{"id":3538,"date":"2023-08-27T11:00:15","date_gmt":"2023-08-27T15:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=3538"},"modified":"2023-08-31T16:40:06","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T20:40:06","slug":"a-moment-of-inspiration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2023\/08\/27\/a-moment-of-inspiration\/","title":{"rendered":"A Moment of Inspiration"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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

Matthew 16:13\u201320<\/a><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

Inspiration.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A moment of inspiration.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Peter was seized by a moment of inspiration.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And you?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are we?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are we open to a moment of inspiration?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Have you faith?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Have you faith in Christ?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you going on to wholeness?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you desire to be made healthy in love in this life?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you earnestly striving after it?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the years, you, Marsh Chapel, have provided reasoned hearing for moments of inspiration, so not to be conformed, but to be transformed by the renewing of the mind, as Paul has it.\u00a0 Think in four strands.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Some special ones have come as friends or students of ours, a strand of students from BU, as alumni if you will of Marsh Chapel have over time taken leadership in campus ministries near and far.\u00a0 Your inspiration has borne fruit, with colleagues engaging campus life at Bates, at Tufts, at Bentley, at Emerson, at Middlebury, at St Paul at Syracuse, at American, at Emory, at University of Chicago, and elsewhere.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Your inclination to inspiration has borne fruit in voices of truth and love, here, over many years.\u00a0 The historic strand of Methodism.\u00a0 The gift largely of our time, though dating to Anna Howard Shaw decades ago, the strand of women in the pulpit.\u00a0 International, and global strands, ecumenical and interreligious strands, all sharing an inclination to inspiration.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Your inspiration has also borne fruit in a fine, particular African American strand of preaching, dating to Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King (whose \u2018Dream\u2019 speech turns 60 tomorrow).\u00a0 I can hear guest voices from that strand, that rich tradition, and picture them in our pulpit. I close my eyes and hear their cadences, their inflections, their pauses, their voices. Bobbie Mcclain.\u00a0 Peter Paris.\u00a0 Lawrence Carter.\u00a0 Cornell William Brooks.\u00a0 Elizabeth Siwo.\u00a0 Dale Andrews. Peter Gomes.\u00a0 Jonathan Walton.\u00a0 Walter Fluker.\u00a0 Christopher Edwards. Robert Franklin. Preeminently Robert Franklin. Ken Elmore.\u00a0 And, after some serious pestering, without pause, of his gracious administrator, a wonderful gracious woman, our former Governor Deval Patrick. (She called on Friday to schedule a talk on Monday, saying\u2026\u2019You will be happy\u2019.\u00a0 Happy indeed!)<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

For this summer of 2023 the strand was from your extended family, your spiritual children, the children of Marsh Chapel who now lead and teach and preach, whether here or at Harvard or at Vanderbilt or in Rochester.\u00a0 You have cast your bread upon the water, and some has come back to you, this summer.\u00a0 We are still rightly judged by the kind of people we produce.\u00a0 And grateful we are to Jessica Chicka,\u00a0 Soren Hessler, Jen Quigley, Bill Cordts, Stephen Cady, Regina Walton, and Karen Coleman.\u00a0 Marsh Chapel:\u00a0 this summer our own family came home.\u00a0 And they came to inspire us, and to remind us.\u00a0 To remind us, to inspire us by reminding us.\u00a0 Drew Faust, former Harvard President, has just done so with her autobiography, NECESSARY TROUBLE.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of us most of the time need more reminder than instruction. So, as you think about discipleship and its costs, say each of these twice every morning\u2026<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>Faith is not a prize to achieve but a gift to receive.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>The gospel is not about success and failure but about death and resurrection.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>Cultural, racial and religious divisions are hard and real, today, and in first century Palestine. They must be faced and addressed.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>Sometimes the divine voice is and has to be harsh, like when a Father warns his son not to touch a hot stove.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>Food matters, really matters, and so, as in the sacrament is at the heart of our faith and faithfulness.