{"id":3632,"date":"2024-03-17T11:00:38","date_gmt":"2024-03-17T15:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=3632"},"modified":"2024-04-05T11:26:22","modified_gmt":"2024-04-05T15:26:22","slug":"raymond-brown-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2024\/03\/17\/raymond-brown-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Raymond Brown Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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

John 12:20\u201333<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

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

Some years ago, in the aisle of a darkened sanctuary, and following a dark re-enactment of the events of Holy Thursday and Good Friday (think three dozen parishioners dressed as Roman soldiers and carrying torches, roles for some of the disciples, one member each year selected to carry the cross and place and stand it on the front law, usually with a light or not so light snow falling), a ten-year old, guided by his mother, came forward along the shadowed side aisle of the nave and asked, of the Jesus so depicted, \u2018What did he do that was so wrong?\u2019 \u2018What did he do that was so wrong?\u2019 A child\u2019s way to ask, \u2018What was the linchpin for the move to the cross?\u2019<\/p>\n

Well, I said, or perhaps mumbled, something about blasphemy and something about treason. \u00a0<\/span>In the dark, the young man followed little of it, but the darkness he understood.\u00a0 <\/span>I tried to say that the Jews found him blasphemous and dangerously so, the Romans found him treasonous and dangerously so.\u00a0 <\/span>(Remember:\u00a0 <\/span>the Romans crucified Jesus, for they alone held that power of capital punishment, not the Jews, not the Jews, but the Romans crucified him.) I don\u2019t think the ten-year-old heard very much of what I clumsily said.\u00a0 <\/span>But the darkness of that nave and of the acted out cross with 80 participants, that darkness he got. And the darkness of the Lenten mystery remained, and remains.\u00a0 <\/span>It remains today.\u00a0 <\/span>What indeed did he do that was so wrong?\u00a0 <\/span>Here and herein abides the darkness of Lent, the darkness of Holy Week coming, the darkness of unfathomable mortality, the darkness of unwanted illness, the darkness of the quiet crying of the soul at 4am, the darkness of Dostoevsky and Raskolnikov, the darkness of the lasting inability to forgive, the darkness of impending sickness and death which will not be defeated, the darkness of having to live out life all alone, the darkness of doubt in any meaning or sense thereof, the darkness of the best of people being treated with the worst of life, to die a hero\u2019s death, said Sherman, and have your named misspelled in the papers.<\/p>\n

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

Jesus\u2019 fate as you know has now been sealed, just before our Gospel reading, in the preceding 11th<\/sup> chapter. \u00a0Unfortunately, many times our lectionary lessons can be hard to follow, because they are cut away from what precedes or follows. \u00a0Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead, a few verses back. \u00a0This seals his doom. \u00a0In John, it is not the cleansing of the temple that puts Jesus on the cross. \u00a0That has been done 11 chapters ago, an age in biblical time. \u00a0No, what gets him in ultimate trouble is resurrection, his power, his love, his presence, and especially his voice that brings people from one location to another, in this case out of one religion and into another, out of the synagogue and into the church, out of tradition and into gospel, out of law and into grace, out of discipline and into love. \u00a0\u00a0For Lazarus, this is good. \u00a0For Jesus, not so good. \u00a0Voice can get you into trouble still. (Try preaching for a living\u2026)<\/p>\n

Then Mary wipes Jesus\u2019 feet with her hair. \u00a0Then Judas plots his downfall. Then Jesus rides the donkey. \u00a0Then Jesus calls the crowd, who saw what happened with Lazarus. \u00a0Then\u2014notice\u2014the Greeks come and ask for him (meaning, all the nations, meaning, all the unreligious, meaning the future of the planet). \u00a0And his voice is still what the planet needs:\u00a0 <\/span>in warming, in warfare, in collateral death, in historical political ignorance, in the abiding Covid shades of isolation and loneliness and anxiety and depression and our forgetfulness about communion, about common life, about conversation, about smiles and greetings and nods and a willingness to return to gathering and fellowship an a common life and a common good.\u00a0 <\/span>Then Jesus prays for glorification, meaning crucifixion. \u00a0The cross is the turning point between past and future, death and life, miscommunication and understanding. \u00a0It is glory in John. \u00a0Even the ever so human quaking prayer of Jesus in the garden, \u2018LET THIS CUP PASS FROM ME\u2019 is gone in John. \u00a0What, shall I ask to be saved? \u00a0No, I have come for just this purpose, this HOUR (again, like glory, in John, HOUR is a code word for cross).<\/p>\n

