{"id":3413,"date":"2022-09-25T11:00:11","date_gmt":"2022-09-25T15:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=3413"},"modified":"2022-10-03T10:18:59","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T14:18:59","slug":"the-bach-experience-september-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2022\/09\/25\/the-bach-experience-september-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bach Experience- September 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Luke 16:19\u201331<\/a><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

Dean Hill:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Especially throughout the COVID summers, we came to rely on the radio, its classical music and occasional weather and news, for our summer technological engagement with the wider world, out in the woods of Empire State.\u00a0 Alone in the earlier mornings, when the fitful restlessness of work life gradually abates, as it can over time if we give it time, sometimes there is momentous moment.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The announcer said something about Debussy, whom I remember from required (back in the days of required courses) college introduction to music.\u00a0 Therein we sat on a carpet and listened and were tested later on baroque, classical, romantic, impressionist and modern music.\u00a0 The French name made a mark.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then onto the radio waves came a light, flowing harp beauty.\u00a0 It was a shimmering beauty, light and alluring, quiet, gentle, unlike really anything I could remember hearing before.\u00a0 The host named the piece as an Arabesque, perhaps the second such from Debussy, though I may have mistaken that.\u00a0 The lake breeze lifted the notes, and there was throughout the room for a few fine minutes a shimmering beauty.\u00a0 For two summers and more we could not sing together, or perform together, or worship together, in COVID. We will never any longer take the thrill of congregational and choral singing of the hymns of faith for granted.\u00a0 These are beautiful moments.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Like its cousins, truth and goodness, such a beauty leaves a mark, makes a lasting mark, a beauty mark you could say.\u00a0 Time stops.\u00a0 Imagination awakens.\u00a0 Troubles recede.\u00a0 You are caught up in something larger than yourself, as sometimes happens in religious experience too.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this radio carried music, it seemed to this untrained ear, there rose and fell a kind of oriental melody, a lightness, a veiled impression.\u00a0 And it seemed to me that the better person to listen was the kind of person listening in this moment, who has no formal musical education, other than that incurred through spouse, family, and various church organists and choir masters.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>It is the ear, often, rather than the eye, voice rather than face, the audible invisible, that carries an uncanny power.\u00a0 The triumph of the invisible over the visible.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>It happens that my mentor Bishop Joseph Yeakel died in this same summer time week.\u00a0 He taught us: <\/span>you can only preach what you know\u2026the one on one work is the most important ministry\u2026your staff need to be creative and loyal both\u2026people remember what you do more than what you teach…most of us need more reminder than instruction<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

His contemporary, a long-retired minister, had a dream the night before, before he knew of Joe\u2019s death, that he had been asked to preach at the memorial, but had not prepared a sermon.\u00a0 Dreams are such strange things.\u00a0 Invisible, shimmering, beautiful, too.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Across the radio waves again, Dr. Jarrett, we assemble our listenership.\u00a0 With joy and peace in believing, with joy and peace in the true, good and beautiful.\u00a0 For what, this Lord\u2019s Day, shall we most listen?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr Jarrett’s section is not available.<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dean Hill:<\/strong><\/p>\n

In these weeks we listen also to, and soberly remember, Jeremiah.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The prophet Jeremiah excoriated his people, hoping against hope to keep them in faith along. For four decades he challenged, criticized, and vilified his beloved country, and its leadership, and its people. \u202fThey heeded him not.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jeremiah exclaimed: False prophets deceive people with their optimism. \u202fThe temple has no efficacy in and of itself. \u202fThe true circumcision is not of body, but of mind and heart. \u202fEven the Bible can lead astray: Even the Torah may become a snare and a delusion through the false pen of the scribes.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Notice some of the themes from the sixth century bce: \u202fDeportation, false optimism, betrayal of heritage, forgetfulness of history, ineffective leadership, personal failings which damage the nation, turning of a deaf ear toward the voice of God. <\/span>\u201cFor my people are foolish, they do not know me; they are stupid children, they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but do not know how to do good.\u201d<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jeremiah, whom we have heard in the background of our worship and preaching for some weeks, speaks to us again. today. \u202fHe warns us, he warns us, week by week he has warned. \u202fAnd then, remarkably, in today\u2019s reading, he stakes his life on hope, an unseen hope, a powerful hope of what may yet be. May his memory, just here, truly help us.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The beauty of the music this morning is itself a sort of baptism of hope.\u202f We sometimes long to take a spiritual shower, to bathe ourselves in the living waters of grace, faith, hope, life, and love.\u202f\u202f Especially, it might be stressed, on any college campus today, the need for spiritual cleansing is continual.\u202f We need both judgment and mercy, both honesty and kindness, both prophetic upbraid and parabolic uplift.\u202f And we get them, thanks be to God, in Jeremiah and in Luke.\u202f But look!\u202f They come upside down.\u202f In a stunning reversal, kindness and gentle hope are the hallmarks of our passage from Jeremiah, while wrath and hellfire explode out of Luke.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Listen again to the voice of the prophet, one of the great, strange voices in all of history and life, one of the great, strange voices, in all of Holy Writ.\u202f Jeremiah.\u202f All is lost, in Judah, as Jeremiah addresses Zedekiah the King.\u202f You will be a slave in Babylon, King Zedekiah.\u202f You will be given into the hand of your sworn, mortal enemy, and so too will be the fate of your city, your temple, your people, and your country, King Zedekiah. \u202fBut. Nonetheless.\u00a0 Nevertheless.\u00a0 And yet. These are resurrection words. But. Nonetheless.\u00a0 Nevertheless.\u00a0 Still. Even And Jeremiah put his money where his mouth is.\u202f Or was.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With his beloved country in ruins, Jeremiah does something great, something remarkable and hopeful and great.\u202f Jeremiah buys a plot of land.\u202f One day, a long time from now, he muses and prays, there will be some manner of restoration: \u2018I cannot see it.\u202f I cannot hear it.\u202f I cannot prove it.\u202f Sometimes I cannot believe it.\u202f But, hoping against hope, I will buy some land, and someday, somebody, somehow will use it\u2019.\u202f This is faith:\u202f to plant trees under which you will not sleep, to build churches in which you will not worship, to create schools in which you will not study, to teach students whose futures you will not know\u2014and to buy land which you will not till.\u202f But someone will.\u202f Or at least, that is your hope.\u00a0 You have done some things this fall.\u202f You offered a morning prayer.\u202f You attended to worship. Good for you.\u202f You sent a check to support something or someone.\u202f Good for you.\u202f You went and volunteered to make contacts and calls. Good for you.\u202f You spoke up and spoke out, regardless of the fan mail, family disdain, and other costs.\u202f You did something.\u202f Will it make a difference?\u202f Who can say?\u00a0 But it does make a difference, for you, if for no one else.\u202f\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Go.\u00a0 Go.\u00a0 Go and buy your little plot of land.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

-Dr. Scott Allen Jarrett, Director of Music<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service Luke 16:19\u201331 Click here to hear the sermon and cantata   Dean Hill: Especially throughout the COVID summers, we came to rely on the radio, its classical music and occasional weather and news, for our summer technological engagement with the wider world, out in the woods of Empire […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,36,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3413"}],"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=3413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3414,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3413\/revisions\/3414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}