{"id":709,"date":"2013-06-09T11:00:14","date_gmt":"2013-06-09T15:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=709"},"modified":"2019-11-19T12:35:04","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T17:35:04","slug":"an-embraceable-variant-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2013\/06\/09\/an-embraceable-variant-2\/","title":{"rendered":"An Embraceable Variant"},"content":{"rendered":"

John 17: 3<\/a><\/p>\n

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

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

Click here to watch Dean Hill deliver the sermon.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1. Summit<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

High atop the world\u2019s greatest writings there sits our Holy Scripture.\u00a0 Such knowledge is too wonderful for us.\u00a0 It is high.\u00a0 We cannot attain it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Within the Scripture itself are conjoined the sibling testaments, the older and newer, the Hebrew Scripture and the Christian Writings.\u00a0\u00a0 For us just now, the 27 newer books stand a little bit higher.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Gospels and the Letters and the Apocalyptic Writings are all inspired and inspiring, all sufficient for faith and practice.\u00a0 The gospels though have a certain priority, in our liturgy, and in our hearts.\u00a0 They lie just a step or two higher, atop higher ground.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You love all the Gospels.\u00a0 One there is though which from antiquity has been known as the sublime, the spiritual gospel.\u00a0 We shall ascend today to the craggy paths and rarified air of the Fourth Gospel.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

High above the rest of John, above the seven signs to begin and above the passion and resurrection to end, there lies the strangest moonscape in the Scripture, and so in all literature, and so in life.\u00a0 I mean chapters 13-17.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We are about to place our homiletical flag on the very summit, the highest of high peaks, the textual Matterhorn, Everest, Mount Washington, Pike\u2019s Peak:\u00a0 John 17:3<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.<\/i><\/p>\n

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

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

2. Where We Least Expect To Find It:\u00a0 Freedom In Disappointment, Grace In Dislocation, Love In Departure: John<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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

Your own participation in this sermon is cordially invited, and fully required today.\u00a0 We affirm, with the ancient Gospel according to St. John the Divine 17:3, that we find freedom in disappointment, we grasp grace in dislocation, and we learn love in departure.\u00a0 Look back at all your experience to date.\u00a0 What is your greatest disappointment?\u00a0 It is a clue to freedom.\u00a0 What is your hardest dislocation?\u00a0 It is a signpost for grace.\u00a0 What is your most grievous departure?\u00a0 It is the way of love.<\/p>\n

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

<\/b>The community of the beloved disciple knew about disappointment.\u00a0 After three generations, and some, the community had awaited the primitive hope of the church to be realized.\u00a0 They awaited the return of Christ.\u00a0 The resurrection of the dead from their graves.\u00a0 The end of time.\u00a0 The apocalypse of God.\u00a0 It did not come.\u00a0 He did not come, at least not in the way once hoped.\u00a0\u00a0 I find it the most remarkable feature of the New Testament that John, rather than being lost in a sea of disheartening failure, in the very eye of his most stormy theological hurricane, found freedom.\u00a0 In theological disappointment he found freedom.<\/p>\n

In our time, speaking of theological disappointment, we are bidding a reluctant farewell to God.\u00a0 To a certain, junior, perception of God.\u00a0 God reigns.\u00a0 This we affirm with the church militant and triumphant.\u00a0 But God\u2019s way among us is away from us.\u00a0 He is risen.\u00a0 He is not here.\u00a0 See the place where they laid him.\u00a0 And you?<\/p>\n

The community of the beloved disciple knew about dislocation.\u00a0 They had lost their family of origin.\u00a0 They were sent out from their mother religion.\u00a0 The church that wrote John had been thrown out of the synagogue.\u00a0 The life they grew up with had cast them out.\u00a0 It took three generations for them to grasp the joyful grace in dislocation.\u00a0 Count it all grace, brethren, when various dislocations beset you!<\/p>\n

In our time we have also known sociological dislocation aplenty. \u00a0\u00a0Children bear the brunt of unemployment in the home, for instance.\u00a0 A certain sense of civic self was dislodged, here in Boston, this year, for instance.\u00a0 And you?<\/p>\n

