{"id":408,"date":"2012-01-22T11:00:24","date_gmt":"2012-01-22T16:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=408"},"modified":"2020-01-28T18:24:34","modified_gmt":"2020-01-28T23:24:34","slug":"at-first-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2012\/01\/22\/at-first-light\/","title":{"rendered":"At First Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service.
\n<\/a>Click here to hear the sermon only.
\n<\/a>Mark 1: 14-20<\/a><\/p>\n

At first light, we see Jesus walking the shore of his beloved Galilee. \u00a0He who is the First Light sets out at dawn, as the fishermen begin, casting and mending. \u00a0This stylized memory from the mind of Mark kindles our own memory and hope, too.<\/p>\n

That first light of the day, daybreak, carries a power unlike any other hour\u2019s hue. \u00a0The excitement of beginning. \u00a0The promise of another start. \u00a0The crisp, cold opening of the year in January. \u00a0Like the skier, mits and poles at the ready, we adjust our goggles, and we lean, and\u2026<\/p>\n

Here is Jesus, midway from Christmas to Easter, from manger to cross, from nativity to passion. \u00a0Along the shoreline he strides, one foot in sea and one on shore. \u00a0He makes two invitations.<\/p>\n

The First Invitation<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

He meets two brothers at first light, and they meet him, God\u2019s First Light, the light that shines in the darkness. \u00a0Notice how Simon, called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, are sketched. \u00a0There is little too nothing of history here, but what there is says so much! \u00a0There is no parental shadow lying on their fishing nets. \u00a0One hears no maternal imperative, no paternal dictate. \u00a0These boys are on their own. \u00a0They have left home already, maybe leaving the city to the south to find a meager middle-class existence with their own means of production. \u00a0They are small business men, boat owners, fishermen. \u00a0Neither the amhaaretz nor the gentry, they. \u00a0Not poor, not rich. \u00a0Working stiffs. \u00a0Young, young men. \u00a0Simon already has a nick-name. \u00a0A sign of joviality, of conviviality, of gregarious playful fun. \u00a0Peter, the Rock. \u00a0Is this for his steady faithfulness or his failure to float? \u00a0On this rock\u2026Sinks like a Rock\u2026You sense that these brothers play in the surf a little, kick up the sand a little, ogle the Palestinianas a little, take time to take life as it comes. \u00a0Brown are their forearms, and burnished their brows. \u00a0They love the lake and life, and have made already their entrance into adult life. \u00a0For they have left home. \u00a0One envies their youth and freedom. \u00a0They have taken to the little inland sea of Galilee, and with joy they meet each dawn, like this one, at first light, as they see Light.<\/p>\n

You can feel the sand under their feet as they take a moment to play and laugh. \u00a0You can feel the chill of the water as they swim, while breakfast cooks over the fire. \u00a0You can feel their feeling of vitality and joy as they greet another day at first light.<\/p>\n

I wonder whether we allow ourselves to drift a little too far from that first light feeling. \u00a0Those pure moments of rapturous illumination.<\/p>\n

Your first child, tiny, red, crinkled, fists waving, crying and then asleep, literally in your hand. \u00a0First light.<\/p>\n

Your daughter, or son, taking the vows of confirmed faith, in the church\u2019s chancel. \u00a0Yes, there was some part child and another part adult in what was said. \u00a0But they were there, in tie and dress. \u00a0They were there, in public and in church. \u00a0They murmured, and they murmured piously. \u00a0And how did that feel Dad? \u00a0First light.<\/p>\n

Your day of matrimony. \u00a0Down the aisle they come, or you come, father and daughter. \u00a0Do you? Do you? \u00a0I do. They do. \u00a0And what was once a simpler world now has further complexity and creative power. \u00a0A new creation. \u00a0First light.<\/p>\n

There must have been some moment, sometime, when you felt an intimacy with the universe, a closeness, a sense of purpose. \u00a0That too is a kind of daybreak, dawn, first light.<\/p>\n

We get too far away from dawn, if we are not careful. \u00a0Faith is trust. A simple trust, like theirs who heard beside the Syrian sea\u2026<\/p>\n

