{"id":874,"date":"2014-04-20T11:00:46","date_gmt":"2014-04-20T15:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=874"},"modified":"2019-11-12T11:00:48","modified_gmt":"2019-11-12T16:00:48","slug":"angel-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2014\/04\/20\/angel-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"Angel Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew 28:1-7<\/a><\/p>\n

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

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

\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Yellow and Blue<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It has been a long week.\u00a0 It has been a long old time religion winter.\u00a0 It has been a long year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On April 15 I jogged in the morning, down along the river.\u00a0 A cold day.\u00a0 A sad day.\u00a0 A mournful day.\u00a0 A blue day, with the slight budding wind of a yellow dawn in early spring.\u00a0 By the Hatch Shell someone had beautifully placed a dozen boxes, along the path and along the river.\u00a0 In each flower box there were dozens of flowers, of only two types and colors.\u00a0 Daffodils.\u00a0 Yellow.\u00a0 Violets.\u00a0 Blue.\u00a0 Daffodils and violets, yellow and blue.\u00a0 In Boston, on Easter, this year of our Lord, 2014, we are right in those flower boxes.\u00a0 One part violet, on part daffodil, one part yellow, one part blue, on part singing the hymns of Easter, one part howling with the laments of loss.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the last year, we have been a city drenched in sorrow.<\/p>\n

Our good words about resilience, rightly spoken, as our honest reaction this year to neighborhood terrorism, do not displace our sorrow.\u00a0\u00a0 The best of days, the highest of moments, the most charmingly gracious of cityscapes, the culmination of the American experiment in PatriotsDay-MarathonDay-SpringHoliday-BostonDay\u2014all trashed a year ago by senseless, needless, heedless, injurious, intentional, hateful, killing violence.\u00a0 When another takes what you hold dear, count precious, think lovely, and rapes it, you cannot avoid anger, and the sorrow at the heart of anger.\u00a0\u00a0 Now the angel of hurt has come near, here.\u00a0 Some of the sensitive in listener land wonder whether anything religiously cast, any preachment, can carry any truth, any good.\u00a0 We have become closely acquainted again with sin.<\/p>\n

Sin is utterly personal.\u00a0 This we understand.\u00a0 The covenantal commands of the decalogue have a personal consequence (Exodus 20).\u00a0 For we confess, too a personal dimension to the apocalyptic sway of sin.\u00a0 The angels in heaven\u2014and perhaps a few others\u2014may \u201cneed no repentance\u201d.\u00a0 As grace touches ground in Jesus Christ, sin touches sand in personal confessions.\u00a0 We get lost.\u00a0 It is our nature, east of eden.\u00a0 We get lost in sex without love:\u00a0 lust.\u00a0 We get lost in consumption without nourishment:\u00a0 gluttony.\u00a0 We get lost in accumulation without investment:\u00a0 avarice.\u00a0 We get lost in rest without weariness, in happiness without struggle:\u00a0 sloth.\u00a0 We get lost in righteousness without restraint:\u00a0 anger.\u00a0 We get lost in desire without ration or respect:\u00a0 envy.\u00a0 And most regularly, we get lost in integrity without humility:\u00a0 pride.\u00a0 If you have never known lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy or pride you are not a sinner, you are outside the cloud of sin, and you need no repentance.\u00a0 (You also may not be quite human).\u00a0 But if so, hear good news:\u00a0 the Easter gospel is for you!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

