{"id":2369,"date":"2019-10-27T11:00:23","date_gmt":"2019-10-27T15:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=2369"},"modified":"2019-10-27T13:26:45","modified_gmt":"2019-10-27T17:26:45","slug":"luke-on-health-and-humility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2019\/10\/27\/luke-on-health-and-humility\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke on Health and Humility"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Joel 2:23-32<\/a><\/p>\n

Luke 18:9-14<\/a><\/p>\n

Click Here to hear just the sermon<\/a><\/p>\n

Merciful Delay?<\/em><\/p>\n

What drove Luke, alone, to remember or construct these marvelous parables, Luke 9-19?\u00a0 Only Luke has them, and how we would miss them without his composition!\u00a0 What molded them near the year 85ad? The lengthening years, without ultimate victory, since the cross? The long decades of living without Jesus? The uncertainties of institution and culture and citizenship and multiple responsibilities? The daily stresses of managing a budget? It is the primitive church that can give an example to an America waiting to meet disease with patient justice, to meet anxiety with hope. They waited for Jesus to return. And he delayed. And he delays, still. And there is rampant, hateful hurt, across God’s green earth.<\/p>\n

Though with a scornful wonder we see her sore oppressed
\nBy schism rent asunder by heresy distressed
\nYet saints their watch are keeping their cry goes up ‘how long’?
\nAnd soon the night of weeping will be the morn of song.<\/em><\/p>\n

Luke\u2019s parables confront disease with health and anxiety with humility.\u00a0\u00a0 At Marsh Chapel, we try to do some of the same.\u00a0 On a day in which we receive new Chapel members, a word then about Marsh.<\/p>\n

Marsh Membership?<\/em><\/p>\n

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

What is participation in ministry about here?<\/p>\n

As a University Chapel and Deanship, Marsh Chapel has some significant structural differences from a local church, some of which are outlined in the document, \u2018Forms of Ministry in our Midst\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 While there are many ways of entering ministry at Marsh, the Chapel otherwise operates, administratively, as any other deanship on campus, reporting to the President, and funded in large measure by the Provost.<\/p>\n

Marsh Chapel is a discreet Christian community of faith, and, if I may, in my pastoral experience, including nine other pulpits, a real gem.\u00a0 Theologically and spiritually, we are broad church; liturgically and musically, we are high church; communally and relationally, we are deep church, in the sense of encouraging vital fellowship and friendship.\u00a0 The simplest way to describe all this is to walk through the sanctuary, and notice the stained glass, of the church through the ages, and of the church in the Methodist tradition.<\/p>\n

We are not a Methodist congregation, but our history and lineage, from 1839 to the present, are out of that Religious, Christian, Protestant, English tradition, which emerged under the leadership of John Wesley through the course of the 18th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 Mr. Wesley stands above our portico at the front door.\u00a0 Our hymnal is the Methodist hymnal, though we are not confined to it, and generally operate out of a dual adherence, both to Methodism and to the \u2018ecumenical consensus\u2019 (a simple way to see this is to note that we have, distinctively, both wine and grape juice available at communion).\u00a0 Our dean is usually a Methodist minister (and, oddly, 4 of 6 have been named Robert!).\u00a0 We are thus \u2018possibilists\u2019 in the Wesleyan sense of an openness to the future in faith, and an interdenominational, international, and even interfaith congregation (both present on Sundays and especially listening via radio, we have for example a number of Jewish participants).\u00a0\u00a0 Jesus is our beacon not our boundary.\u00a0 You will see that the sanctuary has no permanent cross, but does have a star of David\u2014both fairly substantive ecumenical moves in 1949.<\/p>\n

When people join Marsh Chapel, as will happen again in today, we use a part of the ritual for new members in the hymnal.\u00a0 When children are baptized, as will happen again on November 3, at 2pm, we use the order for the Sacrament in the same hymnal.\u00a0 Our members come from a very wide range of religious backgrounds, and in many cases, of no particular religious background.\u00a0 We do not use a single creed (though we are inclined, now and then, to recite one or another in the course of a sermon now and then).\u00a0 We simply ask people, in brief, whether they want Marsh Chapel to be and to be known as their spiritual home.\u00a0 There are of course some down sides to such breadth, but this has been our heritage since Daniel Marsh finished the chapel, and the Trustees named it for him, long ago.\u00a0 Marsh\u2019s book, The Charm of the Chapel<\/em>, we have here, and one of our staff could get you a copy, should you want one.<\/p>\n

