{"id":2798,"date":"2020-07-19T11:00:35","date_gmt":"2020-07-19T15:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=2798"},"modified":"2021-01-19T11:48:37","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T16:48:37","slug":"elusive-presence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2020\/07\/19\/elusive-presence\/","title":{"rendered":"Elusive Presence"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Genesis 28:10-19<\/a><\/p>\n

Romans 8:12-25<\/a><\/p>\n

Matthew 13:24-30<\/a><\/p>\n

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

<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

<\/em><\/strong>One summer some years ago our family made a three-day trip to Maine.\u00a0 We stopped in Kennebunkport and swam in the ocean.\u00a0 That day the newspaper carried a little book review of a short book called On Presence<\/em>.\u00a0 The review noted that the book had been written by Ralph Harper, an unknown Episcopal priest in Maryland, who also taught a religion course at the local college.\u00a0 The book won a prestigious prize.\u00a0 The author was quoted as saying, among other things, \u2018After preaching almost every Sunday for the past 31 years, I know how hard it is to say anything honest\u2019.\u00a0 I stuffed the review in my shirt pocket.\u00a0 I finally bought the book (though nine months later).\u00a0 On Presence <\/em>is about the practice of the presence of God.\u00a0 Harper writes, We have too short a time on this earth to pass up any chance to find words and images to live by.\u00a0 I believe almost everyone is capable of being moved by some person, place, (part of) nature, or individual work of art.\u00a0 Of course, there is instability and incoherence in and about us all the time.\u00a0 There is also the inexhaustible store of Being to keep us permanently in awe.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>This summer we are not traveling, neither up or down the coast.\u00a0 Perhaps you are doing so, and is so, many blessings to you. But the matter of presence, or the question, is freshly alive in the season of plague, the season of power and its policing, the season of presidential reckoning.\u00a0 One asked, Just where is God in all of this?\u00a0 <\/em>To the few verses of Holy Scripture accorded us this summer morning, we may portage that question, of presence, of divine presence, of God, of God\u2019s presence, or absent presence, or present absence, during pandemic, and pandemonium, and political reckoning.\u00a0 Our Scripture affirms an Elusive Presence, oddly lodged in remorse, in scrutiny, in longing and in contest.\u00a0 All of our lessons today explore this question, a good and honest question of faith, the question of presence.\u00a0 But they answer in a Scriptural key, in a Biblical tongue, in a Holy honesty.\u00a0 In a strange way, a strange answer, coming out of the heart of the strange world of the Bible.<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Sometimes presence appears in remorse, in hindsight.\u00a0 From your campfire days you will remember Jacob\u2019s ladder.\u00a0 The Book of Genesis is about to move from Creation and Covenant, on to Providence, or at least to the naming of the sons of Jacob, the twelve tribes, with which the rest of the book will be consumed.\u00a0 But first, there is the matter of Jacob himself.\u00a0 Jacob dreams of a ladder ascending to and from heaven, and hears the promise of promise.\u00a0 He awakes and rubs his eyes, and realizes.\u00a0 He had not seen, he had not known. I knew it not! \u00a0In this place, with a baffling dream and a rock for a pillow, here, not in comfort or completion, or conquest, here, alone at night and in a dream, there appeared a strange presence.\u00a0 But he sees so in retrospect, in reflection.\u00a0 He sees after the fact.\u00a0 And, with more than a tinge of remorse, he realizes what he had missed.\u00a0 \u2018Surely the Lord was in this place\u2026.but I knew it not\u2019.\u00a0 <\/em>In case we are prone to think this a cheery tale, the lesson schools us otherwise.\u00a0 For Jacob, we are immediately apprised, \u2018was afraid\u2019.\u00a0 In hindsight.\u00a0 In retrospect.\u00a0 In remorseful recollection.\u00a0 So that was it\u2026was blind but now I see\u2026If only\u2026 If only we had seen that coming tsunami of a virus for what it was, say, and earlier, say, and more fully and truly, say, and, well\u2026<\/p>\n

Consider, in hindsight, what you may have missed, along the way.\u00a0\u00a0 A season ago, or a decade ago, or most of lifetime ago.\u00a0 Presence, though elusive, presence still.\u00a0 So many are the examples.\u00a0 The Gospel of John has as its main point, the ladder up and down to heaven, for sure, but more so, the utter grief of a congregation that only belatedly recognized just Who, just Who, this Jesus had been, among them.\u00a0 God.\u00a0 Divine Presence, but Elusive, mistaken, mistaken in identity.\u00a0 Way and Truth and Life and, now we see in hindsight, we mistook Him\u2014Way and Truth and Life\u2014for so much less.<\/p>\n