Today is Easter.\u00a0 Sursum Corda!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Lord is Risen!\u00a0 He is Risen Indeed!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Early in the morning, before dawn, two women\u2014Matthew has no place for men at the tomb, except guards so fearful they are like dead\u2014come on a religious errand to the sepulchre.\u00a0 They approach quietly, on tiptoe, for the air is quiet before the storm.\u00a0 They listen and watch\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And behold!\u2026There is an earthquake and an Angel, a messenger of the Lord who descends from heaven, rolls the stone away\u2014notice this\u2014sits upon the stone.\u00a0 Like lightening and snow is he\u2014like the lightening of Labor Day and like the snow of March 6 is he.\u00a0 We know about lightening and even more about snow.\u00a0 Dazzling white, fearsome power.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why an angel?\u00a0 Why all the drama?\u00a0 Why such an appearance?\u00a0 Why the stone as a stool?\u00a0 Why the title, angel of the Lord?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An angel is a messenger.\u00a0 The drama means to get your attention.\u00a0 He sits\u2014to teach.\u00a0 Remember Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount\u2014\u201che sat down and taught them\u201d.\u00a0 In antiquity, a teacher sat to teach.\u00a0 His sitting is for our instruction.\u00a0 And he sits\u2014where?\u00a0 On the stone of death.\u00a0 There it is, at Easter:\u00a0 an angel of the Lord, sitting to teach, atop the symbol of death.\u00a0 Death is a part of life.\u00a0 In Jesus Christ, death has lost its sting.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Behold I tell you a mystery\u2026 Kata staupon\u2026Crux sola\u2026Que es la vida\u2026Le Couer a sais\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let us suspend our disbelief for a few minutes, and listen and learn from the voice of an angel, sent to teach us.\u00a0 For we trust\u2014that life has meaning, that worship deepens meaning, that Scripture carries meaning, and that preaching applies meaning to our very hearts for our eternal health and wellbeing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Angel says, \u201cFear Not\u2026.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

I am a Christian because I see in Jesus Christ that God has tasted all that I will ever taste\u2014all the way to death.\u00a0 Am I weary?\u00a0 So was he.\u00a0 Am I alone? So was he.\u00a0 Am I downcast?\u00a0 So was he.\u00a0 Am I betrayed?\u00a0 So was he.\u00a0 Am I rejected?\u00a0 So was he.\u00a0 Am I to die?\u00a0 So did he.\u00a0 Where I go, he has been.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit\u201d (Ps 34:18).\u00a0 He has become like us, that we might become like him.\u00a0 As Paul says, \u201che was put to death for our trespasses, and raised for our justification\u201d (Rom 4:25)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Be not afraid! In the hour post-mortem, we learn:\u00a0 Fear not.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Fear not:<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

You may be fixing breakfast, either a theist in doubt or an a-theist doubting your doubt.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

You may have given first aid and first response last Marathon Monday, and now are in worship finding a way toward peace.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

You may have sat in your car, last Tuesday at 2:49pm, silent, weeping, and carefully mentioning by name:\u00a0 Lu Lingzi, Martin Richards, Krystle Campbell, and Sean Collier.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

You may have realized, as a young adult, as young adults do, walking the Esplanade yesterday, that you are not as self-aware, self-critical, self-disciplined as you should be, by now.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

You may be new to your job, a responsible one at that, involving the safety of many others, rising to meet the day, and praying for an incident free tomorrow.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

You may be a preacher giving his 35th<\/sup> Easter sermon, wondering what the judgment of them all will be.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

You may be remembering a loved one who has died, and grieving that loss still, as the music subsides.<\/i><\/p>\n

You may have been healed this winter, a long time healing in a long cold winter, warmed by the sunshine of Easter weekend.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

You may be in the choir, glad for the beauty and conviviality and community of church and worship, but also convinced that none of it will last if based on shaky philosophical foundations, and you are right to be so convinced.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

You may be in the balcony, ready to hear, by inspiration and grace, a saving word, a healing word, an intervening word, an angel voice. <\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

