{"id":3115,"date":"2021-03-21T11:00:04","date_gmt":"2021-03-21T15:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=3115"},"modified":"2021-03-24T12:00:35","modified_gmt":"2021-03-24T16:00:35","slug":"green-meadows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2021\/03\/21\/green-meadows\/","title":{"rendered":"Green Meadows"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

John 12: 20-33<\/a><\/p>\n

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

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

Now Jesus stands before us at the feast, talking with Greeks as a reminder in John that Jesus came for us, the non-Jews, so that the boundaries of Israel might be expanded, and a branch might be grafted onto the tree of life. Today Jesus stands before us in all his youth. He stands before us as a young man facing certain death. He is a grain of wheat that is cast into the earth and that then brings forth much fruit. His is a life of servant love, given over against so many others who clutch at life, and tragically lose it. Selfishness kills. Generosity saves. Selfishness kills. Generosity saves.<\/p>\n

But now the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.<\/em><\/p>\n

For John and his church, this meant that the hour has come for faith. The hour has come to see past and see through the physical reality of death to its true significance.<\/p>\n

The hour has come to see past and see through the shameful and painful reality of crucifixion to its true significance. The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. This fourth gospel trims out of the story of Jesus\u2019 death almost all the harsher detail, all the spitting, all the degradation, all the abject humiliation, all the brutality-they are gone. Peter\u2019s denial and the crown of thorns alone remain. And this is because for John the cross of Jesus Christ is not crucifixion alone, nor departure alone, nor exaltation alone. This hour is first of all the hour of glory.<\/em>\u00a0 So, Matthew may end his gospel with a cry: Eli Eli lamasabacthani. <\/em>Luke may conclude his gospel with a prayer: Father forgive them for they know not what they do. <\/em>But John ends with a single word-tetelestai-it is finished.<\/em> What the world sees as defeat is really a triumph and what the world sees as the end of Jesus\u2019 hopes and aspirations is really the beginning of his ascent to glory. (Blessed Ashton). The heart of life is found in love and death, and today we are right at the heart of life. Love and death, these are our existential space and our daily time.\u00a0 We are told today to find our life by losing it, to drop our grain that fruit we may gain, we are taught again to love our neighbor as if she were our very self.<\/p>\n

In these verses, John 12:20-33, there lingers an essence, a fragrance that eludes description. Why did Dostoevsky choose these verses as frontispiece to his greatest novel, Crime and Punishment? <\/em>John seems to have distilled a potent nectar, more potent than that found elsewhere, from his knowledge of loss. Why are these verses so haunting?<\/p>\n

I believe they astound us so, because they reflect a double death. I believe the sense of glory found in the cross here comes from the hard lesson of loss, in a little church, somewhere in Turkey, turned out of the synagogue, and losing or about to lose, long after the death of Jesus, their last link with the primitive church. In the cross, in their loss, they saw both the death of Jesus, and the death of their beloved disciple, their beloved preacher, their pastor, John. The fourth Gospel is so strange and so startling because it operates at two levels, first that of Jesus and second that of John. After decades of pastoral care, guiding them through change, leading them out of the synagogue, protecting them from their own worst selves, reminding them of Christ the Lord, and showing them how to walk in the light<\/em>, the towering figure of their beloved preacher was overtaken by death.<\/p>\n

First, they lost Jesus, then they lost John. Both losses hurt with unspeakable pain. But here is what they learned: love carries us through loss. Love carries us through loss. Love outlasts loss.<\/em> In fact, only self-opening love can bring any meaning through loss!<\/p>\n

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

Our Lenten conversation partner St. Patrick deeply and fully shared this Johannine sense of loss and love, of loss in love.\u00a0 The brooding, the longing, the poetry he and his followers, over many centuries, gave to life is located, met, at the intersection of loss and love, a spot we have known keenly in the last 12 months, as we recalled last week.<\/p>\n

