{"id":705,"date":"2013-05-26T11:00:03","date_gmt":"2013-05-26T16:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=705"},"modified":"2019-11-19T13:03:53","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T18:03:53","slug":"re-membering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2013\/05\/26\/re-membering\/","title":{"rendered":"Re-Membering"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n

Please, be seated.<\/p>\n

Remember with me, will you?\u00a0 If you are seated here in the nave of Marsh Chapel you may want to find a comfortable posture, if such is possible in wooden pews, and fold your hands in your lap and let your eyelids drift downward just a bit.\u00a0 If, on the other hand, you are driving a motor vehicle on Interstate 90, I think it would be better for all concerned, and on Interstate 90 there will be many concerned, if you just kept your hands on the steering wheel and your eyes open<\/i>!\u00a0 Let us, together, then, as a congregation called into fellowship on this Memorial Day weekend, remember.<\/p>\n

We remember one year ago on a sunny Memorial Day weekend walking over to Boston Common and seeing a sea of American flags that had been painstakingly pounded into the soft earth.\u00a0 A bride and a groom were making final preparations for their nuptials.\u00a0 Nails were polished, shoes were shined, suits were pressed, dresses were shaken out, hair was done up, and yes, small vials of bubbles were unpacked and laid out in baskets for guests to retrieve and blow after the ceremony.\u00a0 On that sunny Sunday afternoon, the bride and her father made their way down the aisle, this aisle in fact, and she joined hands with her betrothed.\u00a0 Declarations were made, readings were read, a sermon was preached, Bach was sung, vows were vowed, rings were exchanged, prayers were said, and the priest proclaimed, \u201cYou are husband and wife!\u201d\u00a0 Yes, one year ago today Holly and I got married right here at Marsh Chapel on the glorious Sunday of Memorial Day weekend.\u00a0 It has been a year of delight, of learning, and most of all, of loving.\u00a0 Happy anniversary, love!<\/p>\n

If only all of our memories of the past year could be such happy ones.\u00a0 For us here at Boston University, there has been far too much tragedy.<\/p>\n

We remember on a cool November evening when Chung-Wei Yang, known at the University as Victor, who had come to BU from Taiwan to study international relations, collided with a bus while riding his bicycle and was killed.\u00a0 His family arrived in Boston and on a Saturday morning, again here in the nave of Marsh Chapel, hundreds of students, friends, family, and members of the Taiwanese community in Boston joined to remember and pray.\u00a0 Again, readings were read, a sermon was preached, music was sung, prayers were said, memories were shared, and tears, oh so many tears, were shed.<\/p>\n

Then, only a couple of weeks later, the phone rings: \u201cI\u2019m driving down Commonwealth Avenue.\u00a0 There\u2019s a body in the road.\u00a0 It\u2019s not another one of ours, is it?\u201d\u00a0 Christopher Weigl, a graduate student in photojournalism in the College of Communications collided with a tractor-trailer just in front of the CVS across from Student Health Services.\u00a0 Again on a Sunday afternoon, students and family and friends gathered, this time in the nave of the First Congregational Church in Holliston, Massaschusetts, in whose fellowship Christopher grew up.\u00a0 BU alumna and senior pastor of the church, Rev. Bonnie Steinroeder, who pastors three generations of the Weigl family, led another service of readings and prayers and memories and music and tears.<\/p>\n

We made it through January and February unscathed, but then on the first Saturday of March, in the wee hours of the morning, Anthony Barksdale died after attending an un-registered, off-campus party.\u00a0 He was a freshman engineering major from Amherst, New Hampshire.\u00a0 Due to the cold and the rain, a vigil was held indoors in the George Sherman Union.\u00a0 Students gathered in the Towers dormitory to share memories.\u00a0 A memorial service was held in his high school.<\/p>\n

April 15.\u00a0 Tax Day!\u00a0 Patriots\u2019 Day.\u00a0 Marathon Monday.\u00a0 You remember, don\u2019t you?\u00a0 Just a little warmer than the runners may have wanted, but perfect for spectators who came out in droves to line the course, particularly the last few miles as the runners came down Beacon Street, through Kenmore Square, and then zigged and zagged over to Boylston Street to the finish line.\u00a0 Some of us gathered in the Deanery, that is, the residence of the dean, for a brunch of eggs and fruit and Dunkin Donuts.\u00a0 Dean Hill recited Longfellow and the Gettysburg Address, as he is wont to do sometimes.\u00a0 Out we processed to Kenmore Square to watch the elite runners come through, thinking that we were only taking our lives in our hands by boarding the rickety elevator down to the ground from number 10.<\/p>\n

