{"id":576,"date":"2012-08-26T11:00:20","date_gmt":"2012-08-26T16:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=576"},"modified":"2019-11-26T12:51:05","modified_gmt":"2019-11-26T17:51:05","slug":"who-hopes-for-what-he-sees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2012\/08\/26\/who-hopes-for-what-he-sees\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Hopes for What he Sees?"},"content":{"rendered":"

John 6: 56-69<\/a><\/p>\n

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

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

\n

Jan and I stood alongside our burial plots last Wednesday afternoon.\u00a0 (I trust it will many decades before we need to use them!).<\/p>\n

Our post retirement home is nestled in a long forgotten, old village cemetery in Eaton NY.\u00a0 Eaton is the northern tip of Appalachia, economically and culturally and geographically and historically.\u00a0 Its rural poverty has come rather lately to its 250 year history, but is as harsh and weather beaten as any such rural immiseration.\u00a0 Its country culture receives some odd jostling from Colgate University and Hamilton College, both a very few miles away.\u00a0 Its spot on the edge of the great cliff of the Allegheny plateau places it at 1200 feet above sea level, with lakes and great lakes 1200 feet below within a thirty minute drive.\u00a0 Its history includes nearby Peterboro, a town built in the 1850\u2019s by Gerritt Smith for freed slaves, some of whose descendants live there still; and the Oneida Community next door, whose three hundred Perfectionists lived ostensibly without sin and within complex marriage for thirty years, 1845-1875; and the shores of Gichigumi the shining big sea water, near the wigwam of Nicomis, daughter of the moon, the homeland of Hiawatha, 1200 feet down north.<\/p>\n

Our burial neighbors will include some born before the Revolution, some several who died in the Civil War, many veterans of the wars of the 20th century, and one fellow, who was interred in 1962, but in whose youth fought with Teddy Roosevelt in the Spanish American War.\u00a0 One wonders about the ongoing work of mowing and trimming, and moreso about the volunteer leadership needed to keep managed a venerable, small graveyard.\u00a0 Our hostess told us there had been no burials this calendar year, to date.\u00a0 They bury until November 1 and then after May 1 or as soon as the ground thaws in the spring.<\/p>\n

Jan said she liked the spot.\u00a0 I volunteered that this was good since we would be there for a while.\u00a0 Actually, when you amortize $400 per plot over the course of eternity, the cost is really very little.\u00a0 The rent is too high across the country, but not in the Eaton Village Cemetery.\u00a0 Of course I had sometimes mused about having a bit more upscale social location, going forward.\u00a0 Maybe something on the East Coast\u2014Chatham, Castine, the Cape, North Hampton\u2014something with an ocean view, and \u2018east coast standards\u2019 of comportment and attire and presentation.\u00a0 Jan reminded me that I am a Methodist preacher, a country preacher at that, and can not afford ostentation, neither fiscally nor spiritually.\u00a0 Besides, she counseled, see all the beauty here\u2026Yes, see it, and hear it\u2026<\/p>\n

Beauty is heard as well as seen.\u00a0\u00a0 We jog past this place so I know what the music of that meadow brings.\u00a0 The rooster, or more than one, as dawn breaks.\u00a0 The cattle, feet away, lowing, as cattle do.\u00a0 The wind in the evergreens and the two Oak trees.\u00a0 An occasional auto, a more occasional truck, a very much more occasional airplane.\u00a0 Visitors with crosses and flags and flowers and tears.\u00a0 And then the sound of nothing, of silence.\u00a0 Hush, hush, somebody\u2019s calling my name.\u00a0 In the deep winter the deep silence is sonorous.\u00a0 I think of the fourth months of real winter, and the covering, the bed cloth of four feet of snow, and it is well with my soul.<\/p>\n

Let me reveal that I begin this way for a discreet homiletical purpose.\u00a0 I preach as a dying man to dying men, as Luther counseled.\u00a0 More so, our series of summer sermons has addressed hope in the face of death.<\/p>\n