Near the year 400, a boy named Patrick was kidnapped in Britain and taken as a slave to Ireland.\u00a0 For six long years he lived poor and alone, a shepherd slave, out in the cold green meadows and mountains.\u00a0 He lived poor and alone, and as we mostly do, found his faith in trouble.\u00a0 He turned to the Creator God of his parents, and found a magnificent source of strength.\u00a0 Out of poverty, out of silence, out of fear, out of hunger grew the life changing faith of St. Patrick, who spent thirty years among the people of Ireland, bringing faith outside the Roman Empire. I wonder where we might find Patrick today.\u00a0\u00a0 For out beyond the bounds of what remains of Christian culture today there live many for whom the Gospel is pure news, not just good news, but news.\u00a0 Our mission is blocks away as well as time zones away.\u00a0 A friend who normally sits in the balcony when there is seating and seating in the balcony reminded me this winter of Thomas Cahill\u2019s short book, his essay from some years ago, one with a jaunty title and a graceful lyrical composition, How the Irish Saved Civilization.\u00a0 <\/em>He tells about St. Patrick, and about his successors the Green Martyrs, and a country of green meadows.\u00a0 Since our fifteenth Lenten conversation partner, here at Marsh Chapel 2021, is St. Patrick, it seemed time to blow the dust off the volume.<\/p>\n

Patrick inspired a host of others to follow him and to follow his Christ.\u00a0 He embodied a love of nature, a sense of confidence, and a capacity for vision which were wrought in the dark days of his poverty.\u00a0 Out in the shepherd fields he found his love of nature.\u00a0 His natural world was forever teaching him, forever succoring him, forever saving him.\u00a0 Most of us are too far from nature.\u00a0 We take too few walks, and attend too few funerals.\u00a0 From this first love, he then found a confidence in God.\u00a0 A confidence that gave him ease, real peace, in the face of difference, in the need for confession, and, centuries early on, as a champion of the place of women.\u00a0 Faith is contagious, when it is confident, as Patrick was confident.\u00a0\u00a0 Somehow, this poor shepherd, this lover of nature, this confident happy fellow, found a capacity to envision, the power to envision, daily, a better world.\u00a0 Nature, confidence, vision\u2014these gifts are ours today as well.<\/p>\n

For in Patrick\u2019s wake there arose, in the fifth and sixth centuries, an Irish movement called the Green Martyrs.\u00a0 They took to heart his love of nature, his sense of confidence, and his capacity for vision.\u00a0 Their country, almost alone had received Christian faith without bloodshed\u2014they had no \u201cred martyrs\u201d.\u00a0 They knew though that the blood of the martyr is the seed of the faith.\u00a0 So, they endeavored to offer themselves as Green Martyrs.\u00a0 And off they went to live as hermits and monks, each in his little cell, copying books, providing hospitality to strangers, living out of doors, keeping a memory of past beauty and glory alive through the dark ages. *<\/p>\n

They knew the bright side of Christ.\u00a0\u00a0 So, they went off into the green woods or the green mountains or the green islands of their native land\u2014there to be faithful, to pray, to read, to love, to commune.\u00a0 They went to draw nearer to God.<\/p>\n

Nature<\/h1>\n

One follower of St Patrick in the sixth century wrote:<\/p>\n

Grant me sweet Christ the grace to find\u2014<\/p>\n

Son of the living God<\/p>\n

A small hut in a lonesome spot<\/p>\n

To make it my abode<\/p>\n

A little pool but very clear<\/p>\n

To stand beside the place<\/p>\n

Where all men\u2019s sins are washed away<\/p>\n

By sanctifying grace<\/p>\n

A pleasant woodland all about<\/p>\n

To shield it from the wind<\/p>\n

And make a home for singing birds<\/p>\n

Before it and behind. *<\/p>\n

There is a holiness to the creation itself that we do not always well articulate.\u00a0 One of our leading feminist theologians and teachers, Elizabeth Johnson, has in her work and teaching clearly reminded us of this.\u00a0 Nature sings, teaches, helps, saves.\u00a0 Bless those past and present Green Martyrs who by their example help us to live in easy communion with Nature, to walk lightly upon the earth.\u00a0 Bless those past and present Green Martyrs who by their example notice the sacred groves in which we dwell.<\/p>\n