The community of the beloved disciple knew about departure.\u00a0 The layers of grief culminating in chapter 17, while ostensibly a rehearsal of Jesus\u2019 own departure, may also have been crafted by the heart and voice of their aged John, the other and beloved disciple, whose own departure, in the midst of disappointment and dislocation, itself provoked these layers of grief.\u00a0 Is it not ironic that the sharpest, most rarified language of love in all of the New Testament\u2014in all of literature\u2014arises in the hour of departure?<\/p>\n

In our time,\u00a0 as has every generation, we face the departure of persons and groups. \u2018Nothing can make up for the absence of someone whom we love\u2019 (Bonhoeffer). The departure of the Christ makes space for love. As I have loved you, so you also ought to love one another.\u00a0 \u00a0\u2018Be yourself, but be your best self, dare to be different and to follow your own star.\u2019\u00a0 You snowflake, you.\u00a0 And you?<\/p>\n

The measures of freedom and grace given to us become real possibilities, real freedom and real grace, only when we have the gracious freedom to decide for faith.\u00a0 The same is magnificently true of love.\u00a0 This is the message of John, at the end.<\/p>\n

But how does this happen?\u00a0 Freedom, grace and love come through variance, in John, difference, in John, the courage to act differently, think differently, in John.\u00a0\u00a0 Let me see if an analogy will help.<\/p>\n

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

3. Brother John<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We are four siblings in my family of origin.\u00a0 The older three have brown hair.\u00a0 The youngest is a redhead, whose name is John.\u00a0 John\u2019s bright red locks are unlike, quite unlike, the less remarkable curls of Bob, Cathy and Cynthia.\u00a0 He stands apart, does John.\u00a0 It makes you wonder where he came from, with such a distinctive aspect.\u00a0 John is like his Gospel namesake, the Fourth Gospel.\u00a0 The youngest of the four, he stands out, so different from his synoptic siblings Matthew, Mark and Luke.\u00a0 They with their shared brown hair, their shared parables and teachings, their shared emphasis on the humanity of Jesus, their shared trips from Galilee to Jerusalem, they just don\u2019t look at all like their younger redheaded brother.<\/p>\n

In the summer, it happens, as it may in your family, there is a family reunion for one part of our tribe.\u00a0 Occasionally, we would go, growing up.\u00a0 Like yours, ours is something of standard reunion.\u00a0 It is held on a farm near Albany, which has been in the family since before George Washington rode a horse.\u00a0\u00a0 After the usual light meal of beef, corn, potatoes, bread, sausage, pies, and pickles and so on, the extended family (or those who having eaten so can still move) will sometimes stand for a photograph on the long farm house veranda.\u00a0 I ask you to look at the photo.\u00a0 I am holding it here.\u00a0 Can you see it?\u00a0 Well, even if you cannot see it across the radio waves, you can probably guess what it shows.\u00a0 Of these eighty people, do you see how many have red hair?\u00a0 About 60\u2014young or old, tall or short, heavy or slight, male or female, they mostly have red hair, like John.\u00a0 75% are redheads.\u00a0 In fact, in the photo, it looks like a sea of red hair.\u00a0 Maybe a red heads convention out in the farm fields of Cooperstown, NY.\u00a0 John isn\u2019t the odd ball.\u00a0 His siblings are.<\/p>\n

John is not the second century Greco Roman odd ball.\u00a0 His synoptic siblings are.\u00a0 When you put the Fourth Gospel, with all its red haired radical difference, on the farm house veranda of second century religious family literature, he fits right in.\u00a0 He stands shoulder to shoulder with all the Gnostic writings that are so like him, especially in these late chapters. It looks like a redheads convention. He looks and sounds quite like the rest of his second and third cousins, once or twice removed:\u00a0 The Paraphrase of Shem, the Treatise on the Resurrection, the Odes of Solomon, the Apocryphon of John, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Mary.\u00a0 How else will we ever hear this voice of Jesus from John 17?<\/p>\n

And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom though hast sent.<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/i>Six Synoptic differences!\u00a0\u00a0 Eternal life, not kingdom of heaven.\u00a0 Know, not believe.\u00a0 The only true God, not Abba.\u00a0 Jesus Christ, not Rabbi or Master.\u00a0 Sent, not begotten.<\/p>\n