Apocalyptic language and imagery in the New Testament is a language of hope in the face of death.\u00a0 The cosmic resurrection of Christ and the life he offers is a word of hope, spoken into the teeth of cosmic, universal, individual, personal death.\u00a0 All of our sermons this summer have been very human attempts to announce this unseen hope, embedded, deeply embedded in New Testament apocalyptic language and imagery.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, at our worst, we move through life with the supposition that death comes to others, to other people and peoples.\u00a0 It something that befalls others.\u00a0 This very human daily supposition is not limited to young adults, to this new wave of temporarily immortal 18 year olds soon to wash up upon the BU beach.\u00a0 Nor is it limited to distracted, over technologized middle aged parents, trying to keep a household afloat amid the Great Recession of our era.\u00a0 Nor is it limited to the mature, or the very mature, we who should probably know better.\u00a0 Time flies?\u00a0 Ah no. Time stays.\u00a0 We go.<\/p>\n

A pastoral digression. I assign you an exercise for this week or some week.\u00a0 It is patented, informally, by me, but I give it freely.\u00a0 It is the RAH OOPS formula for preparation for post retirement.\u00a0 O: write your obituary, at least a first draft which others can redact as needed.\u00a0 O: compose your funeral order of worship with hymns and texts and participants and memorials.\u00a0 P: select a photograph you do not mind being used in days of grieving, in the newspaper or in the funeral home.\u00a0 S: locate your last location, your place and manner of burial or cremation.\u00a0 Place these materials, in the same box or safe deposit box in which you already, already, have placed your DNR, your living will, your will (you may choose to remember Marsh Chapel in your will by the way), and any other significant materials.\u00a0 How your family will thank you! But, as you are mortally aware, all of this preparation, good as it is, is not good enough, not enough.<\/p>\n

For all of this preparation lacks the main thing needed in the face of death, in the face of the power of death William Stringfellow so ardently and artfully described, and at the grave, at the end.\u00a0 What matters at last at death is hope.\u00a0 Hope.\u00a0 The best thing about apocalyptic, about Apocalypse Then, is hope.\u00a0 If someone asks you in the grocery store what you heard this summer at Marsh, or from Marsh, you could say, \u201cThey preached on the theme of Apocalypse Then, and I heard a word of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which brings us to the conclusion, the END, if you will, of this summer\u2019s Marsh Chapel national preacher series on the theme \u2018Apocalypse Then\u2019.\u00a0 I am personally and deeply grateful to my colleagues here at the Boston University School of the Theology for their leadership and voice and presence this summer.\u00a0 They gave two summer Sundays.\u00a0 They gave hours of preparation.\u00a0 They gave the best of their hearts and minds.\u00a0 They gave a willingness to treat the hardest material with the finest of skill.\u00a0 Their very presence brought us hope.\u00a0 It happens that we all share an interest in New Testament Apocalyptic.\u00a0 With you I thank Dr Jennifer Knust, Dr James Walters, Br. Larry Whitney and Dr. David Jacobsen for their preaching this summer.<\/p>\n

So what have we learned?<\/p>\n

Apocalyptic theology in the New Testament is a language of hope lifted in the face of death.\u00a0 At least, this is how I would conclude and summarize our announcement of the Gospel this summer.\u00a0 Apocalyptic followed the prophetic hope for justice on earth, and preceded the late platonic hope for life in heaven, building on the former and preparing the way for the latter.\u00a0 We need them all, to some degree.\u00a0 The prophets hoped for a righteous earth.\u00a0 The Gnostics hoped for a glorious heaven.\u00a0 The apocalyptic hope in the face of death is hope \u2018on earth as it is in heaven\u2019, a hope for the apocalypse of heaven on earth.\u00a0 As Paul wrote, \u2018Hope that is seen is not hope.\u00a0 Who hopes for what he sees?\u00a0 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience\u2019. (Rom.8)<\/p>\n

