{"id":2814,"date":"2020-08-23T11:00:16","date_gmt":"2020-08-23T16:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=2814"},"modified":"2021-02-22T14:23:12","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T19:23:12","slug":"liberal-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2020\/08\/23\/liberal-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberal Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Matthew\u00a016:13-20<\/a><\/p>\n

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

A healthy institution of any sort, particularly of any religious sort and certainly of any Christian sort, is a community that is learning together.\u00a0 As Albert Camus said, the healthy society is a circle in which all are seated and each reminds the other: \u2018You are not God.\u00a0 I am not God.\u00a0 You are not God. I am not God.\u2019\u00a0 You are the recipients, the inheritors of that liberal tradition, the legacy of the liberal church.\u00a0 As such, we are learning together, every single day, every Lord\u2019s Day, every one day.<\/p>\n

We are learning together.<\/p>\n

Moses teaches us.<\/p>\n

We learn together from these glorious narratives, offered us week by week in this year, from Genesis\u2014think of Joseph last week\u2014and today from Exodus.\u00a0 The uncanny, the unexpected, the spirited entrance into life, by and through human imagination and courage, of grace, of freedom, of love.\u00a0 And Pharaoh\u2019s daughter took a little prophet out of the bulrushes, Moses by name.\u00a0 There come times when a new Pharaoh arrives, one \u2018who did not know Joseph\u2019.\u00a0 There come times when the odds are set up against the real and true and good.\u00a0 There come times when it is hard to name a fully good thing from any day or week.\u00a0 There come times when both nature and history appear to conspire together, against grace.\u00a0 And then along comes a recollection of the self-giving courage of a mother, setting her basket into the rippling waters of bulrushes along the Nile.\u00a0 Loving by letting go.\u00a0 There are some eyes with tears right around here this week, some parents turning away and giving children to the unforeseen future.\u00a0 No matter the age or stage, it takes courage, it takes the uncanny, the unexpected, the spirited entrance into life, by and through human imagination and courage, of grace, of freedom, of love.\u00a0 The community of faith knows change, knows itinerancy, knows loss that becomes gain and gain that becomes loss.\u00a0 That is the legacy of the liberal church.<\/p>\n

Moses teaches us.<\/p>\n

Paul teaches us.<\/p>\n

Here is a sweet memory to share, now more than twenty years old, but it is clear as a bright August morning, even so.\u00a0 For how happy we were one Saturday in Rochester to hear an excellent sermon on today\u2019s epistle, Romans 12 from our former pulpit, given at a divinity school graduation by the Rev. Mr. Peter Gomes, Harvard Chaplain.\u00a0 Do you remember The Good Book<\/em><\/strong>, his 1996 essay on the interpretation of Scripture?\u00a0 Really, his hymn of love for the Scripture.\u00a0 We were really proud to have him in our Rochester pulpit, and to hear his message.<\/p>\n

If memory serves, it included some standard homiletical devices\u2014a foundational text (Romans 12:2), a theme (endings are beginnings), repetition, litanies, epigrams, some old and new humor, making use of natural \u201coppositions\u201d that come to the mind of the hearer and then addressing them, a little poetry (TS Eliot\u2014\u201cLittle Gidding\u201d), a quotation or two, and an exhortation to the congregation to be transformed \u201cby the renewing of the mind\u201d.\u00a0 Be ye not conformed but be ye transformed by the renewal of the mind.<\/em><\/p>\n

What most appealed was the design of the message.\u00a0 Following an extended introduction, and preceding a simple conclusion, the preacher offered three memorable points.\u00a0 Hah!\u00a0 In the living church, much national debate and new homiletical theory to the contrary notwithstanding, there is\u2014and especially there was on that Saturday\u2014still room for a good three-point sermon, even one that concluded with a poem.\u00a0 From Aristotle to about 1970, this design had endured, and reports of its death in the last decades have been, in Twain\u2019s term, \u201cexaggerated\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 Three points and a poem still work.<\/p>\n

Gomes challenged the graduates, the students,<\/em> and by reflection the church and by extension all Christians, not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewal of the mind. <\/em>\u00a0How?<\/p>\n

First, by noticing the difference between wisdom and knowledge.<\/em><\/p>\n

Second, by practicing meekness, whose opposite is not strength, but pride.<\/em><\/p>\n

Third, by protecting space and time for relaxation, prayer, reading.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now, it would be nice to have the note page on which was summarized the message.\u00a0 Somehow, though, between the past and present, the paper disappeared.\u00a0\u00a0 No matter\u2014his design preserved the message for me\u2014wisdom, meekness, relaxation.\u00a0 Let us try to remember and, in Justice Holmes good phrase, try to give it the benefit of five great words: \u201cI applied it to myself.\u201d\u00a0 Care to join me?\u00a0 That is your legacy in the liberal church.<\/p>\n