The Greeks, THE GREEKS precede the religious, like the harlots preceding the Pharisees in the other earlier Gospels. \u00a0\u201cWe would see Jesus\u201d they say. \u00a0What happens is different. \u00a0They see, but more, they hear Him. \u00a0They hear a compelling voice. \u00a0They hear and heed a compelling voice, for which they have no other manner of description than to use words like heavenly and thunderous. \u00a0\u00a0This is a highly charged, very meaningful passage, if very short, as R. Bultmann might have reminded us. \u00a0We are Greeks, ourselves, that is, not raised within Judaism, so our access to Jesus, and its depiction here, are crucial.\u00a0 <\/span>At the last minute, we too are included.<\/p>\n

They, the Greeks, and we, also Gentiles, come to Jesus by way of the apostles, Philip and Andrew (not Peter and Andrew, Philip and Andrew\u2014John has Peter on a pretty short leash all along). \u00a0That is, we come to life through a set of traditions, but the traditions themselves are not the life itself. \u00a0\u00a0We have to translate the traditions into insights for effective living, if they are to allow access to life. We have to translate the traditions into insights for effective living, if they are to allow access to life.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then, the matter of what this closeness to Jesus means is considered. \u00a0And what is it? \u00a0It is not a heightened religious experience. \u00a0It is not a mystical reverie. \u00a0It is not an emotional cataclysm. \u00a0\u00a0It is service. \u00a0One finds Him in service with and to Him. \u00a0One knows Him walking alongside him. \u00a0One gains access to him by loving Him and in Him loving others. \u00a0In His service there is freedom, even perfect freedom. \u00a0Service, step by step, and day by day, finally gives way to and leads to death, the rounding and finishing of life. \u00a0Have we together found our path, our shared ways of service? \u00a0Are we walking in the light?<\/p>\n

With angel voices and thunder and a prophecy of being lifted up, the community of the beloved disciple sees, again, in retrospect, as we do each Holy Week and Easter, the paradox of victory in defeat, of life in death, of love conquering the \u2018ruler of this world\u2019. \u00a0The ruler of this world is not a reference to God the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. \u00a0The phrase is ARCHON TOU KOSMOU, the ruler of this world, the demigod who in gnostic thought mistakenly and haphazardly created the world. \u00a0Jesus casts out the archon, the ruler of this world, and so can be offered to and understood by Greeks tinged with a hint or more than hint of Gnosticism. \u00a0I guess you could interpret this passage without reference to Gnosticism, but just how would you do that? I guess you could interpret this passage without reference to Gnosticism, but just how would you do that?<\/em> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The service of love renders insipid and impotent the ruler of this world and all his minions. \u00a0Service in love is eternal, eternal in the heavens.<\/p>\n

(Puzzling, though, is the phrase, \u2018I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again\u2019. \u00a0What is this? \u00a0The second glory is the cross. \u00a0But the first? \u00a0Simply an assertion that the God of the future is also the God of the past? \u00a0I do not, all these years later, I do not quite understand it.)<\/p>\n

At all events, in the community of the beloved disciple, people have found a way, much truth and new life. \u00a0A voice, heavenly and thunderous, has spoken to them, a voice given \u2018for their sake\u2019. \u00a0\u00a0As last week, the judgment once reserved for the end of time or for the eternal realms, or for both, has come, is now. \u00a0The bottom line or cash value of resurrection is speech, the possibility of saying something that can be heard, of saying something saving that can \u2018savingly\u2019 be heard. \u00a0While not limited to preaching in the narrow, and certainly not limited to an ecclesiastical voice, still judgment and salvation, in the here and now, by this Gospel, and this chapter of this Gospel are a dire matter, a crucial matter of hearing and speaking.\u00a0 <\/span>It is the marrow of wisdom, speaking of which\u2026<\/p>\n

