Exams, Hazing, Judgment, and Grace - Richard R. Crocker

Exams, Hazing, Judgment, and Grace
Richard R. Crocker, College Chaplain
Rollins Chapel, Dartmouth College
March 11, 2012
Matthew 25:31-46

This is the season for exams. Some of you are in the midst of them. Contrary to what you may hope, however, exams never end. They keep happening to us throughout our life, even if only in our dreams.

All of you have had the dream, I expect, where you realize you have to go to a class to take an exam – only you have never been to the class all term and you are totally unprepared? It is a common dream. Exams are a kind of judgment: they determine whether we have learned what we were intended, or expected, to learn.

Some Christians seem to believe that life is a pass/fail exam, where the only question is “Have you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior?” The correct answer means you go to heaven; the incorrect answer means you go to hell.

Other Christians have an equally simplistic view: in their belief, there is no judgment, only universal acceptance. All is forgiven. Everybody passes, no matter what. They call this grace. While both perspectives have many adherents, neither one is supported by the scripture passage that we have just read, where, Jesus himself describes the judgment which awaits us all.

The scripture passage is one with which I expect and hope all of you are already familiar. It is a vision that uses the language of metaphor and parable to describe the ultimate test, the ultimate exam.

Costly Grace - Kurt Nelson

Kurt Nelson

Rollins Chapel, 2.26.12

Romans 2:1-4, Matthew 5: 43-48

"Costly Grace."

It’s Lent again.

It seems to happen every year around this time.

That season of reflection.

Often of grayness and mud

A season penitence.

and of suffering,

of lacking and wanting,

A season of giving up things we like.

A season,

at least for me growing up,

of an extra church service per week

(and I might add, an extra-boring service it was).

If you went to a service on Ash Wednesday,

as I did,

you might have noticed that we read Matthew 6,

in which Jesus exhorts his followers to pray in secret.

And then we get smudged with ash on our faces,

and wander into the streets,

to proudly proclaim to the world,

via our foreheads, that we are dust.

It's a season

if we're paying attention,

that might just cause us to ask some questions.

"If you choose" (On Grace) - Richard R. Crocker

If you choose
(Grace)
Mark 1:40-45
Dartmouth College Chapel
Richard R. Crocker
February 19, 2012


We are talking about grace, God’s unmerited favor, by which we are saved, as St. Paul and Kurt Nelson reminded us last week.

Kurt presented the Lutheran view, which, though it has its critics, is generally redeemed by Lutheran good humor. It is up to me to present the Calvinist view, which, despite being central to the heritage of this college, this region, and indeed this nation, or perhaps because of being central to it, is often reviled and misunderstood. Calvinists are derided as rigid, humorless, narrow-minded, obsessively frugal people. We Calvinists today are a small group, but, dare I say, there are those who love us.

As a Presbyterian/Calvinist minister, I have presided at many funerals. There is one sentence in the funeral service that I identify as the essence of Calvinism. No matter who has died, no matter whose body or ashes or picture lies before us, we begin the service by saying: Our hope is not in our own goodness, but in the goodness of God.

The scripture passage today presents a problem.

Blind to Grace - Kurt Nelson

Blind to Grace
Kurt Nelson, 2.12.12
Rollins Chapel
John 9: 1-40

I suspect many of us here

could offer a reasonable definition of “Grace”

At least, those of us who were subject to as much

youth religious education as I.

“The undeserved, unearned love of God.”

“A divine gift,

Not gained through any works of our own.”

Some of us might even have Ephesians 2:8,

seared into our memories.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God."

We know of grace.

We’ve likely heard it before,

and we’ll hear it again.

No doubt there are those in the world,

who haven’t heard this idea.

Those who associate the Christian faith,

with judgment,

or legalism.

With that strange pridefulness,

that comes from “being saved.”

If you know any such people,

I would really encourage you to invite them to chapel.

But most of us here,

I think we know,

at least on some level,

about grace.

If you’ve heard me speak before,

you’ve almost certainly heard me say it before.

Because I really only have one sermon in my head.