<\/i>This voice is NOTHING like that of the Sermon on the Mount, or that of the parable of the Good Samaritan, or that of the cry from Psalm 22 on the cross.\u00a0 Not human, but divine, here.\u00a0 Not earthly, but heavenly, here.\u00a0 Not low, but high, here.\u00a0 Not immanent, but transcendent, here.<\/p>\n

The community of the Gospel of John had a radical experience of Jesus, as God on earth.\u00a0\u00a0 To render that experience meaningful, they had the radical courage to take language from the heretics around them, the Gnostics, and use it as their own BECAUSE IT FIT.\u00a0 It worked.\u00a0 It explained to the huddled humans clinging to Christ what they had experienced in him:\u00a0 divine grace and divine freedom.\u00a0 It rendered the sense of consecration, the sense of holy living and dying, the sense of consecrated joy, which they had found, with the Light of the World, with the Bread of Life, with the Good Shepherd, with the Resurrection, with the Word made flesh.<\/p>\n

The community of the Gospel of John feared not the culture around them.\u00a0 They feared not truth, even when that truth was best expressed outside of their particular religious circle.\u00a0 They had the guts to use language belonging to pagans, outsiders, heretics, Gnostics to celebrate and consecrate their faith.\u00a0 In doing so, they opened up the church to the world, to the future, to the culture around them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They changed their way of speaking of Christ, and pointed to Christ above, in, and transforming the culture around them.\u00a0 They changed.\u00a0 They had the courage to change.<\/p>\n

In age, our own, when the Gospel of John, served raw, without cooking, without historical interpretation, can be made to sound like the voice not of tradition but of traditionalism, we do well to remember John\u2019s courage to change, to reach out to the culture around, to put the gospel in word and music on the air waves of a pagan culture, out on the radio waves of a secular world, and where possible to use that same culture<\/p>\n

Raymond Brown: \u2018Some scholars may ponder on the luck of the Beloved Disciple that his community\u2019s Gospel was not recognized for the sectarian tractate that it really was.\u00a0 But others among us will see this as a recognition by Apostolic Christians that the Johannine language was not really a riddle and the Johannine voice was not alien\u2026What the Johannine Christians considered to be a tradition that had come down from Jesus seems to have been accepted by many other Christians as an embraceable variant of the tradition that they had from Jesus\u2019<\/i>.\u00a0 (TCOTBD, 18)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4. Where We Least Expect To Find It:\u00a0 Freedom In Disappointment, Grace In Dislocation, Love In Departure:\u00a0 Today<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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

Freedom<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

A poor man went to a Methodist church for worship.\u00a0 The congregation welcomed him and he returned week by week.\u00a0 After a while the women\u2019s circle took up a collection and bought him a nice new suit, with a blue tie.\u00a0 He happily received the gift, but they never saw him in church again.<\/p>\n

A while later, on the street, one of church members saw him and asked what had happened.\u00a0 Did he not like the suit?\u00a0 Did it not fit?\u00a0 Was he afraid to wear it?<\/p>\n

\u201cOh no, I love the suit.\u00a0 I look great in it.\u00a0 When I say myself in the mirror, I looked so good I thought, \u2018I look like a million bucks.\u00a0 I look too good to go just to the Methodist church.\u00a0 I think I\u2019m dressed well enough to go the Episcopal church.\u00a0 I think I will go there.\u00a0 And that is what I did\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 Disappointment led to freedom!<\/p>\n

Some years ago we sat at dinner with several other couples, in a beautiful home, over a majestic meal, graciously served.\u00a0 Because the couples new each other well, and were in trust to each other, there was the chance for hard and serious conversation, consecrated conversation you might say.\u00a0 This evening the debate swirled around gay marriage.<\/p>\n

There are tipping points in the way a culture moves.\u00a0 Some of them occur at dinner, in beautiful homes, over majestic meals, graciously served.\u00a0 The host was opposed, to gay marriage that is.\u00a0 The conversation widened, and then narrowed, and then widened again.\u00a0 We can surely agree that there are many ways of keeping faith, and many honest, different, points of view, on this and on many issues.<\/p>\n

