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Keep On Keepin' On
As we age, the weight of our accomplishments begins to slow our progress, and hasten our inertia. We have means, capital, families of our own. We begin to lose sight of our past because we've journeyed far.
- On graduation Sunday, we take a moment to celebrate our graduates.
- Let's take a moment to reflect on what it means
- We take a moment here to celebrate - you've each reached a mountaintop moment, and we want to be there with you, many of us having made the climb, too.
- Part of it is to bear witness to your past - each graduate today has done work, made the effort, and we recognize everything that went into where you are at this moment.
- Sacrifices
- Remembering all the people who helped you too - family, friends, teachers, professors. None of arrive this place alone, and so we remember the community that got you here as well.
- And we offer you, even if it's not large, something to mark the occasion. Here is our proverbial plaque in the ground to mark that you've been here.
- And, for anyone who has been in your shoes, it's really tempting to just stay here in this moment.
- We want to look at our past and revel in it. Look at what we've done and where we've been!
- We may also enjoy the rest here. Of course, many of you have worked hard. Any graduate has the story of their effort, their struggle. They've arrived at this moment at some cost.
- But, it seems that the long we may linger here, the less that what we honor what we bear witness to.
- But let's say you all decided collectively that after today, you're just done. You've looked around, and you're going to just stay pat. You've accomplished it all.
- There's practical concerns, of course - you gotta get a job, maybe. You're applying to colleges, graduate schools.
- And as much as I wish that just getting the degrees or the letters in front of behind your name are enough - the awards and accolades were enough, they just will not be what sustains us.
- But, perhaps more than anything, if you were to just stop here, it doesn't truly honor the work you've done. The work you've done wasn't meant to provide inertia, but instead momentum.
- So, you take this mountaintop moment, rest awhile, look back, and start moving again.
- Which can evoke all sorts of feelings. I miss my graduate school days where I listened to smart people talk about interesting subjects, and the extent of my work was studying interesting things and writing about them, and then going to the gym or spending time with like-minded friends talking about interesting subjects.
- So there's nostalgia, there's anxiety, fear, excitement, elation if say things weren't good for you and you're just glad to be done. All of that is part of moving forward.
- The best way forward, it's always seemed to me, is to make all of those feelings companions on the journey, helping us attune our new-found skills towards an unknown future.
- Today's texts also bring us to a moment like this one today for the disciples.
- In Acts, we are with the disciples as they witness the Ascension of Jesus - completing Jesus' earthly ministry.
- And Jesus gives a bit of cryptic response about his return - it's God's decision.
- But, with that uncertainty is a promise - you will have the skills and tools you need to continue to bear witness to everything that's happened.
- And hey - this was already a promise Jesus had given the disciples before as they were anticipating Jesus' journey to Jerusalem that we hear in John: they had done the work, and now Jesus is praying that they be glorified as well.
- So they take a moment, and they stare upwards. They're on a mountaintop. Here's their graduation - they don't have an interesting person with them talking about interesting subjects. They're now going to be on their own.
- And, interestingly enough, as they're taking their time staring upwards, it seems that they're reminded that they have to keep moving. Jesus will come back. So why keep looking?
- It's interesting to think about how we end the passage in Acts then.
- They went back into an upper room, and they devoted themselves to prayer.
- I wonder what would have happened if that was the end of the story? That they way that the story of Jesus' ministry was just simply a group of people gathered together in prayer in a cloistered room.
- That would have been a comfort to those folks, I'm sure.
- But that is the equivalent of each of you graduates saying that once your diploma is in your hand, you've done it all.
- And sure, Jesus is still going to return - but where is the fulfillment of our lives in just waiting and not engaging in the future? How is sitting here in the present satisfaction of a job well done honoring what the disciples did? What Jesus had done?
- So, of course, this isn't the end of the story - they eventually get out of the upper room, and just beyond this story there are miracles at play, but they had to take the step into their future, in the present, equipped with the skills in their past.
- If there's any piece of advice I'd offer, then, it's that I'd encourage each of you never to lose that momentum.
- As we get older, the weight of our accomplishments begins to slow our progress, hasten our inertia. We have means, capital, families of our own. We begin to lose sight of our past because we've journeyed far.
- Even at this point of my life, High School seems more like a myth than reality, and every year that goes by my undergraduate career feels ever more hazy.
- That may lead us to an unfortunate space, then - that given all the alternatives, our best solution is to hole up in the upper room and pray, or just keep staring upwards, anticipating a return.
- I think it's how we can stop believing in a future of promise
- Or, even more painful for us, it allows us to the future that is promised but unknown just out of arm's reach - we grab for it, delighting ourselves in our supposed effort, and then recline back into the safety of our upper room.
- We stare upwards long enough and we blind ourselves to the next steps.
- And so this graduation Sunday should be a calling for each of us here, today.
- There is a future ahead. It is unknown, undetermined, but promised.
- Each of us bring the people that brought forth their future into our present. The saints from before brought us here today.
- And the choice before us is always if we honor our work and theirs in moving forward, or do we acquiesce into something more comforting, but ultimately less fulfilling.
- The answer to that question is one that can only be answered individually - I will never be able to persuade you. Nor will the saints, nor will the disciples, nor I truly believe will Jesus Christ. If there is free will to be had, it may be a free will of inertia.
- As it stands, the world will go on, Pentecost will happen, Jesus will return, and we run the risk of being bystanders blinded by the sun, having stared upwards for far too long.
- As a result, while it's an individual decision, it has communal consequence - after all, eventually we'll meet our future in the present. We will be the saints supporting the next climbers. Students do eventually become the teachers - the question will be what we will teach, or if we even show up to the classroom at all.
- Let's not ignore the fact that perhaps our own church is in a graduation moment, too.
- For years, we've been working towards a direction. We've studied, learned, struggled, celebrated. And for a time, we've been able to sit at a mountaintop and look around.
- And, right before us is the next step in our journey - we're ready to graduate from our past, carrying it with us into a new future.
- We have to all decide if we're willing to move into the unknown, or stay within what we know.
- It might be more comfortable, sure, but it's terribly unfulfilling, and ultimately might not honor the saints of the past.
- So let's all, graduates past, present and future, commit to the path ahead.
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