{"id":905,"date":"2014-06-15T11:00:58","date_gmt":"2014-06-15T15:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=905"},"modified":"2019-11-05T12:30:38","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T17:30:38","slug":"a-summer-menu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2014\/06\/15\/a-summer-menu\/","title":{"rendered":"A Summer Menu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Psalm 107<\/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

Breakfast and Wonder<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This morning, Trinity Sunday and Father\u2019s Day, along with our hearing of Matthew and of Paul in Corinthians, we shall meditate fully upon our Psalm, one one-hundred and fiftieth part of our holy Psalter.\u00a0 As we prepare to enjoy a summer to nourish the body, may we in prayer also nourish the soul, with a soulful summer menu of meditation!<\/p>\n

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Behold, a daily spiritual soulful summer menu!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As day breaks you may find yourself rubbing eyes against the gleam of sunlight.\u00a0 Before you is a bowl for breakfast.\u00a0 Cereal covered with luscious raspberries.\u00a0 This summer, will you begin the day with soul, too?\u00a0 The soul responds to God\u2019s \u201cwonderful works to humankind\u201d.\u00a0 Summer is our time to nourish again our relationships.\u00a0 With neighbor.\u00a0 With family.\u00a0 With nature.\u00a0 With soul.\u00a0 Pause again, spoon suspended over berry and bran, pause.\u00a0\u00a0 What has been the most wonderful day in your life so far?\u00a0 Think about that day, that hour, for a moment at breakfast.\u00a0 Experience.\u00a0 Your experience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As the great Boston Personalist Borden Parker Bowne wrote long ago, \u201cLet us be determined to protect the independence and the variety of experience\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All of life is a gift.\u00a0 \u201cO Lord who grants me life, grant me also a soul filled with wonder\u201d.<\/p>\n

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

Coffee and Acceptance<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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

With a few hours behind you, the day may open up for a break.\u00a0 Coffee and a fresh baked muffin, raspberry sweet.\u00a0 A little butter.\u00a0 As we enjoy a summer to nourish the body, may we in prayer also, with the Psalmists, nourish the soul, with a soulful menu of meditation.\u00a0 To vacation is to vacate.\u00a0 To open, empty, cleanse, change.\u00a0 A few hours of morning labor, and a few years of mixed experience, bring a need for pause.<\/p>\n

We are nourished by this extended and expansive community of faith, Marsh Chapel.\u00a0 One of our regular listeners is the founder of the Anacapa School in Southern California.\u00a0 Gordon brought his students here on Tuesday, as part of their tour of Boston.\u00a0 They are part of our extended family, 3000 miles away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our community is shaped, 90%, by its lay members and leaders.\u00a0 This summer let us ask ourselves:\u00a0 \u2018what kind of community would this be if every one were just like me?\u2019\u00a0 The summer asks us to ask ourselves:\u00a0 how shall I most faithfully be disciplined in worship, on the Lord\u2019s Day, and in prayer, on every day?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We are people of faith, gathered in a community of faith.\u00a0 That does not mean that we are spared the bruises and hurts and tragedies that inexplicably lie embedded in life.\u00a0 I take cup and roll to the lips and I pause to remember those unforeseen and unexplained midnights.\u00a0 The night of a life taken.\u00a0 The night of an illness discovered.\u00a0 The night of betrayal.\u00a0 I know the lament, the anger of these people in the Psalms, \u201cthey cried to the Lord in their trouble.\u201d\u00a0 In thirty years of ministry, the most common response to the question, \u2018where did your faith come from\u2019, begins with the single word, \u2018trouble\u2019.\u00a0 We can usually find something earthly or someone human to judge and blame, when things go wrong.\u00a0 Except when the unfairness swells into injustice, when the harm happens to the innocent, when the lightning strikes close to home, or at home.\u00a0 Then we cry\u2026to the Lord.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In trouble we reach for faith. We remember that faith is the power to withstand what we cannot understand.\u00a0 We remember that weeping may tarry for the night, even as joy comes with the morning.\u00a0 We remember that the extent of possibilities always outruns our grasp and count.\u00a0 We remember that we hope for what we do not see.\u00a0 We remember what the Psalmists taught, as do the Gospels:\u00a0 that your experience of dislocation can be a doorway to grace, that your experience of disappointment is the very portal to freedom, that your experience of departure is the threshold of love.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As Bonhoeffer affirmed, \u2018man has come of age\u2019, through the Renaissance, through the Reformation, through the Enlightenment and through the progress of human autonomy, human freedom into our own time.\u00a0 \u201cGod lets us know that we must live as men who can manage our lives without God.\u00a0 The God who is with us is the God who leaves us alone.\u00a0 Before God and with God we live without God.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But we still lament.\u00a0 Finish that muffin.\u00a0 Which was the day of your biggest unanswered question?\u00a0 Assuming there is no ready answer, for real and big questions seldom afford easy spoken answers, can you accept that silence?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lunch and Thanksgiving<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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

