Baccalaureate 2012
Greenville College
God is Good… Even in October
It was October.
Just a few months earlier, as Mariah
mentioned I graduated from Greenville College- the proud recipient of a
Bachelor of Science degree in Special Education. I sat right where you are today, on those
chairs, under this heat, in this glorious Rec Center at my Baccalaureate. I got the diploma that you will get this
afternoon. I had the tear filled goodbye
hugs and promises, that when someday after some kid from Harvard invents social
media, we would reconnect, and I promised to look at all the pictures of kids,
and vacations, and opinions on the upcoming baseball draft.
After these things… comes October.
So here I was, a young GC graduate trying
to figure out what October after graduation meant for me. Summer after graduation, was frankly just
like any other summer, and September held delight. I did not sit through another reading of the
syllabus day, no one asked me to be on Baggage Brigade, or haul gravel for NSO…
oh wait you guys canoed, never mind. For
the first time in my life during September, I felt like an adult, and it was
cool. But then, October hit me square in
the face.
In October, there are no all-you-can eat
cereal bins in the DC- you have to buy Coco Puffs, and they are expensive. In October, no one says, “hey let’s just not
work today and go on an All College Hike, or let’s just drop everything and
spend the day in Common Learning … yep someday soon you will look back and
miss CDL (too soon?). If after GC someone tells you that you are in
a Zombie Apocalypse… you just may actually be in a Zombie Apocalypse, and you
should run and hide- fortunately we have prepared you for such things. Walk- Abouts, Vespers, Agape they don’t exist
anymore for you in October: well… unless
you come back and work for GC… and then the dream lives on. Midnight Breakfast is actually the real
reason my husband and I came back to work here.
I took Greenville’s mission seriously, and
I wanted to live a life of “character and service”. Frankly, I wanted to save the world… and I
thought I could. So I had accepted the
toughest teaching position I could find, in fact I told my district after I was
hired. “What position do you have, that
no one else wants. I want that one.” That’s GC tough, right there! Turns out they
had one, and she gladly gave it to me.
Before I knew it I was in St. Louis, working at an alternative school
for kids with severe Emotional Disabilities.
By October, I had been punched in the face, cussed out, spit on, and had
an HIV test because I had been bitten.
At one point that October I had a dentist appointment, I clearly
remember sitting in that chair, with a drill in my mouth… thankful for a break
from living this “life of service”. Turns
out, service is really hard.
By October, I attended a different church
every week. Mega churches, trendy urban
churches, churches that gave me donuts- holes when I walked in the door and churches
that met in a pub.
And here is the thing you need to know
before you get to October… GC’s philosophy and religion department ruined you. Ruined.
You will never again be able to just pick a random church, sit through
any old service and say, “nice, let’s go watch the football game.” You won’t.
All that critical thinking, experiencing authentic community, and
building you into a person of character… it will leave you horrified at what
churches are doing out there. Turns out,
community is really hard.
By October I got my first paycheck. Real adult paychecks. This was amazing, except with those real
adult paychecks come real adult rent, real adult utility bills, and turns out
toilet paper is not free, and as cool as it sounds to live off ramen… it’s not…
not cool. Turns out, money is really
hard.
By this October, I had been dating a dreamy
blue eyed artist for about 3 years. We met
during chapel… right over there, when in the address the speaker told the
student body that, “All a girl really wants is a man that loves Jesus.” From the pews came a very loud male voice
yelling, “I LOVE JESUS!”… He was
amazing. We would walk around Greenville
late at night and he would say deep things like, “What color is that tree”, and
I would say “green”, and he would say, “ahh look again, watch it in the
reflection of the streetlight”… and I was a puddle. During our time at GC there always seemed to
be free hours to talk about God and life and dreams… but remember now I’m in
October. No more time, no more walks and
he looked at me one day in October and said, that he needed to figure out who
he was and who we were together, which apparently meant he couldn’t figure “us”
out with me there. Turns out, love is really
hard.
I was head to head with life after
college. I was terrified I had picked
the wrong major. Yep, even after college this still happens (particularly when student
are throwing chairs at your head), I missed the Christian community that I had
thrived in, I was broke, and I was lonely.
