What? Requirements after College?

Baccalaureate Sermon

Hanover College, May 26, 2001

J. David Cassel

PRAYER: Guide our thoughts, O Lord, on this day of celebration and joy so that we may not lose sight of you and those things that you require of us. Amen.

INTRODUCTION: Having been an advisor for quite a few years now, I suspect that there is one thing that you all are very excited about today. You are all leaning back with a sense of accomplishment saying, "After I walk across the stage this afternoon I am through with requirements forever! I won't ever have to try to squeeze in that last quarter-credit P.E. course. I won't ever have to worry about whether I have completed that incredibly confusing maze of GDR's and major requirements. I won't have to figure out a way to compensate for that class I foolishly dropped when I was a freshman. Oh yes, and there are not going to be any more tests - no more quizzes, no more unit tests, no more final examinations, no more comps - no more requirements. It's over!!!!"

As I was thinking about how you all must be feeling, I remembered my own experience of completing all of the requirements for my Ph.D. The last hurdle that I had to cross before receiving my Ph.D. was the oral defense of my dissertation. I thought I was well prepared. I knew the material backwards and forwards, and I had enough experience with the members of the examining panel so that I could anticipate the sorts of questions each person might ask me. In my haste to finish my requirements and put all of my studies behind me, however, I failed to take into account that I was nervous, well, not just nervous, really nervous -- perhaps more nervous than I had ever been before. Well, as the old saying goes, prides goes before a fall. It turned out that I was running a bit late that morning, so I decided to park in a restricted lot right next to the building in which my exam was scheduled even though I risked getting a ticket and a heavy fine. I slammed the car door and headed towards the building, confident and ready to take on the world. Suddenly, however, I realized that I didn't have my keys in my hand. I looked forlornly back at my car and realized that I had locked my keys in my car. If you think I felt stupid then, you should have seen how I felt when I realized that not only were the keys in the car, but the car was still running! Somehow I made it through my examination, but I was painfully aware that even after I passed the oral defense, I was not through with my requirements. I still had to figure out a way to deal with my car that was merrily running out of gas in a restricted parking lot with my keys securely locked inside!

I learned several valuable lessons that day. The first lesson you all already know, namely that having a Ph.D. does not necessarily guarantee that a person has a wit of common sense. The second lesson, however, was far more important. That lesson was overcoming one's final academic hurdle is not the last requirement that we as people will ever face. Our lives are full of requirements and tests that we have to pass each day. "What?" you say, "You mean we have requirements after College?" Yes, that's exactly what I mean, and it is about several of these requirements that I would like to talk this morning. These requirements, however, are not the kind of requirements one checks off on a list and forgets after having accomplished them. They are, rather, what might be called the basic moral responsibilities necessary for a fulfilled life. In the Scripture passage that President Nichols read a few minutes ago, the prophet Micah paints a picture of God metaphorically taking the Chosen People to court to chastise them for reneging on their commitment to such moral responsibilities. The people seem mistakenly to ask for a checklist to guide them so that they know what they are supposed to do. Micah refuses to create a checklist for the people; instead he reminds them of the nature of true, divine requirements - requirements that must be met every day of their lives. "God has told you, O Mortal," says Micah, "what is good and what the Lord requires of you: to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." As you graduate from Hanover today, I want to remind you that although you may have completed your GDR's and your major requirements, there are three divine requirements that are far from being over, for they should define our moral responsibilities each day of our lives. We must: "do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God."

I. We Are Required to Do Justice

In Micah's list of divine requirements, the first is that we all must "do justice." What exactly does this mean? Micah is stating that we are required to "do justice" in the way that Martin Luther King, Jr. did justice in Birmingham, Alabama in the month of April in the year 1963. A group of prominent clergy from the Birmingham area heard that Dr. King planned to come to Birmingham to stage a protest demonstration because of the city's segregationist policies and its abysmal treatment of its black citizens. This group of clergy wrote a letter to Dr. King urging him not to come to Birmingham so that "the responsible citizens of Birmingham" could have the "opportunity for a new, constructive and realistic approach to racial problems." Arguing that demonstrations would be both "unwise and untimely," this group of clergy called on Dr. King to stay away from their city. Dr. King, however, did not stay away, but rather came to Birmingham and spearheaded a demonstration in which he was arrested and then thrown into the Birmingham City Jail.