The first Sunday, we recognized the delay of the parousia, the failure of the primitive apocalyptic hope of the earliest church, and its origins in Jewish Apocalpytic.\u00a0 We saw how this material is often consolation literature, developed among those outcast, those downtrodden, those forgotten, the least and the last and the lost.\u00a0 Apocalyptic gives voice to the hopes of the disinherited: \u201c We are not free to project our anxieties about the dilemmas of the current age\u2014an age by the way that was supposed to have seen \u2018the end of history\u2019!\u2014out onto a far-off falsehood, like the raptures of fancy, fiction or facsimile\u2014in order to avoid what we of course have to do in every other sphere of life:\u00a0 negotiate, compromise, discuss, trade, and muddle through.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost especially\u2014places like Marsh Chapel with a rich heritage of hope must also expect of ourselves a rich offering to the future that comports with our inheritance, to whom much is given, from him much is expected\u2014we are not free to neglect a common hope.<\/p>\n

Here is our freedom.\u00a0 Pray daily for the hope of the world.\u00a0 Think creatively about the hope of the world.\u00a0 Act specifically, week by week, in communion with a reliable hope.\u00a0 The future is up to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second Sunday, we saw in the very word, revelation, which is rendered apocalypse, the inbreaking of God\u2019s love in earth, as when Paul said he had received the gospel by \u2018apocalpyse\u2019, by revelation.\u00a0 Apocalpytic gives voice to the hope of faith. Why\u2026we will become a beachhead in the invasion of God\u2019s new creation.<\/p>\n

Here: a New Creation.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here: a community that listens.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here: a gathering of mutual concern.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here: people of glad heart.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here: people of happy passion.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here: not I must I shall, but I may I can<\/em><\/p>\n

Here: love divine, all loves excelling\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

The third Sunday we saw again how communal and common the ancient eschatological material was in its casting and framework.\u00a0 Apocalpytic gives voice to the voiceless, those left out by the reigning regime, including those left out of decent health care in our time (those unfortunate enough to live in a state other than Massachusetts!)\u00a0 \u201cYes, there will be bad news, there is no use pretending otherwise, but do we really need to hurry it along? Why not be harbingers of hope and allies of health and people who wish well for others.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fourth Sunday we were treated to a careful interpretation of the beheading of John the Baptist, its apocalyptic foreground and background, its history in theology, and its comparisons to contemporary, common, family dysfunctions.\u00a0 The horizon of hope remains, the hope of blueberry pies cooked and enjoyed against a better series of familial arrangements than currently we experience.<\/p>\n

The fifth Sunday we were taught again about the profound pessimism out of which Apocalyptic comes, the despair at seeing anything finally righted or rightwised in a crooked world, and the shout of anger and courage faith kindles in such darkness.\u00a0 Hope has two beautiful daughters, anger and courage, wrote Augustine.\u00a0 Apocalyptic gives voice to the anger and courage present in those who despair, including those injured by handguns in this country, and those willing to question the pervasive dangerous presence of guns (300 million) in our land.<\/p>\n

The sixth Sunday we were shown the emergence of Paul\u2019s apocalyptic gospel, and the centrality of his apocalyptic hope for the rest of his work, especially that found in his magnum opus the Epistle to the Romans.\u00a0 Apocalyptic gives voice in the face of death to the power of God\u2019s overcoming grace.\u00a0 Resurrection is resurrection\u2026from the dead.<\/p>\n

The seventh Sunday we explored the horizons of endings and beginnings, and how the apocalyptic world view both aids and distorts our contemporary vistas. Apocalyptic gives voice to thinking about the environment, about nuclear energy and weaponry, about choices and decisions in the global community.<\/p>\n

The eighth Sunday we were reminded of the crucial influence across the New Testament of Apocalpytic, which one called the \u2018mother of Christian theology\u2019.\u00a0 It\u2019s not nice to neglect mother, we determined!\u00a0 Apocalpytic gives voice to honesty about real evil, in real time, from the Holocaust to Ruwanda: \u201cMark\u2019s Jesus offers the beginning of his apocalyptic gospel.\u00a0 It is a song in darkness, a seed cast across a dark landscape.\u00a0 Yet, amidst the darkness, Mark\u2019s gospel speaks\u2026a promise of dawning light.<\/p>\n

