Summer 2016 Commencment Message

Dover Chapel, Gardner-Webb University, Boiling Springs, NC

Gardner-Webb University  
July 30, 2016

Psalm 139:1-10; Luke 9:57-62

One afternoon in the spring of 2001, as I was preparing to leave Furman University to accept a call to the pastorate of the First Baptist Church of Greenville, South Carolina, I ran into Dr. Bill Brantley, a physics professor and friend, who engaged me in a conversation about the university and the church, the virtues and flaws of each, about what a calling is, and about why anyone in his or her right mind would leave the security and comfort of a tenured faculty position for the insecurities and inescapable expectations of pastoring a tall-steeple church. As our conversation ended, Bill pointed a finger at me and landed a parting shot before he turned to walk away: “Put your hand to the plow and don’t look back,” he said. His paraphrase of the words of Jesus in Luke 9:62 took me by surprise and made my impending departure from the college campus that had been my home away from home for thirteen years suddenly more real than anything else yet had. “Put your hand to the plow and don’t look back.”

Now, before I go any farther, let make it very clear that the Office of Alumni Relations wants you to look back and come back. And the Office of University Advancement wants you to look back and give back. And so do I. But Jesus’ words in Luke 9:62 are a first-century equivalent of the latter-century admonition to every student in Driver’s Education: “Keep your eyes on the road.” And this morning, those words serve as a reminder to the graduates and to us all that we are doomed to crash if we insist on driving by our rearview mirror. So on this occasion of Commencement, beginning, outset and setting out, I want to offer you a word of orientation and a word of encouragement.

First, the word of orientation. Jesus addressed the words, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God,” to someone who expressed a simple desire to say good-bye to family and friends. If it weren’t Jesus who said it, most of us would consider this remonstrance to be inconsiderate, insensitive, even. If you think about the family and social dynamics at play in the famous sequence of sayings of Jesus in Luke 9—“the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”; “let the dead bury the dead”; and put your hand to the plow and don’t look back, as Bill Brantley paraphrased it—you will understand why many Jews and Greeks and Romans alike were offended by the teachings of Jesus and by the earliest Christian communities because they understood them to be contrary to family values and destructive to the fabric of ordered society. Sara Evans sang it in a country song titled “Suds in the Bucket”: “How can eighteen years just up and walk away . . . gone in the blink of an eye?” That’s exactly what Jesus said to do in Luke 9:62. That sudden departure without so much as a good-bye violates our family values and our assumptions about the nature of ordered society. Some of us know that violated feeling at home or work or church: We have experienced a departure that left us with a hole in our heart, unanswered questions in our mind, and an empty cavern in our soul. So here’s a word of orientation to those of us who are leaving and to those who are being left: Face Forward. “Put your hand to the plow and don’t look back.” The essence of a biblically grounded faith is not in how tenaciously we cling to the things of the past but in how expectantly we embrace God’s future for us and for the world: Facing forward, eyes on the road ahead, not longing for the sights and sounds of the past but embracing vistas of a future yet to unfold. Face forward. That’s the word of orientation.

Now for the word of encouragement. The underlying testimony of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation and the explicit witness of Psalm 139 is that there is no time or place, no circumstance or situation, outside the reach or beyond the real and effective presence of God. According to Psalm 139, no matter where you go or when you go there, you cannot escape the presence of God. You cannot run fast enough or far enough to arrive a place that God cannot reach you, a place where the effective presence of God does not surround you and hold you fast, even when you are not aware of it or even when you actively assert God’s absence.

Six years ago now, John M. Buchanan, who was then the Pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago and the editor and publisher of The Christian Century, recounted this remarkable description of the reach of the real and effective presence of God: “a minister I know had to lead her suburban Chicago congregation through an unspeakable tragedy: a member of the congregation shot and killed his wife and her son and then killed himself. The minister had to comfort her congregation and hold it together. She spoke at a memorial service for the mother and son. What is there to say in that situation? She told the congregation crowded into the sanctuary that there was a phrase in the Apostles’ Creed that had always bothered her: the phrase stating that Jesus ‘descended into hell.’ She told how the pastor of the church in which she grew up so disliked that line he went through the hymnals with a large black Magic Marker and crossed it out. ‘I grew up saying the creed without that line,’ the minister said. ‘Now, this week,’ she said, ‘I understand it. We have descended into hell together and Christ has gone before us, into every corner of it. The good news is that when life takes us there, when we have to go there, [Christ] goes with us,’” she said.  (The Christian Century, March 23, 2010, p. 3).