To answer in more detail your fine question about doctrine, I will need to give a few points of reference.\u00a0 As with coming to know Martin Luther, the first step would be to read through the sermons (now found easily on our website, from 2003 on).\u00a0 As with coming to know John Calvin, the second step would be to read through the books, here the decanal books.\u00a0 Mine our found in the narthex.\u00a0 Those of my predecessors are also readily available:\u00a0 the two most voluminous collections being those of Dean Neville, 2003-2006 (present almost every week in chapel, and my only living predecessor) and of Dean Howard Thurman, 1953-1965.\u00a0 I recommend from Dean Neville God the Creator<\/em>, and from Dean Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited.<\/em>\u00a0 Dean Robert Hamill (1965\u20141973: he died just weeks after his Christmas sermon of 1972) wrote two short books of sermons, but is best captured in his column for Motive <\/em>magazine in the 1960\u2019s.\u00a0 Dean Franklin Little (1952-3) brought the academic study of the Holocaust to America, and his book, The Crucifixion of the Jews<\/em>, is stellar, and still in print.\u00a0 Dean Robert Thornburg (1978-2001) published very little, though his denominational leadership was significant.\u00a0 As with coming to know John Wesley, the third step would be to look at what the chapel actually does<\/em>, week by week (found in the term book, on the website, and in the bulletin\u2014including the weekly Dean\u2019s Choice).\u00a0 You will find, I think, in broad terms, in the sermons and books and works, that we are a theologically liberal church with a spiritually liberal pulpit, again broadly construed, and in congruence with the history of Boston University, and, indeed, of Boston itself.\u00a0 In sum, with Mr. Wesley, we would affirm \u2018that which has been believed always and everywhere by everyone\u2019 (the ecumenical consensus, where there is such); and we would affirm, \u2018if thine heart be as mine, then give me thine hand\u2019; and we would affirm, \u2018in essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty;\u00a0 in all things, charity\u2019.<\/p>\n

Spiritual Not Religious?<\/em><\/p>\n

But what if I am more spiritual than religious?\u00a0 What is they healthy humble balance of these two terms?<\/p>\n

Well, the distinction, spiritual vs. religious, would not have been intelligible to St. Luke, whose gospel we have been reading these past several months.\u00a0 Whether or not the distinction\u2014spiritual\\religious\u2014is one you understand or affirm, it is in its framing at least a modern lens, and to foist it upon the New Testament would be fair in no direction.<\/p>\n

Luke is a teacher, like Matthew, whose own gospel is a didactic one.\u00a0 Matthew is organized around five narratives and lectures.\u00a0 Including a long lecture from a mountain.\u00a0 Affirming the jot and tittle of the law.\u00a0 Honoring disciples and discipline.\u00a0 Matthew sees the world and its human inhabitants, to the moment of its audibility for you and me, as a school room filled with students.\u00a0 He is a teacher, and he wants us to learn, as does Luke.<\/p>\n

In principle, then, as all learners both larger and smaller and older and younger, we are in conversation with our evangelist.\u00a0\u00a0 Preaching is interpretation, interpretation of Holy Scriptures, holy out of use and history and function and love and inspiration, whose opening to the ear is meant to teach, as well as to delight and finally to persuade.\u00a0 Learn something from every sermon.\u00a0 Teach something in every sermon.\u00a0 Teach and learn in every sermon.\u00a0 What would Luke and Matthew help us to learn about this current, modern, popular distinction:\u00a0 \u2018I am spiritual but not religious\u2019?<\/p>\n

It happens that at the heart of the New Testament, there is, one could say, a parallel problem, a similar distinction, at work, being worked, being worked out.\u00a0\u00a0 That is the problem of Christianity emerging from Judaism.\u00a0\u00a0 For the readers of Paul.\u00a0 For the students of Luke.\u00a0 For the listeners to Marsh Chapel in the past decade.\u00a0 For these and others, this is not a new story.\u00a0 One of the two great and deep mysteries of the 27 New Testament books is this one.\u00a0 How did a religious and spiritual movement begun in Palestine, led by a Jew and other Jews, born out of the history and theology and society of Judaism, and relying on the whole of the Hebrew Scripture, become, in less than 100 years, entirely Greek?<\/p>\n

