{"id":767,"date":"2013-10-06T11:00:44","date_gmt":"2013-10-06T15:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=767"},"modified":"2019-11-19T12:14:43","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T17:14:43","slug":"coastal-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2013\/10\/06\/coastal-grace\/","title":{"rendered":"Coastal Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luke 17: 5-10<\/a><\/p>\n

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

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

 <\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

Dean Hart once reminded us:\u00a0 Jesus is our beacon not our boundary.<\/p>\n

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In a Chinese restaurant at 110th<\/sup> street and Broadway, April 1978, George Todd hired us to work at the World Council of Churches in Geneva Switzerland. \u201cHeat, light, running water\u2014that is what I need, basic support work\u201d, he barked.\u00a0 His favorite verse was from 1 Peter 5:\u00a0 \u2018be sober, be watchful, your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour\u2019<\/i>.\u00a0 He usually smiled having recited the verse.<\/p>\n

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George had been one of the founders of the East Harlem Protestant Parish in New York, 20 years earlier.\u00a0 You want to know something about that lightning crash experiment in urban ministry, all things material in common, service to and with the poor, Acts 2:44, Presbyterians and others, at 110th<\/sup> on the other side of \u00a0\u00a0from our Chinese lunch.\u00a0 Thence he took several jobs, finally in the office of urban and industrial mission for the World Council.\u00a0 He, and later we, lunched there with Paolo Freire, Emilio Castro, Philip Potter, Connie Parvey.\u00a0 Jan was more useful to him than I, as it happens, for they needed music and piano in the mid-week worship service, held Wednesdays in that beautiful, hopeful, open space.\u00a0 He later confessed that he really hired young people, then, not so much for help but to plant seeds of goodwill for the future of the church, the future of the ministry, the future of the WCC.\u00a0 Something like our hidden strategy for staffing at Marsh Chapel.\u00a0 It worked.\u00a0 I mention him, I honor him, this morning, 35 years later.\u00a0 And I still mourn the tragic death of his son, Sam.<\/p>\n

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This year Marsh Chapel expands our mission, a heart for the heart of the city and a service in the service of the city, explicitly to span the globe.\u00a0 Our broadcast worship service, a if not the leading University Ecumenical Protestant weekly worship service in music, liturgy and homily in the world spans the globe.\u00a0 Our new chaplain for international students, Rev. Longsdorf, the first position of its kind in the country, spans the globe.\u00a0 Her students baked the bread for this morning\u2019s eucharist. Our vocational offspring\u2014Brian Hall in the middle east, David Romanik in Texas, Rebecca in South Africa\u2014span the globe.\u00a0 Our paraments, chosen by Rev Dr Olson, help us recall the global character of our vocational offspring.\u00a0 Our emerging partnerships with the University of Tokyo, the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, and, yes, a UCC church in Miami Beach, span the globe.\u00a0 (That is the thing about Miami Beach:\u00a0 it is so close to the USA that you almost feel like you are in the country.)\u00a0 Yours, yes, is a mission in global community.\u00a0 But mainly in another way:\u00a0 yours is the announcement of a coastal grace.\u00a0 A coastal grace:\u00a0 freedom, peace, and love, from sea to shining sea.\u00a0 John Dewey wrote about a common faith.\u00a0 Howard Thurman preached about a common ground.\u00a0 You are announcing a common hope, from sea to shining sea.\u00a0 A coastal grace.\u00a0 And you don\u2019t have to travel the globe to live a coastal grace.\u00a0 As my friend says, \u2018I don\u2019t have to drink the whole ocean to know that is salty\u2019.<\/p>\n

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Now.\u00a0 I have a bone to pick with our undergraduates.\u00a0 A month ago you affirmed, I believe, you promised, I think, to get to the coast, to walk the beach, once a month during your time in Boston.\u00a0 You promised.\u00a0 Didn\u2019t you?\u00a0 I think so.\u00a0 Even if it is just a T ride to Revere: go.\u00a0 See the horizon.\u00a0 Feel the salt breeze.\u00a0 Listen to the ocean and its roar.\u00a0 Many of you will never, never be so close to the coast, again.\u00a0 I guess, because I am a fresh water fish myself, I am unfairly passionate about it.\u00a0 You know, some people live in Buffalo, and never have seen Niagara Falls.\u00a0 Some people live in the Dakotas and never have seen the Black Hills.\u00a0\u00a0 Some people live in Spain and have never tasted Rioja.\u00a0 Some people live in Kenmore Square and have never seen the Red Sox.\u00a0 And George Todd lived for a decade in Geneva, even visited Gruyere, I was with him, but never learned to like cheese.\u00a0\u00a0 Go east, as far as you can.\u00a0 Walk down to the harbor, take a boat to Provincetown or Salem, while you can.\u00a0\u00a0 Behold a coastal grace.\u00a0 While walking, memorize a psalm or two, like my favorite as it was Thurman\u2019s, 139.<\/p>\n

