{"id":3106,"date":"2021-03-07T11:00:38","date_gmt":"2021-03-07T15:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=3106"},"modified":"2021-03-24T12:00:47","modified_gmt":"2021-03-24T16:00:47","slug":"a-touch-of-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2021\/03\/07\/a-touch-of-green\/","title":{"rendered":"A Touch of Green"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

John 2: 13-22<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Queen Elizabeth<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On Christmas Day, two months ago, Queen Elizabeth spoke from Buckingham Palace to her country, and, indeed the whole world.\u00a0 Carried along on clear, crisp, elegant prosed, and given voice in the Queen\u2019s own \u2018King\u2019s English\u2019, her homily evoked a profound, powerful hope.\u00a0 May there be still many years in which we all shall hear her voice from Buckingham Palace.\u00a0 As my friend says, in late pandemic, late COVID, we hunger for \u2018indicia of normalcy\u2019.\u00a0 Well, Queen Elizabeth and her long life, Queen Elizabeth and her steady presence, Queen Elizabeth and her regal voice, Queen Elizabeth and her gracious aging, gives us such, such \u2018indicia of normalcy\u2019.\u00a0 Think of her as young girl in war torn England, in bombarded London.\u00a0 Think of her as a Queen in youth, supervising the elderly Winston Churchill, brilliant–and un-supervisable.\u00a0 Think of her steady presence, her non-anxious presence, for most of us through our whole lives to date.\u00a0 She was coronated before I was born.\u00a0 May there be many more of her addresses at Christmas.<\/p>\n

People more need reminder than instruction.\u00a0 Looking toward 2021, she reminded her country, and, indeed the whole world, of the calling to kindness.\u00a0 The Queen\u2019s primary image, the heart of her reminder, the crux of her peroration, was drawn from Holy Scripture, from the Bible, a brief mention of the Good Samaritan.\u00a0 Her application to interpret the parable was neither unusual nor novel:\u00a0 love your neighbor.\u00a0 Neither unusual nor novel, but so powerful, so true, so good, so right and so beautiful.\u00a0 Notice:\u00a0 the message relied on a liberal biblical theology.\u00a0 Her short speech was founded on a shared, common language of life, known across the globe by adherents of many and no particular religious traditions, known uniquely in the Bible, a source of shared personal and social ethics, and of the very shared common tongue that, more than nearly anything else, we shall need, to get by.\u00a0 The Bible is a great, global code.\u00a0 We shall need a common tongue, a common language, a common personal and social ethic, as a globe, around the globe, to survive the 21st<\/sup> century, and to deal savingly with nuclear weaponry, climate pollution, and pandemic, this one\u2026and the next.<\/em>\u00a0 And here stands Scripture\u2014not as confessional requirement, but as reliable grammar, syntax and spelling, for a shared future.\u00a0 Marsh Chapel, every Sunday you give the globe four lessons and fifty-nine minutes in sermon and song, of this common tongue, interpreted in a global, a liberal biblical theology.<\/p>\n

My friend, deciding about his life, says, \u2018it is a road to Damascus moment\u2019.<\/p>\n

My friend, hearing the broken Hallelujah of Leonard Cohen, can better bear his own grief.<\/p>\n

Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
\nThat David played, and it pleased the Lord
\nBut you don’t really care for music, do you?
\nIt goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
\nThe minor fall, the major lift
\nThe baffled king composing Hallelujah
\nHallelujah, Hallelujah
\nHallelujah, Hallelujah<\/em><\/p>\n

My friend, quoting Lincoln, he says, remembers \u2018A house divided against itself cannot stand\u2019.\u00a0 But Lincoln did not write that, did he.\u00a0 He learned it in a great code, a tome perhaps more meaningful to him than any other, though he hardly ever went to church. The Bible is still\u2014unsurpassed–a great code.\u00a0 We shall need a common tongue, a common language, a common personal and social ethic, as a globe, around the globe, to survive the 21st century, and to deal savingly with nuclear weaponry, climate pollution, and pandemic, this one and the next. \u00a0Just as old Elijah said to Jezebel, you better start to learn your lessons we<\/em>ll.\u00a0 To the shared great code, Queen Elizabeth repaired, to start the year, as 2021 opened.\u00a0 You remember, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell among thieves\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

St Patrick<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

You remember. In Lent, we remember.\u00a0 \u201c(Lent) is for people who know what it means for their soul to be logged with these icy waters: all of us are such people, if only we can realize it. \u00a0There is confidence everywhere in (Lent), yet that does not mean unmixed and untroubled security. \u00a0The confidence of the Christian is always a confidence despite darkness and risk, in the presence of peril, with every evidence of possible disaster\u2026\u00a0 Once again, Lent is not just a time for squaring conscious accounts: but\u00a0for realizing what we had perhaps not seen before. \u00a0The light of Lent is given us to help us with this realization.\u00a0 Nevertheless, the liturgy of (Lent) is not focused on the sinfulness of the penitent but on the mercy of God. \u00a0The question of sinfulness is raised precisely because this is a day of mercy.\u201d(Thomas Merton)<\/p>\n

