u00a0 Yes, propositions, doctrine and dogma are present and important (Lindbeck complements the conservatives).\u00a0 Yes, experience and expression are important (Lindbeck complements the liberals).\u00a0 But the real nature of doctrine is embedded in the life long struggle to learn your real mother tongue, the language of praise, prayer, worship\u2014the language of faith.\u00a0 To do so, you have to speak it, to sing it, to utter it, to name it, to lift it.\u00a0 Or, you won\u2019t know it or have it.\u00a0 So Lindbeck:<\/p>\n

Just as an individual becomes human by learning a language, so he or she begins to become a new creature through hearing and interiorizing the language that speaks of Christ. (62) The grammar of religion, like that of language, cannot be explicated or learned by analysis of experience, but only by practice. (129).<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Language, the language of faith, is crucial.\u00a0 We might though argue to Lindbeck as well, that his own emphasis benefits too from the others.\u00a0 Learning a language is meant to prepare one to speak truth, and truth may come in proposition and especially in experience, and that truth may well require changes in inherited language, grammar, syntax and spelling.<\/p>\n

Our Gospel prepares us for Jesus, to know Jesus, by knowing his people and his predecessor.\u00a0 Luke has greatly expanded on what Mark earlier taught about John the Baptist.\u00a0 Here the Baptist lines out the language of faith.\u00a0 Be it readily remembered that real religion is never very far from justice (repeat).\u00a0 What says John?\u00a0 Turn your neighborly attention to equity, your legal tax work to fairness, your regimental armor to protection.\u00a0 All of these lines are about justice, economic justice.\u00a0 The Baptist could have been more economical himself, talking to neighbor and tax collector and soldier, simply by saying this:\u00a0 tithe.\u00a0\u00a0 Such a John the Baptist word.\u00a0 If everyone tithed we would need no charities, no taxes and no armies.\u00a0\u00a0 The language of faith would be the grammar, syntax and spelling of the common hope.\u00a0 It is the language the world most needs and that which Jesus teaches, from alphabet to sonnet.<\/p>\n

So here is the challenge, the very Advent, very John the Baptist, very timely challenge:<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without prayer<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without song<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without hymns<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without spirituals<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without meditation<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without candles<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without study<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t very close to Jesus without Scripture<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without gathering<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without community<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without meaning<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without belonging<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without empowerment<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without preaching<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without praise<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without Psalms<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without worship<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without\u2026RELIGION<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without\u2026RELIGION<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus without\u2026RELIGION<\/em><\/p>\n

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

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Worship is the most elementary mark of being alive (J Moltmann, 209).\u00a0\u00a0 Praise, singing, prayer\u2014the primary forms of worship\u2014are the most elementary marks of being alive.\u00a0\u00a0 You want to live.\u00a0 You will want to find your way to worship, to inhabit its location, to learn its language, and to adopt its listening.<\/p>\n

The gospel takes us deeper still, down from language and location into listening. \u00a0Right now, you may not be drawn to Howard Thurman.\u00a0 Right now, you may not even be drawn to Jesus.\u00a0 But you have no choice about knowing yourself.\u00a0 And the sermon, we pray with care and omitting any surgical mistakes, cuts to the bone, to the heart, to the marrow.\u00a0 Worship is about being alive\u2014the elementary mark thereof\u2014in the face of our death.\u00a0 Death makes us mortal.\u00a0 Facing death makes us human. Death makes us mortal.\u00a0 Facing death makes us human.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0And if you read the Bible, and if you worship in the church, if nothing else then the utter god-forsakenness, the deathliness of death is unmistakable.<\/p>\n

Just a few days ago I was sitting in the beautiful relatively new atrium of our Business School (no longer Management, but Business, by the way).\u00a0 I was waiting there, reading a newspaper.\u00a0 After a while a young man put down his various devices, eyed my name tag, and sat down next to me.\u00a0 We began to talk.\u00a0 Conversation is a grace.\u00a0 It is a grace.\u00a0 Prize your conversation now you have it.\u00a0 After a while\u2014his name too was Robert\u2014he admitted why he had sidled up to me: \u2018I never see anyone reading a newspaper.\u00a0 What is it like?\u00a0 Why do you do that?\u2019\u00a0 Well, I gave the usual reasons: \u2018I like the fuller length of the articles, I like to be surprised by turning a page onto something unexpected rather than cyber-guided.\u00a0 I like the texture of the pages in hand.\u2019\u00a0 It was not a debate or a matter of convincing.\u00a0 He was happily curious. \u00a0And I was glad to be a curiosity.\u00a0 I invited him to Lessons and Carols. \u00a0Here he might find a pastoral guide to listen to him.\u00a0 Here he might find a friend in the pew to listen to him.\u00a0 Here he might find a kindred spirit to listen to him, someone who could befriend him even better than the newspaper covered dean who listened to him that day.<\/p>\n

When Paul acclaims, so beautifully, \u201cRejoice\u2026.\u201d he has taken us beyond location and language, into a deep listening, a listening of and for the soul.<\/p>\n

\u201cRejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

It is a question whether in the end there is any real rejoicing that is not always and utterly \u2018in the Lord\u2019.\u00a0 But what makes a lifetime of difference is whether there is someone there to listen when you sing, when you pray, when you worship.\u00a0 To listen your soul into life.\u00a0 In worship, you put yourself in earshot of relationship, in earshot of acquaintance, in earshot of friendship.\u00a0 Yet here is the challenge:<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without prayer<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without song<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without hymns<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without spirituals<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without meditation<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without candles<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without study<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t very close to YOURSELF without Scripture<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without gathering<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without community<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without meaning<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without belonging<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to Jesus YOURSELF empowerment<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without preaching<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without praise<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without Psalms<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without worship<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without\u2026RELIGION<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without\u2026RELIGION<\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t get very close to YOURSELF without\u2026RELIGION<\/em><\/p>\n

Worship is the most elementary mark of being alive (J Moltmann, 209).\u00a0\u00a0 Praise, singing, prayer\u2014the primary forms of worship\u2014are the most elementary marks of being alive.\u00a0\u00a0 You want to live.\u00a0 You will need to find your way to worship, to inhabit its location, to learn its language, and to adopt its listening.\u00a0 So the Baptist preaches, \u2018I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than is coming\u2026He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire\u2019.<\/p>\n

-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to the entire service Zephaniah 3:14\u201320 Philippians 4:4\u20137 Click here to listen to the sermon\u00a0only Location \u2018Worship is the most elementary mark of being alive\u2019 (J Moltmann, 209).\u00a0\u00a0 Praise, singing, prayer\u2014the primary forms of worship\u2014are the most elementary marks of being alive.\u00a0\u00a0 You want to live.\u00a0 You will want to find […]<\/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\/2109"}],"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=2109"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2213,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109\/revisions\/2213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}