The hard truths of the strange world of the Bible include a somber recognition of divine presence, eerie and elusive, but presence nonetheless, seen most clearly in hindsight.\u00a0 Presence? Yes, but known in remorse.<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Sometimes presence appears in scrutiny.\u00a0 In being known in full and in truth and in person.\u00a0 Seeing ourselves as others, or Another, sees us.\u00a0 This is the wearying challenge of friendship, of partnership, of marriage, of employment, and of any long term, honest relationship.<\/p>\n

You may love the 139th<\/sup> Psalm, as did Howard Thurman and as do I, perhaps more than any other in the Psalter.\u00a0 Usually we hear it, and properly, as light in darkness.\u00a0 O Lord though hast searched me\u2026such knowledge is too wonderful for me\u2026even the darkness is light to Thee\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Yet some years ago, I offered it at a BU Commencement, a joyous and happy and celebrative day, in this, my preferred sense of it.\u00a0 Still.\u00a0 Afterward a friend and colleague, and a veteran lover of the Psalms too, came up and said, I heard that Psalm in a completely different way today.<\/em>\u00a0 In hindsight, I believe what he meant was, Thanks for a gladder reading of the verses, 1-12, but there is a more sober one too.\u00a0 Think of being so entirely well-known by another, any other:\u00a0 O Lord thou hast searched me\u2026Thou knowest when I sit down and rise up\u2026Whither shall I flee from thy presence\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

A sudden sense of no escape, of being known through and through, of being seen for just who we are, of having no dark corner in which to hide, of having no fig leaf behind which to huddle\u2026Even the darkness is not dark to Thee<\/em>.\u00a0 Yes, there is an elusive presence, at the sheer price of being fully known.\u00a0 Is this not one of the great challenges of CORONA?\u00a0 Our full social and cultural exposure, to full scrutiny?\u00a0 Scrutiny of who suffers and who is healed, of who has and has not, of who can make easier strides and who stumbles through no athletic fault, but for lack and lack and lack?\u00a0 I see your true colors\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>There is, for sure, a gladness in being known through and through.\u00a0 But there is also, for sure, a sobering effect to such scrutiny, such an elusive presence in such scrutiny, be it human or divine or both.<\/p>\n

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

Sometimes presence appears in longing.\u00a0 Paul names for us the groaning, the groaning of all creation, awaiting the revealing of the children of God.\u00a0 There is hardly a longing or groaning at more of a fever pitch in all of Scripture, or in all of literature, or in any life, than here in Romans 8.\u00a0 Groaning inwardly\u2026as we await\u2026the redemption of our bodies\u2026For this hope we were saved\u2026but hope that is seen is not hope\u2026who hopes for what he sees?\u00a0 We hope for what we do not see and wait for it with patience.\u00a0 Patience.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Our time waits for such redemption. And ours is a hard, a challenging time, yet one within which there is a shared groaning, a communal longing.\u00a0\u00a0 My friend\u2019s 7 year-old daughter, at the end of glad hearted family meal, as one or another mentioned the virus, the pandemic, burst into tears, saying, When is Corona going to end?<\/em>\u00a0 We hope for what we do not yet see.\u00a0 And wait.\u00a0 With a disciplined patience.\u00a0 Without a vaccine, there will need to develop a semblance of antibody bulk, of herd immunity.\u00a0\u00a0 We need to have a sober mind, an awareness of waiting, waiting, waiting for what we do not yet see, and may well not see for some time.\u00a0 This capacity in St. Paul and in my seven year-old, to long and long without yet seeing, but still to wait, too is part of the elusive presence.\u00a0 We have a long way to go.\u00a0 But the 7 year-old\u2019s groaning is spirited expression of hope, presence, divine presence, though utterly elusive.\u00a0 She awaits a hope, not seen, but awaited, as did Emma Lazarus.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,<\/em><\/p>\n

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;<\/em><\/p>\n

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand<\/em><\/p>\n

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame<\/em><\/p>\n

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name<\/em><\/p>\n

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand<\/em><\/p>\n

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command<\/em><\/p>\n

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cKeep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!\u201d cries she<\/em><\/p>\n

