{"id":3280,"date":"2021-12-19T11:00:23","date_gmt":"2021-12-19T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=3280"},"modified":"2021-12-19T10:16:30","modified_gmt":"2021-12-19T15:16:30","slug":"another-look","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2021\/12\/19\/another-look\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Look"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Luke <\/span>1:39<\/span>\u2013<\/span>45<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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

It may be time to take another look at prayer.<\/p>\n

Christmas 2021 for us may bring a time to take another look at our devotional life, our worship life, another look, at prayer.\u00a0 Our Advent daily devotions have guided us in this direction, day by day.\u00a0 All fall we have noted that faith comes, to most of us, one step at a time.\u00a0 Yes, there are some for whom a blinding light on the Road to Damascus, a blinding light on the road of life, carries us to faith.\u00a0 But most of us come along more gradually, one step and then another.\u00a0 One such step in faith is to find the rhythm of prayer, of devotion, that fits your own-most self.\u00a0 This morning, it may be, is a time for that step, to take another look at prayer, at mystery, at the numinous, at worship.\u00a0 The elusive presence of the divine lies at the marrow of the Christmas gospel, embedded in the strange stories of the season.<\/p>\n

Our Gospel this morning is a case in point.\u00a0 Luke acquaints us with two births, John and Jesus, two mothers, Mary and Elizabeth.\u00a0 Multiple generations are engaged in audible utterance, at the dawn of a new age. \u00a0I heard the sound\u2026the child leaped.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Holy Scripture read in worship itself may call you this morning to another look at prayer.\u00a0 A familiar introit has called us to prayer.\u00a0 There are hymns, hymns sung, and you hear them. You recognize again a kyrie, a sung sorrow, crucial to being human today.\u00a0 Mercy, have mercy.\u00a0 Some courageous soul has led a psalm.\u00a0 Anthem, hymn, reading, prayer.\u00a0 And a story so well known that it is unknown.\u00a0 A story of birth.\u00a0\u00a0 Let there be no separation between what is said and what is heard.\u00a0 Let the snow filter fully down this morning, snow upon snow.\u00a0 Let the message of the day be yours and ours.<\/p>\n

For Jesus\u2019 birth is like all births, in that physical sense utterly predictable.\u00a0 Yet ask yourself where in life you have felt closer to miracle than at the moment of birth.\u00a0 An ordinary extraordinary.\u00a0 For the telling of Christmas, from the very first, was about more than one birth, more than one kind of birth.\u00a0 The gospel writer is trying to say what cannot readily or easily be said, to connect the sense of the extraordinary with the experience of the ordinary. \u00a0There were many births in first century Palestine.\u00a0 To this one birth there came attached a second birth.\u00a0 Yes, that of John alongside that of Jesus, but more so his birth, somehow, alongside our own.<\/p>\n

Charles Wesley caught the marrow of the message in a phrase: \u201cborn to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth\u201d.\u00a0 For the Wesleys both, it was the incarnation of Christ, his birth and life and word made flesh, which rooted and grounded their reverence.\u00a0 The English carols we most love, both those Charles wrote, and those that influenced him and were influenced by him, bring their disciplined obedience to a fever pitch.<\/p>\n

Our Scripture lessons today bring harmonic support to the intersection of the ordinary with the extraordinary, which intersection is the mailing address of prayer. \u00a0Micah, Mary, Hebrews, Elizabeth–whether in prophecy or in song or in address, the voices of today\u2019s Scriptures also lift up the strange paradox of earthly heaven and heavenly earth.<\/p>\n

What does the Scripture mean by the birth of the Christ, and what especially does this mean for us, for our second birth, as the hymn has it?<\/p>\n

Are we able to enter again into our mother\u2019s womb, either in figure or in truth?\u00a0 But no.\u00a0 This is the question Nicodemus raised, to no avail.\u00a0 We cannot return to an earlier condition, nor to an earlier conception of an earlier condition.\u00a0 Heraclitus was so right so long ago: \u00a0no one ever steps into the same river twice.\u00a0 <\/em>The second birth clearly is not a physical or conceptual retreat, or return, or recapitulation.\u00a0 It is a step forward, another look, another step, in faith.<\/p>\n

Are we to assume a second naivete, at the heart of the Wesleyan second birth? \u00a0Paul Ricouer, and others using other terms, have recalled to us the mature, midlife importance of such a second birth.<\/p>\n

The Scripture in other quarters clearly connects the meaning of the birth with the meaning of the name of the newborn, \u2018one who will save his people from their sins\u2019.\u00a0 Paul may speak of the Christ as the Lord of a new creation.\u00a0 Mark may affirm the Christ as hidden and crucified.\u00a0 John may herald the Christ at his coming as one with God, revealing God.\u00a0 Matthew early and late acclaims the atonement wrought in Christ, the healing from past error, the steady saving removal to higher ground.\u00a0 This is a great hope, the hope of freedom, deliverance from what has hurt in the past.\u00a0 Today, Luke heralds two births, the Baptist and the Christ, John and Jesus.\u00a0 Two. When saving liberation occurs, there is a kind of second birth, a new lease on life, a new life.\u00a0 This second birth is the one that carries you forward, one step, to take another look at prayer.<\/p>\n

Something somehow has brought you to prayer this Sunday morning.\u00a0 Here you are, present or listening or both.\u00a0 Maybe you have been at this intersection before, and are ready to take another look.<\/p>\n