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>Love brings happiness as those four young men from Liverpool reminded us: all you need us love. Love is the way to happiness.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Nostalgia can block out curiosity. Nostalgia can eclipse curiosity.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Love includes. Faith does not exclude. Hope includes. Love, faith and hope are like communion at Marsh Chapel. All are included.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Sometimes an anthem can and will interpret the Gospel for the day, alongside the sermon.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>You can see and hear these at your inclination, for your inspiration. And, now, thanks to one of our staff, whose name I cannot give you but whose initials are Chloe McLaughlin, you can listen to 799 services on podcast, starting with August 2008. You can listen for 47 days and 7 hours straight. Hm\u2026that might be an ideal requirement for theology students\u2026<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Matthew teaches us, as does all Scripture.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We are disciples.\u202f The word means student.\u202f Disciple means student.\u202f <\/span>Salve Discipuli.\u202f Salve Magistra.<\/span><\/i>\u202f\u202f Discipleship means studentship.\u202f The model of faithfulness recommended, particular in Matthew, and especially in Matthew 16, is the model of the student.\u202f Perhaps if we simply said \u2018studentship\u2019 rather than \u2018discipleship\u2019, we would do better.\u202f Perhaps we should and could see the courageous arrival of the class of 2027 as exhibit a, <\/span>exemplum docet.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Living right means learning together\u2014in voice, in thought, in conflict, in Scripture.\u202f Learning together.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is this driving preachment that causes Matthew to eviscerate Mark here.\u202f\u202f Matthew in 85ad has taken a passage from Mark in 70ad and turned it upside down.\u202f\u202f It is not so much the detail, by the way, of the manner in which Matthew and Luke revise Mark, chapter by chapter, which is important.\u202f What matters is that they have the courage to do so, that they happily<\/span> re-gospelled<\/span><\/i> the gospel for their own day, <\/span>to a fair thee well.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No?\u202f No?\u202f Oh Yes. Yes, indeed.\u202f Yes.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(1)Mark in the passage calls Peter \u2018Satan\u2019.\u202f Matthew calls him Rock.\u202f (2)Mark has no mention of any church of any kind. \u202fMatthew uses the word, the Greek word for church, <\/span>ecclessia<\/span><\/i>\u2014not likely something Jesus would have said, and gives Peter keys to the kingdom.\u202f (3)Mark has Jesus tell the disciples\u2014the students\u2014to keep it all secret.\u202f Matthew rejects that secrecy, except for the title, messiah, and says, \u2018preach it\u2019.\u202f Why?\u202f Why does Matthew eviscerate, confound, gut, overturn his legacy, this inherited passage from Mark?\u202f Answer:\u202f he and his community are learning together\u2026in a new time\u2026in a different setting.\u202f So they are learning, as are we. From voices.\u202f From thoughts.\u202f From conflicts.\u202f And Matthew sternly tells his people:\u202f for inspiration to take hold, take root and last, for us to become fully human we will need institutional grounding, support, protection, and sustenance:\u202f family, neighborhood, school, church, university, country, globe. \u202fAnd let me be clear about the church, Matthew\u2019s Jesus adds, for all its troubles in every age:\u202f the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And one more thing, as we are learning together in voice, thought, conflict and scripture. Who do <\/span>you <\/span><\/i>say He is?\u202f In your life. Notice the passage crashes away from the general and the philosophical\u2014what do others say (general) about the son of man (philosophical<\/span>).\u202f Some say (general), the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the Prophets (philosophical).<\/span><\/i>\u202f Notice the move to the specific and the personal.\u202f Who do <\/span>you<\/span><\/i> say I am?\u202f Meaning for you today:\u202f how are you going to live?\u202f A life of studentship, or not?\u202f Said Peter, \u2018Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.\u201d\u202f\u202fRemember this.\u202f Peter is the one who most needed forgiveness, and full pardon he did receive.\u202f <\/span>There is forgiveness in life (repeat). <\/span><\/i>And the church is the place where people like Peter, like you and me, who need forgiveness, find themselves forgiven.\u202f\u202f That is your legacy in the liberal church.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Matthew teaches us.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That is, the tradition in Matthew 16, of Peter, the rock, on which the church\u2014the commonwealth, the koinonia, the fellowship, the sharing, the community of faith, including right here and right now\u2014is based, in Peter, on one thing.\u00a0 Inspiration.\u00a0 Are you open to a moment of inspiration?