{"id":2943,"date":"2021-01-31T11:00:28","date_gmt":"2021-01-31T16:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=2943"},"modified":"2021-01-29T09:10:58","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T14:10:58","slug":"inklings-of-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2021\/01\/31\/inklings-of-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Inklings of Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Mark 1: 21-28<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Jesus greets us today through the inner voice, your inner voice, nudging by and through the inklings of faith, in your own experience.\u00a0 You are listening and so are drawn to faith, through the spiritual nudges of the Gospel, in tradition and in confrontation and in response.<\/p>\n

Three inklings of faith are announced today, in the Gospel According to St. Mark.\u00a0\u00a0 We shall trace their emergence in our hearing, and attempt to apply them to our spiritual benefit.<\/p>\n

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

First, notice the lingering power of tradition.\u00a0 Not traditionalism, but the forms of inherited tradition.\u00a0 The dominical voice bespeaking inklings of faith whistles through the willow branches of tradition.<\/p>\n

Jesus speaks.<\/p>\n

When does he speak?\u00a0 On the Sabbath. Where does he speak?\u00a0 In the synagogue.<\/p>\n

How does he speak?\u00a0 As a teacher.<\/p>\n

All three of these aspects of his speaking are named for us, though we might have inferred two of the three from just the mention of one, or another.\u00a0 They go together\u2014holy time, holy space, holy words.\u00a0 The gospel means to emphasize by repetition.<\/p>\n

There is, at the outset, a regard, a lingering respect for what has been, for what one inherits.\u00a0 For tradition, though not traditionalism. \u00a0The Sabbath is the occasion.\u00a0 The synagogue is the setting.\u00a0 The role of teacher frames the message.<\/p>\n

A time of rest and refreshment, Sabbath, here receives Jesus\u2019 blessing, at least in the manner of his recognition and participation.\u00a0\u00a0 Sunday can be a time of Sabbath rest.\u00a0 A time for sleep, for recovery, for reading, for gathering.\u00a0\u00a0 We are a sleep deprived people, somnambulant in a sleep deprived culture.\u00a0 So a traditional occasion, a time for retreat and renewal can feed us, if we let it.\u00a0 There are none so weary as those who will not sleep.<\/p>\n

Following my sermons, some arise inspired and some awake refreshed.\u00a0 Both are good outcomes.\u00a0 Both!<\/p>\n

Likewise, synagogue, a coming together, is a traditional form.\u00a0 It means, a gathering together.\u00a0 Blessed are the hosts, for they shall be called the cooks of God.\u00a0\u00a0 When you have had a hand in gathering together a gathering together, you have brushed close to something good, something godly.\u00a0 How we feel the force of this, mid-Covid, an inkling known in pain in the breach.<\/p>\n

So, too, the role of the teacher.\u00a0 A familiar role, a familiar social location.\u00a0 It is not in some exotic form that Jesus greets his hearers today.\u00a0 The form is familiar, the teacher.\u00a0 We may sometimes look too far, too wide for what we most want and need, when nearby, familiarly so, our health awaits.<\/p>\n

Sabbath, synagogue, rabbi.\u00a0 Tradition.\u00a0 Here Jesus is more than willing to don the raiment of inheritance, to be harnessed by the yoke of tradition.\u00a0 Jeremiah recommended the old paths.\u00a0 Matthew prized every jot and tittle.\u00a0 We hunger for those voices that will help us translate the tradition into insights for effective living.<\/p>\n

So, a Chapel, and so a Sunday service. Some memories of college years, here, will be connected to the particular sound of our choir.\u00a0 Some recollections of exams passed or nearly passed, will be held in earshot of a meal or a trip or a talk, here.\u00a0 Some remembrances of things past, even of hard moments of loss or regret or disappointment, will have about them a shaft of light through stained glass, an echo of truth through scripture read, an admission of prayer needed and offered.<\/p>\n

Our gospel today, which offers inklings of faith, notices the lingering power of tradition.<\/p>\n

It is in the midst of this house, this lineage, this inheritance that Jesus speaks, not absent it.<\/p>\n

His hearers are astonished.\u00a0 He is not confused in their hearing with their hearing of the scribes, his usual opponents in the flow of this gospel.\u00a0 They know a different voice when they hear it.\u00a0 A voice, nudging you today, a hum, a whisper, an inkling of faith.<\/p>\n