Our Lenten Sermon Series, beginning today, will engage in conversation with St. Patrick.\u00a0 From 2007-2016, Lent by Lent, we identified a theological conversation partner for the Lenten sermons, broadly speaking, out of the Calvinist tradition.\u00a0 In the next decade, we have turned to the Catholic tradition.\u00a0 With Calvin we encountered the chief resource for others we engaged over ten years\u2014voices <\/em>like those of Jonathan Edwards (2015), \u00a0John Calvin (2014), Marilyn Robinson (2013), Jacques Ellul (2012), Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a Lutheran cousin, (2011), Karl Barth (2010), and Gabriel Vahanian (2007), and themes<\/em> like Atonement (2009) and Decision (2008), summarized with the help of Paul of Tarsus (2016). \u00a0Then in this decade, beginning with Lent 2017, the Marsh pulpit, a traditionally Methodist one, turns left, not right, toward Rome not Geneva, and we have preached with, and learned from the Roman Catholic tradition, so important in the last 200 years in New England, and some of its great divines including Henri Nouwen (2017) Thomas Merton (2018) John of the Cross (2019), Teresa of Avila (2020).\u00a0 Other years, it may Ignatius of Loyola, Erasmus, Hans Kung, Karl Rahner, and others, one per year.\u00a0 Perhaps you will suggest a name or two, not from Geneva, but from Rome?\u00a0 For those who recall, even if dimly, the vigor and excitement of Vatican II, there may well be other names to add to the list.\u00a0 We began with Henri Nouwen in 2017, and by Lent 2020, we were listening in prayer for grace in the life, voice, heart, poetry and spirit of Santa Teresa of Avila.\u00a0 I had prepared to preach with Dorothy Day this year, 2021, and spent some of the summer reading her biography.\u00a0 Another year, maybe next, 2022.\u00a0 But something about this past year, something about life in Boston it may be, something about the events and outcomes of late autumn, something about immersion in the home of the bean and the cod for several years, something, a touch of green, something brought the patron saint of Ireland forward.\u00a0 St. Patrick will help guide is for Lent 2021.\u00a0 A touch of memory, shaded in green.<\/p>\n

John 2<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking of memory.\u00a0 Our lesson from the fourth gospel gives us memory, in and through which we prepare.<\/p>\n

The long weeks of patience, wandering, and wilderness which form our yearly Lenten pilgrimage prepare us.<\/p>\n

Notice that John has rearranged the furniture of the gospel. He has placed the temple cleansing at the outset of the story.<\/p>\n

We become who we are by daring to decide. We discover the power of imagination by daring to find the courage to decide.\u00a0 Choose.\u00a0 Choose!<\/p>\n

Some years ago, in the aisle of a darkened sanctuary, and following a dark re-enactment of the events of Holy Thursday and Good Friday, a ten-year old, guided by his mother, came forward and asked, of the Jesus so depicted, \u2018What did he do that was so wrong?\u2019 What was the linchpin for the move to the cross?<\/p>\n

Well, I said, or perhaps mumbled something about blasphemy and something about treason.<\/p>\n

But Matthew, Mark and Luke, the gospels other than John, mark Jesus\u2019 downfall at the temple. As he attacks inherited religion, as he cleanses the temple, his doom is sealed. In John, it is the resurrection of Lazarus, long chapters later, which seals his fate. But John too sees the power of decision in Jesus\u2019 appearance in the temple. In fact, in the second chapter, John opens with Cana, and the promise of incarnation enshrined in that wedding, and closes with the temple, and the forecast of the cross, the hour, the word, which is his abiding interest. Jesus is himself the temple which others will destroy. Here, he gives his new view of the future, not to be awaited somewhere in the clouds. It is taking place now in the life and destiny of Jesus. All throughout, throughout his life, and throughout your own, there is the struggle, this struggle, his struggle, for truth and grace. This is Jesus\u2019 struggle. He becomes himself, his own most self not his almost self, in dealing with decision, in this today\u2019s decision to affront and confront inherited religion.<\/p>\n

Faith is finding the courage to choose. Faith is dealing with decision.
\nMemory is our aid here. Remember Proust comparing \u2018the low and shameful gate of experience, and the other\u2026 the golden gate of imagination\u2019 (RTP, 401). Memory feeds imagination. Faith is finding the power, receiving the power to choose, to reflect on choosing, to take responsibility for the choice, to learn with choosing, and to address the consequences of choice. Dealing with decision means dealing too with regret and failure. This too is faith in action. Listen again to the regret in Yeats\u2019 poem\u2026<\/p>\n

No single story would they find
\nOf an unbroken happy mind,
\nA finish worthy of the start.
\nYoung men know nothing of this sort\u2026
\nObservant old men know it well<\/em><\/p>\n