I am told (by Dr Rod Wilmoth) of a boy who goes to a winter vacation with his parents in Florida. \u00a0They set him loose on the swimming pool. \u00a0Before diving, he goes around the cement shoreline, a latter day Jesus on a latter day lake, asking one and another the same question:<\/p>\n

Are you a Christian?<\/p>\n

Oh, no, I don\u2019t go to church\u2026<\/p>\n

Are you a Christian\u2026<\/p>\n

Well, I do go on Christmas and at Easter. \u00a0I was there last month. \u00a0But you know I don\u2019t read the Bible, or anything like that\u2026<\/p>\n

Are you a Christian?<\/p>\n

You know, I used to be, but I kind of got away from it. \u00a0So many other things\u2026<\/p>\n

Are you a Christian?<\/p>\n

(An older man at last brings the reply he is looking for):<\/p>\n

Why yes, I was baptized in my youth, and later made a moment of confirmation. \u00a0I go to church every Sunday. \u00a0I can\u2019t stand to miss it. \u00a0Yes, I tithe, I give away 10% of what I have each year, not all to the church, but mostly to the church, because that is the seed bed for future wonder, morality and generosity. \u00a0I keep faith with my family and friends. \u00a0I am a Christian. \u00a0But why are you asking?<\/p>\n

Well sir I want to go swimming, and have two quarters here in my shorts, and I wanted someone I could trust to hold them while I swim.<\/p>\n

Our malaise, our ennui, should we have such, our \u201cacedia\u201d\u2014spiritual sloth or indifference, literally, our \u201cnot-caring\u201d\u2014so often is due to our turning away from the first light, dawn, daybreak, that elemental experience of love that energizes everything else.<\/p>\n

Peter and Andrew are casting, casting nets. \u00a0They have no furrowed brows, no endless worries, no pessimism, and no angst. \u00a0They probably have left unattended some holes in their nets, these two happy brothers. \u00a0They are willing to accept that their casting will be imperfect, as all evangelism is imperfect. \u00a0But that imperfection will not keep them from enjoying the labor of casting. \u00a0To miss the first light is to miss the fun of faith!<\/p>\n

Invite that neighbor, the one across the street whose porch light<\/p>\n

is always on, that roommate, who sleeps until 5pm on Sunday. \u00a0Here at dawn\u2026those first stirrings, first longings, first intimations of something new and good.<\/p>\n

The Second Invitation<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, back on the beach, Jesus heads south, cove by cove, with Andrew and Peter frolicking in tow. \u00a0They had already left home. \u00a0They are ready to take a flier on some new trek, not fully sure how it will work out. \u00a0It is a miracle that they are remembered, perhaps with a little hagiography, as having responded \u201cimmediately\u201d. \u00a0Still, every little scrap of memory of these two brothers tends in the same direction\u2014full of vim, vigor, vitality and pepperino. \u00a0Yes, they will follow! \u00a0But Jesus is about to make a second invitation. \u00a0Not to the defiant, but to the compliant. \u00a0Not to the independent, but to the dependent. \u00a0Not to the strong, but to the weak. \u00a0Not to the secular, but to the religious.<\/p>\n

Down the shoreline a little, there rests another boat. \u00a0A different story, a different set of brothers altogether. \u00a0James and John. \u00a0Known as the sons of Zebedee. \u00a0Simon has already earned his own name and nick-name. \u00a0But these two are known by their father\u2019s name. \u00a0They haven\u2019t left home. \u00a0They have not yet acquired that second identity. \u00a0Here they are, as usual at dawn, stuck in the back of the boat. \u00a0All these years they have watched the Peter and Andrew show. \u00a0All these years they have envied the fun and frolic down the beach. \u00a0The late night parties. \u00a0The bonfires. \u00a0The singing. \u00a0The swimming. \u00a0And here they sit strapped to the old boat of old Zebedee. \u00a0They are covered with the ancient equivalents of chap stick and coppertone. \u00a0And, more to the point, they are trapped under the glaring gaze of Zebedee, whose thunderous voice has so filled their home that their own voices have emerged. \u00a0Every day, in the back of the boat. \u00a0And what are they doing? \u00a0Why you could have guessed it, even if the text had not made it plain. \u00a0Are they casting? \u00a0No. \u00a0Are they fishing yet? \u00a0No. \u00a0Are they sailing? \u00a0No. \u00a0They are mending. \u00a0Mending. \u00a0Knit one, pearl two\u2026 Their dad has got them into that conservation, protection, preservation mode. That worst side of churchgoing mode. \u00a0Mending. \u00a0At first light! \u00a0Of course nets need mending, but the nets and the mending are meant in a greater service! \u00a0The fun is in the fishing! \u00a0The joy is in the casting. \u00a0And there they sit, sober souls, looking for a bad time if a bad time can be had, mending.<\/p>\n

