{"id":660,"date":"2013-02-10T11:00:13","date_gmt":"2013-02-10T16:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=660"},"modified":"2019-11-19T13:31:38","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T18:31:38","slug":"the-bach-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2013\/02\/10\/the-bach-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bach Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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

For those new to our service of worship, present here or listening from afar, we warmly offer an especial word of grace and welcome, on this blizzard weekend Sunday.\u00a0 Your own church may have been closed today, and so you are listening.\u00a0 Your hockey game, or neighborhood gathering, or personal commitment may have been cancelled due to weather, and so you are with us.\u00a0 In other words, snow, like grace, may have interrupted or intervened or interceded into the otherwise well laid plans of life.\u00a0 Good! Welcome.<\/p>\n

New to all this, you may not have heard our regular dialogue sermons, come Bach Cantata Sunday.\u00a0 Allow, then, a brief explanation.\u00a0 Our envisioned mission at Marsh Chapel, to be a \u2018heart for the heart of the city and a service in the city\u2019, extends by radio and internet to the whole globe, the heart and service of the city of the whole earth.\u00a0 We lift the praises of God with the guidance and support of JS Bach.\u00a0 Why Bach?\u00a0 Because Bach is the best.\u00a0 Bach is world regarded as the very best.\u00a0 In Europe, in Asia, in the Americas, around the globe, Bach is the best, and we want the very best for our service of worship.\u00a0 Bach brings the globe together.<\/p>\n

In order then to make the Holy Scriptures read for the day, and the Cantata for the day, as meaningful and accessible as possible, to as many as possible, from the 19 year old undergraduate in the third pew to the 89 year old widower listening in Scituate, Dr Jarrett and I have over several years now offered a dialogue sermon on these Cantata days, meant to merge music and word in the very Gospel, the word of God.\u00a0 This form of preaching is, if not unique to our Marsh work, at least unusual and special, and in that we take great joy.\u00a0 It is one gift we lay upon the altar, in heart and service.<\/p>\n

Today we bring you a word of faith, a word about faith, a word in faith for those who may, like the Samaritan of old, feel themselves outside of the formal community of faith.\u00a0 Faith is God\u2019s gift to you today.<\/p>\n

Yet if there are 60,000 people now listening to our radio broadcast service, 40,000, it may be, well identify with a phrase from this past week\u2019s Washington prayer breakfast.\u00a0 The speaker (President Obama) inclusively addressed those of various faith traditions, and those \u2018of no faith that they can name\u2019.\u00a0 It could be that 2\/3 of our listeners faithfully and honestly understand themselves as people \u2018of no faith that they can name\u2019.\u00a0 Of a faith that has no name.\u00a0 Is that you?<\/p>\n

This past Wednesday many of us gathered, undergraduates with the Dean of the Chapel, to discuss \u2018God on Campus\u2019.\u00a0 If there has been a more spirited, honest, and enjoyable conversation among 20 people recently, in this area, that would be news.\u00a0 One young woman, speaking for thousands, said, \u2018I just don\u2019t have that kind of rote faith anymore\u2019.\u00a0 It could be that 2\/3 of our students faithfully and honestly understand themselves as young people \u2018of no faith that they can name\u2019.\u00a0 Of a faith that has no name.\u00a0 Is that you?<\/p>\n

Over the course of ministry in four decades, nine pulpits, one brief superintendency, one briefer presidency, and one delicious deanship (the best job anywhere by the way), various defeats and victories, and Thursday evening meetings of the cradle role committee, the greatest thrill and joy has come from those who are just outside the visible community of faith.\u00a0 Prospects, constituents, the unchurched (such an uncharitable phrase)\u2026call them neighbors.\u00a0 To spend time with those just outside the bounds of religion so called is the pure joy of ministry.\u00a0 It could be that 2\/3 of our neighbors, from Brookline to Bar Harbor to Bangladesh, faithfully and honestly understand themselves as people \u2018of no faith that they can name\u2019.\u00a0 Of a faith that has no name.\u00a0 Is that you?<\/p>\n

It could be that 2\/3 of our actual and virtual congregation faithfully understand themselves as people \u2018of no faith that they can name\u2019.\u00a0 Of a faith that has no name.\u00a0 Is that you?<\/p>\n