How little did we know.\u00a0 My wife and I walked from Kenmore Square back home and I lay down to take a nap.\u00a0 Now, I don\u2019t know about you, but I detest being rudely awoken from a sound sleep.\u00a0 So it was that when Holly shook my shoulder and announced, \u201cthere are bombs at the marathon!\u201d all I could think was, \u201cThat\u2019s ridiculous.\u00a0 Bombs don\u2019t belong at marathons!\u201d\u00a0 I looked at my phone: missed calls, missed texts, missed email.\u00a0 We called our parents.\u00a0 \u201cI have to get to the chapel,\u201d I announced.\u00a0 \u201cHow?\u201d\u00a0 Good question.\u00a0 How do you get from Beacon Hill to Boston University without going anywhere near Copley Square?\u00a0 Thank God for Hubway!\u00a0 I grabbed a bike, carried it over to the Esplanade, and rode hard.<\/p>\n

You know, when you stop a race before it is completed and throw the runners off the course, it gets a bit confusing.\u00a0 Runners came over to Commonwealth Avenue from Beacon Street, many of them hoping to catch the T, only to find that the T was shut down.\u00a0 What did they find?\u00a0 A church!\u00a0 Marsh Chapel.\u00a0 In they came and hospitality we provided: water, food, blankets, phones, rides, directions, counsel, prayer, patience.\u00a0 We planned a vigil for that evening.\u00a0 News broke that there was an explosion at the JFK library.\u00a0 We cancelled the vigil.\u00a0 The vigil finally happened the following evening and hundreds gathered on Marsh Plaza in front of the chapel for readings, and prayers, and words of comfort and strength in times of trouble.\u00a0 Another evening hence we gathered here in the nave for readings, prayers, sermon, song, hymns, and Eucharist as we continued the search for healing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there a student at Boston University named Lu Lingzi?\u201d Dean Hill asked.\u00a0 I typed her name into the computer.\u00a0 \u201cYes.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOh.\u201d \u00a0Lingzi was no longer missing.\u00a0 She was at the morgue.\u00a0 One of the three killed by the bombings.\u00a0 The media frenzy was intense as the news broke.\u00a0 Over 400 students, most of them Chinese, gathered in the Burke Room at Agganis Arena to share memories and process together.\u00a0 Her parents arrived from China and were greeted at the airport by the Ambassador from China and a delegation from Boston University.\u00a0 1400 people, including many dignitaries, gathered in the George Sherman Union for Lingzi\u2019s memorial service.\u00a0 4000 watched a live stream over the Internet.\u00a0 $560,000 was gathered in the course of a morning by the Trustees of Boston University to begin a scholarship fund in her memory.\u00a0 Her father gave a poignant and moving eulogy.\u00a0 Her mother was inconsolable.\u00a0 More readings, more prayers, more music, more memories, more tears.<\/p>\n

The phone rang.\u00a0 \u201cBr. Larry, I know it\u2019s Sunday morning and you have services, but there has been a fire, and a student has died, and several are in the hospital.\u00a0 Can you go to the hospital?\u201d\u00a0 More death.\u00a0 More trauma.\u00a0 Binland Lee was a senior in the Marine Science program at the College of Arts and Sciences.\u00a0 This time, students traveled down to Brooklyn, New York for a Chinese Buddhist wake and memorial service in an Italian Catholic funeral home.\u00a0 More readings, more prayers, more music, more memories, more tears.<\/p>\n

Remembering a wedding is wonderful.\u00a0 The heart soars as the feelings of love and joy and belonging together, so intensely felt on that day, return to the forefront of the mind\u2019s eye.\u00a0 Remembering death and violence and vigils and funerals is hard.\u00a0 It is painful.\u00a0 It is rubbing salt in a wound of the spirit.\u00a0 Each one of those American flags pounded into the common might as well have been pounded into the flesh of those who loved the one whom the flag represents.<\/p>\n

Remembering a dead loved one is painful precisely because we know that the person cannot be re-membered.\u00a0 It is not possible that grandma or grandpa or mom or dad or brother or sister or, God have mercy, son or daughter should be re-membered, brought into membership again, in the family.\u00a0 It is not possible that friend or neighbor or colleague or teammate or pew-fellow should be re-membered, brought back into the fellowship of the community.\u00a0 Our grief and our pain as we remember those we have loved who have died arises from the helplessness we feel and the loss of control we experience when we recognize that there is nothing we can do to re-member them.<\/p>\n

There are bombing victims in Boston who are struggling to re-member themselves right now.\u00a0 Some lost arms and legs in the blasts of the bombs and they grieve the loss of their limbs as they remember what life was like before.\u00a0 Thankfully, many of those who lost limbs will be able to re-member not their own arms and hands or legs and feet but prosthetic limbs that will empower them to reclaim at least a portion of the life they had before.\u00a0 Nevertheless, the sense of helplessness and the terror of being out of control without the ability to walk or the ability to pick up a fork is something that will haunt many for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n

