Ash Wednesday

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Ash Wednesday Ecumenical Service, March 6, 2019
Rooke Chapel, Bucknell University. Kurt Nelson

It’s quite rare,
in a position such as mine,
to speak from a place of certainty.

No doubt you can call to mind,
those unfortunate few religious leaders,
who speak nothing but certainty,
even when it’s clear to the rest of us,
that they’ve little wisdom to impart.

But in actuality, mine is a profession of humility,
of mystery,
and of wondering.
Rife with big questions,
with few easy answers.

But, new as I am to this community,
I’ve come to two conclusions for today,
about which I’m fairly confident. Continue reading “Ash Wednesday”

God of our weary years – James Weldon Johnson

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During the Month of February, the Rooke Chapel Congregation is praying with great leaders, thinkers, activists, poets and scholars of the Black Church (writ large.)

This week, Sunday 2/24/19,  James Weldon Johnson –

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
thou who has by thy might,
led us into the light,
keep us forever in the path, we pray
lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee,
least our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee,
shadowed beneath the hand,
may we forever stand,
true to our God,
True to our native land.

A Level Place

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2/24/19
Rooke Chapel Congregation

luke 6: 17-26

We’ve been wrestling with Matthew’s sermon on the mount,
For a couple of weeks now.
Thinking about perfection, and turning the other cheek.
And Salt and light.
We skipped, you may have noticed,
Matthew’s long and beautiful list of blessings –
Blessed are the poor in spirit, mourners, the meek, hungry, merciful, peacemakers.
It is a lovely text,
If perhaps,
A little dulled by overuse
on mugs and inspirational Christian Instagram.

But instead, this morning,
We’ve jumped to Luke’s version.
Now, I’m a Luke guy through and through.
If all of a sudden,
the bible ship started to sink,
and I only had time to save one book.
It would definitely be Luke’s Gospel.
Luke’s version of Jesus is especially pointed,
especially concerned with justice,
and poverty,
and he connects especially,
God’s coming reign,
with the lived, earthly experience.
But I must admit,
that when it comes to the sermon on the mount,
I prefer Matthew’s version (Matthew 5)  Continue reading “A Level Place”

Perfect

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Matthew 5:38-48
2/17/19
“Perfect”

We will delve a little deeper this morning into the sermon on the mount,
we will wrestle with Jesus’ bold, clear, and seemingly impossible command:
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
I think about this section of our scripture,
more or less constantly,
in this season of polarization and injustice.
For it – like much of what he says –
carries both personal,
and also collective.
dare I say, political, in the small p sense –
meaning and challenge and encouragement.

And as we wade deeper into Black History Month,
I also want you to know a little of the story of the Rev. James Lawson.
Who believed this bit from Jesus,
as much as anyone ever has.
Lawson is not a household name,
but he was one of the intellectual architects of the nonviolent movement for Civil Rights,
He supervised, with Diane Nash,
the lunch counter sit ins in Nashville,
which sparked a national movement.
When Lawson was once spat upon by an angry white counterprotester,
he responded by asking his spitter if he had a handkerchief,
and if he might borrow it.
Which began a relationship.

Lawson traveled to India to study Gandhi’s movement,
and returned to the American South,
and taught Martin Luther King Jr.,
and organized with him, and many others.
And he is,
and the movement for nonviolence direct action are I think,
what Jesus had in mind,
when he spoke these words.
That responding in love,
without violence,
is both a spiritual task,
and is also how we win hearts,
and win movements.
Lawson is a giant of American intellectual history,
and his life is rooted in our text for today.

So, we’re onto our second week,
of wrestling with Jesus sermon on the mount,
and we’re getting into the really messy, meaty, gritty, world-changing stuff.
but if you’re anything like me,
before you can even begin to take this passage seriously,
before we can even think about loving our enemies,
or turning our cheeks
we have to address that very last line.

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Or in the unforgettable King James:
Be Ye, therefore, Perfect. Continue reading “Perfect”

Howard Thurman – Moments of My High Resolve

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During the Month of February, the Rooke Chapel Congregation is praying with great leaders, thinkers, activists, poets and scholars of the Black Church (writ large.)

This week, Sunday 2/17/19,  Howard Thurman –

Keep fresh before me the moments of my high resolve.
Despite the dullness and barrenness of the days that pass, if I search with due diligence, I can always find a deposit left by some former radiance. But I had forgotten. At the time it was full-orbed, glorious, and resplendent. I was sure that I would never forget. In the moment of its fullness, I was sure that it would illumine my path for all the rest of my journey. I had forgotten how easy it is to forget.

There was no intent to betray what seemed so sure at the time. My response was whole, clean, authentic. But little by little, there crept into my life the dust and grit of the journey. Details, lower-level demands, all kinds of cross currents — nothing momentous, nothing overwhelming, nothing flagrant — just wear and tear. If there had been some direct challenge –a clear-cut issue —
I would have fought it to the end, and beyond.

