Elmhurst College Baccalaureate 05/27/1979

Elmhurst College May 27th, 1979

Romans 8:18-25 31-39

Direct us O Lord God in all our doings with Your most gracious favor, and further us with your continual help, that all of our words, works, and worship, begun, continued, and ended in You, may exalt your Holy Name. Through Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Elmhurst College September 1939. Elmhurst College May 1979. Almost 40 years since a young man from Baltimore Maryland came to this campus. Almost four decades of my life given form and direction as a result of my sojourn in this school of higher learning. Given form and direction by the administration, by faculty, by classmates, and not least by Virginia, my covenant partner, whom I met here where the elm trees were once far more numerous. I pray that your days on this campus will now serve to form and shape your years as powerfully and as fruitfully as they have mine. I pray that your days here will serve to enable you to receive life, to affirm life, and to hope in life. With this day and this sermon in mind, I asked our son Fred, one of four children and three sons-in-law in whom we are blessed, I asked Fred what word I should share with the young graduates. With a smile on his face he said, “Dad, lie to them. You don't want to spoil their day do you”? A few weeks ago I was at breakfast with Paul Wasburn, Bishop of the Methodist Church in Northern Illinois. He had been asked to deliver a commencement address. When asked he inquired, “Should I tell them the truth?” Now lying is not one of my bad habits! I do not intend to lie. I do not intend to spoil your day. Rather I hope that the word I share with you, will enable you to stand regardless of what the days and years may bring. But back to my good friend the Bishop, and our son. Both spoke as they did, I believe, because both are experiencing something of the groaning of creation today. Since the dawn of human conscience, the wisest reflectors on the human drama have spoken of the disharmony, the disunity, the disruption, which characterizes human life and the life of the natural world. The best of the poets have noted that, “ all creation mourns for a lost good”. Brother Paul could say, “Even we who have a foretaste of the Spirit are in a state of painful tension”. In our time the groaning reaches a loud crescendo! It has been some years since the Beatles sang, “all the lonely people where do they all come from”. And since then the earth continues to have the smell of an orphanage around it. Others sang, “what the world needs now is love sweet love”, but the decimation of the human family continues apace. The contingent and precarious character of every life is dramatically thrust before our eyes, as flight 191 for Los Angeles ends in a fireball just off the edge of O'Hare. I did not have time this morning to note in the paper where in the world yesterday, more of my children, and brothers and sisters were massacred, or starved to death. No time to look at the columns to see where the latest oil spill has further polluted seas, or nuclear wastes have contaminated more ground and air. In A Sleep of Prisoners, Christopher Fry wrote Thank God our time is now when wrong Comes up to meet us everywhere Never to leave us till we take The longest stride of soul man ever took Affairs are now soul size The enterprise Is exploration into God John Calvin wrote When men become aware of the tribulation they can but cry Earth could be fair and all her children one But the whole Creation groans in travail together May your education completed, and your education to come, lead you now and then to an awareness of the tribulation. Lead now and then, yes, to cry, as you experience the travail of creation. Your growth in humanness depends on your identification with all created life. Now if you have not discovered already, I share with you the fact, that there are in our nation today, numerous companies of men and women, who sharing the travail of all created life, are devoting their energies to labors for unity, harmony and peace. Biblically speaking, they are signs of that Spirit which seeks to make all things new. That Spirit which enables one to hope and to love, in spite of all the evidence which says it doesn't pay. These companies are not large, not powerful, largely unknown in the world. These companies are not out to change systems or overthrow governments. They are like seed growing slowly. Like yeast making the dough rise. All have this in common. They care. Some are small communities like the Sojourner Community in DC, or the Reba Place Family in Evanston. Where people together are learning once again how to care. For each other, for the neighborhood, for the world. Others are working to free political prisoners in just about every nation on earth. Like Amnesty International. Others labor in behalf of the natural world. To restore the unity between us and nature. Save the Whales. Friends of the Redwoods. Others strategize for justice, such as the Alliance to End Repression. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Others, recognizing the immorality of being deprived of a job in this society, form the Coalition on the Right to Earn a Living. Thank God, the list is long, and goes on and on. As you complete the Elmhurst College phase of your education, as you continue to grow a life and fashion a livelihood, may you share in and support some of these little companies of seeders, leaveners. These little companies of the future people. Because they know the intended and ordained unity of all of creation. They are the Spirit bearers. Those through whom the more hopeful, human future is being fashioned. It was on this campus that I was introduced to Blaise Pascal, the 17th century mathematician, philosopher and Christian apologist. These words from his “Thoughts”, have been seminal for my life. The knowledge of God without that of our wretchedness leads to pride. The knowledge of our wretchedness without that of God leads to despair. The knowledge of Jesus Christ gives us the middle course, for there we find both God and our wretchedness. The evidences of the work of evil today can be endlessly cataloged. The experience of decay, disharmony, disunity and disruption is the daily bread of the human family. The triumph of the beautiful, the good, the just, comes now and then as a wonderful surprise. If one does not experience despair today, one does not know the real situation. Nevertheless. Nevertheless. A word has been spoken to the generations. An event has occurred for every generation. Out of Israel has come a son named Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth. A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Who “scorned on a scaffold, ensconced in himself, the whole human household”. Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary, of whom it has been written. “ all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, have not affected the life of the human family, as has that one solitary life”. In Him we believe that the One who experiences most fully the groaning of all creation, the endless assaults of evil, the pain of creation, is the God from whom creation has come. And to whom creation belongs. The God who from the very beginning, has never ceased to work at restoring to his creation, and his creatures, the unity, harmony, beauty and concord, for which we and all creation groan. Pascal again. “Jesus will be in agony until the end of the world”. In and through Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord of creation continues to suffer the pain and the travail of creation. As a sheep that is led to slaughter. Yet miracle of miracles, through his wounds we are healed. Reconciliation is achieved. Shalom takes place. The walls of partition are being broken down. And that suffering, overcoming spirit of God and Jesus, continues to gather companies of peacemakers, who carry this secret to share with the world. “God is for us, therefore no one or no thing can be against us. All things must work together for our God”. In the days, months and years before you, you will be deciding again and again, to whose service you will give your knowledge, your energies, your talents, your heart. You will be deciding again and again, not what is ultimate in my life, but who is ultimate in my life. I submit to you that only a crucified Lord is fit for a crucified world. All creation groans in universal travail. Even those who “Have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly”. As they wait. In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who has loved us. May the God of hope fill you, each one, with such joy and peace and trusting, that by the power of His Holy Spirit, you may overflow with hope.

Amen.