This year, intermittently when not reading Mark, we will scale a far greater promontory, the highest peak in the Bible, which is the Gospel of John. With every cut-back trail, at every rest point, atop every lookout, with every majestic view, this spiritual gospel will address you with the choice of freedom, with the ongoing need to choose, and in choosing to find the life of belonging and meaning, personal identity and global imagination. Yes, choosing diversity and inclusion. Yes, and also, choosing unity and mutuality. More personally, this Gospel helps those who struggle with dislocation and disappointment. The Bride in Cana experienced dislocation, and so have you. The Bride of Christ experiences disappointment, and so have you.<\/p>\n

John features Jesus in mortal combat over all of these. Jesus demarcates the limits of individualism during a wedding in Cana. Jesus pillories pride by night with Nicodemus. Jesus unwraps the touching self-presentations of hypocrisy in conversation at the well. Jesus heals a broken spirit. Jesus feeds the throng with two fish and five barley loaves. Jesus gives sight and insight, bifocal and stereoptic, to a man born blind. Jesus comes upon dead Lazarus and bring resurrection and life. He brings the introvert out of the closet of loneliness. He brings the literalist out of the closet of materialism. He brings the passionate out of the closet of guilt. He brings the dim-witted out of the closet of myopia. He brings the church out of the closet of hunger. That is: in all, He brings the dead to life.\u00a0 Jesus brings the dead to life<\/p>\n

In poetry, St. Patrick greets us, with just this strength, strength for decisions, strength for the journey.<\/p>\n

Breast Plate <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

St Patrick was British by birth, you will remember.\u00a0 He lived and worked in the fifth century c.e., the dating beyond that obscure.\u00a0 By legend and tradition, he brought Christianity to Ireland, of which he became the patron though uncanonized saint.\u00a0 He survived capture and slavery, and guided by his own visions, his own touches of green, he evangelized: \u2018never before did they know of God…but they became the people of the Lord\u2019.\u00a0 Of many, there is one chief, telling clue to the truth and depth in the wilderness journey of Patrick.\u00a0 That is, he was unafraid to incorporate pre-existing Irish beliefs and symbols into his teaching about Christianity and his offering of faith, as was the author of the Gospel of John, who himself was unafraid to incorporate pre-existing Gnostic beliefs and symbols into his teaching about Christianity and his offering of faith.\u00a0 St. Patrick is best known for his glorious poem, his \u2018breastplate\u2019 to which we return in later Lent.\u00a0 Hear a few verses:<\/p>\n

I arise today
\nThrough a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
\nThrough belief in the Threeness,
\nThrough confession of the Oneness
\nof the Creator of creation.
\nI arise today
\nThrough the strength of Christ’s birth with His baptism,
\nThrough the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,
\nThrough the strength of His resurrection with His ascension\u2026<\/p>\n

I arise today, through
\nThe strength of heaven,
\nThe light of the sun,
\nThe radiance of the moon,
\nThe splendor of fire,
\nThe speed of lightning,
\nThe swiftness of wind,
\nThe depth of the sea,
\nThe stability of the earth,
\nThe firmness of rock.
\nI arise today, through
\nGod’s strength to pilot me,
\nGod’s might to uphold me,
\nGod’s wisdom to guide me,
\nGod’s eye to look before me,
\nGod’s ear to hear me,
\nGod’s word to speak for me,
\nGod’s hand to guard me,
\nGod’s shield to protect me,
\nGod’s host to save me..<\/em><\/p>\n


\nI arise today
\nThrough a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
\nThrough belief in the Threeness,
\nThrough confession of the Oneness
\nof the Creator of creation.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

In a moment we will hear again the ancient liturgy for eucharist.\u00a0 We are not together to receive together the bread and cup.\u00a0 But we are together in relationship, by memory, in hope, through prayer.\u00a0 And with a little imagination, with eyes closed and hearts open, we might allow the familiar, ancient prayers of communion, to bring us into communion.<\/p>\n

So, travel with a little imagination\u2026Imagine Eucharist at Marsh Chapel.\u00a0 Stand to sing\u2026 Pause to reflect\u2026 Step out into the aisle\u2026 Look at and look past Abraham Lincoln and Francis Willard\u2026Receive cup and bread, bread and cup\u2026 Kneel at the altar to pray\u2026 Stand in communion with the communion of saints\u2026Here is the bread and cup of friendship\u2026Imagine, if you are willing, a baptism, a wedding, a funeral, say right here, and a congregation reciting together a creed, a psalm, a hymn, a poem.\u00a0 Imagine, if you are willing, a congregation currently in diaspora, but just now, by the word spoken, a gathered and thus addressable community, you and I and all together.<\/p>\n

Sursum Corda!\u00a0 Lift up your hearts\u2026<\/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 John 2: 13-22 Click here to hear just the sermon Queen Elizabeth On Christmas Day, two months ago, Queen Elizabeth spoke from Buckingham Palace to her country, and, indeed the whole world.\u00a0 Carried along on clear, crisp, elegant prosed, and given voice in the Queen\u2019s own \u2018King\u2019s English\u2019, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106"}],"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=3106"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3108,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106\/revisions\/3108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}