But we are not told what exactly made the voice authoritative.<\/p>\n

Like last week, in the calling of the disciples, the two sets of brothers.\u00a0 We are told nothing, there, about what made them move, what caused their decision, what set them free.\u00a0 And this week, in the authorization of teaching, we are told nothing about what made the sermon so good.\u00a0 Only that it was.<\/p>\n

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

Second, notice, and how can you help it, the centrality of confrontation.\u00a0 Here there is an unclean spirit loose, loose amid the holy time and place and role.<\/p>\n

A voice of authority calls out his nemesis.\u00a0 We are straightway here in the realm of apocalyptic, cosmic apocalyptic, battle.<\/p>\n

I can remember the first burial, now nearly thirty years ago, in which such wailing occurred in my hearing.\u00a0 It was startling, as, for many, here, it was last week.\u00a0 But it was true and real.\u00a0 That is, now and then, people still \u2018cry with a loud voice\u2019, sometimes, in church.<\/p>\n

Our worldview is not cosmic apocalyptic confrontation.\u00a0 We do not see a convulsive as one demon, of an unclean sort, challenging another Jesus demon of an authoritative sort.\u00a0 We are late modern people, women and men who do not cry out in public, unless we are at a sporting event, drinking heavily, or about to call the police into a domestic dispute.\u00a0 Maybe, in compensation, that is why sports and drinking and all become so central to us.<\/p>\n

Authentic authority involves confrontation, not just pleasant courtesies of disagreement, but genuine squaring off.\u00a0 To your roommate you finally say: \u2018One of us is wrong and I think it is you.\u2019\u00a0 To your boss you finally say:\u00a0 \u2018Look, do you want to do my work or will you let me do it?\u2019\u00a0 To your political economy (known by the way for good reason as \u2018capitalism\u2019 not \u2018laborism\u2019, because capital rules labor in capitalism) you finally say:\u00a0 \u2018One way or another my son needs a job.\u2019\u00a0 To your good friend, gently, you say: \u2018I am sorry you feel that way.\u00a0 Goodbye\u2019.\u00a0 To your spouse you say:\u00a0 \u2018You can have me or him but not both at the same time\u2019.\u00a0 To your warring world you finally shout:\u00a0 \u2018My son is not your cannon fodder\u2019.<\/p>\n

One thing I truly admired about my dad was how he easy he was around confrontation.\u00a0 A man would stand up and shout and carry on a church meeting, walk out of worship the next Sunday, or send a blistering hand written hate note to the pastor, and my dad would shrug and smile and say, \u2018I like to see him get worked up.\u00a0 It is worth the price of admission just to see him so angry.\u2019 \u00a0Less naturally and more slowly, I too have learned to honor and receive anger.\u00a0 Mark would understand.<\/p>\n

Here Mark is starting his gospel, with a confrontation.\u00a0 The verb here rendered \u2018be silent\u2019 (so polite) means \u2018to muzzle\u2019.\u00a0 Be muzzled.\u00a0 Shut your trap. (so J Marcus, loc. Cit.).\u00a0 Matthew begins his public gospel with the Sermon on the Mount.\u00a0 Luke begins his public gospel with the sermon in Nazareth.\u00a0 John begins his public gospel with the wedding in Cana (again, Marcus).\u00a0 But Mark?\u00a0 He begins with demons and confrontation.<\/p>\n

When we get angry, we get in touch with something deep inside, something not necessarily at all related to what we think we are angry about.\u00a0 We are not so very far from the \u2018unclean spirit\u2019 of Mark 1.\u00a0 We are complicated creatures.<\/p>\n

You see and hear this again in a play from a few years ago, \u2018Freud\u2019s Last Session\u2019, an imagined conversation between Sigmund Freud, the great psychologist, and C. S. Lewis, the great apologist.\u00a0 Bombs are falling on London.\u00a0 Freud is suffering with mouth cancer.\u00a0 Lewis is struggling with his young man\u2019s sexuality. And through it all\u2014the question of God.\u00a0 Freud and Lewis confront each other. They lock horns for 90 minutes of verbal combat.\u00a0 Each memorizes and delivers the equivalent of two Sunday sermons.\u00a0 They square off and argue.\u00a0 Good.<\/p>\n