Here we are mid-way between Christmas and Easter, midway between passion and nativity. \u00a0This is a crucial moment, for the ministry of Marsh Chapel, and our saving balance. The two stories of Jesus, of his birth and of his death, are meant to complement and interpret each other. \u00a0Today, Epiphany 3, we need to seize and be seized by the life story of Jesus, the Prince of Peace.<\/p>\n

Here he is. \u00a0Jesus\u2019 life is a pronouncement of a broad peace, on earth. \u00a0On earth. \u00a0With Ghandi along the Ganges. \u00a0Beside Tutu on the southern cape. \u00a0Along the path of the Dalai Lama in farthest Tibet. \u00a0In Tegucigalpa with our friend Lynn Baker. This is no quietism, like that which so suddenly has taken over some Protestant American Christianity, from its seedbeds in the Orthodox Calvinist and Anabaptist communions: \u00a0cold, careful, efficient, first mile, changeless, fearsome, depressed grace. \u00a0No, this is Christmas: \u00a0warm, open, effective, second mile, free, growing, angry, and hopeful! \u00a0Hope has two beautiful daughters, Augustine reminded us: \u00a0anger and courage.<\/p>\n

The early church told two stories about Jesus. \u00a0The first about his death. \u00a0The second about his life. \u00a0The first, about the cross, is the oldest and most fundamental. \u00a0The second, about the manger, is the key to the meaning of the first, the eyeglasses which open full sight, the code to decipher the first. \u00a0 Jesus died on a cross for our sin according to the Scripture. \u00a0That is the first story. \u00a0But who was Jesus? \u00a0What life did his death complete? \u00a0How does his word heal our hurt? \u00a0And how does all this accord with Scripture? One leads to the other. \u00a0You need them both, Marsh Chapel, you need them both, New England, you need them both, America. \u00a0It takes two wings to fly.<\/p>\n

This second, second level story begins at Christmas, and is told among us to interpret the first. \u00a0Epiphany is the time to tell it, and tell it out loud. \u00a0The life story, Christmas on, is meant to make sure that the divine love is not left only to the cross, or only to heaven. \u00a0Christmas is meant to open out a whole range of Jesus, as brother, teacher, healer, young man, all. \u00a0Christmas and Epiphany are meant to provide the mid-course correction that might be needed if all we had were Holy Week. \u00a0And the Christmas images are the worker bees in this theological hive. \u00a0Easter may announce the power of peace, but Christmas names the place of peace. \u00a0Jesus died the way he did because he lived the way he did. \u00a0Jesus lived the way he did so that he could die the way he did. \u00a0That is, it is not only the Passion of Christ, but the Peace of Christ, too, which Christians like you affirm. \u00a0What lovely news for us! \u00a0Such a passionate year we have had. \u00a0Now comes this season again, and the story of Jesus at first light again, to announce that there is more to Jesus than the passion. \u00a0There is the matter of peace as well. \u00a0There is more to Jesus than his death. \u00a0There is the matter of his life as well.<\/p>\n

The real miracles of this account lie in the second invitation to the second set of brothers. \u00a0It is a miracle that Jesus stopped and invited them, so somber are they. \u00a0I wonder if he took in the timbre of Zebedee\u2019s voice, and saw them quaking in the back of the boat. \u00a0Perhaps his heart went out to James and John. \u00a0So he stops, and he asks. \u00a0And he stops this morning to ask you, especially if you are quiet in the back of the boat, still cringing under the booming stentorian parental voice, more paternalistic than paternal. \u00a0You know, you can hide out pretty well in church, if you decide to. \u00a0Church can be an excellent hide out from life, from love, from God. \u00a0But here he is, at first light, inviting you: \u00a0follow me.<\/p>\n

