On Lubbock Christian University, Vocation, and Life: A Speech for Commencement
(Delivered on December 15, 2012)

President Perrin, Chairman Harris, distinguished colleagues, graduates and their families, and friends:

We celebrate today the completion of formal baccalaureate studies at Lubbock Christian University, whose mission is to “challenge students to think critically, to excel in their disciplines, and to model Christ.”   Graduates, we trust that our faculty and staff have met the challenge, and that you each leave here today confident that we have accomplished our mission.  Permit me, then, to reflect more closely on the content of that mission.

I begin in a familiar place, the New Testament Gospels.  In several passages, the writers relate two similar occasions when Jesus sent out disciples across Galilee and Judea.  We today are quite removed from first-century Palestine, and few of us are leaving this room planning to work in religious ministry.  But the instructions Jesus gives to those disciples, and the insights they imply, speak pointedly to the heart of the matter.

First, Jesus tells them to proclaim the advent of the Kingdom of God, and to act in such ways that demonstrate that kingdom – healing the sick, doing good works, for example.  He encourages them not simply to speak about the kingdom but more so to live the kingdom.  To be a follower of Jesus is not merely to voice religious words, such as “God loves you” or “Jesus died for you,” or even “The Kingdom of God is here.”  Rather, it is – for all of us – to carry about in our lives the reality of transformative grace and empowerment that comes only from realizing God’s reign in our lives and in our world.  It means to say in word and deed that God loves us – each of us – and God calls us to live fully, whatever our specific daily role is.

It is indeed a calling, a vocatio, a vocation as stewards of God’s grace.  It is – as one biblical writer says – to use the gifts and talents we have to administer the very grace of God.  It is to live with an occupational identity while understanding a larger calling.  So whatever career path we each have chosen, as Christians we all are first priests of grace, and second physicians and teachers, scientists and lawyers, therapists and managers.  I hope, graduates, that we have helped you to see this central Christian truth.  I hope that we have not aimed to simply train you for a job but rather to help you discern a vocation, that place, in the words of writer Frederick Beuchner, “where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”   In worldly terms, I hope that you leave here desiring more to serve than to succeed, to always balance your career goals with the Kingdom goals of peace and justice and freedom.  And I hope that we’ve not simply provided you with facts and access to knowledge but instead pointed you in the lifelong quest for wisdom, a wisdom that opens eyes to see all that is good and lasting, and evidence of the unfolding reign of God among us.

Second, Jesus instructs the disciples to keep focus on what really matters.  He tells them to limit their area of work and to take very few possessions.  Not even those people closest to Jesus could do it all or have it all.  The call of vocation is at once challenging and comforting:  We take on our life callings with courage and enthusiasm, but we best include humility and appropriate reticence, lest we begin to think we can – or should – conquer the world, be it corporate, educational, medical, or something other.  The allure of success so often is tied to working ten to twelve hour days, taking on more and more projects, travelling more miles, or garnering more accolades than our peers.  But those who work too much spread themselves thin, are less effective, and find themselves really quite miserable.  There is no failure in realizing our limitations; there is no defeat in focusing our energies.  But there is wisdom in the words often attributed to Francis of Assisi, “Do few things and do them well; take your time; go slowly.” Otherwise, the busyness of the days brings on ever more pressing tasks, always another area of work to address, again another person to see, yet an additional meeting, and another, and what really matters – that which is at the heart of our vocations, that to which I am uniquely me and you are uniquely you – begins to suffocate, and neither your joy nor the world’s needs are met.  As former Barrington College president Charles Hummel was once told by an experienced cotton mill manager, “your greatest danger is letting the urgent things crowd out the important.”   When our busyness overwhelms, he added, “we’ve become slaves to the tyranny of the urgent.”

In 1939, just after the start of World War II, an anxious entering class of Oxford students sat in opening chapel for words of instruction.  With the threat of bombs and the reality of deaths looming, would the semester be cancelled so all could return to family or national defense?  Wouldn’t this urgency be reason to delay the rather aloof life of university study?  No, said C. S. Lewis, in clear and firm terms.  That the students were there, sent by parents and allowed by country, was “prima facie evidence that the life which (they could), at any rate, best lead to the glory of God at present (was) the learned life.”   More so, that learned life was for them a duty, one constantly threatened, he said, by “the enemies of frustration, fear, and excitement.”   Now, on this day in 2012, for most of you the vocation of learning is waning, and your next moves take you beyond the university hall.  But Lewis’ words are appropriate reminders:  "There are always plenty of rivals to our work.  We are always falling in love or quarrelling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill or recovering, following public affairs.  If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work."

Graduates, I hope that we faculty have taught you to grasp your futures with vigor but also to cultivate those callings with focus.  I hope that we have modeled the virtues of prudence to distinguish the important from the urgent and of courage to withstand the temptations and enemies that so easily distract.  You have studied with diligence, you have received an excellent education, and you have moved toward the fulfillment of your vocations.  Don’t let them slip away in the busyness and glitter of the days.

Third, Jesus tells the disciples to expect trouble and to face it with as much dignity and acceptance as possible.  If we take seriously our vocations, we will want to move with determination and confidence.  But the adventure will bring storms, accidents, detours, and even tragedy.  No life well lived avoids such.   Sometimes there will be external forces:  A business partner fails to carry through, a husband or wife breaks a vow, economic or physical failures complicate.

