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.
But, of course,
God tends – in our scriptures and lives,
to speak more through quiet, and people, and silence.
WHAT are we here for? What are WE here for? What are we HERE for?
I think it’ll be big enough for today,
but your feedback is ever welcome.
It’s worth noting, of course,
that for most of you – the students here at least –
you had a pretty clear answer to the purpose question until quite recently.
Energy in High School
flows perpetually toward a single goal: get into an excellent college.
And the day,
the moment you stepped onto this campus.
Poof. That purpose went away.
And we find ourselves on, perhaps, uneasy ground.
I did not – in my own college experience,
deal with that uneasiness particularly well.
I was lost and lonely and purposeless.
A dispassionate pre-med student – doing fine in class.
Surrounded by people,
but disconnected.
Days filled with stuff, but bored.
And I coped in some pretty traditional collegiate ways –
about which we needn’t get more specific,
except to say,
I understand the sorts of behaviors and communities,
that can feel like they dominate our landscape here on weekends.
And I did not find solace in the church, the tradition of my youth.
Many of you know that I attended Chapel at my college
(which was offered daily)
Precisely 3 times that I can remember.
And all but one,
because of a choir I was singing in.
I’ve been making up for it since.
Sitting in that lostness,
as much as the connections and hope and possibility
I’ve found in subsequent years and efforts,
is what’s led me down my own path,
to my own sense of call.
To work with University students and communities,
amidst the joys and challenges of our shared lives.
And there’s good news:
Emerging research suggests.
that if we can create opportunities for students,
to explore the questions of purpose and calling,
together,
they report being happier, more satisfied.
More satisfied with their lives post-graduation,
and they are more academically successful.
So, mostly I want to say, “You’re welcome.”
And that you’ve made a good choice in joining us today.
I think those communities matter just as much,
for those of us with careers and families and mortgages.
The question takes, I’ve noticed,
a few different forms.
Some days we might wonder if we belong?
If we are worthy of a place and education like this?
It is the imposter question:
Why am I here? Of all people.
Why am I here? surrounded by folks who have their lives together.
(in case you’ve not yet noticed,
it’s all an act. None of us have it together.
And others wonder the same about you.)
Some days we might wonder:
What am I doing taking physics, or art history, or Spanish,
or whatever subject doesn’t seem immediately relevant or fun,
or doesn’t come easily.
Some days we might wonder:
What am I doing here.
In this comfortable chapel,
in this comfortable small town,
centrally isolated in central Pennsylvania,
while the world around sometimes feels like it’s crumbling.
The Amazon is being burnt,
and children are being caged on our borders,
and the climate crisis is looming.
What are we here for,
instead of out there,
doing the work,
in the trenches.
It’s a question that tugs at me,
and I imagine many of you as well.
And it takes on a bit of an edge from time to time.
But it’s a question, I think,
we’re meant to sit with.
given our gifts,
our interests,
our opportunities,
our troubles,
and the world’s troubles,
what are we really here for?
It’s a question of substance,
and spirit.
Both daunting and exciting,
and worth of some space and time to breathe,
and some community with whom to partner.
And I think 1 Peter has special wisdom for us.
This isn’t a typical passage to ponder,
Way back in the back of the bible,
but it’s a passage I think about often.
Peter is writing to a community that’s struggling.
His people are suffering, for their faith,
at the hands of the empire.
He expects, fully expects,
that they are in the endtimes,
and that more tough stuff is a bound to come.
This isn’t fluffy, pie-in-the-sky counsel,
spoken from a place of comfort.
He and his people are suffering and dying
and we can imagine,
all kinds of hard questions being thrown his way.
And he has advice.
But more than that,
he reminds them who they are:
“Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God,
serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.”
Grace: the unearned, abundant, overflowing love of God.
And Steward: as in, they don’t own it,
they just have it,
and are meant to do something with it.
Which is to say,
their primary reason for being,
the real, bone-deep reason for their origin and existence,
is to be loved.
Love, he says,
serve, welcome, don’t complain.
But before all that.
Remember above all,
that you are loved.
It is your identity.
If we were to peel back the factory packaging on our own life’s crayons,
and all the grit and dust from the journey.
The color of our lives would simply be: Loved.
You are loved. Be who you are.
What were they there for,
amidst the trial and tribulation?
To be loved
And what are we here for amidst the confusion and chaos?
To be loved.
Loved is who we are,
because love is who God is.
Not because we’re good, or deserving,
or part of Bucknell’s most talented class ever.
Loved, is simply who we are.
And we gather every Sunday,
as far as I’m concerned,
mostly to remember that.
And then.
and then,
we are to be good stewards.
We are to recognize our manifold gifts, talents, passions, and opportunities,
and share them.
And friends,
we are the holders of a precious gift.
We who seek to profess and follow Christ.
Because we know – even as we struggle and wonder –
that not only is each of us beloved, and created in the image of God,
and thus deserving of a chance to thrive.
But so is everyone.
Everyone, everyone.
We who have experienced even a glimpse or glimmer of the grace of God.
can’t help but be pulled and pushed,
to make that true out there in the world.
And we are surely here in this historical moment,
of confusion and division and polarization,
amidst those who seek to divide us through politics or policy,
through violence and intimidation,
or through neglect and distraction,
to proclaim this message to all who have ears to hear.
Every single person –
no matter their race, economic status, or their politics.
no matter their sexuality or gender identity,
no matter their religion or belief or country of origin –
every single person is beloved. Created in the image of God. and deserving of a chance to thrive.
This is not a partisan statement.
Nor it is a bland call to be nice.
It is an essential truth,
which Jesus preached and lived,
a radical re-envisioning of the world,
that pulls at our very souls,
and demands that we find way, in time, to respond.
We, each of us here,
are deeply and truly and unimaginably loved.
And so are those who a suffering, sick, and incarcerated, and marginalized
So please remember.
No matter your struggles or questions,
this semester, this year,
you are here to be loved.
that’s the beginning of our story.
and as we come to appreciate the depth of this sea of love in which we swim.
Our next job is not to build a fence around it.
Nor to force others in.
But to proclaim with our actions and words,
the profound and simple truth,
that every single human is also just as beloved.
This is what we’re here for.
To be loved,
and to love – as best we can – as Jesus loves.
And we will fall short,
and we we will mess up,
and we will be no-less loved.
And we’ll try again.
In the face of all the terrible that the world has to offer,
we – simple, flawed, searching people –
are stewards of a love and life infinitely greater.
And we are here,
specifically at a school like this, I think,
to ponder and determine – as Frederick Buechner said famously,
where our deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
We are here to test our gifts and talents and privileges,
and bring them into relationship,
with the world’s deep need for love in action.
And this time,
I actually think the first step is pretty simple:
Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.