An early Irish poet sang:<\/p>\n

I am an estuary into the sea<\/p>\n

I am a wave of the ocean<\/p>\n

I am the sound of the sea<\/p>\n

I am a powerful ox<\/p>\n

I am a hawk on a cliff<\/p>\n

I am a dewdrop in the sun<\/p>\n

I am a plant of beauty<\/p>\n

I am a boar for valor<\/p>\n

I am a salmon in a pool<\/p>\n

I am a lake in a plain<\/p>\n

I am the strength of art*<\/p>\n

Confidence<\/h1>\n

From this easy communion with nature, there arose in Patrick and in his Green Martyrs a kind of confidence.\u00a0 What an inspiring quality is confidence!\u00a0 Confidence before potential conflict.\u00a0 Confidence in the face of uncertainty.\u00a0 Confidence, which the poor must have as the Scripture continually reminds us, in front of random hurt.\u00a0 Confidence to offer hospitality (will they like my home? will they receive my friendship? will they accept my meal? will they reciprocate?).\u00a0 Confidence to accept difference.\u00a0 Confidence of women among men and men among women.\u00a0 As Thomas Cahill says, it is confidence that builds a nation, a civilization, a culture, a people.\u00a0 And it is confidence that is lost when a civilization grows weary and small.\u00a0 Think of your own heroes, your own role models.\u00a0 Were they not inspiringly confident?\u00a0 Not arrogant, or pushy, or aggressive, or domineering.\u00a0 Confident.<\/p>\n

There is a connection between being at home in nature and being confident in life. There is confidence that comes from reading, from learning something every day. In 1843, just a visitor to the Irish city of Kerry noticed a poor farmer, alone at midday, and reading an old manuscript.\u00a0 The visitor was startled to find, in the gnarled hands of this poor man, an old manuscript.\u00a0 Written in the Irish language, in Celtic character.\u00a0 Containing poems, stories, histories, philosophy.\u00a0 Handed down from grandfather to father.\u00a0\u00a0 A poor man holding a priceless book. *<\/p>\n

Sometimes gifts come from unexpected sources. Here is one.\u00a0 Confidence.\u00a0 Confidence that God is a God of love\u2014no small affirmation.\u00a0 Joseph Plunkett wrote:<\/p>\n

I see his blood upon the rose<\/p>\n

And in the stars the glory of his eyes<\/p>\n

His body gleams amid eternal snows<\/p>\n

His tears fall from the skies<\/p>\n

I see his face in every flower<\/p>\n

The thunder and the singing of the birds<\/p>\n

Are but his voice\u2014and carven by his power<\/p>\n

Rocks are his written words<\/p>\n

All pathways by his feet are worn<\/p>\n

His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea<\/p>\n

His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn<\/p>\n

His cross is every tree. *<\/p>\n

Vision<\/h1>\n

Over a lifetime, one lived in communion with nature, and one filled with a sense of confidence, it may be that a capacity for vision emerges.\u00a0 It was true for Patrick.\u00a0 It was true for the Green Martyrs.\u00a0 In their little huts, through the Dark Ages, fully at peace, furiously copying, making books, making books.\u00a0 Living beyond heartache, into God\u2019s future.\u00a0 Learning to love words.\u00a0 Recognizing that the one sacrifice needed, Christ crucified, has been made, by God.\u00a0 Ritual sacrifices are no longer needed.\u00a0 We may seek together God\u2019s purpose.\u00a0 This is good news for leaders, today.\u00a0 I love the Bishop Cyprian, himself a lover of the city, whose motto still is central to leadership: \u201cFrom the beginning, I made up my mind to do nothing on my own private opinion, without your advice and without the consent of the people\u201d. *\u00a0 That is, what will last is what we have the courage to share.\u00a0 It may be that in our time, this very year, say, we are learning again to savor a biblical vision.<\/p>\n

You know, the cities across upstate New York, my home, came to life 170 years ago, along the path of the Erie Canal.\u00a0 In their, in our, spiritual constitution, lie buried, though not long dead, memories of what poverty can mean.\u00a0 Today, we are fast becoming two nations, separate and unequal. \u00a0Our public institutions, protectors of the non-rich, are today imperiled.\u00a0 Our public health.\u00a0 Our public schools.\u00a0 Our public parks and places.\u00a0 Our public churches\u2014I mean churches that have not yet succumbed to the temptation to return to sectarian life, those who will yet dare to be both residents and aliens, not merely resident aliens, willing to see in Christ the vision of a culture transformed, a culture and country to be shared. We need to remember the poor, this Lent.<\/p>\n

