{"id":645,"date":"2013-01-06T11:00:20","date_gmt":"2013-01-06T16:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=645"},"modified":"2019-11-19T13:36:52","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T18:36:52","slug":"birdsong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2013\/01\/06\/birdsong\/","title":{"rendered":"Birdsong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew 2: 1-2<\/a><\/p>\n

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

The gospel is the beauty of a bird in song.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We begin.\u00a0 As J Edwards said, \u2018Resolved:\u00a0 to do nothing I would be afraid to do in the last hour of my life.\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe I quite heard or overheard your seasonal resolution(s).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You still may be hunting, searching.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The gospel is the gift of the Christ child to us, God\u2019s gift of faith, of fellowship, of freedom\u2014beyond thought and beyond intuition and beyond demolition.\u00a0 If God is for you, who is against?\u00a0 The gospel also is our gift to the Christ child.\u00a0 Odd, no?\u00a0 The gospel heard and spoken and lived is our gift to Christ, like the story which Matthew narrates, Mt 2, is his gift to wordflesh.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Search and hunt they did, these wise men.\u00a0 The very presence of the wise at the outset of the gospel is the rejection of fundamentalism near and far.\u00a0 Swinging like an angel sword before the garden of Eden, here come the magi, making sure that any gospel worthy of the name fears nothing human, fears nothing known or knowable, fears nothing true.\u00a0 Biblicism be gone, say the kings.\u00a0 Their presence is the celebration of the liberal gospel, the gospel of liberality, your birthright, Marsh Chapel.\u00a0 The gospel (not that there is any other) that honors what we know, while admitting what we do not.\u00a0 The gospel that remembers our history, including its horrors.\u00a0 The gospel that eschews easy measures of the divine, which by definition is un-measurable.\u00a0 The gospel that has arms big enough to embrace the big bang, and evolution, and real random chance, and the unknowable God in whose love, alone, we are at all known.\u00a0 To be good news, the gospel must be true, all truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.\u00a0 Otherwise it is not good, and not news.\u00a0 Searching can exhaust the searcher, star at night, out to the east, following forever.\u00a0 Truth. Science. History. Psychology.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our five grandchildren and their overseers visited us at Christmas.\u00a0 The oldest is five, leader of the pack.\u00a0 I heard them playing hide and seek.\u00a0 She taught them a song, a birdsong.\u00a0 When they ran out of hunting energy, and were stumped, humans at the edge of knowledge, ministers at the edge of energy, she would call out, in song, \u2018can you give a little tweet-tweet?\u2019<\/em> And repeat, and repeat.\u00a0 Then, from under the bed, would come the birdsong response, \u2018tweet, tweet\u2019. <\/em> The gospel is not only the Christ gift.\u00a0 The gospel is our gift to the Christ.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

1. Gold<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

The gospel is our spoken gift of faith.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Every bird sings faith, over the globe, through all time.\u00a0 Thurman loved penguins, odd and remote.\u00a0 Listen.\u00a0 Along the Charles, in the spring, make way for goslings and ducklings.\u00a0\u00a0 Mid-island in Bermuda, I hear the song:\u00a0\u00a0 Early in the summer mornings, out in the land currently under the death cloud of possible fracking, where we live, at dawn a rooster.\u00a0 Two eagles\u2014they too mate for life, as in Christian marriage\u2014soaring, I only imagine their music.\u00a0 The owl at night.\u00a0 A swan song, a silver swan, who living had no note.\u00a0 The gospel is a bird in song, and all nature sings.\u00a0 Even if or when the preaching of the gospel by human imperfection abates, as it does threaten to do, birdsong will carry the tune.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Just as there are so many, sorry, reasons to skip church, so too there are many, sorry, reasons, in the space of 4000 earthly Sundays, to skip faith.\u00a0 Faith is only real gold, real faith, when it is all you have to go on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The first of December was covered with snow.\u00a0 The next line?\u00a0 Good night you moon light ladies.\u00a0 Rock a by sweet baby James.\u00a0 The next line?\u00a0 Can you give me a little tweet tweet?<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ignatius would love the star, but Luther would mark the voice, the sound, the birdsong of searching, inquiring, wise, questing, serious, real faith: \u2018Where is he, who has been born king of the Jews?\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The first to find Him are not Jews at all.\u00a0 Gentiles, they.\u00a0 Some of our most natural gospel hearers and speakers today are atheists.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Matthew, though usually (mis) understood otherwise, is a Gentile gospel.\u00a0 The magi come first. Light centrally shines, chapter by chapter. The book is written in Greek.\u00a0 Its mound sermon celebrates greek wisdom and greek discipline. The wise man built his house on rock.\u00a0 A ruler\u2019s daughter is healed.\u00a0 The Sabbath is overrated.\u00a0\u00a0 The only sign the natives deserve is that of Jonah.\u00a0 The disciples dish traditions of elders.\u00a0\u00a0 The greatest faith is the gentile woman willing to take the dog crumbs that the table guests despise.\u00a0 The faithful followers will judge the 12 tribes.\u00a0 And, by the way, make sure to render your taxes to Caesar. (J). Matthew\u2019s endless explanation of kosher requirements is made for greek ears. \u00a0I will not even pause to recite the damnation of woe given to scribes and Pharisees.\u00a0\u00a0 Its concluding universalism would make Plato blush.\u00a0 Matthew?\u00a0 Jewish?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

2. Frankincense<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

We begin.\u00a0 As J Edwards said, \u2018Resolved:\u00a0 to do nothing I would be afraid to do in the last hour of my life.\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe I quite heard or overheard your seasonal resolution(s).<\/p>\n