You may remember that you have been radically accepted, as Paul Tillich would say, that you have this acceptance by the work of Christ, as Karl Barth would say, and that you have this through no good work at all of your own, as John Calvin would say.\u00a0 So share your faith!, John Wesley would say.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The Angel says, \u00a0\u201cHe is not Here\u2026\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 absence is at the heart of Easter.\u00a0 The Gospel helps us see his absence, then and now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Very few people are ever argued into faith, or out of faith.\u00a0 Persuasion does the former, sometimes.\u00a0 Tragedy does the latter, sometimes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All of the Matthean touches are metaphorical:\u00a0 the wild earthquake, the stone miraculously moved, the guards made soporific, the clothing as bright as sunshine, the shining as white snow (the snow part is the part we get easily).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So too is the Angel Voice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You and I do not hear such voices, normally at least.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 1977 I sat as a seminarian with an elderly Presbyterian minister and a young first year student.\u00a0 The student said:\u00a0 \u201cGod spoke to me and said\u2026God\u2019s voice rang in my ears\u2026God shouted at me\u2026God whispered to me\u2026The minister, aged and bespectacled and white haired and hard of hearing, said:\u00a0 \u201cI have been in ministry for 50 years.\u00a0 God has never, no not once, not ever spoken to me.\u201d\u00a0 Well, after 35 years, I am with him.\u00a0 God has not ever spoken to me.\u00a0 Angel Voice is a figure of speaking, metaphorical not literal.\u00a0 For Matthew.\u00a0 For that Presbyterian minister.\u00a0 For me.\u00a0 For you.\u00a0 For you all.\u00a0 It is a sign, a symbol, a metaphor.\u00a0 BUT IT HAS POWERFUL MEANING NONETHELESS.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Angel voice reverberates, resounds, rolls, undulates, crashes, sings, calls, shouts\u2014\u2018He is not here\u2019.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Like the ocean rolling at night, ebb and flow, tide and surf, wave and beach, the ocean rolling at night, a natural Angel Voice.\u00a0 We sense behind the phenomena, the numinous.\u00a0 Howard Thurman:\u00a0 \u2018the ocean and the night\u2026\u2019 Angel voice beckons you from the shoreline of the world, roaring with the wild beauty of the untamed universe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Like the still, small voice of your conscience.\u00a0 You have in your heart, in your mind, in your soul, in your self a kind of inner voice, which in its own way rolls in and out like a wave on the ocean. \u00a0Or, it is like the \u2018ping\u2019 in a message box, echoing, lost, ringing from the bottom of the Indian Ocean.\u00a0 Angel voice.\u00a0 \u2018Not sure you really want to do that\u2026\u2019\u00a0 \u2018Not sure you really should have said that\u2026\u2019\u00a0 Not\u00a0 sure you really do think that\u2026\u2019\u00a0 You could help her\u2026 You could encourage him\u2026You could think about that another way.\u00a0 Angel voice beckons you from that inner voice, the singing solo of your own-most self.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Like the heart felt longing, feeling, careening, caring of love.\u00a0\u00a0 You can feel the love of those who lost limbs or senses or loved ones last year.\u00a0 You really reach out in love to them, and to others in hurt, tragedy, need.\u00a0 The Bible says:\u00a0 no one has ever seen God.\u00a0 The Bible says:\u00a0 if we love one another, God\u2019s love abides in us.\u00a0 The Bible says:\u00a0 God is Love.\u00a0 The Bible says:\u00a0 Love is God.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At age 8 or so, from our little village in farm country, I had never traveled to a MLB game.\u00a0\u00a0 But once a summer in Cooperstown the two worst MLB teams played an exhibition.\u00a0 I do not remember the second team.\u00a0 But you know, in the early 60\u2019s, who the first team was:\u00a0 the Mets.\u00a0 My dad and his clergy friend Bruce took me.\u00a0 Bruce was the first Boston voice I remember:\u00a0 a BU graduate, a Sox fan, pork and beans and Saturday evening, he did not drop his r\u2019s.\u00a0 Those two Methodist preachers had very little spare money or time, but they found a way to give a happy day to a boy who would not leave early, even though the Mets were down by at least 20 runs (J).\u00a0 On the way home, in the evening, though I had been warned not to do so, I lifted my new cap out the window into the breeze:\u00a0 off it went, in the wind, across the road, down the embankment, and into the Cherry Valley Creek (where in 1910 my grandmother had been baptized.)\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not fa\u2019 down.\u00a0 Yo fatha and I can get it.\u201d\u00a0 Every loving word, deed, act, prayer, every one has a lasting influence, lasting fifty years and more.\u00a0 Is it any wonder, so raised, but such, that I went into their ministry, served churches along the Cherry Valley, preached as a Methodist itinerant, and ended up, where they started out, here in Boston?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018He is not here\u2019.\u00a0 Angel voice in creation and in conscience and in compassion tells us so.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0The Angel says, \u201cHe Has Risen\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Easter is a mystery, a resurrection mystery.\u00a0 The old creed can display its meaning for what we believe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In God, Maker of heaven and earth.\u00a0 God creates the world, known to us in all its brute fallenness, its sin and death and threat of meaninglessness.\u00a0 This is the all the creed says about the world, life, creation.\u00a0 Here it is, all things visible\u2014earth\u2014and invisible\u2014heaven, created from nothing by God.<\/p>\n