Across the table sat Carol, mother of two fine teenagers, married with joy to a business leader, baseball player, Red Sox fan.\u00a0 She had battled cancer once before, and now it returned, and she fought it again.\u00a0 We could not see it then, but in seven months she was gone.<\/p>\n

Over some heat and some laughter, much disagreement but little discord, the conversation, consecrated you might say, moved on.\u00a0 Carol spoke fully, and at one point said:\u00a0 \u2018You know, I have learned how precious life is, how fragile, what a gift every day is.\u00a0 Here is what I feel:\u00a0 if two people truly love each other, deeply commit to each other, and want to consecrate their vows, that is they want what Doug and I have, why would I ever want to stand in their way, why would I ever want to deprive them of that happiness that I know so well.\u2019\u00a0 I heard some minds changing as the dessert came out.\u00a0 The embodiment of the embraceable variant.<\/p>\n

Pasternak loved Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnett 66. It is said that whenever he read aloud the crowd would not let him leave until he had rehearsed it for them.\u00a0 \u201cGive us the 66th<\/sup>\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Its evocation of daily anxiety bears remembering.\u00a0 The poem is unequaled in its announcement of disappointment, but also of freedom to wrestle with it.\u00a0 When life gives you the 66th<\/sup> remember Shakespeare, but especially his last couplet.<\/p>\n

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, <\/i><\/p>\n

As to behold desert a beggar born,
\nAnd needy nothing trimm’d in jollity,
\nAnd purest faith unhappily forsworn,
\nAnd gilded honour shamefully misplac’d,
\nAnd maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
\nAnd right perfection wrongfully disgrac’d,
\nAnd strength by limping sway disabled
\nAnd art made tongue-tied by authority,
\nAnd folly–doctor-like–controlling skill,
\nAnd simple truth miscall’d simplicity,
\nAnd captive good attending captain ill:
\nTir’d with all these, from these would I be gone,
\nSave that, to die, I leave my love alone.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2018Captive good attending captain ill\u2026\u2019\u00a0 Can you hear that?\u00a0 It begs to be heard.\u00a0 Stand with your people in tragedy, honest and kind in word and deed.<\/p>\n

Grace<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Our churches are in the throes of dislocation.\u00a0 Lyle Schaller had our number 25 years ago when he said:\u00a0 \u201cThese denominations will gladly accept 2-3% annual decline in exchange for the tacit agreement that there be no significant change\u201d.\u00a0 And so, in 25 years, in the Northeast, United Methodism has lost 50% of its membership.\u00a0 Today more 511 of the 930 pulpits in my home conference, Upper New York, are occupied by non-elders:\u00a0 the preaching and ministry are done by people without full or proper education, preparation, examination or ordination.\u00a0 In what other sector of serious life would we permit this?<\/p>\n

Sometimes a dose of realized eschatology can clear the mind and strengthen the soul.\u00a0\u00a0 In a way, every day is our last.\u00a0 In a way, heaven and hell are here and now.\u00a0 In a way, the end time is all of time.\u00a0 John puts it this way: \u2018the hour is coming AND NOW IS\u2019.<\/p>\n

The freedom of the gospel has gradually embraced multiple variants.\u00a0\u00a0 The poor.\u00a0 The immigrant.\u00a0 People of color.\u00a0 Those once enslaved. Women.\u00a0 Gay people. Others.\u00a0 The Other.\u00a0 In fact, the lesson of the gospel of grace enshrined in John is the spiritual expansion of grace, through the throes of dislocation, found in the embrace of the embraceable variant.<\/p>\n

In grace, our healthy future will come from a resurrection of thought, word and deed:\u00a0 of traditional worship, of traveling elders who excel in preaching, and in tithing to support the church we love.<\/p>\n

I bear witness:\u00a0 All of the lastingly good features of my life have come through grace in dislocation:\u00a0 name in baptism, faith in confirmation, community in eucharist, partnership in marriage, work in ordination, love in pardon, and hope in Christ for this life and the next. \u00a0All these are found in the healthy life of healthy, vibrant, discreet communities of faith.\u00a0 In our dislocation we discover grace, an embraceable variant, which makes all the difference.\u00a0 Our New England poet had it right:<\/p>\n