Nudges come from many directions. You may have heard the Methodist minister from western Kentucky, Joey Reed, last week, standing in the rubble of his Mayfield Kentucky church, in the basement of which he and his wife had survived the tornado.\u00a0 “I realized it might be my last few moments of my life on this earth and I was very glad to be with my wife,” he said. “I know her prayer and mine was that we’d be spared. I was afraid for my children, what would happen to them and how they would respond to this.” <\/em>\u00a0And then he began talking about helping others, regathering the congregation, holding on to the precious memories of that building, and, with grateful tears, looking forward to solemnizing the marriage of this daughter.\u00a0 That is, in the midst of trauma, he called on the grammar of faith, he called on the language of worship, he called on the cadences of prayer.<\/p>\n

Or, it may be, the beautiful music of our organ and organist draw you, week by week.\u00a0 Through the late afternoons of pandemic, with office the quiet, the organ playing in the nave above brought us another look at prayer.\u00a0 A powerful listening look at prayer.\u00a0 The organ preaches its own sermon, lifts its own prayer, week by week, as a friend\u2019s reminder of Thomas Troeger\u2019s poem recently recalled:<\/p>\n

With pipes of tin and wood make known
\nthe truth each star displays:
\ncreation is a field that’s sown
\nwith seeds of thanks and praise.
\nArticulate with measured sound
\nthe song that fills all solid matter sings.<\/em><\/p>\n

With pipes of tin and wood restart
\nthe fire the prophets knew
\nand fan the flame within the heart
\nto do what God would do.
\nPull out the stops that train the ear–
\nthe flute and reed to listen and more subtly hear
\nGod’s call through human need.<\/p>\n

With pipes of tin and wood repeat
\nthe music danced and played to welcome home
\nand warmly greet the prodigal who strayed.
\nLet healing harmonies release
\nthe hurt the heart compiles
\nthat God through music may increase
\nthe grace that reconciles.<\/p>\n

With pipes disclose the song the world has blurred,
\nthe hymn of life and love that flows
\nfrom God’s renewing word.
\nThen boldly open wide the swell
\nand with a trumpet call
\nannounce the news we thirst to tell:
\nThat Christ is Lord of all.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Here is a Christmas word.\u00a0 You are still listening, if you are listening.\u00a0 I am still preaching, for a few more minutes.\u00a0 And we are together, amid the daily, hourly difficult pandemic worries to one side, and a sense of the Extraordinary on the other.\u00a0 For all the sorrow, there is still, on your part, and on mine, and on others\u2019, a listening ear, a willingness to tune in, a hard to articulate longing, a reaching toward\u2026Another.\u00a0 Another look.\u00a0 What is that listening?\u00a0 What is that willingness?\u00a0 What is that longing?<\/p>\n

One form of the second birth is here.\u00a0 One form.\u00a0 A second religious birth, a second connection, a second opening.\u00a0 You would not listen if there were not some meager eagerness to wake up to\u2026Another.\u00a0 Generosity, compassion, forgiveness\u2014these are the hallmarks and doorways into that second birth.\u00a0 You have the heart to give something to others, generously to give something without expecting any personal return.\u00a0 You have the spirit to be present with someone whose own spirit is sore, spiritually to walk with a fellow human being.\u00a0 You have the soul to forgive a past fault, whether it was thirty days or thirty years ago, mercifully to move on, and say so, and mean it.\u00a0 Your generosity, your compassion, your forgiveness\u2014at least your longing for and leaning toward and listening to them\u2014these are the natal cries of a prayer. \u00a0Another look.\u00a0 At prayer. You may be ready to pray, or to pray again.<\/p>\n

Last Sunday we prepared for worship, readers and choristers and clergy, looking greatly forward to the chance to pray, and to sing, and to sing the glorious carols of Christmas.\u00a0 We expected a modest gathering, a partial percentage of our regular seasonal attendance.\u00a0 And then, we processed in to the nave of the Chapel, and, my goodness, the church was full, or nearly so. It took the breath away.\u00a0 It was another look, given by those ready maybe to take another look, another look at religion, at singing, at sacrament, at Scripture, at sermon, at worship.\u00a0 Another look at prayer. The worship of Almighty God is not a matter of indifference.\u00a0 Said that strong gathered throng last Sunday:\u00a0 the worship of Almighty God is not a matter of indifference.<\/p>\n

Take another look.\u00a0 Take another look at prayer, at a kind of prayer that suits you, fits you, is meant for you.<\/p>\n

In the new year, you may be given a gift of another look, a new start on a genuine religious life.\u00a0 Howard Thurman would not be surprised:<\/p>\n

When the song of the angel is stilled,
\nWhen the star in the sky is gone,
\nWhen the kings and princes are home,
\nWhen the shepherds are back with their flock,
\nThe work of Christmas begins:
\nTo find the lost<\/em><\/p>\n

To heal the broken<\/em><\/p>\n

To feed the hungry
\nTo release the prisoner<\/em><\/p>\n

To rebuild the nations
\nTo bring peace among brothers and sisters
\nTo make music in the heart.<\/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 Luke 1:39\u201345 Click here to hear just the sermon It may be time to take another look at prayer. Christmas 2021 for us may bring a time to take another look at our devotional life, our worship life, another look, at prayer.\u00a0 Our Advent daily devotions have guided […]<\/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\/3280"}],"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=3280"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3282,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3280\/revisions\/3282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}