"From First to Last" - Kurt Nelson

Delivered at the Strafford United Church.  6/19/11

Genesis 1:1 – 2:4a, Matthew 28: 16-20

We’ve heard it all this morning.

The beginning of the universe,

to the end of the age,

in 2 short readings.

Just 39 and a half verses.

From the beginning to the end.

From first to last.

All our questions answered.

All our deepest ponderings pondered.

All our doubts put to rest.

Right?

Have the heavens opened?

Are you ready to go forth,

and make disciples of all nations?

Maybe.

Maybe there are those of you out there this morning,

who have always been good about this.

Always willing to share with others,

about God's work in the world,

and in your life.

But maybe not.

Certainly for me,

 this has always been a complicated idea.

The Great Commission.

“Go forth and make disciples of all nations…”

It brings to my mind so many images of televangelists,

and aggressive street-corner evangelists.

It brings to mind,

So many stories of close-minded followers of Christ,

using fear to motivate faith.
Who turn so many away,

in hopes of finding a few more converts.

And of course, it brings to mind,

So many histories of violence,

and colonialism.

And oppression.

In the name of God.

I have wished,

and hoped,

and prayed that those verses simply go away.

But they haven't and they won't.

And I've often,

like I suspect many churches like this one,

left it neglected.

Ceding further the ground,

to those who would use such a call,

to do such seemingly unchristian things.

And so it's time,

this morning,

to welcome this idea back into our fold,

I think.

Because it's right there in black and white.

Seemingly clear.

Not going anywhere.

So we're better to let it speak to us.

And figure out where we might go.

Commencement Prayer 2011 (Pentecost)

Commencement
June 12, 2011
Richard R. Crocker, College Chaplain

This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

On this Pentecost day, we remember the promise:
Your sons and daughters shall prophecy. Old men and women shall dream dreams; young men and women shall see visions.

Today old ones – parents, grandparents, great grandparents, in body and in spirit - see their dreams realized.

Today young ones – our students, our sons and daughters, our grandsons and granddaughters - see visions.

We are all full of hope and gratitude.
May God’s spirit rest upon us all, enabling us to listen to the groaning of a fragile, endangered, and violent world, and enabling us to speak with voices of compassion that all can understand.

May the dreams of the old and the visions of the young lead us to a world of justice, mercy, and peace.

Amen.

Koi Pond

The Chaplain's blog is now proud to offer an electronic Koi Pond for your enjoyment.

Please enjoy a few minutes of reflection with our 5 fish.

(p.s. If you click on it, you can "feed" them.)

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.