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,<\/i><\/p>\n

And sorry I could not travel both<\/i><\/p>\n

And be one traveler, long I stood<\/i><\/p>\n

And looked down one as far as I could<\/i><\/p>\n

To where it bent in the undergrowth;<\/i><\/p>\n

Then took the other, as just as fair,<\/i><\/p>\n

And having perhaps the better claim,<\/i><\/p>\n

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;<\/i><\/p>\n

Though as for that the passing there<\/i><\/p>\n

Had worn them really about the same,<\/i><\/p>\n

And both that morning equally lay<\/i><\/p>\n

In leaves no step had trodden black.<\/i><\/p>\n

Oh, I kept the first for another day!<\/i><\/p>\n

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,<\/i><\/p>\n

I doubted if I should ever come back.<\/i><\/p>\n

I shall be telling this with a sigh<\/i><\/p>\n

Somewhere ages and ages hence:<\/i><\/p>\n

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-<\/i><\/p>\n

I took the one less traveled by,<\/i><\/p>\n

And that has made all the difference.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Love<\/i><\/b> <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Be sober, be watchful.\u00a0 Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. (James 5: 1)\u00a0\u00a0 While we may shed the inherited demonic mythology in the verse, knowing and honoring its origins in the distant past, we nonetheless fully recognize the spiritual truth here:\u00a0 we know not what a day may bring, but only that the hour for serving is always present. 1 John 4: 7-12 captures love divinely:\u00a0 Beloved let us love one another\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

New occasions teach new duties<\/i><\/p>\n

Time makes ancient good uncouth<\/i><\/p>\n

One must upward still and onward<\/i><\/p>\n

Who would keep abreast of truth<\/i><\/p>\n

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

We too want to discipline ourselves and keep alert.\u00a0\u00a0 So we pray.\u00a0 Do you pray?\u00a0 So we commune.\u00a0 Do you receive the eucharist?\u00a0 So we study.\u00a0 Have you devotionally read your Bible this week?\u00a0 So we converse with one another.\u00a0 Have you opened home and heart recently in Christian conversation?\u00a0 So we fast\u2014park your car, save your money, do not reply all:\u00a0 fight pollution, debt and dehumanization.\u00a0 We too want to discipline ourselves and keep alert.<\/p>\n

When we buried Lu Lingzi, last month, her family bowed, ceremonially, and from the waist, at the very close of the service, a recognition of real love in real departure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

O LORD, thou hast searched me and known me!<\/i><\/p>\n

Thou knowest when I sit down and when I rise up; thou discernest my thoughts from afar.<\/i><\/p>\n

Thou searchest out my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. <\/i><\/p>\n

Even before a word is on my tongue, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether. <\/i><\/p>\n

Thou dost beset me behind and before, and layest thy hand upon me. <\/i><\/p>\n

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it. <\/i><\/p>\n

Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? <\/i><\/p>\n

If I ascend to heaven, thou art there! If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there! <\/i><\/p>\n

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, <\/i><\/p>\n

even there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. <\/i><\/p>\n

If I say, “Let only darkness cover me, and the light about me be night,” <\/i><\/p>\n

even the darkness is not dark to thee, the night is bright as the day; for darkness is as light with Thee.<\/i><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

Sursum corda!\u00a0 Lift up your hearts.\u00a0 The variance, your distinctive self is utterly embraceable.\u00a0 That variance, and your courage to live it, bring saving wholeness.\u00a0 There is a clue to Freedom in disappointment.\u00a0 There is a signpost to Grace in dislocation.\u00a0 There is a way of Love in departure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is eternal life, that they may know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

~The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John 17: 3 Click here to hear the full service. Click here to hear the sermon only. Click here to watch Dean Hill deliver the sermon.   1. Summit   High atop the world\u2019s greatest writings there sits our Holy Scripture.\u00a0 Such knowledge is too wonderful for us.\u00a0 It is high.\u00a0 We cannot attain it. […]<\/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\/709"}],"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=709"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2452,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions\/2452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}