With silent lips. \u201cGive me your tired, your poor,<\/em><\/p>\n

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

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.<\/em><\/p>\n

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,<\/em><\/p>\n

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Sometimes presence appears in contest, in the contention of life.\u00a0 The Gospel of Matthew leaves wheat and tares together sown, unto joy and sorrow grown, without yet a final winnowing, without yet an eschatological separation.\u00a0 And here is our condition, too.\u00a0 The challenge of every day, with decisions to make, small or large, or what appear to be small but are large, and what appear large and are actually small.\u00a0 The challenge of wheat and tares is in the contest of the everyday, for and toward the true and the good and the beautiful. On your prayer list, it may well be, you have a place regularly to lift up those near and far who face rigorous, awkward and multiple daily decisions in a new era.<\/p>\n

In this contest, we may need traveling partners, allies, those from and with whom to learn.<\/p>\n

One may be David Brooks.\u00a0 He wrote movingly this week about such an elusive presence, and the contest of perspectives needed to arrive at a better day.\u00a0 It was striking to me, as a son of a BU graduate, who studied here in the 1950\u2019s at the time of the high water mark of Boston Personalism, to hear Brooks use the term Personalism, without any reference to BU, or any sense that the term had a longer fuse than the one he lit under it.\u00a0 Yet, perhaps by accident, or grace, or the influence in contest of an elusive presence, his conclusion came close to home.\u00a0 We will leave quibbles for another day.<\/p>\n

Personalism is about constructing systems where the whole person is seen and cultivated\u2014schools where a child is not just a brain on a stick, hospitals where patients are not just bodies in beds, cities where cops are seen as people, communities in which each person is seen as rich interplay of multiple identities, economic systems that allow people to realize their full dignity as makers and earners.\u00a0 Personalism judges each social arrangement by how well it fosters the kind of relationships that enhance the full complexity and depth of each soul. (NYT 7\/10\/20)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>In this contest, we may need our predecessors to lean on.\u00a0 Elmer Leslie taught Hebrew Scripture here when my parents were at BU so long ago.\u00a0 His son, James Leslie, became my chaplain at OWU, a mentor and model for chaplaincy, he, one of only two Chaplains OWU has had since 1960, each serving thirty years.\u00a0 Elmer wrote on the prophets, who themselves needed their own predecessors, in the contests of the eighth century bce. Friends, we shall need a biblical grace, tough as well as tender, for the days ahead.\u00a0\u00a0 Let us draw down on our spiritual endowment, our religious inheritance.\u00a0 It has been done before.\u00a0 A favorite verse, perhaps for you, is Micah 6:8:\u00a0 He has declared to you O Mortal what is good:\u00a0 and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?<\/em>\u00a0 Micah drew on the three great prophets who preceded him, Amos and Hosea and Isaiah, finally to craft his magnificent verse:\u00a0 justice from Amos, kindness from Hosea, and humility from Isaiah.\u00a0 And so, drawing on the Elusive Presence, he could preach to the need of his time.<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0<\/em>When we ask about divine presence (and how can we not?) we may be surprised to hear a response\u2014Jacob, David, Paul, Matthew\u2014that affirms, strangely, a presence, but an elusive<\/em> presence, hidden in, with and under, even the sobrieties of our day:\u00a0 in remorse, in scrutiny, in longing, and in contest.\u00a0 Who would ask for more remorse, tougher scrutiny, unrequited longing, and ribald contest?\u00a0 Yet, of a summer Sunday, in the reading and reckoning with Holy Writ, we are sent their way.<\/p>\n

Ask yourself about a moment of remorse, of hindsight.\u00a0 Was there not, even there, an elusive presence?<\/p>\n

Ask yourself about an experience of scrutiny, of being known, really known.\u00a0 Was there not, even there, an elusive presence?<\/p>\n

Ask yourself about a keen sense of longing, a cry at night, a groan at dawn.\u00a0 Was there not, even there, an elusive presence?<\/p>\n

Ask yourself about a kind of contest, struggle in contention for the good.\u00a0 Was there not, even there, an elusive presence?<\/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 Genesis 28:10-19 Romans 8:12-25 Matthew 13:24-30 Click here to hear just the sermon \u00a0Preface One summer some years ago our family made a three-day trip to Maine.\u00a0 We stopped in Kennebunkport and swam in the ocean.\u00a0 That day the newspaper carried a little book review of a short […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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\/2798"}],"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=2798"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2919,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2798\/revisions\/2919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}