A simple lunch.\u00a0 Soup, peanut butter and jam (raspberry).\u00a0 There are times when the summer songs suffice.\u00a0 We sang in church camp:\u00a0 Count your many blessings, count them one by one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We remember the Polish poet who was sent to Siberia for half a lifetime.\u00a0 He returned.\u00a0 How did he survive?\u00a0 He remembered the kindnesses.\u00a0 Over lunch, now.\u00a0 The day is half-gone.\u00a0 Think with thanks.\u00a0 Ten lepers were healed.\u00a0 One spoke in appreciation.\u00a0 Think with thanksgiving.\u00a0 We all receive more than we deserve.\u00a0 Seeing a fallen bird, Asher Lev asks his Father why God lets the living die:\u00a0 \u201cto remind us that life is precious; something you have without limit is never precious\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bonhoeffer, again:\u00a0 \u201cThe Christian hope of resurrection sends man back to his life on earth in a completely new way.\u00a0 The Christian must like Christ give himself to the earthly life\u201d.\u00a0 Take heart. \u201cThe future bears the face of Christ\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Make a list.\u00a0 For what are you truly thankful?\u00a0 In this Psalm, as in so much of the Bible, thanks is given for deliverance, for freedom, for redemption.\u00a0 On what day did you experience some measure of liberty?\u00a0 When we are thankful, grateful, appreciative, then we have good humor, and then we have generous habits, and then we have soul.\u00a0 Here is the heart of the hymn:\u00a0 \u201cO give thanks to the Lord, for the Lord is good; God\u2019s steadfast love endures forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Dinner and Compassion<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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

Before you now is the main meal of the day.\u00a0 Salad.\u00a0 Meat. Bread.\u00a0 Fruit, a mixture\u2014berries to be sure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As this summer nourishes our relationships, let us pause before the heart of life (as of Scripture and church and faith).\u00a0 \u201cSteadfast love\u201d.\u00a0 Pardon, begin with pardon.\u00a0 Forgiveness, begin with forgiveness.\u00a0 Compassion, begin with compassion.\u00a0 Can you name a day on which you felt, or knew, or received, or relied on compassion? \u00a0Think at dinner.\u00a0 Sharing the fruit, sharing the memory of forgiveness.\u00a0 Life is a gift.\u00a0 Eternal life is a gift.\u00a0 Faith is a gift.\u00a0 Forgiveness, offered or received, is a gift.\u00a0 Think in simple terms here.\u00a0 And pray so, too.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A man arrives at the pearly gates.\u00a0 His interlocutor says, \u201cEntry, 100 points\u201d.\u00a0 How am I to find 100pts, our man asks?\u00a0 \u201cTell me about yourself\u201d.\u00a0 Well, once I helped a woman across the street.\u00a0 \u201cExcellent, one point.\u00a0 Anything else?\u201d\u00a0 Well, once I went to church and gave what I thought was a generous gift.\u00a0 \u201cExcellent, that\u2019s two.\u201d Now our man is worried. He says to the gate keeper:\u00a0 \u201cAt his rate, I will never get in.\u00a0 I won\u2019t make it. I won\u2019t have enough points. I\u2019d only get in by the grace of God.\u00a0 \u201cGrace of God!\u00a0 98 points.\u00a0 Grace of God. Excellent. Just so.\u00a0 Quite right. You\u2019re in.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Be kind to one another.\u00a0 Tenderhearted.\u00a0 Forgive one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.\u00a0 Or, as Myles Davis said, and he should know, \u2018there is no such thing as a wrong note\u2019.<\/p>\n