Why did Dr. King refuse to stay away from Birmingham despite the letter he received? He went because he believed that God required him to "do justice." While he was in jail, Dr. King outlined his motivation for coming to Birmingham in a letter to the clergy group that had urged him to stay away. In that letter, known as the Letter from the Birmingham Jail, Dr. King explained why he came to Birmingham with these simple words, "I am in Birmingham because there is injustice here." Injustice, for Dr. King, was a disease of society that could not be overlooked. Later in this same letter, he explained his passion for justice this way, "Like a boil that can never be cured as long as it is covered up, but must be opened with all its pus-flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its exposing creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured."

I believe that Micah's words are meant to remind us that every day, each one of us will be asked to evaluate the actions of our companies or corporations, the attitudes and laws of our cities, our states and our country, and the behavior of the people of the world. We are required to determine whether justice or injustice is being done, and, where there is injustice, we must counter unjust actions with just actions of our own. The GDR's at Hanover have little or no significance compared to the requirement that we all have to embody justice when we see injustice. When a co-worker is unfairly treated, when a person is ridiculed because of a disability, when a community member is attacked or discriminated against because of his or her race, beliefs, or sexual orientation, when one self-centered ethnic group attempts to eradicate another ethnic group anywhere in the world, when the earth is ravaged to provide unnecessary comforts for some while others suffer as a result, it is time to remember that we all are required to step in and "do justice." Justice may take many forms. Whenever injustice appears we are required to do whatever it takes to fight and overcome that injustice. Although speaking out in public forums, contributing money to just causes, writing letters to the editors of local papers, and voting with a conscience are possible beginning points, true justice compels us go further. Because people are suffering unjustly one might find it morally necessary to bypass a lucrative job to devote a career to medical research. Because a person or group has been mistreated in the corporate world, one might be required to call management into account despite the risk of unemployment. Because people are oppressed, one of us might even have to be ready to follow the example of Jesus as Martin Luther King, Jr. did in giving up his life so that others might be free. Wherever we are, we must remember Micah's words that God requires us to "do justice."

II. We Are Required to Love Kindness

In addition to "doing justice," Micah states that there is a second requirement that all of us must complete in our lives. We must "love kindness." The meaning of such a requirement is obscured, I believe, by the overuse of the word love in our society. "I just love your new dress." "I love baseball." "I love the way you paint." The Beatles sang, "Love, love, love. All you need is love." We all affirm the value of love, but what exactly is it, and how can love be judged as being good or bad? St. Augustine suggested that love could be differentiated into two sub-types of far different value based on the object of one's love. In his book, On Christian Doctrine, Augustine argued that one could love either those things that are temporal or those things that are eternal. "Between temporal and eternal things there is this difference: a temporal thing is loved more before we have it, and it begins to grow worthless when we gain it, for it does not satisfy the soul, whose true and certain rest is in eternity; but the eternal is more ardently loved when it is acquired that when it was merely desired" (1.38). Augustine is suggesting that any love that is focused on temporal things is ephemeral and unfulfilling, but love that is focused on eternal things is unending in its value and meaning. The kindness of which Micah speaks in this requirement is just such an eternal value. To "love kindness" is to focus the core of one's being not on oneself or one's fleeting desires but rather on doing those things that are in the best interests of someone else. It is to live by the principle of being completely giving rather than being totally self-centered. The Apostle Paul stated the same principle in another way in his letter to the church at Philippi when he said, "Always consider the other person to be better than yourself, so that nobody thinks of his or her own interests first but everybody thinks of other people's interests instead" (2:3-4).