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

Most of us most of the time need more reminder than instruction. So say each of these twice every morning\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Faith is not a prize to achieve but a gift to receive.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The gospel is not about success and failure but about death and resurrection.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Cultural, racial and religious divisions are hard and real, today, and in first century Palestine. They must be faced and addressed.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes the divine voice is and has to be harsh, like when a Father warns his son not to touch a hot stove.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Food matters, really matters, and so, as in the sacrament is at the heart of our faith and faithfulness.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Love brings happiness as those four young men from Liverpool reminded us: all you need us love. Love is the way to happiness.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

You can listen to 799 services on podcast, starting with August 2008. You can listen for 47 days and 7 hours straight. Ideal requirement for STH students.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes an anthem can and will interpret the Gospel for the day, alongside the sermon.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Love includes. Faith does not exclude. Hope includes. Love, faith and hope are like worship at Marsh Chapel. All are included.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Nostalgia can block out curiosity. Nostalgia can eclipse curiosity.\u00a0 <\/em>(R Walton).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Brown Writing<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

My teacher of blessed memory, Raymond Brown, taught that we could trust the spirit. \u2018Since we hold through faith that the Holy Spirit was at work in that growth (of the early church) and since there was real continuity from the first stage to the last, there is no real difficulty with the affirmation that Christ founded the church\u2019. (Senior, 202)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

My teacher of blessed memory, Raymond Brown, taught that we could trust the spirit, the Gospels were the result of evolutionary development in the early church with their roots in the life of Jesus and his mission but their content and tone influenced by the preaching of the early community and ultimately set in writing through the composition of the evangelists in the context of their communities (Senior, 204).<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

My teacher of blessed memory, Raymond Brown, taught that we could trust the spirit.\u00a0 <\/span>So he was not too worried about Protestants like me would did not share his affirmations of the celibacy of the priesthood, the sacrifice of the mass, the infallibility of the pope, or the sub-ordination of women.\u00a0 <\/span>He was willing to take and live one day at a time, one epoch at a time, one generation at a time.<\/p>\n

My teacher of blessed memory, Raymond Brown, taught that we could trust the spirit. What is key is the recognition of the right of the Spirit-guided teaching authority of the church to develop and articulate anew Christian doctrine.\u00a0 <\/span>Perhaps more than any other aspect of modern biblical scholarship and modern biblical theology, this understanding of the legitimate development of doctrine, moving in harmony with but also moving beyond the express formulations of the New Testament, guided Brown\u2019s exegetical work and, at the same time, was a point of consternation for his critics (Senior, 229).<\/em><\/p>\n

My teacher of blessed memory, Raymond Brown, taught that we could trust the spirit.\u00a0 <\/span>There is something so lastingly true, good and beautiful, in and within the viva voce experience of teaching and learning, something so glad hearted and loving at its best.\u00a0 <\/span>And it is happening right on our doorstep, right on the grounds near and far of Marsh Chapel.\u00a0 <\/span>What a privilege to be a part of such a centuries deep form of living and, to name this in the Johannine sense, a centuries deep form of service.<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

To end, even in the darkness, there is the promise of light.\u00a0 <\/span>As Dr King said, \u2018when it gets dark enough\u2014you can see the stars\u2019. On Monday morning our Marsh Senior staff gathers for the weekly staff meeting, always beginning with devotions.\u00a0 <\/span>Recently one of our number brought a reflection on hope, that carried, rightly, darker and lighter hues.\u00a0 <\/span>The prayerful presentation ended with a suggestion that, even when hope seems a long way off, there remains what he, quoting another called, the power of \u2018persistent possibility\u2019.\u00a0 <\/span>That kind of persistent possibility, and holding onto that possibility, may just be what we need, what you and I may need, to gather ourselves and receive the benediction, and take another week-long walk in faith.\u00a0 <\/span>After all, as Martin Luther taught us, \u2018faith is a walk in the dark\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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