In the Son of God, Jesus, in life<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Conceived in the joyful explosive passionate spirited love of all conception<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Born as in all birth of a woman whose self giving in delivery is utterly virginal<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Suffering as all do under structured oppression, from Pilate to Putin and beyond<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Crucified, dead buried, shuffling off this mortal coil en route to that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Raised from the dead, sitting on the right hand of God to judge the living and dead, all visible and invisible, a sound, solid but utterly incomprehensible mystery by which death is swallowed up in victory.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the very Spirit of God<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Which we taste in the global church<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Which we enjoy in the fellowship and goodness of friendship<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Which we hold for dear life, like those capsized at sea, in the saving life preserver of forgiveness<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Which we trust for the renewal of the church, the body so resurrected daily<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Which we leap into at last, at death, trusting that life everlasting is the last word.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us.\u00a0 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. <\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Salvation is about space, about openness!\u00a0 \u201cIn my father\u2019s house there are many rooms..\u201d\u00a0 \u201cThe mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting\u2026\u201d \u201cAs far as the east is from the west, so far does God remove our transgression\u2026\u201d We used to sing:\u00a0 \u201cGive me land, lots of land, \u2018neath the starry skies above\u2014don\u2019t fence me in!\u00a0 Salvation is about space.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jesus goes to Galilee\u2014the place of difference, of the unreligious.\u00a0 Go quickly and tell his disciples\u2026<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

The angel voice speaks to you:<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Whether you are 80 or 50 or 20<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Whether your mode is sincerity or authenticity or irony<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Whether your favorite film is Casablanca or Easy Rider or Ferris Buehler<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Whether the day that lives in infamy is December 7 or November 22 or September 11<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Whether bridge means River Quai or Chappaquidick or Nowhere<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Whether your trumpeter is Armstrong or Jarrett or Marsalis<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Whether that poster is of Marilyn Monroe or Raquel Welch or Madonna<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Whether you fought anti Semitism or racism or homophobia<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Whether your best baseball card is of Ted Williams or Karl Yastremski or Big Papi<\/i><\/p>\n

Whether your medium is radio or television or the internent<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Whether you read Ernest Hemingway or Lionel Trilling or David Foster Wallace<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Whether you shout Airborne! or Right On! or Whatever!<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Whether your default mode is sincerity or authenticity or irony<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Whether you are 80 or 50 or 20<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Angel voice speaks still\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dag Hammarskjold:\u00a0 \u2018God does not die on the day we cease to believe in a personal Deity, but we die on the day our lives cease to be illumined by a radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder whose source lies beyond all reason.\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My friend is a member or the American College of Cardiology.\u00a0 They have instituted a new conclusion to all of their continuing education units, which he, rightly, thinks should also conclude every worship service.\u00a0 In short, the doctors are asked before they leave:\u00a0 \u201cHow will what you have learned at this conference change the way your practice?\u00a0 What will you do differently than you did before?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He adds:\u00a0 I long to hear this coda, or something like it, in every sermon, every Sunday:\u00a0 \u2018Friends and fellow disciples of the living Christ, what will you now do differently as a result of your participation here this morning?\u00a0 What deeds of the body will you begin today to put to death by the Spirit, and what fruits of the Spirit will you now cultivate, harvest and distribute?\u00a0 What life giving, life sustaining, life affirming practices and habits will you today begin to establish.\u00a0 Make them specific, personal, demanding, actionable, measurable.\u00a0 What will be your actions and metrics? Please join us! (Dr. Larry Gage, Rochester, NY).<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Through it all rings the Resurrection Hope, and an angel voice:<\/p>\n

Fear not<\/i><\/p>\n

He is not here<\/i><\/p>\n

He has risen<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whether you are enchanted by sincerity, or enchanted by authenticity or enchanted by irony\u2014whether you are 80 or 50 or 20\u2014Angel Voice speaks for and to you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Big steps are better than small steps.\u00a0 Small steps are better than no steps.\u00a0 No steps are better than backward steps.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018Screw your courage to the sticking place, and we will not fail.\u2019 (Macbeth)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018And go to church on Sunday.\u2019 (Billy Graham).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Matthew 28:1-7 Click here to hear the full service. Click here to hear the sermon only. \u00a0 Yellow and Blue   It has been a long week.\u00a0 It has been a long old time religion winter.\u00a0 It has been a long year.   On April 15 I jogged in the morning, down along the river.\u00a0 […]<\/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\/874"}],"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=874"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":881,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions\/881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}