Even if it doesn't feel that way... Kurt Nelson

Easter Sunrise, 4.8.12

Mark 16: 1-8

One of the wonders of the social media age,

is that so long as wisdom is less than 140 characters,

it comes to us easily.

Here's a bit, that has come to me often this week 

from Clarence Jordan, a theologian and activist:

“The proof that God raised Jesus from the dead is not the empty tomb, but the full hearts of his transformed disciples. The crowning evidence that he lives is not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship; not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church.”[i]

It’s a lovely sentiment, which resonates with me,

in many many ways.

The only problem, and it’s a significant one,

is that I don’t always feel spirit-filled or carried away,

or that my heart is full.

Sometimes I’m tired.

Or grumpy.

Or angry or despairing.

Maybe you are too?

And when I am,

the idea that the hope of the resurrection rests in me,

in us,

isn’t joyful.

It’s burdensome.

And thus, even harder to grasp,

grumpy, and tired as I already am.

Speaking of which,

it’s cold out here, isn’t it?

It’s kind of dark still,

wasn’t this supposed to be a sunrise service?

I thought spring was supposed to be coming…

And what’s with all these barren trees,

and brown plants,

Who planned this service?

But of course,

spring is coming.  The sun is rising.

We know it is, even if we can’t yet see it or feel it.

And,

love is working in us,

even if it doesn’t feel that way.

“Partly Prepared” by Aaron Colston, ‘14

 Easter Sunrise

4/8/12, Dartmouth College Green

Text: Mark 16: 1-8

When the women came to the tomb to anoint the body of Christ, it dawned on them that they were partly prepared. They have brought the anointing oils and spices but have forgotten the stone that must be rolled away. Yet the women don’t turn around and end their journey toward Christ; despite their lacking, they go on.

Just as the women lacked the preparation to roll the stone away, we too, lack. We lack rest, time with our friends and families, time to study. When we feel we should have one we lack the right answer to a good question, and more often than not, we lack a kind word. We lack the will to trust, and--when we need to most--the will to love our neighbor. But the women teach us, as they carry little else but their oils and spices, that just because we know we lack doesn’t mean we should stop where we are. If anything, it is a calling from the other side to keep going.

We may think that giving the little we have--whether time, word, or love--is giving  the  “partly prepared.” But look at what happens when the women came to the tomb “partly prepared”: the stone is rolled away, they learn that Christ is risen. It is as if someone tossed their voice into the canyon and the canyon bellowed back, or as if someone has planted that mustard seed, and it has burst into a full tree; in light of what happens in return, giving little is hardly “little” after all.

What Gives Me Hope? - Kurt Nelson

Kurt Nelson

Rollins Chapel, 6.2.11

What Gives Me Hope? 

Hebrews 11:1-3.  Romans 8: 24-25

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

(From Emily Dickinson.  Not me.)

Wouldn’t that be nice?

If we could hear hope’s perpetual song?

I can’t always hear it.

Though I would consider myself a fairly hope-filled person.

That doesn’t,

I suppose, mean that it’s not singing.

I can however,

answer quite simply the question,

What Gives Me Hope?

For what gives me hope,

really and truly,

is Grace – plain and simple.

I have more written,

but we can stop there if you’re satisfied.

And I’d consider my work,

as resident Lutheran,

to be well-done.

But I’m guessing

that saying grace gives me hope,

is just trading one theological platitude for another.

So I will try my best,

to tell you what I think I mean.

Grace means,

at its simplest,

that the good things in life,

and indeed life itself.

That the love of God,

and all that comes with it,

are gifts.

And more to the point,

gifts to which we’re not entitled,

and which we’ve done nothing to deserve.

What Give Me Hope? - Judy Williams

Judy Williams

Quaker Campus Minister

Rollins Chapel, 5.26.11

Ps. 51:8-12

 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

 Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.

 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

 Do not cast me from your presence, or take your Holy Spirit from me.

 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

 Col.1:3-6

 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints - the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth.

I fell down on the job, I fell down on my knees,

I found I was a sinner: God have mercy on me.

I thought I was so perfect, I thought I was so free.

I learned I’m only human: God have mercy on me.

As most of you know, this term’s chapel sermons have addressed the question, “What gives you hope?” Last week, Alison Boden gave us a wonderful sermon on hope in the face of suffering. Now, she was talking about the kind of suffering that comes from without: the suffering the early Christians faced because of persecution, the suffering that we all face in living in a world troubled by disease, war, and disaster. And she talked about how, in the face of that suffering, her faith gives her hope.

I’m going to talk about hope in the face of a different kind of suffering, the kind that comes from within.

What Gives Me Hope. - Alison Boden

Alison Boden

Dean of the Chapel

Princeton University

May 19, 2011

Romans 5:1-5 

What gives me hope?  Many more things than I can describe to you in the next 10 minutes.  I need a framework with which to think about it, so let me make it the words we’ve just heard from Paul’s letter to the Romans.  Paul was writing to the budding Christian community in Rome, with whom he looked forward one day to visiting.  He did get there several years later, but it is thought that he spent significant time in a Roman prison, and did not emerge alive.  Paul was well aware of the suffering that followers of Christ’s “way” were enduring in many places.  They believed the Good News; they strove to follow it; they were sometimes persecuted by others for having this faith in Jesus; and they lived with the quandary, challenge, and sometimes anguish of living with the all-encompassing hope of Christ’s imminent return…..  And that wasn’t happening…. Yet.  They were suffering, many of them, suffering because of their faith and certainly suffering from all the difficulties and frailties that mean no human being lives unscathed by disappointment, pain, loss.