Paul teaches us.<\/p>\n

Matthew teaches us.<\/p>\n

We are disciples.\u00a0 The word means student.\u00a0 Disciple means student.\u00a0 Salve Discipuli.\u00a0 Salve Magistra.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 Discipleship means studentship.\u00a0 The model of faithfulness recommended, particular in Matthew, and especially in Matthew 16, is the model of the student.\u00a0 Perhaps if we simply said \u2018studentship\u2019 rather than \u2018discipleship\u2019, we would do better.\u00a0 Perhaps we should and could see the courageous arrival of the class of 2024 as exhibit a, exemplum docet.<\/em><\/p>\n

Living right means learning together\u2014in voice, in thought, in conflict, in Scripture.\u00a0 Learning together.<\/p>\n

It is this driving preachment that causes Matthew to eviscerate Mark here.\u00a0\u00a0 Matthew in 85ad has taken a passage from Mark in 70ad and turned it upside down.\u00a0\u00a0 It is not so much the detail, by the way, of the manner in which Matthew and Luke revise Mark, chapter by chapter, which is important.\u00a0 What matters is that they happily re-gospelled<\/em> the gospel for their own day, to a fair thee well.<\/em><\/p>\n

No?\u00a0 No?\u00a0 Oh Yes. Yes, indeed.\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n

Mark in the passage calls Peter \u2018Satan\u2019.\u00a0 Matthew calls him Rock.\u00a0 Mark has no mention of any church of any kind. \u00a0Matthew uses the word, the greed word for church, ecclessia<\/em>\u2014not likely something Jesus would have said, and gives Peter keys to the kingdom.\u00a0 Mark has Jesus tell the disciples\u2014the students\u2014to keep it all secret.\u00a0 Matthew rejects that secrecy, except for the title, messiah, and says, \u2018preach it\u2019.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Why does Matthew eviscerate, confound, gut, overturn his legacy, this inherited passage from Mark?\u00a0 Answer:\u00a0 he and his community are learning together.\u00a0 From voices.\u00a0 From thoughts.\u00a0 From conflicts.\u00a0 And Matthew sternly tells his people:\u00a0 to become fully human you will need institutional grounding, support, protection, and sustenance:\u00a0 family, neighborhood, school, church, university, country, globe. \u00a0And let me be clear about the church, he adds:\u00a0 the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.<\/p>\n

Just more thing, as we are learning together in voice, thought, conflict and scripture.\u00a0\u00a0 Like Peter Falk used to say, in his character as Colombo, the absent-minded professor-like detective, turning as he left, \u00a0\u2018Just one more thing\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

Who do you <\/em>say He is?\u00a0 In your life. Notice the passage crashes away from the general and the philosophical\u2014what do others say (general) about the son of man (philosophical).\u00a0 Some say (general), the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the Prophets (philosophical).\u00a0 Notice the move to the specific and the personal.\u00a0 Who do you<\/em> say I am?\u00a0 Meaning for you today:\u00a0 how are you going to live?\u00a0 A life of studentship, or not?\u00a0 Said Peter, \u2018Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.\u201d\u00a0 And you?\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Remember this.\u00a0 Peter is the one who most needed forgiveness, and full pardon he did receive.\u00a0 There is forgiveness in life (repeat). And the church is the place where people like Peter, like you and me, who need forgiveness, find themselves forgiven.\u00a0\u00a0 That is your legacy in the liberal church,<\/p>\n

Matthew teaches us.<\/p>\n

Moses, Paul, Matthew\u2014they teach us how to live in the liberality of the gospel, wherein we worship God who is loving us into love and freeing us into freedom.\u00a0 The passages become Holy Scripture,<\/em> in that they make us more whole, <\/em>more ourselves, more our own healthy, safe, well, best selves, holy because whole.\u00a0 \u00a0Scripture teaches us.\u00a0 And, so does experience, sometimes both together.<\/p>\n