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

Dessert and Satisfaction<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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

Who can go to sleep on an empty stomach?\u00a0 In the evening, in the summer, a little ice cream with berries (raspberries) goes a long way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What little measure of satisfaction, a hunger filled, a thirst slaked, a longing fulfilled, what day of satisfaction have you known?\u00a0 There is some satisfaction in every life.\u00a0 Just as every heart has secret sorrow, every heart has some satisfaction.\u00a0 \u201cHe satisfies the thirsty and the hungry he fills with good things.\u201d\u00a0 Can we be satisfied with what is good?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You did what you could do in a time of struggle.\u00a0 Good for you!\u00a0 You brought real kindness to a hurting parent, or child.\u00a0 Good for you!\u00a0 You sought to name the good things in a time of real tragedy.\u00a0 Good for you!\u00a0 You found a way in the wilderness.\u00a0 Good for you!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From Marsh Chapel often you hear a vocation voice.\u00a0 One graduate of 2014, who was in this nave for baccalaureate just four weeks ago, is now in the desert.\u00a0 She wrote this week:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the past three weeks, I have been doing field research in three refugee camps in northern Jordan. I am looking at the lives of children in the camps, how they respond to and are shaped by their circumstances. It has been a life-changing experience so far, and I have learned so much from their opportunism and optimism. I’m sure you’ve heard references to the refugee youth as members of a “lost generation.” I’m really starting to dislike this defeatist term. While they are certainly facing great obstacles that we couldn’t possibly imagine, “lost” implies that they have given up and that the global community has given up on them. However, these children have so much passion, energy, and hope for the future.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

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

Each day I hear heart-breaking stories, but at the end of the day, I always finish by reading a few of Thurman’s “Meditations of the Heart”. Yesterday, I read “Magic all Around Us” and thought it perfectly expressed the attitude of many of the Syrian children that I’ve been spending my days with:\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

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

“When have you noticed the color in the sky? When have you looked at the shape and place of a tree? What about the light in the eyes of your friend when he smiles…The spontaneous response which overcomes you when you are face to face with some poignant human need?…’There’s magic all around us.\/ In the rocks and trees, and in the minds of men,\/ Deep hidden springs of magic.\/ He who strikes the rock aright, may find them where he will.\/ I seek new levels of awareness\/ of the meaning of the commonplace.”\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

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

Please send my regards to Jan and please keep these children and their families in your thoughts and prayers. I look forward to seeing you both at the end of the summer.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

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

Evening is no time for meditating on the mistakes.\u00a0 It is a time, with our dear student in the desert, for meditation of the good.\u00a0 By perfection, Matthew and Wesley meant health not precision, wholeness not fastidiousness.\u00a0 Here is the thought for ice cream and raspberries.\u00a0 What has satisfied you?<\/p>\n

Here is a summer menu, a mode of thought, based on ancient Psalm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Breakfast is for wonder, coffee break for acceptance, lunch for thanksgiving, dinner for compassion, and the evening snack for satisfaction!<\/i><\/p>\n

A summer menu.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m going out to clean the pasture spring.\u00a0 I\u2019ll only stop to rake the leaves away.\u00a0 And wait to watch the water clear, I may.\u00a0 I shan\u2019t be gone long.\u00a0 You come too.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cLet those who are wise give heed to these things, and consider the steadfast love of the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Breakfast is for wonder, coffee break for acceptance, lunch for thanksgiving, dinner for compassion, and the evening snack for satisfaction!<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Psalm 107 Click here to hear the full service. Click here to hear the sermon only. \u00a0 Breakfast and Wonder   This morning, Trinity Sunday and Father\u2019s Day, along with our hearing of Matthew and of Paul in Corinthians, we shall meditate fully upon our Psalm, one one-hundred and fiftieth part of our holy Psalter.\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\/905"}],"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=905"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2392,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905\/revisions\/2392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}