So too, there are those who lined Boylston Street on April 15, and especially many who worked in the medical tents, and many of us who perhaps were not there and yet somehow feel that this happened to us.\u00a0 We too struggle to re-member.\u00a0 We remember what we heard: explosions, screams, cries.\u00a0 We remember what we saw: fire, broken glass, blood.\u00a0 We remember the smell of smoke, the taste of bile, the touch of those jostling to get to the wounded or away from the area.\u00a0 Holding together the pieces of the mind is a struggle to re-member in a spirit of hope what we remember of a time of terror.<\/p>\n

Why do we remember?\u00a0 Why bother to become involved in the work of memory with its attendant pain and grief?\u00a0 Why not just forget?<\/p>\n

We remember because we have hope that we ourselves will be re-membered.\u00a0 Today is Trinity Sunday, and in the life of Christianity this is the day we remember that God in Godself is a community of members.\u00a0 One of those members became incarnate in Jesus Christ and was thus, for a time, dismembered from God.\u00a0 Today, on Memorial Day weekend and Trinity Sunday, readings and prayers and sermon and song teach us that God knows the pain of dismemberment as God experienced the pain of the passion.\u00a0 And yet, God also knows the healing and joy of re-membering in the glory of the resurrection.\u00a0 The Holy Spirit of God testifies today that it is not the passion of Christ that defines the Person of Christ, but the Person that defines the passion; that it is not suffering that bears meaning, but a sense of meaning that bears up under suffering; that it is not the cross that carries the love but the love that carries the cross; that it is not crucifixion that encompasses salvation, but salvation that encompasses even the tragedy of crucifixion.\u00a0 In the life of faith the work of memory is part and parcel of the work God does in us, in the example of Christ and in the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, that we may withstand what we cannot understand.<\/p>\n

So far, so good, but we cannot stop there.\u00a0 The testimony of the church on Trinity Sunday is that the love of God, and the grace of God, and the forgiveness of God, and the healing of God, and the redemption of God that re-members us into relationship and partnership and family and community and society and world belongs not to us but to God who extends the partnership of Gospel to the ends of the earth, to all peoples and all times and all places, and not only to people but to the whole of creation.\u00a0 It is out of this belief that Howard Thurman said that \u201cpeople, all people, belong to one another, and those who shut themselves away diminish themselves, and those who shut another away destroy themselves.\u201d\u00a0 Just this week Pope Francis said in a weekday Mass sermon that, \u201cThe Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. \u2018But, Father, this [one] is not Catholic! He cannot do good.\u2019 Yes, he can… “The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! \u2018Father, the atheists?\u2019 Even the atheists. Everyone!”.. We must meet one another doing good. \u2018But I don\u2019t believe, Father, I am an atheist!\u2019 But do good: we will meet one another there.\u201d\u00a0 You see, by caring, helping, giving, we may true disciples be.\u00a0 The hard work of remembering prevents us from shutting ourselves away and from shutting others away that we may all be re-membered together.\u00a0 It is in the work of remembering that the Spirit draws us in her tether that we might touch the garment hem of God and be healed and re-membered.<\/p>\n

It would probably be wise for me to stop there, but the wisdom of faith is foolishness to the wise and on Trinity Sunday, when I remember my ordination to the priesthood four years ago, we are reminded that we are called to be fools for Christ.\u00a0 For you see, if we believe with Howard Thurman that all people belong to one another, and if we believe with Pope Francis that God has redeemed all of us, then it cannot be the case that we are re-membered, returned to fellowship, having left anyone or anything behind.\u00a0 We cannot be re-membered without being re-membered with the driver of the bus that collided with Victor.\u00a0 We cannot be re-membered without being re-membered with the driver of the tractor-trailer that killed Christopher.\u00a0 We cannot be re-membered without being re-membered with the students who threw the party that Anthony attended.\u00a0 We cannot be re-membered without being re-membered with those responsible for the conditions that led to the fire that killed Binland.\u00a0 And dear friends in Boston, we cannot be re-membered as a city and as a community and as a society until we are re-membered with Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev.\u00a0 All<\/i> people belong to one another, not merely the ones we love or who love us.\u00a0 It was a sinful, sinful thing to attempt to deny Tamerlan the small dignity of burial, and we must all repent, for until we can confess that we belong to Tamerlan and Dzokhar, and they to us, we cannot be re-membered, and our search for healing continues.<\/p>\n

Lingzi\u2019s parents buried her here in Boston.\u00a0 They did so because they believe that her spirit will help to bring peace to our community.\u00a0 She will certainly abide here in our memory, and in remembering all of those we have lost, may we be re-membered, returned to fellowship, with one another, with all people, with all creation, and ultimately, with God, whose re-memberment we celebrate on this Trinity Sunday.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

~Br. Lawrence A. Whitney, LC+<\/em><\/p>\n

University Chaplain for Community Life<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service. Click here to hear the sermon only. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 Amen. Please, be seated. Remember with me, will you?\u00a0 If you are seated here in the nave of Marsh Chapel you may want to find a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705"}],"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=705"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2467,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions\/2467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}