The New Testament witnesses, it should be strongly asserted, had as a group no disinclination to follow spiritual truth over against the dictates of religious tradition.\u00a0 The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, after all.\u00a0\u00a0 The tearing of Christianity away from Judaism was in part a spiritual revolt against a religious authority.\u00a0\u00a0 The Lordship of Jesus, the way of faith, the announcement of the resurrection, the advances into the highways and byways, the preaching of the gospel, especially to the gentiles, left religion, of one form, in the dust.\u00a0 One is commanded in fact to \u2018shake the dust from one\u2019s feet\u2019.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, and perhaps more powerfully, the New Testament writers have every disinclination to celebrate an individualized spiritual perspective, \u2018Sheilaism\u2019, \u2018bowling alone\u2019, or the new atheism which often dresses in the simple garb of introversion and social, conversational, and relational isolation.\u00a0\u00a0 The 27 books of the NT, if nothing else, revolve around a steady development of a new community, a beloved community, a community of faith working through love, and are themselves children of and witness to the emergence of that set of communities, the church.\u00a0 Even the Gospel of John, the most spiritual and least institutional of the documents, nonetheless, from its radical angle, forcefully acclaims the experience of love in faith, the love of \u2018one another\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 The dismantling of one religious structure requires the responsibility to replace it with an improved model (Methodists take note).\u00a0 In this sense, the New Testament would be the polar opposite and spiritual contestant of spirituality today.<\/p>\n

Biblical Theology?<\/em><\/p>\n

And how, kind sir, in your own life and work does this paean to health and humility matter?<\/p>\n

Well, remember our ride up the Matterhorn a few weeks ago?<\/p>\n

The ride is short but terrifying.\u00a0 At the top, mid-July, thick snow, hard ice, brisk wind and a coldness of cold await you.\u00a0 As does the mesmerizing thrall of the mountain.\u00a0 The Matterhorn.\u00a0 Step gingerly out of the old open rail car.\u00a0 Get your footing, your mountain sea legs.\u00a0 Raise your gaze.\u00a0 Raise your gaze.\u00a0 Raise your gaze.\u00a0 There.\u00a0 A new way of seeing, and so of thinking, and so, then of being.\u00a0 Health and sanity may impel or compel you to higher ground.<\/p>\n

My sixteenth book will be published this fall, a collection devoted in part to the New Testament, in part to preaching, and in part to ministry\u2014Bible, Church, World as we in the halcyon younger days of the World Council of Churches intoned.\u00a0 None of the sixteen is a best seller, none a game changer, none found in every home.\u00a0 All but two are still in print, and several in both print and cyber forms.\u00a0 They are the work of Zermatt.\u00a0 Fine.\u00a0 The view from Zermatt is fine.\u00a0 You can share it in physical comfort and communal fellowship.\u00a0 The Matterhorn!\u00a0 Just before you.\u00a0 But.\u00a0 But.\u00a0 But.<\/p>\n

As an acrophobe the rail car ride up is not appealing.\u00a0 But it is time for me to move on up, to take higher ground, to climb on to Gornergrat.\u00a0 Ice.\u00a0 Snow. Cold. Wind.\u00a0 That means the prospect of one more, a very different book, for a very different look.\u00a0 A different look takes a different book.\u00a0 It will be, here, for me, the work of the next decade, in pulpit and study.\u00a0 As you cannot get to Gornergrat but through Zermatt, this project depends in full on all that came before:\u00a0 books on the New Testament (John), on preaching (Interpretation), and on ministry (prayer and practice).\u00a0 The next climb is up on to craggy cliff village\u2014ice, snow, cold, wind\u2014of an overture to A Liberal Biblical Theology<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 Here is a marriage of Rudolph Bultmann and N.T. Wright., a partnership of Paul Tillich and (the early) Karl Barth, an aspirational possibilist (that is Methodist) correlation of history and theology, Bible and Church, accessible to the average reader.\u00a0 Our climate, nation, and denomination, all in peril, hang in the balance.<\/p>\n

9\u00a0<\/sup>He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cTwo men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11\u00a0<\/sup>The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, \u2018God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12\u00a0<\/sup>I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.\u2019 13\u00a0<\/sup>But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, \u2018God, be merciful to me, a sinner!\u2019 14\u00a0<\/sup>I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Click Here to hear the full service Joel 2:23-32 Luke 18:9-14 Click Here to hear just the sermon Merciful Delay? What drove Luke, alone, to remember or construct these marvelous parables, Luke 9-19?\u00a0 Only Luke has them, and how we would miss them without his composition!\u00a0 What molded them near the year 85ad? The lengthening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369"}],"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=2369"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2372,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369\/revisions\/2372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}