September 2019 – Spiritual Life @ Bucknell

Romans 8: 26-39
9/8/19, Rooke Chapel, Bucknell University

At first blush,
the answer to today’s question might seem obvious:
If god is for us, who is against us?
No one.
or nothing of consequence anyway.

If the source and summit of the universe,
the fount of love and understanding is for us –
and I believe deeply that God is for us –
What could possibly be against us?

Of course there are those who see resistance
as evidence that we are being truly faithful in a fallen world.
but more prevalent, in my experience is a certain kind of belief that says
everything will be alright in the end.
We’re just passin’ through this life anyway.
God is for us,
and nothing else matters.

But,
suffering exists,
and evil is real,
and bad things happen to good people.
These seem self-evidently true.
Not so many years ago,
I might have needed to defend those statements in certain audiences,
but I rarely do these days.

And the more we try to deny suffering and sin and evil, I think,
the worse it gets for us.

Another week, we’ll take up the problem of evil,
the question, “why do we suffer?”
for which I most assuredly do not have an easy answer.

But for me,
the question, “If god is for us?”
leads in a straight line to the question,
What gives us hope?

Rooke Chapel, Bucknell University
Sunday, September 1, 2019

1 Peter 4: 8-11

We gather each week to sing, pray, and build a community,
which attempts to respond to the immense gifts we’ve been given.
We gather each month,
to share bread and wine,
and remember the great feast to which we’ve all been invited.

And we gather this week,
having lost a great light in our community.
Carmen Gillespie – professor of English and founding director of the Griot institute,
was a scholar, teacher, poet, and visionary of the highest order.
And she will be missed desperately.
We hold Carmen’s daughters in the light,
and honor the grief that passes throughout our community when such a great tree falls,
we gather knowing that life is fragile,
and hoping that love is not.
And knowing it can turn to grief when mixed with loss.
And in the meantime, let’s to our work, of loving one another the best we can.
Welcome

As we mentioned last week,
we’re going to try a theme, this semester.
Big questions.
Because, I argue,
it is in sitting with the big questions of our scripture,
our faith, and our lives,
that we (or at least I)
experience God most fully.
Our scriptures are rich with narrative and poetry and questions,
and offer precious few simple, easy answers –
which is both wonderful and frustrating.
But this semester,
we will repose together in the questions.
And as always, I want to hear about your questions:
Both big and small.

Our question today:
“what are we here for?
is the question of purpose,
of calling.
Of vocation.
An old, and unfashionable, and lovely word,
which is drawn from the Latin vocare, voce,
meaning call and voice.

Which always made me wonder,
If God wouldn’t tell me,
over the divine loudspeaker,
what I was meant to be doing.

Month: September 2019

If God is for us, who is against us?

What are we here for?