An Open Letter to Graduates

Dear Graduates:

Congratulations!  What you have accomplished is reason to celebrate.  For the past 13 years you have participated in co-curricular activities, developed and deepened friendships, given much joy (and at times frustration) to your parents, and completed your school work (sometimes better than others, and some have worked harder than others).  You have fulfilled the requirements set forth by the school district of which you are now a graduate.  Congratulations!

For some of you a high school graduation will mark the completion of your formal education.  You will still be taught but just not in a formal academic setting.  You will be going on to the armed services of our country; taking more of a role in a family business; or perhaps straight into the work force.  Others will move on to more schooling.  For all, life will change.  People you have not met yet will become good friends.  You will lose touch with other people that you have known for most of your life. 

You will receive cards, and gifts, and lots of hugs.  One question you will be asked repeatedly is:  “What’s next for you?  What are going to do with your life?”  You might respond with summer plans or plans for next year.  I invite you to think about that question a bit deeper though. 

In 1992 Mary Oliver wrote a poem entitled “The Summer Day” which concludes with the phrase:  Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?  

Tony Deifell, an activist, a Harvard MBA, a photographer, a consultant, a teacher, and a leader of a non-profit organization uses that sentence as an introduction to a web-site he created (http://www.hbs.edu/PortraitProject/2002/DeifellTony.html).  In 1998 he fielded a variation of that question that he could not answer.  A child, who Tony had never met, called and insistently asked him:  “Why do you do what you do?”  

To this question, and to his own shock, Tony had no ready response.  That question got him thinking about his life and his purpose. So he’s invited other people to consider this question and to post their answers and their photos on a web-site. 

You probably have some ideas at this point as to what you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.  You might not be able to put it into a succinct phrase.  Or perhaps you can.  Don’t be surprised if what you plan to do now with your wild and precious life is different in a few years.  How I view my life now is very different than how I thought of my life when I graduated from high school several years ago. 

So graduates, let me offer this word to you as well:  I have found that my deepest joys in life have come as I have looked outside of myself to the needs of people around me.  God has put each one of you on this earth to make a profound difference in the world.  You are here, you are fearfully and wonderfully made; you are worthy of love and respect; God is at work in your life to change the world. 

What will you do?  How will you use your unique gifts to change the world.  How will you live so that your life is a blessing to others? 

Dear graduates, God’s blessings to you on this journey called life. Congratulations on what you have already accomplished.  Go with God.  

Dashed Hopes to Burning Hearts

“Our chief priests and our leaders handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him. ²¹ We had hoped he was the one who would redeem Israel.”  Luke 24.20-21

We had hoped that he was the one who would redeem Israel.  These are a few of the saddest words in all of Scripture.  I don’t think there is a person alive who has not had their hopes dashed at one time or another.  Their hopes were that Jesus would redeem Israel. 

Our hopes might look a bit different.  

• “We had hoped that the tumor had shrunk.”  
• “We had hoped that our child would recover.”  
• “We had hoped that our marriage would last.”  
• “We had hoped to have a child.”  
• “I had hoped to get that job.” 

Few things are more painful than dashed hopes. 

If you take the time to read the story that surrounds these verses (Luke 24.13-35), you will see what Jesus does when hopes are dashed.  He comes along these two followers of Jesus, and asks them to name their loss. 

Naming our dashed hopes, naming our loss, naming our grief, is the first step in bringing healing.  That does not mean that we name them and forget about them or name them and move on.  It is a way of acknowledging what it is that we have lost.  Naming the dashed hope is a way of rising beyond it so that it is no longer what defines us. 

In the Harry Potter series the people refer to the primary antagonist as “He-who-must-not-be-named.”  As a result the people live in fear of him.  Harry does not seem to know any better and calls him what he is: “Voldemort” (which comes from the French word “mort” meaning death).   By naming Voldemort, the power Voldemort holds over the people is reduced.  When we name the power that has dashed our hopes, the power is lessened.  It does not happen right away.  But it is the first step. 

What are your dashed hopes?  What do you grieve.  When we name our grief, our pain, our disappointment, and our fear – in the midst of a caring community and with the assurance of grace, we find these things have less of a hold on us.  The result is that God can come alongside and surprise with God’s love and presence.  Like the two followers in the story from Luke, we may even move from dashed hopes to burning hearts.  We might be surprised by joy. 

It does not always (or even usually) happen quickly.  The road from dashed hopes to burning hearts might be a 5K, or perhaps a marathon, that we struggle to finish.  That’s okay.  Jesus will walk or run that distance with us.  And so will those who love us.  