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This land\u2014yours and mine\u2014desperately needs the vision, the memory, the perspective, and the world-view of the shoreline.\u00a0 \u2018The greater the ocean of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of mystery that surrounds it\u201d, once said Ralph Sockman, OWU graduate in theater arts.\u00a0 A coastal grace.\u00a0 Here is beauty:\u00a0 the blue on blue line at the horizon, sky on sea, sea on sky, air on water, water on air, oxygen on hydrogen, hydrogen on oxygen, light on life, life on light.\u00a0 Here is goodness:\u00a0 if Norsemen in the 13th<\/sup> century could a sail a rowboat to this continent, there is potential, possibility, for us too.\u00a0 Here is truth:\u00a0 craggy truth, messy truth, quirky, oblique out of alignment truth.\u00a0 Here the land is not set out all in squares, the roads make no sense, except to follow the coast, things are not at right angles.\u00a0 There is difference, there is wetland, stone, cliff, ebb, flow, mist, all.\u00a0 And danger, dangers.\u00a0 See the Gloucester memorial:\u00a0 \u201cSome went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters.\u00a0 They saw the deeps of the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep.\u00a0 For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea.\u201d\u00a0 Your moral imagination, much needed today, in church and society, with which to address endless contention and intractable difference, will develop, will mature, in earshot of the tide.\u00a0 Not all issues fall out in 90 degree patterns, like cornfields in Iowa.\u00a0 The fresh water voices\u2014I am such a fish remember\u2014need the ocean spray, the salt breeze, the coastal grace that heightens a recognition of variety, yet along the great shoreline, the mighty horizon of hope, of beauty, truth and goodness, of hope.\u00a0 A common hope.<\/p>\n

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With others in communities around the globe, we gather at the Lord\u2019s Table this morning.\u00a0 It is fitting the \u2018wings of the morning, and the uttermost parts of the sea\u2019\u2014the coastal grace illumined in our favorite psalm\u2014is balanced, as now we come to Table, with the reading from Luke 17.\u00a0 Your field work is not a substitute for your domestic duties, the gospel affirms.\u00a0 Your evangelism and outreach are not a substitute for your congregational tasks, the gospel affirms.\u00a0 Your horizon of hope and coastal grace are not in place of serving at table.\u00a0\u00a0 Hope all you want, become a great leader of institution or three, good for you:\u00a0 all of it is no substitute for service in the Lord\u2019s house.\u00a0 People have such shaky reasons for not going to church.\u00a0\u00a0 You are to wait at the Lord\u2019s table.\u00a0 To pray.\u00a0 To read.\u00a0 To go to church.\u00a0 To tithe.\u00a0 To invite someone else, once a week or once a month, to join you.\u00a0 To make sure all God\u2019s children, all, are fed.\u00a0 Your service to the University as a chaplain or dean or professor is not a substitute for your service to God by serving your neighbor.\u00a0 You have domestic work to do.\u00a0 Right here.\u00a0 Come Sunday. \u00a0Here, to remember some word that is true, in the joy of faith when grace is present.\u00a0 Here to greet someone who is good, in the joy of faith when grace is present. Here to hear something that is beautiful, in the joy of faith when grace is present.\u00a0 We walk past Sunday morning with a yawn and think we have all the time in the world.\u00a0 Not so.\u00a0 I celebrate your field work, your professional prowess, your vocational success, your straight A\u2019s so far.\u00a0 They are not a substitute for your soul.\u00a0 \u2018Le couer a sais raison que le raison n\u2019comprende pas\u2019.<\/i> Timothy says much the same:\u00a0 yours is not a spirit of cowardice, but of power and love and self-discipline<\/i> (interesting trio), and the promise is the very promise of life.<\/i> And by the way, you don\u2019t get a ransom for just doing your job\u2014\u2018so you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, \u2018we are worthless slaves; we have only done what we ought to have done\u2019<\/i>.\u00a0 You don\u2019t get to demand a ransom just for doing your job! (J)<\/p>\n