On graduation day, which is a celebration of four long years of hard work and some pretty amazing academic accomplishments, it is certainly difficult to put much stock in a requirement that demands that we consider others, no matter who they are, to be better than ourselves. Perhaps we could be inspired by the example of Albert Schweitzer, the winner of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize. Schweitzer was an excellent student, and his initial inclination was to build upon his skills in academia. In 1899 he received his Ph.D. in philosophy and later received a second doctorate in Theology. Schweitzer's skills and insights were so remarkable that after only five years as a professor he published a book, entitled The Quest for the Historical Jesus, which had a profound effect on the world of theology and New Testament studies. As if theology and philosophy were not enough, Schweitzer also became an unparalleled performer of the organ works of J.S. Bach. Schweitzer's love for Bach led to his publication of a scholarly work on Bach's life as a musician-poet in 1905 (J.S. Bach: le musicien-poète). Despite these amazing academic accomplishments, Schweitzer felt that his life was incomplete. After a thorough self-examination Schweitzer realized that his feelings of malaise were occurring because he was, in the words of Augustine, loving temporal things rather than eternal things. Approaching this dilemma with the same vigor he used to devote to his scholarly pursuits, Schweitzer reshaped his personal value system so that his life was focused on "loving kindness." For Schweitzer, "loving kindness" meant doing all that he could to preserve and promote all forms of life. He summed up his new understanding in this way, "The most basic fact, which is present in our consciousness every moment of our existence is this: I am life that wills to live in the midst of life that wills to live. . . . The essence of Goodness is to preserve life, to promote life, and to help life achieve its highest destiny. The essence of Evil is to destroy life, to harm life, and to hamper the development of life" (from Selbstsdarstellung). Schweitzer saw that goodness prevailed when all life forms worked in community to sustain and support life. Where all members of the living community practice loving kindness, the abuse of any species, race, or person would no longer be possible. After articulating his new understanding, Schweitzer, put this philosophy of loving kindness into action. He returned to university to be trained in the field of medicine. After receiving his medical degree he left his prestigious, comfortable academic post and traveled to French Equatorial Africa to found a clinic where he ministered to the needs of the natives up until the time of his death in 1965.

All of us certainly do have much to celebrate to today, but in the midst of our celebrating we must hear Micah's call for proper priorities. Let us not focus our love on those things that are temporal and fade away but let us focus our love on acts of charity and kindness, for such things are eternal and grow greater the more we devote ourselves to them. It is in the way that we treat our fellow human beings and the creatures around us that such kindness is made real. Kindness can be manifest in multiple ways: kindness may be in giving up a weekend to help build a house for a poor family through Habitat for Humanity; kindness may be devoting all or part of one's law career to pro bono work for those who cannot afford adequate legal assistance; kindness may be giving the last Girl Scout Cookie of a box to a hungry roommate even though your roommate might not realize that you have been carefully saving it for just the right moment; it may be giving up a promising career to enter the Peace Corps or declining an offer for a new, high-paying job because of a commitment to a friend or family member. Kindness may even be embodied in our respect for the natural world around us. I must say that one of the more enjoyable sermons I have heard recently was given by Professor Jim Stark. In the sermon, Professor Stark suggested that Christian kindness should extend to the creatures smallest and least able to defend themselves, for a people's true attitudes are reflected in the way that they relate to such creatures. The title of his sermon and his repeated mantra was this (Jim, please excuse my feeble imitation): "Please don't kill the bugs!" Jesus might not have described kindness with the same dramatic flare as Professor Stark, but he did say this: "'Truly I tell you, just as you showed kindness to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me." Yes, even after graduation, we are required to "love kindness."

III. We Are Required to Walk Humbly with Our God

Micah's third requirement is that we "walk humbly with our God." This is perhaps the most important of the three requirements that Micah articulates because it is only when one has a proper relationship with the Divine that the actions of justice and the true love of kindness can emerge.

After completing any rigorous and challenging task, we are likely to be a bit self-satisfied and proud. In our procession this morning, our caps, gowns, hoods, and tassels proclaimed the nature of our accomplishments to everyone who is gathered here. After the events of today, our degrees are now public record. We can now approach prospective employers with confidence as we proudly display our achievements on our newly formatted C.V.'s. It is at this point, when we are bursting with pride, that Micah's third requirement becomes especially meaningful and important. Micah calls us "to walk humbly with our God" because he realizes that one of the most damaging of all attitudes is that of self-centered pride.