Outside Israel there lies Samaria.\u00a0 Along the road from religion to life, from Jerusalem to Jericho, there lies a man in pain.\u00a0 Love lifts him in the person of a person of no faith that he can name.\u00a0 The hero of our cantata this Transfiguration morning, the Samaritan, later called GOOD, stands, in this passage, as a person of a faith that has no name.\u00a0 In a moment, the waves of musical beauty will roll over us.\u00a0 What, we may wonder, shall we hear, shall we listen for, shall we await\u2026.?<\/p>\n

To the faithful, honest, prayerful agnostic, to the various goods and various Samaritans around about, we offer, in brisk and brilliant revelation, come Transfiguration, a way of thinking and feeling, a thought feeling, a felt thought, a form of faith where there is no faith.<\/p>\n

Our experience of the Samaritan, as his gift of love attends us, is the faithfulness of God.\u00a0 Where others profess too much and too quickly, where others believe blindly and shallowly, where others pronounce themselves holier, humbler, more religious than thou, where others rush in where angels fear to tread, behold the goodness of the northern Samaritan.\u00a0 His life, in loving and giving, in knowing and loving, in giving and knowing, has become his faith, a faith that has no name. Yesterday he shoveled the widow neighbor\u2019s walk, uncovered a neighbor student\u2019s car, brought milk and eggs to a homebound neighbor\u2019s kitchen, chipped ice from an elderly neighbor\u2019s roof, included in family sledding a busy neighbor\u2019s son.\u00a0 Come blizzard weekend,\u00a0 a faith with no name may be the truest faith of all.\u00a0 Is that faith yours?<\/p>\n

A generation ago, our dear teacher Paul Tillich called such faith the state of being ultimately concerned.\u00a0 Are you deeply concerned?\u00a0 Do things concern you? When we come upon a man whom bandits have stripped and beaten and left by the side of the road for dead, does your heart quicken?\u00a0 You see this victim of violence, harmed by others who have since disappeared, as with wily politicians who are \u2018eager to dominate but reluctant to offend\u2019 (so, FDR, NYRB, 1\/13).\u00a0\u00a0 Before gun violence, or unfettered drone flight, or children untutored, or wayward greed, or amoral sexuality, or steady drunkenness, or moral indiscretion\u2014somewhere the road from religion to life, from Jerusalem to Jericho\u2014are you concerned?\u00a0 Your concern is your faith.\u00a0 In deep concern you discover grace and freedom and love.\u00a0 Your concern is your faith.<\/p>\n

But now Tillich is long dead, and his concern may not fit twenty year olds.\u00a0 In our generation, then, we might call such a state of faith the state of being ultimately connected.\u00a0 Are you deeply connected?\u00a0 Does life connect you to others?\u00a0 When you come upon a man whom bandits have stripped and beaten and left by the side of the road for dead, does your heart quicken? When a fog surrounds you brought on the collision of the warm winds of love and frosty glacier of wrong\u2014what?\u00a0 Do you connect?\u00a0 Do you text, then, or tweet, then, or post, then, or email, then, or call, then, or write, then, or visit, then?\u00a0 Does the plight of another move you toward others?\u00a0 Along the road then from religion to life, from Jerusalem to Jericho\u2014are you connected?\u00a0 Your connection is your faith. In your deep connection you discover grace and freedom and love.\u00a0 Your connection is your faith.<\/p>\n

Live your faith.\u00a0 Live your faith.<\/p>\n

No other God, no graven image, no name in vain<\/i><\/p>\n

Remember Sabbath, honor father and mother<\/i><\/p>\n

Do not kill, commit adultery, steal, witness falsely or covet<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/i>Live your faith.\u00a0 Live your faith.<\/p>\n

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength.<\/i><\/p>\n

And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself<\/i><\/p>\n

As did the Samaritan\u2026.<\/p>\n

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

Click here to hear the full service. Click here to hear the sermon only. For those new to our service of worship, present here or listening from afar, we warmly offer an especial word of grace and welcome, on this blizzard weekend Sunday.\u00a0 Your own church may have been closed today, and so you are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[11,6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660"}],"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=660"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2481,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions\/2481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}