There is no resolution\u2014how could there be in 90 minutes?\u00a0 But there is confrontation, in and through which, it may be, there is an inkling of something, and inkling of faith.<\/p>\n

It takes sometimes the inkling of exorcising power, finally, of love, to move us.<\/p>\n

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

Third, response.\u00a0 Notice the response.\u00a0 The emphasis falls on an acknowledgement of an authenticity in the nudges to faith.\u00a0 Inklings with authority.\u00a0 \u2018With authority\u2026a new teaching\u2026he commands\u2026even the demons obey\u2026his fame spread throughout the north country\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 It works.\u00a0 Whatever he said, whatever he taught, it helped somebody.\u00a0 We wish we knew what it was!<\/p>\n

Yet, there is a quieter wisdom in the silence of Scripture here.\u00a0 If we knew, we would be tempted just to repeat rather than to rehearse.\u00a0 We need to have the tradition, in the moment of confrontation, translated into insights for effective living which, in response, we can use.\u00a0 That is authentic authority in the full.\u00a0 If we knew that he used the 100th<\/sup> Psalm, we would repeat it every Sunday.\u00a0 If we knew he preached on Jeremiah, we would invariably do so.\u00a0 If we knew he taught specific proverbs, we would ignore the rest.\u00a0 No, there is freedom in the silence of the gospel, here, a freedom to live and love with authentic authority.\u00a0 To respond.\u00a0 And you?<\/p>\n

I am committed to the life of faith because the best people, leading the best lives, in my experience, have shown inklings of faith.\u00a0 I respond to the freedom and love I see in other people of faith, now 65 generations after the exorcism in Capernaum, and the response all across Galilee.\u00a0 In other lives I have seen glimpses of what I could be and do, if I would only straighten up and fly right.\u00a0 Some of those lives are in this room.\u00a0 Some are in memory.\u00a0 Some are out there waiting to be introduced.\u00a0 Don\u2019t kid yourself.\u00a0 Especially, especially in a University setting, people are taking your measure.\u00a0 Good.\u00a0 Your example counts, matters, lasts, works.<\/p>\n

Tradition and confrontation evoke a response.\u00a0 The unclean spirit leaves.\u00a0 The congregation murmurs.\u00a0 The report goes forth.<\/p>\n

Let me turn it around.\u00a0 When you fail somehow, and we all you do, sometime, you know the negative influence of your own response.\u00a0 Give yourself some credit then, on the up side of the ledger. \u00a0Dean Jones gave me a book.\u00a0 Professor Jones listened with care.\u00a0 That TA gave me the benefit of the doubt.\u00a0 I will always be grateful for what Chaplain Jones did for me.\u00a0 Let me say to those of us thirty years old and more:\u00a0 eyes are watching, ears are listening, minds are considering what path to take.\u00a0 Your example makes a difference in their response, right here, right now, right at Marsh Chapel.\u00a0 We are forever teaching and learning, learning and teaching.<\/p>\n

Someone taught you.\u00a0 A High School band director?\u00a0 A Latin teacher in college?\u00a0 A chemistry professor who lingered with you in the lab?\u00a0 Who?<\/p>\n

One responded to her Latin teacher.\u00a0 Another responded to his science teacher.\u00a0 One responded to her history teacher.\u00a0 Another responded to her family matriarch.\u00a0 One responded to his theology professor.\u00a0 As Carlyle Marney put it:\u00a0 \u201cWho told you who you was?\u201d<\/p>\n

The music is playing all around us, all through us, in our triumph and in our tragedy.\u00a0 We just need to respond.\u00a0 To lean over, and turn the dial, and set the music free.<\/p>\n

This is the power of Bach today.\u00a0 Inklings of faith are found in real response.<\/p>\n

The Gospel According to St. Mark starts off with inklings of faith, inklings of faith.\u00a0 When you are searching for a sense of, then hunt around a healthy bit of lost tradition, and for a courageous and cleansing moment of confrontation and\u00a0 for a real and personal, public response.<\/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 Mark 1: 21-28 Click here to hear just the sermon Jesus greets us today through the inner voice, your inner voice, nudging by and through the inklings of faith, in your own experience.\u00a0 You are listening and so are drawn to faith, through the spiritual nudges of the […]<\/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\/2943"}],"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=2943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2944,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2943\/revisions\/2944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}