The writers of the book of Genesis attempted to depict the perils of pride in the story of the temptation of Adam and Eve. The serpent beguiled these two and led them into disaster by playing on their pride and suggesting that eating the forbidden fruit would enable them to become like God. According to the story, it was Adam and Eve's arrogance and desire for equality with God that led to their expulsion from the garden and to their assuming responsibility for providing for themselves through hard work and pain. The point of the story seems to be that when humans get caught up in their pride and attempt to usurp God's position, they will be forced to rely on their own weak and insufficient skills rather than upon perfect power found in God's grace.

John Milton in Paradise Lost, his marvelous epic describing the Fall of Humanity, reflected ruefully on the perils of pride. Pride, in Milton's view is an attitude that blinds individuals to the grace of God which surrounds them and is freely accessible to them. Instead of seeing and accepting grace, pride perverts gracious gifts and makes them vehicles of destruction. In Milton's portrayal of the Fall, Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan who had earlier succumbed to the sin of pride. Milton captures the essence of pride in a brief vignette in which pride blinds Satan to the magnificence and true virtue of the Tree of Life. Instead of recognizing the Tree of Life as the symbol of God's gift of immortal life to the world, Satan sees the Tree simply as a perfect perch from which he can follow the movements of Adam and Eve and to plot their destruction. Milton's description goes this way:

Thence up Satan flew and on the Tree of Life,

The Middle tree and highest there that grew

Sat like a cormorant, yet not true life

Thereby regained, but sat devising death

To them who lived, nor on virtue thought

Of that life giving plant, but only used

For prosper that well used had been the pledge

Of immortality. So little know

Any, but God alone, to value right

The Good before him, but perverts best things, To worse abuse, or to their meanest use.

Pride, ironically, in its foolish notion that we can be like God, perverts true grace with false hope that inevitably disappoints us and causes us pain. In Milton's words, pride "takes the Good and perverts it to its worst abuse or meanest use." I believe that it is healthy to be excited about our accomplishments, but there is a deceptively small difference between being excited about our accomplishments and being blinded by our pride. Pride is destructive whenever it prevents us from seeing that all true successes in life are gifts of grace from God. To avoid such pride and its disastrous consequences, we must acknowledge that the foundation of all life is divine grace and instead of walking arrogantly by ourselves, we must "walk humbly with our God."

IV. Conclusion

At the beginning of my remarks I told the story of the trauma of my final, oral examination. Despite the trauma, I did pass the exam and I even sheepishly found a locksmith who rescued my keys from my car. When it was all over, I breathed a loud sigh of relief; I was ecstatic because I thought I was through with requirements forever. I was, however, quite mistaken! I was reminded of this early this week. In my introductory theology class, we were talking about Jesus' call to the rich, young ruler to give up all that he had to follow the Lord. I was waxing eloquent to a group of freshmen who seemed to have stayed up way too late the previous evening about the what it would mean to give up everything to follow Jesus, when one student tentatively raised her hand. She said, "Dr. Cassel do you mind if I ask you a personal question?" I said, "Sure, go ahead." She then pointedly asked, "If Jesus calls us to give up all that we have and follow him, how do you justify your wealth?" The student, I think, was asking an innocent question trying to find out how I justified my upper middle-class status so that she could learn how she might justify her own good fortune. As she framed this question, however, I did not hear this young lady's voice alone, in addition to her quiet tones I heard the booming voice of God putting me and my complacent attitude to the test. "Do not," God seemed to be saying, "assume that once you graduated all those years ago that your requirements were over. I have requirements for you every day of your life, and the same questions will always be on the exam." I really did not need to ask what God meant, for the divine requirements, the questions that are placed before us on our daily exam are quite clear: Do you do justice? Do you love kindness? Are you walking humbly with your God?

Amen