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

There are no free-lance Christians.\u00a0 If nothing else, for sure, the child the wise visit makes space in life for real fellowship.\u00a0 The church is a working fellowship.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Isaiah foretold it.\u00a0 Here in third Isaiah, who remembers the birdsong of second Isaiah, and carries the tune back into Jerusalem, after the return from exile, after 538, when another wise Persian, Cyrus, set the people free.\u00a0 The birth of the Christ, by symbol of gold and frankincense, is connected to a universal liberation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We are here to ring the bell, to sing the song, to sound the trumpet, to lift the voice.\u00a0 You may need, this week, to see the examples in salt and light, of faithful people. Here are some in these Marsh pews.\u00a0 Kind people.\u00a0 Kind women.\u00a0 Kind men.\u00a0 Doing unto others, as they would have done to themselves.\u00a0 Seeking.\u00a0 Seeking lasting wisdom.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With joy.\u00a0 Come on MLK Sunday, and hear our friend Dr Fluker, and on Monday and celebrate the King of Marsh Plaza.\u00a0 Come February 9 (our usual Ground Hog festival, date and place moved) and ice skate on Marsh Plaza.\u00a0 Come and sing hymns in the Lynn home of Alice and Yrjo\u2014a midwinter delight!\u00a0 Come for brunch and the marathon on Patriots day, to our home.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Resolve this, 2013:\u00a0 I will be in church on Sunday.\u00a0 Wise men still seek Him.\u00a0 You find faith in fellowship, and vice versa.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

St. John of the Cross: En una noche oscura\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At Marsh we minimize meetings, committees, structures, organization.\u00a0 We find our fellowship, across the University, as above.\u00a0 We take our education in the University.\u00a0 We partner in service with our schools and colleges of the University.\u00a0 We refuse to sit on a whale and fish for minnows.\u00a0 Come and join us!\u00a0 It is a great way to give, to live, to give and live, the gospel.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here gay people are people.\u00a0 Here lay people are people.\u00a0 The eight words Methodism will need for survival:\u00a0 gay people are people, lay people are people.\u00a0 I refer you to the sermon coming January 27, 2013.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3. Myrrh<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We begin.\u00a0 As J Edwards said, \u2018Resolved:\u00a0 to do nothing I would be afraid to do in the last hour of my life.\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe I quite heard or overheard your seasonal resolution(s).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Resolve, 2013:\u00a0 to leave behind debt and regret.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On January 1, 1863, here in Boston, at the Boston Music Hall, F Douglass and many others sang.\u00a0 The Handel and Haydn society sang.\u00a0 One of their members, Harriet Beecher Stowe, sang.\u00a0 Why their birdsong, good news of great joy? In the cradle of liberty?\u00a0 Emancipation.\u00a0 Real change is real hard, but change does come.\u00a0 Lincoln said (12\/62): \u2018The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stowe wrote:\u00a0 he is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Regret is the shortest definition I know of hell.\u00a0 Let your regrets be few.\u00a0 Prize your time, your body, your heart.\u00a0 \u2018To thine own self be true\u2019 (that\u2019s Shakespeare by the way, not the Bible).\u00a0 Let us leave behind the regret of gun violence, the regret of dehumanization of gays, the regret of environmental predation, the regret of children in poverty, the regret of unruly rouge nations, the regret of selfish living. Let your freedom be not only the freedom of the will, but the freeing of the will, to love.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Debt is the surest measure I know of hell.\u00a0 Debt is an actuarial prison.\u00a0 \u2018Neither a borrower nor a lender be\u2019 (again, Uncle Will, not the Holy Book).\u00a0 An undergraduate degree is a wonderful thing, but not worth a mountain of lasting debt.\u00a0 Travel light, cloak and staff.\u00a0 Go where they will pay you to study, if you can. (J)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes, I am concerned about national debt.\u00a0 I am.\u00a0 A $4T budge with $3T income\u2014this does not compute.\u00a0 Even churches balance their budgets (I have 35 Decembers of fist fights, I mean finance meetings, to show).\u00a0 Debt is a bad gift to grandchildren.\u00a0 But I am even more concerned about your personal debt.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lord forgive us our debts!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Get rid of your debt.\u00a0 Get rid of your regret.\u00a0 This year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Find the freedom to live in love.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You are hiding out there.\u00a0 I know you are.\u00a0 I am hunting for you.\u00a0 You are out there.\u00a0 In a Beacon St. apartment. Up on the north shore.\u00a0 Munching bagels on the Cape. Out in Newton, enjoying the Marsh Choir.\u00a0 I have been searching for you, for six years.\u00a0 Against the fierce New England wind of post Christian secularism, righteous anti religious fervor, mixtures of bad Calvinism or Catholicism, Sunday hockey, and a kind of intellectual life that is always just a bit short–of wonder, mystery, and magi wisdom.\u00a0 I am hunting for you.\u00a0 But I don\u2019t find you yet. I search,but you are too well hidden.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CAN YOU GIVE YOU ME A LITTLE TWEET TWEET<\/em>?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Congregation? Clergy? Choir? Radio?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CAN YOU GIVE YOU ME A LITTLE TWEET TWEET<\/em>?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

The father of neo Biblicism, Karl Barth, said:\u00a0 \u2018the gospel is the freedom of a bird in flight.\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We sing it this way, in our faith and our fellowship and our freedom:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The gospel is the beauty of a bird in song.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The gospel is the beauty of a bird in song.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The gospel is birdsong.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Matthew 2: 1-2 Click here to hear the full service. Click here to hear the sermon only . Frontispiece The gospel is the beauty of a bird in song.   We begin.\u00a0 As J Edwards said, \u2018Resolved:\u00a0 to do nothing I would be afraid to do in the last hour of my life.\u2019   I […]<\/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\/645"}],"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=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2489,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions\/2489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}