Here is the great thing about an invitation. \u00a0All you can do is ask. \u00a0Do ask. \u00a0Ye have not because ye ask not. \u00a0And for the first time in their lives, James and John are invited to live. \u00a0So many people live half asleep. \u00a0They don\u2019t live life, life lives them. \u00a0Like these two knitting in the back of the boat. \u00a0Half asleep. \u00a0Then dawn comes, and day breaks, and that first light shines! \u00a0And a voice like no other, so equanimous and so serene, casts its spell upon them. \u00a0Watch. \u00a0It is a first light moment. \u00a0First one, then the other, stands and moves. \u00a0Under the shadow of that harsh paternalistic presence, under the sound of that sour maternalistic imperative of home. \u00a0They rise. \u00a0And they move toward First Light. \u00a0They are about to grow up. They are about to grow up. \u00a0Wonderful! \u00a0And what do they leave behind? \u00a0You would have known even if the Scripture had not laid it right out. \u00a0They leave behind the boat\u2026and their father. \u00a0We best honor the adults in our lives when we become adults ourselves, when we shake off dependence.<\/p>\n

Will this world grow up? \u00a0That is what the United Nations and the World Council of Churches and the United Methodist Church and so many people of good will have been striving and hoping for. \u00a0Will we find a way to live together, all six billion of us, and to drink from the same cup?<\/p>\n

This text, strangely like the Gospel of John, claims for Jesus that Jesus is light. \u00a0Not color, now. \u00a0Light. \u00a0Color is great, and good. \u00a0But we all want finally to be able to drink from the same water fountain, we want our children in one school, we want to sit at one table, we want to drink from one goblet. \u00a0It is light that we will need into the 21st century. \u00a0Not color, light. We finally all are meant to drink from the same cup.<\/p>\n

I was told \u00a0(by the Rev. Don Harp) of a man who stopped in his new neighborhood to buy lemonade from a freckle faced 7 year old girl and a mahogany skinned 6 year old boy. \u00a0He paid his dime and drank his beverage and stayed to talk. \u00a0After a while the girl asked if there was anything else he wanted. \u00a0No, he said, why?<\/p>\n

Well sir, we are running a business here, and we have had a busy morning, and we hope for a busy afternoon, but that cup you are holding is the only one we have, so if you don\u2019t mind we\u2019d like it back.<\/p>\n

One cup. \u00a0Light, not color. We forget it at our worldly peril. \u00a0If we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another. \u00a0We have more in common, as tragedy and triumph remind us, all around the globe, than we do in difference. \u00a0Give us light, not darkness, Wesley not Calvin, not just passion, but peace too, not just death but life too, not just Lent but Epiphany too. \u00a0You are not meant to live forever in Lent (as Dean Snyder once reminded us). \u00a0Advent and Lent prepare you. \u00a0But you are meant to live in light, in life, in forgiveness and acceptance and transcendence and\u2014dare we say it?\u2014love. \u00a0Are we lovers anymore?<\/p>\n

The challenge of the 21st century is found not at the color line, but at first light.<\/p>\n

We all survive the birth canal, and so have a native survivors\u2019 guilt. \u00a0All six billion.<\/p>\n

We all need daily two things, bread and a name. \u00a0(One does not live by bread alone). All six billion.<\/p>\n

We all grow to a point of separation, a leaving home, a second identity. All six billion.<\/p>\n

We all love our families, love our children, love our homes, love our grandchildren. \u00a0All six billion.<\/p>\n

We all age, and after forty, its maintenance, maintenance, maintenance. \u00a0All six billion.<\/p>\n

We all shuffle off this mortal coil en route to that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns. \u00a0All six billion.<\/p>\n

Would you like to have come alive, to have some fun, this week? \u00a0Look around for dawn breaking, and kick up some sand. \u00a0Jesus calls to you, at first light.<\/p>\n

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

Click here to hear the full service. Click here to hear the sermon only. Mark 1: 14-20 At first light, we see Jesus walking the shore of his beloved Galilee. \u00a0He who is the First Light sets out at dawn, as the fishermen begin, casting and mending. \u00a0This stylized memory from the mind of Mark […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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\/408"}],"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=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2630,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions\/2630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}