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When our work with George Todd ended in Geneva, we came back to New York.\u00a0 George sent us back with some domestic duties.\u00a0 A basket of them.\u00a0 (He carried his office around in plastic and paper bags, two or three together, brimming with books and papers).\u00a0 He said that he had learned in East Harlem that shoe leather was the most important part of ministry.\u00a0 Visit the people.\u00a0 Visit the people. Visit the people.\u00a0\u00a0 That office in Switzerland dealt with world leaders who made requests.\u00a0 The month we were leaving one came from the Rev. Canaan Banana in Africa.\u00a0 I leave his story and biography, and what they say about Africa and Methodism, for another day and another sermon.\u00a0 In 1978 he had learned that his name was mentioned in a new book, Remarkable Names of Real People<\/i>.\u00a0 Could someone get him a copy?\u00a0 So we got of the plane at JFK and the next day or so went down to 5th<\/sup> Ave and 18th<\/sup> street, where there was a big bookstore.\u00a0 And sure enough, there was a new book of the title identified.\u00a0 And many remarkable names.\u00a0 Cardinal Sin (Archbishop of Manila).\u00a0 Memory Lane.\u00a0 Shanda Lear.\u00a0 I. O. Silver.\u00a0 A. Moron.\u00a0 Groaner Digger (an undertaker).\u00a0 Preserved Fish (of New Bedford).\u00a0 Dr. Blood (an internist).\u00a0 Mrs. Toothacre (whose husband was a dentist).\u00a0 Nita Bath.\u00a0 Buncha Love.\u00a0 Katz Meow.\u00a0 Evan Keel.\u00a0 Horace and Boris Moros (twins).\u00a0 Solomon Gomorrah.\u00a0 Never Fail.\u00a0 And, page 77, Rev. Canaan Banana.<\/p>\n

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Friends, it is a big world.\u00a0 There are varieties within diversities within pluralities within multiplicities.\u00a0 Our country has a motto:\u00a0 e pluribus unum.\u00a0 Our New Testament shows us that in earliest Christianity diversity preceded unity.\u00a0 There are many ways of keeping faith. \u00a0Many ways there are to keep faith.\u00a0 As that most liberal Gospel, of John, teaches:\u00a0 in my Father\u2019s house there are many rooms\u2026wherever there is a way, a little truth, a bit of life\u2026there I AM. <\/i> And there are many names by which faith is named.\u00a0 Including yours. \u00a0The author of 2 Timothy remembers Eunice and Lois, by name.\u00a0 The book of life includes remarkable names of real people.\u00a0 Like you.\u00a0 We need maybe to remember that when we decide we want to box out some of the differences, and box out some who are different.<\/p>\n

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This is where a monthly walk along the seacoast can help.\u00a0 A big sky.\u00a0 A long shore line.\u00a0 A rolling tide.\u00a0 An infinite horizon.\u00a0 A wind, like the breath of God.\u00a0\u00a0 A chance to look out!\u00a0 To look up!\u00a0 To look long!\u00a0 To look high!<\/p>\n

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I last saw George in 1983, along the seacoast in Vancouver.\u00a0 There was a big tent set up on a cliff, in the sunshine.\u00a0 I was late getting there.\u00a0 My Uncle David Laventhol, then editor of Newsday and creator of a New York Newday\u2014\u2018truth, justice, and the comics\u2019, had gotten me a press pass to attend.\u00a0 This was a General Assembly of the World Council of Churches.\u00a0 Philip Potter was set to preach.\u00a0 I had to stand in the back, under the drip line of the tent.\u00a0\u00a0 On that coast, that day, people of faith from the world over stood to sing.\u00a0 But it wasn\u2019t the singing of the words, it was the people singing the words that carried the grace:\u00a0 \u2018In Christ there is no east or west, in him no south or north, but one great fellowship of love, throughout the whole wide earth.\u00a0 In Him shall true hearts everywhere their high communion find.\u00a0 His service is the golden chord close binding humankind.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Jesus is our beacon not our boundary!\u00a0 He is not ours to measure, but gives the measure himself of all things, and to us, \u2018not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace\u2019.<\/p>\n

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O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

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

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

Luke 17: 5-10 Click here to hear the full service. Click here to hear the sermon only.     Dean Hart once reminded us:\u00a0 Jesus is our beacon not our boundary.   In a Chinese restaurant at 110th street and Broadway, April 1978, George Todd hired us to work at the World Council of Churches […]<\/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\/767"}],"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=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2424,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions\/2424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}