For it is the poor, the outcast, who at depth know the endless contention of time, and of our time, caught as they are in its undertow.\u00a0 We in our churches have forgotten our own poverty, our days not long past, of want.\u00a0 Once, we were poor.\u00a0 Your family, too, if you go back far enough or long enough.\u00a0 Not that long ago.\u00a0 Because we have forgotten, or hidden, our own hurt, not long past, we miss Jesus among the poor, Jesus who meets us amid the endless contention of life.<\/p>\n

Here is a vision, a green country vision. We are a church universal, a church catholic.\u00a0 We are not to leave the poor behind.<\/p>\n

Will you acquire an easy communion with nature and nature\u2019s God?<\/p>\n

Will you seek a sense of confidence?<\/p>\n

Will you develop a capacity for vision?<\/p>\n

By the side of the road, from your little garden, will you share a love of nature, a sense of confidence, a capacity for vision?<\/p>\n

Will the riches of the poor\u2014nature, confidence, vision\u2014be yours and ours to share?\u00a0 Today? \u00a0As our spiritual worship?<\/p>\n

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

Here is a challenge written this winter by Leigh Stein (the author most recently of the novel \u2018Self Care\u2019, a satire of the wellness industry and influencer culture) (NYT 2\/21): \u00a0There is a chasm between the vast scope of our needs and what influencers can provide.\u00a0 We\u2019re looking for guidance in the wrong places.\u00a0 Instead of helping us to engage with our most important questions, our screens might be distracting us from them. \u00a0Maybe we actually need to go to something like church? Contrary to what you might have seen on Instagram, our purpose is not to optimize our one wild and precious life. It\u2019s time to search for meaning beyond the electric church that keeps us addicted to our phones and alienated from our closest kin.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

So, dear ones, walk the meadows and open landscapes of a spirited green country.\u00a0 Watch this week for worship in life, the green country of lasting life, the places where Sunday and weekday join hands and dance.\u00a0 If what you are saying and doing has some place in the liturgy on Sunday, then you may have found fruitful life:<\/p>\n

Does it glorify God?<\/p>\n

Does it meet and greet the neighbor?<\/p>\n

Does it provoke honest confession?<\/p>\n

Does it provide for children, for the poor?<\/p>\n

Does it include silence?<\/p>\n

Does it allow a listening for truth?<\/p>\n

Does it further learning and teaching?<\/p>\n

Does it involve a commitment, a decision?<\/p>\n

Does it build, broadly understood, the Body of Christ?<\/p>\n

May our daily grace be the blessing of Brigid\u2019s hospitable monastery, St. Brigid of Kildare:<\/p>\n

I should like a great lake of finest ale<\/p>\n

For the King of kings<\/p>\n

I should like a table of the choicest food<\/p>\n

For the family of heaven<\/p>\n

Let the ale be made from the fruits of faith<\/p>\n

And the food be forgiving love<\/p>\n

I should welcome the poor to my feast<\/p>\n

For they are God\u2019s children<\/p>\n

I should welcome the sick to my feast<\/p>\n

For they are God\u2019s joy<\/p>\n

Let the poor sit with Jesus at the highest place<\/p>\n

And the sick dance with the angels<\/p>\n

God bless the poor<\/p>\n

God bless the sick<\/p>\n

And bless your human race<\/p>\n

God bless our food<\/p>\n

God bless our drink<\/p>\n

All homes, O God, embrace. *<\/p>\n

*Drawn from Thomas Cahill\u2019s excellent essay:\u00a0 How the Irish Saved Civilization <\/strong>(NY: Doubleday, 1995).<\/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 12: 20-33 Click here to hear just the sermon John Now Jesus stands before us at the feast, talking with Greeks as a reminder in John that Jesus came for us, the non-Jews, so that the boundaries of Israel might be expanded, and a branch might be […]<\/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\/3115"}],"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=3115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3116,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115\/revisions\/3116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}