The testimony of Scripture and the witness of the most ancient confessions of the Christian faith agree that there is no time or place, no circumstance or situation, outside the reach or beyond the real and effective presence of God. Songwriters Sam Tate, Annie Tate, and Dave Berg combined a quote from Winston Churchill—“If you’re going through Hell,” Churchill said, “keep going”—and an Irish toast—“May you be in Heaven five minutes before the devil knows you’re dead”—to come up with an infectiously singable chorus that Rodney Atkins took to the top of the country music charts: “If you’re goin’ through hell, keep on going. Don’t slow down. If you’re scared, don’t show it. You might get out before the devil even knows you’re there.” You might. Or you might not. But the Ultimate difference maker is not chance or the ignorance of the devil. The Ultimate difference maker is that when life takes us into hell, Christ has already gone before us into every corner of it; and when we have to go there, Christ goes with us. The essence of facing forward is not hoping that we will avoid or escape failure or fear, pain or suffering, grief or death or even hell for that matter. The essence of facing forward is the full confidence and trust that come whatever may, there is no time or place, no circumstance or situation, outside the reach or beyond the real and effective presence of God. That’s the word of encouragement.

So with Alumni Relations, I say, “Come back . . . any time.” And with University Advancement, I say, “Give back . . . all the time.” And with Jesus I say, face forward: Put your hand to the plow and don’t look back. 

Copyrighted © 2016 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. This material may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jrogers3@gardner-webb.edu.

A Moment of Clarity

Facing Forward: Bearing Fruit

Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 13: 6-9   

First Baptist Church, Asheville, NC

July 10, 2016

Note: There are many things that must change on many levels: operational, legislative, executive, judicial, and electoral. This sermon focuses on the one level that each person can and must change: the relational. 

One afternoon some years ago, while a pastoral staff was gathering for its weekly meeting, one staff members finished a phone conversation with her husband with a cheery, “I love you too, sweetie. Bye bye!” whereupon several of her colleagues responded with a spontaneous and unison, “Aaw!” The young minister looked momentarily taken aback; and then she looked around and said quietly, “Well, in his line of work, you never know when a good-bye might be the last one.” Her husband, you see, was a city policeman, and now it was her colleagues’ turn to be taken aback. I thought of that exchange on Friday morning when like many of you, I awoke to learn that five law enforcement officers in Dallas, TX—Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Michael Smith, Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamarripa—had said their last goodbyes without having known it.

That’s not the only flashback I’ve had this week. The shooting deaths of Alton Sterling in Louisiana on Tuesday and Philando Castile in Minnesota on Wednesday took me back to another incident, one that didn’t make the news. A college student out for the evening in a town like any other town ended up beaten and incarcerated. When the investigation into the charges against him was complete, it turned out that his only crime had been being black at night in an encounter with the wrong officer of the law. No one involved wanted the story told. The local law enforcement agency wanted it to go away, as did the local Solicitor, as did the college where the young man was a student and an athlete, as did his father who owns a business with sensitive law enforcement connections. It didn’t end like the stories from Baton Rouge and Falcon Heights this week, but it could have.

For my wife and me, it was a deeply disturbing reminder that parenting a young black man in the United States is a very different experience than parenting a young white man. What happened to him could very well have happened to our son who was one of his best friends, a teammate, and a frequent companion out on the town. Except that it would not have been likely to have happened to our son because in spite of how much time he has spent over the years with black teammates and roommates and coaches and friends, he can’t commit the crime of being black at night in an encounter with the wrong officer of the law.

But this week we may have arrived at a place we have never been before. Van Jones, a political activist, commentator, and attorney, says that police and African-Americans are now more alike than they realize. “I think there may be only two groups in the US who actually can understand each other. One: black young people. Two: the police. They literally are having and describing the same experience.” They both say they feel vulnerable. Both say they feel like it’s open season on them to be shot at and shot up. Jones says, “If to both sides it seems that the world is misunderstanding them, it’s a good time to say, ‘You know what? Let me open my heart up a little bit.’ And listen to the pain of the law enforcement community, listen to their fear, listen to their sense of being labeled and wronged and misunderstood. Or let me listen to those African-American kids. . . . they . . . feel like they have a target on their back because of their skin color. Maybe that’s a reason for them to actually have some common ground. We can actually, rather than turning on each other, turn to each other. Instead of coming apart, we can come together. Because there’s now enough pain in both communities that we should be able to understand each other.”

I want to suggest this morning that Van Jones has put his finger on something that is bigger even than the horrific events of the past week. “Let me open my heart up a little bit.” And listen to the vulnerability and the pain and the fear and the sense of being labeled and wronged and misunderstood and targeted. “Rather than turning on each other, turn to each other. Instead of coming apart, we can come together.” Just maybe we can.