The Resurrection Business

I write these words on the Friday we as Christians call Good.  I write at the end of a week that has been anything but good.  Four funerals in five days.  A 90 year old woman.  A 53 year old man.  An 85 year old woman.  A 19 year old.  Funerals are never easy for me.  I think that is probably the case for most of us.  It is really, really hard when someone we know and someone we love dies.  It is made even more difficult when death come suddenly with little to no time to prepare. 

I wonder if that’s how it was for those followers of Jesus as well.  It all happened so very quickly.  The entry into Jerusalem with the crowds of people gathered about singing their praises to Jesus turned suddenly into a solemn and what must have been an awful situation with Jesus’ arrest in the Garden, his rushed trial, and then his death the next day.  How do you move forward when life changes so abruptly?

We know how the story turns out.  None of us are surprised to worship on Easter and find out that Jesus is risen; the tomb is empty.  The risen Jesus is a reminder that every one of us needs.  The empty tomb changes everything!

God is in the business of bringing life from death.  It’s not just the physical death at the end of our lives in which the resurrection matters.  We all die hundreds of little deaths before we take our last breath.  And each time we die, God is at work to raise us up as something new.  The apostle Paul says that in Christ we become a new creation; the old passes away (2 Corinthians 5.17, if you care to look it up). 

When I was a child, I had dreams of playing football, or at least of coaching football.  My family had dreams of my being in the medical field.  Then this happened and that happened and along the way God tapped me on the shoulder and called me to be a pastor.  And then this happened: that little boy died.  He died.  God raised him up again as a new creation where I was a student at a college in Decorah, Iowa.

I went to college with the hopes of making my parents proud.  I was going to be a doctor or perhaps a veterinarian.  God again tapped me on the shoulder and called me to be a pastor.  A few years later the college student died, and God raised him up as a seminary student in St. Paul, MN. 

About five years later the seminary student died, and I was raised up again as an associate pastor of a church in Westby, Wisconsin.  The old passed away. 

Along the way the solitary young man died and was raised up first as a husband and then as a father.  The Wisconsin pastor died whom God raised up as a pastor in Caledonia. 

At some day in the future, I’m hoping it is the distant future, I will die again what this world calls a physical death, and then, sure enough, God will raise me up yet again to the life God has had in store for me all along. 

God is in the resurrection business.  God brings new life from death.  God brings new life from our physical deaths and from the thousands of deaths we all experience as we live this life. 

Easter changes everything.  It does not take away the grief we feel and we experience anytime someone close to us dies.  It does not change the grief we experience when some part of us dies and God brings something new.  It’s hard.  It’s painful. It does not mean that we need to be happy.  It is, however, a promise that we hold to and that I invite you to embrace this day.  God is always at work to bring life to you and to me. 

May God’s promise of resurrection life be yours today and every day.  

A Tidy Proposition

I was visiting a nursing home in a neighboring community the other day.  I parked my car, and as I started to get out of the car I noticed a magnet on door of the car beside me.  The magnet read:  If you died tonight would you be in heaven or hell?

The magnet reminded me of an encounter I had with an individual at Riverside Park in La Crosse.  The man carried a sign that read:  Repent.  Turn or Burn.  The implication from the sign was that if I (or anyone else for that matter) did not turn from my current life to a new and different life, I would burn for eternity in the flames of hell.  

The man carrying that sign approached me me and asked:  If you were to die tonight do you know where you would go?  I bit my tongue and did not say what first came to my mind - "to the funeral home"  but said "Yes.  I trust the promise of Jesus."

The man persisted and asked:  "How do you know?  When were you saved?"

"About 2000 years ago, on a cross outside of Jerusalem" I responded.  He pressed on:  "You know a lot of people talk the talk but do not walk the walk.  Jesus warns us that all sorts of people say Lord, Lord but end up in the fires of hell."

I let him talk a bit.  He told me how his life has changed from being a person of the bottle to a person of faith.  He then handed me a card and told me I needed to pray the prayer that was on the card in order to be a true believer.  I thanked him for his witness and wished him God's blessings in 2017.

As I've thought about that encounter and the magnet on that car, I think it is quite the tidy proposition. We say the right words in the right way and it makes all things right.  We are in the club.  We are on the bus to heaven.

My life has taught me that there is much more to following Jesus than saying the right words.  There is the nitty, gritty, dirty business of living life with eyes wide open and ears to hear the cries of the hungry needing to be fed; of kids growing up with parents more concerned for their own pleasure than their children's well-being; of standing with those who are oppressed; of speaking for the vulnerable; of showing hospitality for the stranger. 

Loving God and loving neighbor.  That is what the Christian life is about.  It's not easy.  It's not always safe or socially acceptable.  Choices need to be made.  Boundaries need to be crossed.  Jesus was born into this real world.  And his message of love is still our only real hope.