More Than Meets the Eye

Rev. Kyle Clark

Text Lesson: Genesis 1:1, 31a; Revelation 21:5a

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Baccalaureate Service

for Hobart High School Graduates

I want to begin by thanking you, Keith, for the invitation to stand in your pulpit tonight.

Superintendent Hill, Principal Maynard, all the teachers and staff who have had the challenge, responsibility and pleasure of journeying with this group of young people through their school years, parents, family, friends and graduates of Hobart High School class of 2009 – school is out, almost!

"No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks..." I have heard that on the last day of classes there will be a lot of yelling and cheering, and whistles, running and cart-wheeling in the hallways...and that’s just the teachers! What are you guys going to do?
I know many of you will soon be starting classes at various colleges and universities. Others of you will begin training for careers in your chosen fields. But for now classes are over and it’s time for a little break.

Of course, there is this thing called commencement coming up where you actually get your diploma – that’s kind of a big thing, right? You’ll probably have parents and grandparents and sisters and brothers there to watch you walk across the stage wearing your gown and funny looking little hat. Even before commencement we have to get through tonight – this thing we call a Baccalaureate service.

I suspect a lot of you would probably like to be somewhere else doing something different than sitting in here wearing that uncomfortable robe and hat. I know a lot of you don’t know who I am, and you may not even care, and that’s all right. Maybe you’re even wondering, “What in world can this guy, who I don’t know, have to say to me that is going to be so important that I will remember it for more than 10 minutes after I get out of here?” That’s a legitimate question. I pray that I can answer it!

This is an exciting time for you. Now my high school graduation was so long ago it’s not even a faint memory any more, but I do remember when I received my masters degree a just a few years ago. It was an exciting day for me. It had been 20 years since I received my bachelor’s degree. Going back to school after all those years was a huge challenge.

Standing there with my fellow graduates, all of us feeling at the same time both a tremendous sense of relief and great accomplishment, I remembered the story Peter Gomes, the chaplain at Harvard University, tells about the day of his graduation. He said, “I remember …the processionals, the ceremony, the speakers who told us about our responsibility to save the world. I remember after [getting] the diploma in my hand and as the crowd began to disperse, I looked around me past the stadium to the city beyond and then began to think of the size of the world that lay even beyond the city. I looked down at my diploma again, then back at the city and the world, and as I turned again to the diploma, from out of nowhere, those famous words by Tallulah Bankhead suddenly came into my mind, "Truly, there is less here than meets the eye."[i]

(Maybe your grandparents can tell you who Tallulah Bankhead was.)

When we think about the size of the world beyond our community, the vast array of issues facing humankind, the threats to our peace and health and economy and families and safety, well, it’s easy to suddenly feel overwhelmed. When we consider all the challenges awaiting us, it’s easy to look at the things we use to mark our accomplishments – things like graduations and diplomas – and be tempted to think that there is less here than meets the eye.

You are part of a generation that is different in so many ways from those that have come before you. You are technologically savvy. You text and twitter and update your Facebook page all from your cell phones. I can make a phone call.

You can download to your iPod, Google the info you need for your homework assignment, talk on your BFF and check the scores on ESPN or keep up with the latest episodes of The Life of Ryan or The Hills on MTV, all at the same time!  I can check my email.

Socially you’re more aware and culturally more astute than my generation was when we graduated from high school. In many ways you are less naïve about the ways of the world than your parents were at your age. You have grown up with a constant barrage of news. You know how to process vast amounts of information that constantly bombard you in ways many of us who are older struggle with. You’re more cautious, more wary about the structures of our society that your parents generation trusted – structures like government and its ability to keep us safe from those who would do us harm both from outside our borders and those within, or business’ ability to sustain endless growth, or even the Church and her relevance in a world that seems in many ways to be leaving God behind.

At the same time you are more adventurous and more willing to consider new ways of doing things. Your generation is much less likely to buy into the notion that you can be what you want to be or that you can change the world. But many of you are more committed to causes than many of us were at your age.

Your parents’ generation heard and often believed that they could change the world – that they could be the next Albert Schweitzer or Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King Jr. But that just didn’t happen.

Perhaps there are those here tonight who look back on their own graduations and remember these exhortations to change the world and feel a sense of nostalgia and maybe even disappointment at dreams that never came to be.

So, graduates, if you find yourself being a little more than skeptical when people of my generation say things to you, like “you can be anything you want to be” and “you can change the world”, cut us a little slack. That’s just the way we are.

For the rest of us, if you are of a generation that feels like your kids are looking at you as if you are from another world when you tell them that they can change the world, don’t be too disillusioned when they blow you off. That’s the way they are.

Regardless of what generation you belong to, however, there is encouragement for us running through the words of the Bible from the creation story in Genesis to John’s vision of a new heaven and earth recorded in Revelation.

You see, the God who created all things and called them good, even you and even me, continues to create, making all things new. The entirety of Scripture affirms God’s active intrusion into our world, making all things new. When the Hebrew people cried out from despair, God acted. When the world needed a Messiah, in fullness of time God came to us in the flesh, sending Jesus of Nazareth to be the Christ. When people needed to be reminded of God’s great love and God’s amazing grace, and God’s tender mercy, when people needed encouragement and guidance God sent the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we forget that.

You see, here’s the thing. A lot of folks in my generation, in your parents’ generation, may have become discouraged because they thought they could change the world, but instead were overwhelmed by the world. Some in your generation look at the overwhelming needs and wonder, “why bother?” The reality is that all we can do is to be what we are created to be, human beings, children of a loving God who designed us for a purpose. And that purpose is not to change the whole world. It never has been. That’s God’s job. Our purpose is this: to love God and to love each other. That’s it. That’s the great commandment.

When we do this we can change our part of the world through God’s grace. You and I can make a real difference in the lives of the people we meet. They in turn make a difference in someone else’s life, and then, before we even know it, something truly more than meets the eye happens. God acts again. We are connected, you see – no matter how indirect or insignificant that connection may seem to be – to everyone else who has come before and who will come after. And this God who created and is creating acts through these connections and, guess what? The world is changed and we are partners with God.

So, Class of 2009 and those of previous classes and you who will graduate in the future, receive this blessing:

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain and rejection so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in your part of the world, so that those who claim it can’t be done will see what God can do, because with God, there is so much more than meets the eye.

And may the Blessing of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit be upon you and all those you love this day and forever more.

Amen.