Or there may be factors caused more directly by our own choices, even when we’ve chosen well.  We are called to teach, but we worry about our own children in daycare.  We are driven to serve in foreign missions, yet we don’t see family often.  We know that we will become physicians, but the debt and long hours burden us.  We find ourselves – because we have chosen to own our vocations–confronted with inevitable conflicts between goods. It’s a familiar story.  Take Agamemnon, the Greek commander during the Trojan War.  After learning that his army has been struck with weakness and that the gods have demanded his daughter as a sacrifice, he faces the choice between sacrificing his own child, or failing in his calling and seeing his nation collapse.  Philosopher Martha Nussbaum summarizes the essential problem:  "Whatever you do, you’re going to be neglecting something that’s really important . . . . Tragedy happens only when you are trying to live well . . . . When you are trying to live well, and you care deeply about the things you’re trying to do, the world enters in, in a particularly painful way."
 
Graduates, I hope that we’ve not given you any illusions about the ease of your futures.  I hope that you face tomorrow with confidence but without naiveté.   Staying true to vocation brings deep satisfaction but also significant hurdles and difficult choices.  Living well demands wisdom and determined courage to face those difficulties and to accept the losses.   And so, in the words of Tennyson, “tho’ much is taken, much abides,” and we go forth “strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Finally, Jesus encourages the disciples about the effect of their work.  People were healed, demons were destroyed, and good news was shared.  Because of their lived vocations, Kingdom came. They made a difference, they changed their world.  When people of faith embark on their callings with resolve, good things happen.  Grace is given, lives are enriched, societies move toward justice and peace.

Graduates, you now move on to make your differences and to do great things, and you will.  Some of you no doubt will become quite successful even in terms that the world recognizes.  You will join LCU alumni who are physicians, attorneys, and accountants, corporate CEOs and Fortune 500 managing partners, university presidents and Division I coaches, senior level government officials and global entrepreneurs.  We have every confidence in you; we have seen you grow in intellect and character, and we look forward to the ways you’ll become movers and shakers in your worlds, while bringing positive press and attention to your alma mater.

Most of you, however, will make a difference in less visible or publicly acclaimed ways.  The great things you will do, and the impacts you will have, may never make the headlines and likely won’t bring you financial wealth or worldly fame.  But as you go in quiet ways along the road with your callings, you will make the world a better place, and you will join a host of alumni who are changing our world.  People like Rachel, a Dallas school librarian with a passion of “being the change” for inner-city children.  Or Leslie, an army chaplain whose pastoral skills have helped to heal hearts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at Ft. Hood.   Or Roslyn, transitioning from professional ministry to the important vocation of motherhood.  Or Willie, a former LCU football player, whose service as a police commander in our nation’s capital saves broken, abused, and addicted youth from the streets.  Or Debbie, whose rural hospital night shifts often focus on gentle and caring sponge baths for elderly people.  Or Kathryn, smiling and loving the Chinese as a missionary in Beijing.  Or Paul, doing laboratory research in water quality and working to ensure human health and safety.  Or John, who brings hope and pride to East Lubbock youth through his music teaching.   Or Andy, a bank branch manager taking a lead in central Lubbock community development projects.   Not one of these alumni will likely ever receive wide public acclaim; not any will go into the history books as important.  Yet they go about their lives as called and determined Kingdom servants, as priests of the grace of God.

As will you, graduates.   Don’t ever allow anyone to challenge the value of your vocations.  “What matters” or “what is useful” are often not the actions that can be quantified by measurable costs and benefits.   What matters – what really matters – is whether you live with integrity your callings.  If you are faithful to your vocations, trusting in the God who has called you, you will be successful.  You will make a difference.  You will do great things.

In 1922 the young theologian Karl Barth published a modest commentary on the biblical book of Romans.  Barth’s focus was on the failure of modern, liberal theology, which had ripped away the mystery and miracle of the Christian story in the name of intellectual progress.  His  new orthodoxy became the center of all twentieth century theology, and Barth soon was being heralded as “one of the Fathers of the Church.”    But he knew better.  In that early book he had penned his own tribute to himself, quoting from Martin Luther.  Barth cautioned:

"If you think and are of the opinion that you really stand secure and please yourself with your own books, your teaching and your writings, that you have done very splendidly and have preached magnificently, and if it then pleases you to be praised before others . . . if you are man enough, put your hands to your ears, and if you do so rightly, you will find a lovely pair of big, long, rough donkey’s ears.  Do not spare the cost of decorating them with golden bells so that you can be heard wherever you go and the people can point to you and say:  ‘Behold, behold!  There goes that splendid creature that writes such wonderful books and preaches such wonderful sermons.’"

Forty years later, he offered a final reflection on his long and distinguished career:

"Let me again remind you of the donkey. . . .A real donkey is mentioned in the Bible.  It was permitted to carry Jesus into Jerusalem.  If I have done anything in this life of mine, I have done it as a relative of the donkey that went its way carrying an important burden.  The disciples had said to its owner:  ‘The Lord has need of it.’  And so it seems to have pleased God to have used me at this time, just as I was. . . . I just happened to be on the spot.  A theology somewhat different from the current theology was apparently needed in our time, and I was permitted to be the donkey that carried this better theology for part of the way, or tried to carry it as best I could."

Graduates, lifestyles and careers somewhat different from the current norm in our world are needed in our time, lifestyles and careers that embody vocation, accepting with humility and courage the ways that God will work through us to bring a better world.  As Jesus himself modeled, be those priests of grace that the world needs now.  Embody the peace of Christ.  Call forth the best in people.   Leave behind the only success that really matters.

Parents, well done.  Graduates, congratulations.

And, as radio show host Garrison Keillor would say, “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.”

Stacy L. Patty