The ninth Sunday we listened again for the gospel in the hour of Jesus\u2019 Crucifixion:\u00a0 the dark hour in which the light of God\u2019s presence somehow continues to shine: \u201cMark\u2019s gospel of an apocalyptic cross is therefore not just an orientation to a past, but a costly opening to a future, a new age, that draws us in our lives forward even in death\u2019s deepest shadows.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have both the freedom and the responsibility at Marsh Chapel to ring the bells of learning and piety, of mind and heart together, in a way that will inspire and guide another generation by the best insights of the faith we share.\u00a0\u00a0 We have aimed high and stretched out.\u00a0 One year on new dimensions in ministry, another on leadership in the Methodism, another on Darwin and faith, another on worship and preaching, another on church renewal, and now, Apocalpyse Then.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You will find these sermons published in our annual e-magazine MOTIVES, located on our website.\u00a0 While there are few University pulpits remaining across the country,\u00a0 your radio support, your generosity, the ongoing support of Boston University, and the hard labor of my staff and colleagues here continue to allow us to treat hard topics with tough love.<\/p>\n

Apocalpytic is a song of hope, a hope of heaven on earth, a divine hope.\u00a0 It asks of us a certain height, a certain inclination, a change.\u00a0 It moves our self, our being to a new center, one in the green pasture, the great meadow of hope.<\/p>\n

In the year of my birth, 1954, Howard Thurman, then in his first year as Marsh Dean, gave lectures at what was to become my alma mater, Ohio Wesleyan.\u00a0 These later were collected in a book, THE CREATIVE ENCOUNTER.\u00a0 With his minimal Christology, tangential connection to Paul, perennialist inclination against narrow religion, and distrust of large portions of the biblical tradition, Thurman would at first seem an unlikely interpreter of apocalyptic material.\u00a0 Yet his typically digressive, imaginative reflections, that winter\u2019s OWU Merrick lectures, at one point touch the marrow of our theme for this summer.\u00a0 Thurman is trying to examine and explain the religious experience (notice his phrase).\u00a0 I wonder you have had such?\u00a0 Its measure for him is not unlike the apocalyptic hope lifted this summer:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a point at which for the individual the surrender of the self in religious experience gives to the life a purpose that extends beyond one\u2019s own private ends and personal risks\u2026What happens then when there is a new center of focus for the life?\u00a0 The answer to that, in part, is this.\u00a0 At such a time as the new center becomes operative, the individual relaxes his hold upon himself as expressed in the self-regarding impulse.\u00a0 A different kind of value is placed upon his physical existence.\u00a0 Death no longer appears as the great fear or specter.\u00a0 The power of death over the individual life is broken\u2026 The individual operates from a new center with all that is derived therefrom.\u00a0 The expression is the alteration of his private life growing out of a new value content.\u00a0 God has become the custodian of his conscience.\u00a0 This is of great significance.\u00a0 The center of loyalty allows meaning for the personality; the shift is from some primary social group loyalty\u2026to loyalty to the command of God. (73-81, passim, THE CREATIVE ENCOUNTER).<\/p>\n

I wonder.\u00a0 Are you sensing the divine generosity inviting your one life to circle around a new center?\u00a0 Prayer will guide you.\u00a0 Even suffering will perhaps prod you.\u00a0 A moment in worship may lift you up. A friend, a word, a kindness, a note, a sunset, a kiss, a laugh\u2014these are intimations of religious experience that are not religious.\u00a0 But real they are.\u00a0 I wonder.\u00a0 Is your center shifting?<\/p>\n

I believe, in a way I cannot understand in full or articulate in full, that God\u2019s love outlasts death, is stronger than death, and overpowers death.\u00a0 But is something I do not see.\u00a0 It is something I sense, though I cannot see it.<\/p>\n

But who hopes for what he sees?\u00a0 We hope for what we do not see.\u00a0 And wait for it with patience!<\/p>\n

\n

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

John 6: 56-69 Click here to hear the entire service. Click here to hear the sermon only. Jan and I stood alongside our burial plots last Wednesday afternoon.\u00a0 (I trust it will many decades before we need to use them!). Our post retirement home is nestled in a long forgotten, old village cemetery in Eaton […]<\/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\/576"}],"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=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2513,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions\/2513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}