I was recently reminded by the ethicist Emilie Townes of words from Audre Lord; Lord had written of “suffering as unmetabolized pain.”  

What Gives Me Hope? - Charlie Clark '11

May 12, 2011.  Rollins Chapel.

Scripture:  Jonah, Chapter 2.

You are not here to verify,

Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity

Or carry report. You are here to kneel

Where prayer has been valid.

This is Eliot’s call to repentance in “Little Gidding,” a poem that has been on my mind as I have prepared this reflection. I think it peculiarly appropriate for this gathering, in our little-used chapel, where we have come in the past few weeks to give our accounts of the hope that is in us. The question, “What gives you hope?” is not one that I encounter often. While my generation seems to me at any rate to be deeply ironic in our contemplation of the world, as a group, we have a remarkably resilient belief in progress, and not only in progress but in the basic goodness of ourselves and the world around us, in “the family of things” as others have framed it. I confess I am not persuaded by this vision. I take no comfort in, I find no hope in the assurance:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Can it really be that all is already well? What a difficult position that would put us in with respect to hope.

What Gives Me Hope. - Madelyn Betz.

Psalm 62:1-8 ∙ Rollins Chapel ∙ Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire ∙ April 28, 2011

Guest Speaker - Madelyn Betz.  Curate, St. Thomas Episcopal Church.

            This first week after Easter is the perfect time to be talking about hope. As Christians, resurrection hope is the foundation of our faith. And yet, on any given day, most of us find ourselves somewhere on a continuum of belief about the resurrection, and where we find our belief affects the strength of our hope for what is to come.

The author Frederick Beuchner talks about hope in terms of believing in the possibility of a miracle. This hope is as beautiful and full of possibility as it is fragile. Our most extravagant hope exposes our vulnerability when nothing like what we expect to happen happens. When we set our heart on anything yet to come, we put ourselves at an intersection of limit and opportunity. When our heart is set on a miracle that doesn’t happen, something other than what we expect does happen.

What Gives Me Hope? - Karen Orrick

Karen Orrick '11 

Rollins Chapel, 4/14/11

The Prophet -- Khalil Gibran
"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.  And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.  How else can it be?  The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."
 

Matthew 6: 19-23 (NRSV)
¹⁹ ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust^* consume and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  ²² ‘The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; ²³but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

Matthew 6: 34  (NRSV)
‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

Hope- what a special thing to reflect upon.  Narrowing down what gives me hope is difficult, since there are many things I draw inspiration from: secret smiles, twinkling eyes, ocean waves crashing and receding, guitar sing-a-longs, home cooked food, home grown food, long hugs, forts, pillows after a long day, thirst-quenching water, appreciating the presence of one other, resting in the comfort of each other’s living room eyes, reflecting on different stages of life, my incredible sisters, my dog, and so much more.  There are exquisite small moments in each day where connections are made, hands are held, and something beautiful is internalized.

There are also many moments of terrible sorrow, isolation, anxiety, anger, and disconnection where we don’t treat each other nearly as well as we want to, don’t feel nearly as cherished as we would like, and ignore or doubt the humanity of those we feel strongly hurt by and defensive against.  Grievous injustices happen globally, nationally, locally, and interpersonally on this campus every day between humans and amongst local and global ecosystems.   Life can be full of disappointment, discouragement, isolation, and anxiety, especially for employees of the college who continually get their benefits slashed or for seniors, like me, who still don’t have a job for next year ;-).  The culture in the US today is full of fear and distrust.  Fear over not being able to support one’s self, fear of not having enough money, distrust of the government, distrust of those who are different from us, distrust of the TSA, distrust of airplane passengers, the list goes on.

What Gives Me Hope? - Richard R. Crocker

What Gives You (Me) Hope?
Psalm 146
Rollins Chapel
March 31, 2011
Richard R. Crocker, College Chaplain

We are inviting a number of people to speak very personally this term on the topic, “What gives me hope?” It is a searching question to consider, especially in the season of Lent, as we examine ourselves, and in Easter, when we celebrate the hope represented by the resurrection of Christ.

Now we are in Lent – a somber season leading up to the crucifixion of Christ – a season when it is permissible – even necessary – to admit and confront the forces of hopelessness – a season when it is OK to admit that we are not always hopeful.

As I have thought about this question, “What give me hope?”, I first of all have been aware that I do not share the hope that so many people around me seem to have, or say that they have. Here at Dartmouth, it seems to me, and in most of the world that we inhabit, the major engine of hope is wealth, power, success, and skill. People come to places like Dartmouth because they have already experienced the gifts of wealth, success, power, and skill, and because they hope they will, at Dartmouth and places like it, acquire even more. Now I do not want to be misunderstood. Enough wealth is better than poverty. Having some power over one’s life is better than being powerless. Success in attaining worthwhile goals is better than perpetual failure. Skills and knowledge are better than incompetence and ignorance. But seldom do we pause to ask the important questions: how is our wealth (or skill or power or success) acquired, and what is it used for? That’s why the Bible, and in particular the teachings of Christ, challenge such hopes. The love of money is the root of all evil. The greatest among you is the servant of all. Love your enemies. The one who is forgiven is the one who forgives. That is why the Tucker Foundation’s advocacy of experiences that call into question our wealth and power and success and skill are so important in a college that trumpets with pride the fact that our graduates are, on average, the highest paid in the nation.