Think Alanis Morissette on a continual loop (you may not know who she
is, but ladies, I’m telling you, if you ever go through a break up, look her up). It was in this place that I remember a clichéd
phrase that had somehow lodged itself deep into my unconscious, most likely
from years of Christian summer camp: ‘God is good- All the time, All the time-
God is good’. But was He? Was He really still good… even in October?
I found no comfort in this phrase:
God is good- all the time. It just made
me angry and a little bitter (to be fair, as previously stated I was listening
to quite a bit of Alanis). I had some
real problems with this idea, real problems.
Yeah… of course I read the whole- sometimes “no” is an answer forwarded email/spam
thing. But this concept that God is good was not playing out for me… and I am
not just talking about my first-world boy problems. Those students in my class, they were not
kicking and punching because they met ‘goodness’ throughout their short lives. I wasn’t just listening to Prof Richards
stories anymore… it was right in front of my face. Jxxx told me what her uncles did … did you
catch that, I said uncleS, I saw the scars on Txxx face and back and legs and
hands, and every time Lxxx heard the voices, we all felt those after affects.
But the lilies,
right? Remember those lilies of the
field? They grow- strong and beautiful,
because God is good- all the time. These
two ideas: God is good and Life is hard- were crashing in my head, refusing to
go together.
How can God be
good and life be hard? It’s that age old
question that can never seem to fully be put to rest. I know for some of you, it has already come
up… but know it will come up again, because the odds are not in your
favor. It might come up around October… or
in 10 years when you are unable to have children, and in 15 when your house
burns down, and 20 when you lose your job, and on and on… as long as you are
living life whenever it doesn’t, “just work out”… your mind will wander into
that place of, “How can God be good?”
And here is the
crossroad:
At this crossroad,
many turn refusing to believe in a God when life is bad. Jumping to the very
understandable conclusion, that either God is bad, or God has no power and therefore
is not real. And I get it. I’ve tried it on for about 5 minutes a couple
of times, I certainly tried it on back in October… but it’s a really lonely and
dark place. And every time I tried it
on, I found that I was meditating on God, even more than before, which just
strengthened my belief in him.
So we end up back at that crossroad. Others will believe in God, but simply deny the bad that is happening. Denial, that right now the most recent statistic out of the United Nations, states that 1 in 7 people are malnourished and living with hunger throughout our world. If one does not think about it, and only watches Tosh.O and reads US Weekly… bad does not happen. And therefore God can continue to be good… all the time. I really get this one. It is certainly not lonely and dark- in fact there are flowers and ice cream and unicorns and it is not real.
The crossroad
also divides off those who see the bad and still believe that God is good. So they know that they need to just trust in
his goodness. “God is good. It will all work out… just follow Him.” However, this can slowly turn into “God is good… I just need to follow him better”, which
evolves into “God is good- I need to follow harder-better-faster-stronger to
receive that goodness and avoid a hard life”.
What happens then is that instead of greater faith, we feel blame and
confusion, if the miracle doesn’t come when we think it should. Slipping into ‘life is hard… due to my lack
of faith’ is an exhausting, desperate, treadmill. I’m
German, so believe me when I say, I get this one too. In fact, I have tried
this one on for way longer than 5 minutes.
The unfortunate problem is that I’ve
heard Bible stories. Pretty challenging
to mesh the “If I follow God better … I will receive goodness” point of view
with:
·
Joseph
following God: hanging out in the prisons of Egypt,
·
Stephen
following God: stoned to death,
·
Paul
following God: jailed,
·
John
the Baptist following God: lost his head,
·
Peter
NOT following God: escaped the angry mobs- Peter following God: crucified on
his head
In fact I do not remember one
story from Sunday School that said… so and so following God: Living out the
American Dream. Not one.
So where does that leave us
besides the most depressing Baccalaureate ever... wishing I had just talked about gender today,
aren’t you? (still too soon?)
I have an early childhood memory,
that I am guessing came when I was around 5 or 6. My dad, mom, two little brothers and I were wrapped
in blankets sitting cozy on the brown couches in our living room. We were listening to my dad read about the
adventures of 4 wandering kids, who happen to find themselves in a quite
mysterious wardrobe. As a 6ish year old
girl, I sat mesmerized as C.S. Lewis carried me into his world of fauns, dwarfs
and Turkish Delight. My dad earlier explained
to me that Aslan, the lion, was really Jesus, and I could not wait for him to
come into the story! You see these kids
were desperate for some help, perfect timing according to me for this
Jesus/Aslan character to come in and save the day. That was until Mr. Beaver started talking
about Aslan, “Safe? Don't you
hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't
safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you." Clearly my dad misunderstood this whole
‘Aslan is Jesus’ thing. My Jesus was not
only safe, but he was warm gooey candy. I
remember trying to clarify this with my dad- who met my question with a
terrifying question. “Lisa- why do you
think Jesus is safe?”