In the quietness of this place, surrounded by the all-pervading Presence of God, my heart whispers: Keep fresh before me the moments of my High Resolve, that in fair weather or in foul, in good times or in tempests, in the days when the darkness and the foe are nameless or familiar, I may not forget that to which my life is committed.
Keep fresh before me the moments of my high resolve.

from For The Inward Journey
by Howard Thurman

Salt and Light

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Kurt Nelson
2/10/19
Rooke Chapel Congregation

Matthew 5: 13-20

We spent our first two weeks together,
with the Gospel of John.
The first systemic attempt,
to author the meaning
of Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection.
A story meant to help us feel what abundant life might look like,
and help us notice, as we discussed last week,
where that abundance,
that grace – might call us out into the world,
to get to work
and sometimes to get into trouble.

for the next three weeks
(maybe 4.
I don’t know yet.
I’m still figuring a lot of things out here.
And we don’t know each other that well yet.)
I’d like us to look together at the sermon on the mount.
Which is the most sustained, significant,
teaching from Jesus,
(rather than about Jesus)
that we have.

If you’re curious about its compilation,
or history,
or about comparative study between various version
I’d be delighted to talk about a bible study time,
but for worship,
I think we’ll focus more on its substance,
dig in, and muck around a little.
Because it is world changing stuff,
and life changing stuff,
even as the words have become blunted for many of us,
from overuse.

And we’re starting today,
a little bit in the middle of the sermon.

Because it’s here,
here that Jesus takes up the implicit, essential question:
Who are we?

And we should first note, Continue reading “Salt and Light”

Coretta Scott King – A Public Prayer for Divine Perspective

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During the Month of February, the Rooke Chapel Congregation is praying with great leaders, thinkers, activists, poets and scholars of the Black Church (writ large.)

This week, Sunday 2/10/19,  Coretta Scott King –

Eternal and everlasting God, who art the Father of all mankind,
as we turn aside from the hurly-burly of everyday living, may
our hearts and souls, yea our very spirits, be lifted upward to
Thee, for it is from Thee that all blessing cometh. Keep us ever
mindful of our dependence upon Thee, for without Thee our
efforts are but naught. We pray for Thy divine guidance as we
travel the highways of life. We pray for more courage. We pray
for more faith and above all we pray for more love.
May we somehow come to understand the true meaning of Thy
love as revealed to us in the life, death and resurrection of Thy
son and our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. May the Cross ever
remind us of Thy great love, for greater love no man hath given.
This is our supreme example, O God. May we be constrained to
follow in the name and spirit of Jesus, we pray.

via beliefnet.com

The God Shaped Box

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Rooke Chapel Congregation
2/3/19
John 2:13-25

Two weeks ago,
we took up the story of the wedding at Cana.
In which Jesus walks into a 7 day party,
argues with his mother.
Loses,
and then turns a bunch of water,
meant for ritual purification,
into some really good wine.
The Gospel of John,
I think, is ever interested,
in showing us – rather than telling us –
what grace means.
And that was John’s first story.
part of what grace means,
is abundance,
overflowing abundance,
like casks and gallons of the good wine,
ever around the corner.
Even when we worry we’ve run dry.

And then Jesus goes right into the Temple,
to cause some trouble.
Because the other part of grace,
is that once we’ve been shown abundance,
we can’t help but jump into the fray.
This is one of the few stories that’s told in all four gospels.
But John tells it different.
In Matthew, Mark, and Luke –
often called the ‘synoptic gospels’ –
this is Jesus’ last public act.
He turns over the tables,
he gathers the last supper,
he’s arrested,
killed.
And (spoiler alert) resurrected.
the chasing off the money changers is the beginning of the end.

But in John,
it’s the beginning of the beginning.
This is his first public act – right after the wedding at Cana. Continue reading “The God Shaped Box”

WEB Dubois – Mighty Causes Are Calling

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During the Month of February, the Rooke Chapel Congregation is praying with great leaders, thinkers, activists, poets and scholars of the Black Church (writ large.)

This week, Sunday 2/3/19,  WEB Dubois – Educator, Scholar, and Activist:

Give us grace, O God, to dare to do the deed which we well know
cries to be done. Let us not hesitate because of ease, or the
words of men’s mouths, or our own lives. Mighty causes are
calling us—the freeing of women, the training of children, the
putting down of hate and murder and poverty—all these and
more. But they call with voices that mean work and sacrifices
and death. Mercifully grant us, O God, the spirit of Esther, that
we say: I will go unto the King and if I perish, I perish.

(via https://sojo.net/articles/prayer-day-give-us-grace-1)

The best is yet to come.

Posted on by kdn004

Rooke Chapel Congregation
Kurt Nelson
Sunday 1/20/19
John 2: 1-11

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory… full of grace and truth…From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

Thus begins the Gospel of John.
The word “Grace”
which you’ll soon learn is my favorite word,
appears 4 times in John’s dense prologue,
and then never gain.
Unlike – for instance Paul
who’s always trying to tell us what grace means –
John tries to show us.

in one sense,
the Gospel of John is a simple text.
When you take a course on biblical Greek,
you read John,
The language is clear, uncomplicated
and unlike so much of the Greek New Testament,
grammatical.
John is well considered and coherent,
and not a word is wasted.
It’s poetry.
Indeed, it’s theology,
in story form.
But the simple language belies
a deeper complexity.
beneath it all,
you sense layers.
you sense magic.
You sense he’s trying to point you to something great,
and big and mysterious.
Did you notice how today’s story began?
“On the third day…”
This is not an accident.
John’s readers and hearers know the story,
and he’s trying to take them deeper,
to show them what grace is,
to show them who God is.
And remind them that scarcity and abundance,
death and resurrection,
are all woven intimately together. Continue reading “The best is yet to come.”