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June 2, 2006, Baccalaureate, Casady School
Consider the
lilies…
It seems appropriate to begin
this sermon by congratulating the graduating class. I
know you have worked hard and you well deserve all the
accolades I am sure you’ll receive. I also want to thank
those responsible for this opportunity to preach here
today. It shall soon be ten years since I first came to
this community and I have known some of the graduating
class that long and in one case even longer. And so,
being here is both a privilege for me and a very great
pleasure. As a mark of my appreciation, I’ll be
relatively brief, limiting my remarks to an hour or so.
Quite honestly, I remember
very little about high school and almost nothing of my
graduation. I’m certain that several things must have
happened. I’m sure we received lots of advice from well
meaning teachers, parents, and friends of parents, and
perhaps even a preacher or two. I’m sure that advice was
memorable, whatever it was. I’m also sure that as happy
as we were at the prospect of graduating, there was a
certain amount of anxiety attached to it as well. T. S.
Eliot begins his poem, The Waste Land, with these words:
“April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the
dead land, mixing memory and desire.” Eliot was making
the observation that it is rare that on any occasion our
joy is undiluted. And, no matter how delighted you all
may be at the prospect of graduating and beginning a new
stage in your lives, I’m sure that on some level there
are also feelings of sadness and some measure of worry
about just what the future holds for you.
I do remember that when I
graduated from high school I knew with some degree of
certainty what I was going to do with my life. I had the
advantage of having a calling. I was going to be a
journalist and write for newspapers. Well, that’s not
the way things worked out. There’s an old saying that I
first heard on the TV show, Deadwood:
“Announcing your plans is a good
way to hear God laugh.” The Bible has many passages
praising hard work. Proverbs 10:4 says that “lazy hands
make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth.”
Proverbs 13:4 tells us that “the sluggard craves and has
nothing but the soul of the diligent shall be
satisfied.” In his letter to the Galatians, Chapter 6,
verse 9, St. Paul writes: “Let us not become weary in
doing good, for at the proper time we will reap the
harvest if we do not give up.” And yet, just as the
Bible praises diligence and hard work, it also makes it
clear that we are not to be overly anxious and worried
about what the future holds in store. “Consider the
lilies. They neither toil nor spin, and yet even Solomon
in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” In
this passage, our Lord Jesus is counseling us on being
worried about the future. He assures us that we are in
God’s hands and God will provide. So, yes! Work hard and
be diligent, but do not become overwhelmed with anxiety
about where the long and winding road with its many
detours and road blocks will take you in your life. Do
your part. It’s all you can do. Leave the future in
hands of the One who holds the future in the palm of His
hand. With this in mind, I want to leave you with three
thoughts.
1) If this fine school has done
its part, then you have not received an education. You
have received something far more valuable. You have been
given the tools of learning. Your education begins now
and will last for the rest of your life. You will
acquire that education using what you have learned here
– those tools of learning - and I urge you to make that
a life-long process. You have learned other things in
this place which will also serve you well. You’ve
learned about the importance of friendship. You have
learned, sometimes the hard way, about taking
responsibility. You have learned about honor. Also,
given the amount of homework dispensed in this
institution, I pray you have come to realize that most
of what you learn will not come to you in a classroom
but through reading and studying and being motivated to
take the initiative on your own and in the company of
the sorts of friends whose friendship helps make you a
better person.
2) The passage from St. Luke’s
Gospel which mentions the lilies of the field concludes
in Verse 31 in which Jesus tells us to seek the Kingdom
of God, and all the things we worry about will be
attended to by God. Seeking God’s Kingdom amounts to
seeking to have God rule in our lives. It means we seek
God’s justice and God’s mercy and God’s peace where we
live as we try to leave the world better than we found
it. It means you do things that are right - not because
they are easy or personally advantageous, but because
they are right. It amounts to putting God first, seeking
His approval and His blessing in all we do. This way,
your life becomes a journey you make with God, an
adventure which leads you to unexpected places with the
assurance that whatever happens you walk into it
together with God.
3) While I encourage you to
have a plan and to set goals for your life in concert
with God, do not put things on a time table or expect
that things will work out in some sort of smooth linear
progression. St. Paul is my favorite example of this.
His goal was to preach in the City of Rome. He himself
was a Roman citizen. All roads led to Rome and therefore
led out of Rome to the entire world. By preaching in
Rome, he would find a way of spreading the Gospel of
Christ to the whole world. Finally, an angel spoke to
St. Paul in a vision and told him that he would indeed
get to preach in Rome. Of course, Paul was overjoyed. He
might have started packing his things for the journey
right then and there except for one little wrinkle. He
got arrested.
Now, getting arrested can really
mess up your plans. And, things got worse for Paul. Not
only was he arrested, he was also scheduled for corporal
punishment in the form a severe public beating. At the
last minute, Paul reminded those in authority that he
was a Roman citizen. As such, he had the right to a
trial in the City of Rome. Plans were made to send him
there, and so, it looked like he was going to Rome after
all, just not the way he expected.
About this time, a group of
those opposed to Paul’s teachings took a solemn oath
that they would not eat or drink until they had killed
him. This is yet another wrinkle in his plans. When word
of the plot reached authorities, they smuggled Paul out
of jail and on to the first available ship bound for
Rome. We’re not told what happened to the guys who took
the vow to kill him except, we assume they got hungry
and thirsty. Anyway, Paul was finally on his way to
Rome, just not the way he expected. That’s when the
shipwreck occurred. A violent storm at sea destroyed the
ship and Paul and the ship’s crew ended up on the Island
of Malta. There on the Island, sitting around a
campfire, Paul must have wondered if God was watching
all this. What about his plans? Since having the vision,
he’d been arrested, almost beaten to within an inch of
his life, a plot was hatched to kill him, and he had
been shipwrecked. At least, he must have thought, it
can’t get much worse than this. That’s when the snake
bit him. It was a highly poisonous snake which had
slithered out from near the fire. The snake’s bite
usually killed people within an hour. Paul might have
asked the Island natives how bad and dangerous the bite
was, and they would have looked at him and said, “We
have good news and bad news. The good news is you won’t
have to put up with being here much longer. The bad news
is, you’ll be dead in an hour.” But, Paul didn’t die.
The snake bite didn’t harm him, and the natives were so
impressed by this, Paul was able to preach to them and
convert them. None of this would have been possible had
he not been on that particular ship. And, he wouldn’t
have been on that particular ship if there hadn’t been a
plot to kill him and if he hadn’t gotten arrested.
Finally, Paul and the others were rescued and he did end
up in Rome where he preached the word and converted many
who traveled to every Roman port and province. It’s why
we have a chapel named for the English St. Edward. Paul
did not get to Rome as easily or as quickly as he might
have hoped, but it all worked for a purpose.
I hope you remember this story
as you encounter all the twists and turns in your life
along your long and winding road. I hope you will make
that journey with God and for God. I hope you will
remember that you are loved and cherished not for what
you have done or might accomplish but for who you are. I
hope that in faith you will trust and know the Lord
Jesus Christ who will never leave you or forsake you and
who loves you no matter what. I hope you will recall
that “they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their
strength; they shall rise with wings as eagles; they
shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not
faint.” God bless you all..
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