Life is hard, and God does not
promise us warm gooey candy. In fact He
does not promise to keep us safe from the hardships and pain of life. If the
vision of our life, defines good as a trendy studio in the loft district, and a
caramel mocha every morning… we are redefining the good that God
promises. We are using our measuring stick, and due to
our culture, that measuring stick is one that has been created by American
media. God’s goodness is not defined by
safety and protection from life, but by his goodness, when it is not. He gives us a vision of him, and he promises to be
good, to love us, and faithfully walk with us.
As the Psalmist wrote in our reading today: “For the Lord is good and his love
endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations”
I do not understand fully why life
is hard, and here is the thing, neither does anyone else. If they tell you they do, instead of October,
you just may be in a place called November… and they just want your vote. But when life is hard, God promises that He
is good, He is here, and He offers us a friendship that ensures us that the bad
we face… it is not ok with him either. He gives us
a vision of himself. We get to have a dialogue
with a good God that sees where we are, and where we will be in 10 years and
what we will become after we leave this earth.
Tony Campolo’s simple line, “It’s
Friday… but Sunday’s coming” captures this idea and gives us a different path on
that crossroad. When it’s Friday (or so
I do not change my metaphors on you) When it’s October, and life is not what you
planned… Sunday’s coming. There is hope for the Christian during
October, because we have a vision of Him… and Sunday’s coming. But there is also a call for
the Christian during October;
we must focus our energy and work on living a life of service for others. We work harder-better-faster-stronger for the
good of the weary, the poor, and the marginalized. That 1 in 7 hunger statistic, it doesn’t work
in this room. You cannot look down your
isle right now and assume that 1 out of 7 of you are malnourished, because the
hungry are not here… you have to leave this room and go to them.
And this is
where
those lilies make sense; we grow strong and beautiful, because we are a
reflection of his goodness to others, in a life that is hard. Not because we have toiled and worried about
avoiding life’s hardships, and gaining material goodness for ourselves.
Having a vision of Him, meant
that I did not quit my life of service, and after October those students in my
class, they grew. I got to sit front row as God worked miracles in their
lives. I got to watch Jxxx begin the
healing process, I got to see Txxx learn how to independently read a book- for
the first time in his 13 year old life, and I got to witness Lxxx find peace in
the plants growing in our greenhouse. A
life of service may be hard, but it is crazy rewarding.
Having a vision of Him, meant I
was willing to face the awkward and seek out a new community. And because GC’s
philosophy and religion department ‘ruined’ me for the easy fluffy churches, I
was able to recognize an authentic one. It wasn’t in McPeak's barn, but it was good. My new
community, outside of Greenville helped me see Christ in new ways, and it was
just as genuine as ours here, (plus they had donut holes). Community may be challenging to find- but it
is out there.
Life is Hard AND God is good AND
faith accepts both at the same time. You are not done growing, you’re just asked to be
a grown-up, ready or not. Your faith will continue to mature, bend, and
strengthen and it has nothing to do with getting a diploma today. It is because you are not done becoming who
God wants you to be, and you are not done showing his goodness to others. Sometimes, that is hard. But you are promised a vision of a good God who
will walk with you as you do this. I grew as a Christian at Greenville- but I
became a woman of God, in October.
In 1912, exactly one hundred years ago Eleanor Hull versified the
beautiful Irish text Be Thou My Vision into one of our great hymns. When that art boy figured out that he had made
a ridiculous mistake and came running back, we sang it at our wedding. A month ago KellyRae sang it for us at her
senior recital- her voice rang out…
Be thou
my vision, O Lord of my heart,
naught be all else to me, save that
thou art;
When you hit your October and the fear sets in, remember this song. There is a long tradition of other before you, who found comfort and direction in this hymn. My prayer is that someday you will as well. You serve a good God and He is your vision, your inheritance, He is your dignity, He is your delight.
