{"id":3347,"date":"2022-05-01T11:00:25","date_gmt":"2022-05-01T15:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=3347"},"modified":"2022-05-02T12:31:46","modified_gmt":"2022-05-02T16:31:46","slug":"communion-mediation-sunday-may-1-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2022\/05\/01\/communion-mediation-sunday-may-1-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Communion Mediation- Sunday, May 1, 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

John 21:1-19<\/a><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

The Church\u2019s one foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord;
\nwe are his new creation by water and the Word;
\nfrom heaven he came and sought us that we might ever be
\nhis living servant people, by his own death set free.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jesus speaks to us today from the edge of the shoreline. \u00a0His voice, although we often mistake or mishear or misunderstand it, carries over from shore to sea, from heaven to earth. \u00a0For the souls gathered here today, that voice\u2014His voice\u2014makes life worth living. \u00a0Within earshot of His voice there are no merely ordinary nights or days or catches of fish or meals or questions or answers or friendships or loves or losses. \u00a0Within earshot of His voice there are no merely ordinary moments. \u00a0When the Master calls from the shoreline, \u201cchildren\u2026have you\u2026cast the net\u2026bring some fish\u2026have breakfast\u201d, no one who hears will dare ask, \u201cAnd who are you?\u201d. \u00a0We dare not. \u00a0For we know. \u00a0Jesus speaks to us today from the edge of the shoreline.<\/p>\n

His disciples stumble through all the magic and grit of a fishing expedition. \u00a0Many of us still find some magic in fishing, though few of us have had to depend on this sport for sustenance. \u00a0Still\u2014we know the thrill of it! \u00a0And the disappointment. \u00a0The roll of the boat with each passing wave. \u00a0The smell of the water and the wind. \u00a0The feel of the fish, the sounds of cleaning, the sky, a scent of rain: \u00a0this is our life, too. \u00a0All night long, dropping the nets, trawling, lifting the nets with a heave. \u00a0And catching nothing. \u00a0The magic comes with the connection of time and space\u2014being at the right place at the right time. \u00a0How every fisherman would like to know the right place and the right time. \u00a0It\u2019s magic! \u00a0The tug on the line! \u00a0The jolt to the pole! \u00a0The humming of the reel! \u00a0A catch. \u00a0And woe to the sandy-haired, freckle faced girl or boy (age 12 or 90) who cannot feel the thrill of being at the right place at the right time!<\/p>\n

John Stewart Mill once wrote that understanding the chemistry of a pink sunset did not diminish at all his profound sense of wonder at sunset beauty. \u00a0In fact, we might add, real understanding heightens true apprehension.<\/p>\n

Easter is a season of new beginnings. The promise of resurrection is upon us. \u00a0Resurrection disarms fear. \u00a0Resurrection ignores defeat. \u00a0Resurrection displaces and replaces loneliness. \u00a0Resurrection will not abide the voice that whispers, \u201cThere\u2019s nothing extraordinary here. \u00a0There\u2019s no reason for gaiety, excitement, sobriety or wonder.\u201d \u00a0Resurrection will not abide the easy and the cheap. \u00a0Resurrection takes a day-break catch, a charcoal fire, a dawn mist, fish, bread, and hungry, weary travelers, and reveals the Lord present, and Peter at the table.<\/p>\n

The failing of this world, whether we see it more clearly in the superstition of religion, the idolatry of politics, or the hypocrisy of social life, has its root in blindness to the extraordinary. \u00a0Because we are unholy, we think God must be, too. \u00a0But hear\u2014and today taste\u2014the good news! \u00a0The King of love his table spreads. \u00a0And the humblest meal becomes\u2014Breakfast with Jesus.<\/p>\n

Called forth from every nation, yet one o\u2019er all the earth;
\nOur charter of salvation: one Lord, one faith, one birth.
\nOne holy name professing and at one table fed,
\nto one hope always pressing, by Christ\u2019s own Spirit Led.<\/em><\/p>\n

Raymond Brown taught us that 21 is an added account of a post-resurrectional appearance of Jesus in Galilee, which is used to show how Jesus provided for the needs of the church.<\/em> The gospel never circulated without 21, which is an Appendix, supplement, or epilogue, including many stylistic differences, though the material drawn is from the same \u2018general reservoir of Johannine tradition\u2019, and is part completion and part correction? (RAH). Ecclesiastical and Eucharistic and Eschatology form the symbolism of the chapter.\u00a0 C H Dodd taught us: \u2018The na\u00efve conception of Christ\u2019s second advent in 21: 22 is unlike anything else in the Fourth Gospel\u2019.\u00a0 CK Barrett suggests that chapter 21 be read as if it were a metaphorical account of the birth of the early Christian church for the purpose of explicating the different, yet equally important, roles of Peter and the beloved disciple, penned by a second author (577). Read this way, we are to see the disciples as \u201ccatching men\u201d, in \u201cpastoral ministry and historical-theological testimony\u201d (587).<\/p>\n

That is, the Gospel of John ended originally with Chapter 20: These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing you may have life in his name (John 20:31).<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 And in all the twenty chapters, we have a glorious celebration of Jesus, Spirit, Cross, Resurrection, Life, Word, Love, Truth.\u00a0 But not a word about church. Not a single word about institutional life, nor about leadership, nor about organization, nor about just how one is supposed to live, with others, by faith, in community.\u00a0 For John, a new commandment is sufficient:\u00a0 love one another.\u00a0 For John, a new reality abides:\u00a0 Spirit.\u00a0 Live in the spirit and love in the spirit and all will be well and all will be well and all manner of thing will be well, as Hildegard wrote centuries later.<\/p>\n