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Peter was is called the rock, not for his consistency, not for his pedigree, not for his perfection, not for his physical strength, and certainly not for his swimming ability, where he is the rock as in sink like a rock.\u00a0 Jesus calls him out because he is open to inspiration.\u00a0 He has a moment of inspiration, and in that kind of inspired moment faith and the community of faith are born and bred.\u00a0 \u2018You are—the Christ\u2019.\u00a0 An indelible moment, of inspiration.\u00a0 And for such inspiration, come Sunday, come any day, we need the gifts of the church:\u00a0 the gift of quiet, the gift of courage, the gift of others around us to correct and challenge, and then, yes, scripture and architecture and music and liturgy and sacrament and all manner of grace, to keep us within earshot of\u2026breath, the breath of God, spirit, inspiration.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our experience includes many fallow times and seasons, including these just now waning, if they are waning, from COVID.\u00a0 But there are also powerful Petrine moments of inspiration.\u00a0 That is the good news.\u00a0 That is the gospel.\u00a0 All, especially our arriving 18 year olds, need very much to hear this.\u00a0 Every day invites inspiration. Remember Wilder\u2019s Emily Webb, returning for one day to the land of the living:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018O Mama, look at me one minute as though you really saw me. \u202fMama 14 years have gone by. \u202fI\u2019m dead. \u202fYou\u2019re a grandmother Mama. \u202fI married George Gibbs. \u202fWally\u2019s dead too. \u202fHis appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. \u202fWe felt just terrible about it\u2013don\u2019t you remember? \u202fBut, just for a moment now we\u2019re all together, Mama. \u202fJust for a moment we\u2019re happy. \u202fLET\u2019S LOOK AT ONE ANOTHER\u2019<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018So all that was going on and we never noticed. \u202fGrover\u2019s Corners. \u202fMama and Papa. Clock\u2019s ticking. Sunflowers. \u202fFood and coffee. \u202fNew ironed dresses and hot baths. \u202fSleeping and waking up. \u202fEarth! You are too wonderful for anybody to realize you.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A long time ago, by grace, a moment of inspiration arrived at the right time, and in the right way.\u00a0 With one child at 18 months, and another on the way in a few more months, the draw toward doctoral studies would not abate.\u00a0 We looked at the usual suspects, Boston and Harvard, Yale and Union, Drew and Duke, but for varieties of reasons nothing fit, nothing worked.\u00a0 Then, one early winter snowy day, looking through the brochures of schools in the village library, a red booklet marked McGill came to hand.\u00a0 And there, snow falling, of a sudden, that real kind of lived inspiration, a moment of inspiration, arrived.\u00a0 The second largest French speaking city in the world, <\/span>le Europe prochaine,<\/span><\/i> the Europe next door, an excellent faculty, within geographic reach, at least south of the border, for our Bishop to arrange for service in churches there.\u00a0 <\/span>We could afford it.\u00a0 We could imagine it.\u00a0 We could reach it.\u00a0 We could do it.\u00a0 For all the challenges, it was doable.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 The world is full of possibilities.\u00a0 Life is full of unforeseen opportunities.\u00a0 An hour of quiet, a different perspective, a little snow to still the soul and open the spirit, and, then, a moment of inspiration.\u00a0 The shadow of Peter, the Rock, is not mainly in the administrative structures of the ecclesia, important as they are.\u00a0 His shadow falls with delicacy and grace on you.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Inspiration.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A moment of inspiration.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Peter was seized by a moment of inspiration.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And you?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are we?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you open to a moment of inspiration?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Have you faith?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Have you faith in Christ?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you going on to wholeness?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you expect to be made healthy in love in this life?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you earnestly striving after it?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service Click here to watch the full service Matthew 16:13\u201320 Click here to hear just the sermon   Inspiration.\u00a0 A moment of inspiration.\u00a0 Peter was seized by a moment of inspiration.\u00a0\u00a0 And you?\u00a0 Are we?\u00a0 Are we open to a moment of inspiration?\u00a0 Have you faith?\u00a0 Have you faith […]<\/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\/3538"}],"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=3538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3539,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538\/revisions\/3539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}