Our long-time friend and virtual, radio congregant, Dr. Kris Kahle, in New Haven, Connecticut, often sends along something of interest, a passage from Camus, say, maybe from THE PLAGUE, or a paragraph from Barth\u2019s Church Dogmatics, which he has been reading alongside his COVID 19 medical practice.\u00a0 He and family are part of our extended family, an example of so many, far and near, who are with us in spirit, together in spirit, come Sunday. Perhaps you are one such. Grateful we are, thankful we are for Dr. Kahle and others, who share with us at Marsh Chapel, the freedom and love of the church, who share with us at Marsh Chapel, the fellowship, koinonia, commonwealth, partnership of the Gospel.\u00a0 What began in the bulrushes of the Nile, and then was taught to the Romans by the Apostle to the Gentiles, and then, and now, today, in the Holy Gospel is acclaimed\u2014this is the good news of \u2018the Christ, the Son of the Living God.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the summer Dr. Kahle took a moment apart from his medical teaching and practice to send me the video of John Lewis\u2019s funeral, or rather, one of the eulogies therein.\u00a0 We otherwise might have missed it, given the backwoods lack of technological connection\u2014a summer blessing in the main\u2014with which we live or don\u2019t live, in the woods of upstate New York, come summer.\u00a0 We trail technologically behind the Little House on the Prairie for some of the summer.\u00a0 So, we would have missed it.\u00a0 He sent it.\u00a0 What a gift.<\/p>\n

What made President Obama\u2019s eulogy for Congressman Lewis so powerful?\u00a0 It was a grand, high moment, a soaring eagle moment in American rhetoric.\u00a0 Was it the reminder of what gracious eloquence can mean in leadership and life?\u00a0 Yes, but not only that.\u00a0 Was it the painful but real measure of civil society, of what ground we have lost, much ground, much real and rhetorical and religious ground we have lost in these past few years?\u00a0 Yes, but not only that.\u00a0 Was it the sense of the cost of progress, the willingness to work toward \u2018a more perfect union\u2019, recognizing, with sober honesty, the myriad imperfections that beset us?\u00a0 Yes, but not only that.\u00a0 Was it the generous sense of common hope, that which can sustain the least and the last and the lost, as well as the rest of us?\u00a0 Yes, but not only that.\u00a0 Was it the personal honor, in cadence and story and honesty and heart?\u00a0 Yes, but no only that.\u00a0 Was it the humanity\u2014recalling Bill Clinton lifting his hand and pointing to the casket of Coretta Scott King in 2006, and stepping off his prepared text to shout, \u2018for all these kind fancy words, don\u2019t you forget, there\u2019s a woman in that box.\u2019\u00a0 Yes, but not only that.\u00a0 What was it, at depth, that made Barack Obama\u2019s eulogy for John Lewis such a tremendous gift to me from Dr. Kahle?\u00a0 Let\u2019s cogitate a minute on that while the sermon meanders and unwinds toward its conclusion this summer morning.<\/p>\n

What was it that made President Obama\u2019s eulogy for John Lewis so trenchant and true?\u00a0 Scripture, Holy Scripture, The Church\u2019s Book, The Book on and of the Church.\u00a0 <\/em>In the main, along with other ingredients mentioned, the power in his personal ability, rightly to choose and use timely verses of Scripture, the Holy Scripture taught and learned in the learning community of the liberal church.\u00a0 The setting\u2014Ebenezer Baptist\u2014spoke the same truth, in the languages of architecture, history, pulpit, choir and people.\u00a0 \u00a0Yes, the church is both a representation and a distortion of the divine (Tillich).\u00a0 But if for some reason the church were to disappear overnight, in a cultural tsunami, it would come back.\u00a0 Even the gates of hell will not prevail against it.\u00a0 Somehow, we would find a table, and somehow a chair or two, and somehow some bread and wine, and somehow a Bible and an hour or so, and we would start again, as, in a way, we do every Sunday, which is especially and vividly apparent to us now in this pandemic.\u00a0 We start over. \u00a0We would start with Holy Scripture. \u00a0It is this Holy Scripture in the Holy Church that rose up like a lion in the Obama eulogy for Lewis, the right verse in the right time in the right way. \u00a0James! \u2018Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.\u201d\u00a0 <\/em>That is the courage of the Book of James. Corinthians! \u00a0(SECOND Corinthians, let us be clear), We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9\u00a0<\/sup>persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10\u00a0<\/sup>always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 Acts!\u00a0 \u201cDo not be afraid, go on speaking; do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.\u201d (Acts 18).<\/em><\/p>\n

It was the right handling of the word of truth that brought power and love, freedom and grace to life.\u00a0 And it still does.\u00a0 <\/em>He concluded in eulogy, summarizing his three points, James, Corinthians and Acts:\u00a0 And that\u2019s where real courage comes from. Not from turning on each other, but by turning towards one another. Not by sowing hatred and division, but by spreading love and truth. Not by avoiding our responsibilities to create a better America and a better world, but by embracing those responsibilities with joy and perseverance and discovering that in our beloved community, we do not walk alone.<\/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 Matthew\u00a016:13-20 Click here to hear just the sermon A healthy institution of any sort, particularly of any religious sort and certainly of any Christian sort, is a community that is learning together.\u00a0 As Albert Camus said, the healthy society is a circle in which all are seated and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814"}],"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=2814"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2920,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions\/2920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}