But sometime in the years and decades following the conclusion of John in chapter 20, a later writer added our reading today.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Well, because it turns out that only love and spirit alone are not enough.\u00a0 You need leadership.\u00a0 So, Peter is rehabilitated and jumps into the lake fully clothed.\u00a0 You need evangelism.\u00a0 So, we have the quintessential symbol of evangelism included, fish and fishing and catch of 153.\u00a0 You need stewardship.\u00a0 So, we have the quintessential symbol of stewardship, the tending of sheep, with the unwritten subtext being the joy of tithing.\u00a0 Do you love?\u00a0 Then feed, then tend, then feed, then tend.\u00a0 Along comes John 21, most probably a later addition, to amend by insertion: in a word, institutions matter.<\/p>\n

The gospel today for us today is a ringing challenge, asking in the season of resurrection, just how faithful we have been to the care and feeding of the institutions in life that make life worth living.\u00a0 We have had a frightful reminder of this word in faith over the last two years.\u00a0 Read our Dean of Public Health, Sandro Galea, and his ringing challenge this week that we get religion, get religion, about investment in public health AND ITS INSTITUTIONS, including the Center for Disease Control.\u00a0 We have had a frightful reminder and ringing challenge through this last year, following January 6, that we get religion, that we get religion about attention to democracy AND ITS INSTITUTIONS, including the Congress of the United States.\u00a0 But you, friends, have had the benefit of such reminders and ringing challenges before.\u00a0 Do you remember Baccalaureate Sunday, May 2018, here in Marsh Chapel?\u00a0 After nine days and evenings of remembrance of the Martin Luther King Jr., the month before, including sermons by Governor Deval Patrick and Dr. Cornell William Brooks, come late May, we had two special guests, one sitting three pews from the pulpit, and sitting two pews from the narthex.\u00a0 One a harbinger of health and its institutional needs, and one a greeting from government and its institutional needs, both honored in a prescient way by BU that year.\u00a0 In front of the pulpit, John Lewis. Back by the narthex, Anthony Fauci.\u00a0 Beloved, hear the Gospel of John 21:\u00a0 institutions matter, they really matter<\/em><\/p>\n

Though with a scornful wonder the world sees us oppressed,
\nby schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed,
\nyet saints their watch are keeping, their cry goes up, \u201cHow long?\u201d
\nBut soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

The church as an institution matters.\u00a0 Ask John Wesley.<\/p>\n

The government as an institution matters. Ask John Lewis.<\/p>\n

The post office as an institution matters.\u00a0 Ask Ben Franklin.<\/p>\n

Public Health organizations as institutions matter.\u00a0 Ask Sandro Galea.<\/p>\n

The CDC as an institution matters. Anthony Fauci.<\/p>\n

The European Union and NATO as institutions matter.\u00a0 Ask Vladimir Zelensky.<\/p>\n

And one more.\u00a0 Jesus came to save us from our sins, not from the need to use our minds.<\/p>\n

Marsh Chapel as an institution matters.\u00a0 The public ordered worship of Almighty God is not a matter of indifference, to you, nor to the current dean of the Chapel.\u00a0 Come Sunday, in worship, one may hear and heed an intervening word, and be saved from lasting loneliness, abject anxiety, deep depression, or worse.\u00a0 Community, meaning, belonging, empowerment, all are here, and you, beloved, you are offering these things, week by week.\u00a0 Otherwise a college campus becomes a place with contact but not connection, a place with contact but nof fellowship, a place of contact without communion. You have something to offer, nothing to defend, and everything to share.<\/p>\n

Institutions matter.<\/p>\n

Mid toil and tribulation, and tumult of our war,
\nwe wait the consummation of peace forevermore,
\ntill with the vision glorious our longing eyes are blest,
\nand the great church victorious shall be the church at rest.<\/em><\/p>\n

Therefore, Christian people, as we work and fight, play and pray this week, let us resist with joy all that cheapens life, all that dishonors God, all that mistakes our ordinary sin for the extraordinary love, power, mercy and grace. \u00a0\u00a0Let the sacrament sustain and nourish us.\u00a0 In Remembrance.\u00a0 In Presence. \u00a0In Thanksgiving.\u00a0 Let the sacrament sustain and nourish us.\u00a0 In bread and cup and life.<\/p>\n

Let the institution, the institution, of Holy Communion this day sustain and nourish us. Let the institution, the institution, of Holy Communion this day sustain and nourish us. Let the institution, the institution, of Holy Communion this day sustain and nourish us.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yet she on earth hath union<\/em><\/p>\n

With God the Three in One<\/em><\/p>\n

And mystic sweet communion<\/em><\/p>\n

With those whose rest is won<\/em><\/p>\n

O happy ones and holy<\/em><\/p>\n

Lord give us grace that we<\/em><\/p>\n

Like them the meek and lowly<\/em><\/p>\n

On high may dwell with Thee.<\/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 John 21:1-19 Click here to hear just the sermon   The Church\u2019s one foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord; we are his new creation by water and the Word; from heaven he came and sought us that we might ever be his living servant people, by his own […]<\/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\/3347"}],"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=3347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3348,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347\/revisions\/3348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}