Listen to what happened in Andover, MA, on Friday morning. Natashah Howell, a young African-American described a trip to a convenience store in a Facebook post [reproduced here as it was written].

As I walked through the door, I noticed that there were two white police officers (one about my age the other several years older) talking to the clerk (an older white women) behind the counter about the shootings that have gone on in the past few days. They all looked at me and fell silent. I went about my business to get what I was looking for, as I turned back up the aisle to go pay, the oldest officer was standing at the top of the aisle watching me. As I got closer he asked me, “How I was doing? I replied, “Okay, and you? He looked at me with a strange look and asked me, “How are you really doing?” I looked at him and said “I’m tired!” His reply was, “me too.” Then he said, “I guess it’s not easy being either one of us right now is it.” I said, “No, it’s not.” Then he hugged me and I cried. I had never seen that man before in my life. I have no idea why he was moved to talk to me. What I do know is that he and I shared a moment this morning, that was absolutely beautiful. No judgments, No justifications, two people sharing a moment.”

Her hashtag at the end of the post was #Foundamomentofclarity.

That moment of clarity, that moment of turning to each other instead of on each other, of coming together instead of coming apart, is a model for what must happen in this congregation, in this community, in this state and region and nation and world. I’d like to propose it as a new liturgical moment. I propose that “It’s not easy being either one of us right now is it” . . .  “No, it’s not” . . . be adopted as a 21st-century variation on “The peace of Christ be with you” . . . “And also with you.” “I guess it’s not easy being either one of us right now” . . . “No, it’s not” . . .  That would pretty much take in all of us in this room in one relationship or another in church, in school, at work, at home, in the community. That moment of clarity models the way forward for us all on Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, on Muslim-Christian relations, on immigration, on sexual orientation and identity, on same sex marriage, and on which bathroom which law requires me to use when I’m in the state of North Carolina. You name it, it’s not easy being any of us right now; and therein is common ground we must cultivate and plant and water and feed and week and harvest.

In Luke 13, Jesus told a parable in which a man with a fig tree in his vineyard came looking for fruit on it but found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” The gardener replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down” (Luke 13:6-9). The parable that Jesus tells puts us all on notice that what we are most looking for and what we most need right now takes years of cultivation and care to come to fruition.

This morning’s epistle lesson from Colossians 1 says in verse 6 that the gospel has been “bearing fruit and growing in the whole world” and bearing fruit in the congregation at Colossae. Verse 10 goes on to characterize leading “lives worthy of the Lord” as bearing fruit in every good work. And bearing fruit is a long, slow process that requires constant cultivation and care. The exchange in the convenience store between Nastasha Howell and the police officer was spontaneous on the face of it, but I assure you that there is a long backstory that brought these two unlikely strangers to a hug at a time when racial tensions in our country are running the highest they have since the 1960s. That hug didn’t just happen: It was years in the making, just like the figs on the tree in the parable in Luke 13. One of my grandfathers grew up working for a farmer who had a peach orchard on his farm, and my grandfather liked to say that the best way to tell that a peach is ripe is when it drops off the tree. The peaches are dropping off the trees right now. The trees are heavy with fruit, and the fruit stands are full. But a peach tree must be cared for and cultivated for three years—and in some climates for four years—before it is ready to bear fruit. “Bearing fruit and growing,” living lives that are worthy of the Lord, bearing fruit in every good work, requires a long-term commitment of time and energy and will and resources. And whatever else it takes, it requires opening up one’s heart to share in the vulnerability and the fear, to listen to the sense of being labeled and wronged and misunderstood and targeted.

In Galatians 5:22-23, the apostle Paul offers us an inventory of what he calls the “fruit of the Spirit”: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That’s the fruit we are called to bear in living lives worthy of the Lord. It takes years of cultivation and care for love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control to bud and bloom and set and grow and ripen and then to go to seed so that the gospel will bear fruit and grow in the whole world and in a congregation and in a community and a state and a nation. It takes years, sure, but you can break those years of cultivation and care down into moments of clarity in which you open your heart to simply ask someone how they are really doing, and in the common ground of your mutual vulnerability and fear, turn to each other instead of on each other, come together instead of coming apart, and in so doing model living lives worthy of the Lord, bearing fruit in every good work. #Foundamomentofclarity. May it be so for you. Make it be so for you. 

Copyrighted © 2016 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. This material may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jrogers3@gardner-webb.edu.