Convocation

This year I was asked to speak at Convocation, that chapel to kick off the new semester where faculty march in their regalia and the new academic year is blessed. I was surprised and humbled to be asked. Here is my speech, in case anyone is interested:

On Being Transformed: Education Under the Influence
Convocation 2009

It is a particular honor to be here with you today. Many of you know that I am a five year rectal cancer survivor and that this summer I found myself battling cancer once again in the form of follicular lymphoma.

I appreciate so much the prayers and support of this community. I share with you some thoughts about things that have been tested and proven in life’s challenging moments. You will understand that since my strength is not what it should be, I will talk as I am seated.

We stand at the threshold of the 2009-2010 academic year, and join thousands of students and faculty all across America and around the world who are beginning a new semester, as we each ask ourselves the same burning question:

What am I doing here?

Seriously, think about it. You have already completed 12 to 16 years of schooling. Now you are embarking on another 1 to 4 years of classes, papers and reading. Why?

Perhaps you believe, as Aristotle did, that "The foundation of every state is the education of its youth."

Maybe you agree with Horace Mann, the father of American public school education, that "Education, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men,—the balance-wheel of the social machinery."

Or you may think that former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli spoke the truth when he said that "Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends."

People across the centuries have been convinced of the transforming role of education on society. Education will change you.

Maybe you are not here to be changed. Perhaps your parents made you come, maybe you want to be able to get a better-than-minimum-wage job, or you believe this to be the ideal place to find a spouse. Whatever the reason, here you are in academia, undergoing this amazing transformation.

Educational transformation is similar to what a caterpillar undergoes after spinning its cocoon. There it waits in a protected environment while mysterious changes take place. Somehow this worm-like creature, this caterpillar, is changed bit by bit until it emerges a totally different creature, a beautiful butterfly.

That’s something like what happens at college. Little by little, in a seemingly sheltered environment, almost imperceptibly, you will be changed by what you encounter during your academic pursuits.

Those of you who are freshmen and transfer students, who are at the beginning of your exciting (and maybe just a bit scary) journey at Roberts may not be able to see all the change that lies ahead. I assure you that marvelous things are in store!

Sophomores and juniors have the unique perspective of being in the middle of your time here. You can look back and see some of the changes that have already begun in your lives, and you can look ahead and perhaps glimpse even better changes to come.

Seniors and grad students will soon burst forth from this place transformed, ready to embark on life’s next steps. You look back over your time here, remembering what you were like when you arrived and seeing the some of the changes that have taken place.

Faculty and staff will tell you that there will be more opportunities for educational transformation ahead, for it is a lifelong process.

So the question I ask you today is not, “what are you doing here,” but

How will you be transformed this year?
How will YOU be CHANGED THIS year?

We are told that education is the process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life, developing the abilities of the mind.

That’s what academic institutions do. They fill your head full of facts and information, expose you to new ideas and disciplines, and work on developing your mind to prepare you for life.

One view of life that our culture puts forth is that of a board game. Education prepares you to enter the game of life by helping you select a playing piece as you select a career.

Picture it. Here you are at college getting your game piece, whether it’s a nurses’ uniform, a teacher’s apple, a social worker’s case book. You work hard, graduate, place your marker on the board, and voila! You are now in the game of life.

You roll the dice and move through your days dealing with whatever life throws at you, hoping to make it to GO and collect $200 before you end up owing your entire fortune to someone else. Life is unpredictable, and everyone plays with the same chances.

The difference, we are told, is that with enough education, you might collect $2000 instead of $200. Hopefully you will make better decisions, pick up fewer liabilities, have a better quality of life as you race around and around the board, hoping to end up with that illusive American dream.

Sound familiar? Of course, there’s nothing wrong with living life smarter. That’s an admirable but limited goal.

There are much greater possibilities, more desirable outcomes in life.

In Proverbs, God, Who is infinitely brilliant, commands us to get, not just an education, but wisdom.

Wisdom affects much more than your mind. It affects your whole being. From Genesis to Revelation the virtues of wisdom are extolled.

Wisdom is much more than merely acquiring facts and learning information although that’s important. But it’s only a small part of what God has in store for us.

Yes, we need to learn about and understand our world. We need to study history and literature, poetry and geometry and all those necessary subjects.

Wisdom doesn’t stop there!

To become truly wise takes more than book learning. There is a second leg of the life’s ladder that has to do with who you are deep inside, with teaching your heart, developing your character.

This is equally as important as head learning, and yet this aspect of our lives doesn’t always get the attention it deserves.

God wants to be part of our entire education, to teach us, to show us marvelous things, to move us beyond the ordinary into the divine, to transform us into the image of God.

God’s desire for our lives involves a paradigm vastly more productive than a board game. God’s motto isn’t “Be all that you can be,” but “Be infinitely more than you ever dreamed possible.”

Now there’s a goal worth going after this year!

How do we become more than we can dream of? How do we move from getting an education to acquiring wisdom? What might that look like?

Let’s take a look at a person who first received a great education according to the world’s standards, and then that education came under the influence of God.

Let’s consider Moses. He was born during the time that God’s people were slaves in Egypt. Moses’ parents were afraid he would be killed according to the Pharaoh’s command, so they hid him in a basket in the river, where he was found and adopted by a Princess of Egypt.

As a member of the royal household, Moses received the best education Egypt had to offer. He was part of the upper crust of society, the cream de la crème who received an Ivy League education, if you will.

Josephus speculated that Moses was a precocious learner who pursued military training. Philo outlined possible subjects Moses might have studied such as grammar, reading, literature, poetry, history, rhetoric, philosophy, arithmetic, geometry, rhythms, harmony, and music, not so different from the list of what we study today.

Of course, Moses did it all in hieroglyphics!

The point is, Moses’ position allowed him access to a well rounded, excellent, education. And what is the result of this stellar education?

First, his peacemaking endeavors ended up with his murdering an Egyptian, which he covered up; then, fearful of being found out, he fled for his life. He ended up in the middle of nowhere taking care of someone else’s sheep.

Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

Ah, but then. Then he had an encounter with God at the burning bush. He could have chosen to have turned away from that bush, to have refused to check out something so unreasonable, impossible and unscientific. But he didn’t.

He signed on for an education under the influence of God. God taught him things he could never have imagined during his formal education, far beyond just facts and information.

The result? Moses was transformed into a leader of a great nation who defeated the powerful Pharaoh without ever drawing a sword. He changed the lives of thousands of Hebrews. He is still a leading figure in the world’s major religions, remembered and honored centuries later.

Talk about exciting! Moses was transformed by God into a man of wisdom, into a world changer.

There are many examples of people whose lives have come under the influence of God, both from the Bible and from across the centuries into today. It would take hours to list them all. I’m sure as you think about it, you could easily name a dozen or more yourself.

But ask yourself this question:

Why shouldn’t I be one of them?

Can you even imagine what that was like for Moses? Think about yourself. What would it be like to have the Creator of the Universe teach you a subject like – physics, for example?

On the one hand is your physics text book, your faculty person, your TA, your assignments all working together to help you understand.

On the other hand is your brain going “I get it. I don’t quite get it, I think I see, no, not quite.”

Then you pray and ask God to help you understand, and the Holy Spirit begins to peel back the layers of darkness and confusion, showing you little pieces of the puzzle until it begins to come together, to make sense. And then – you get it! How incredible is that?

And there’s more! This process of transformational education under the influence of God applies to every area of your life. It isn’t limited to just subjects you are studying in class.

Suppose you are having trouble declaring a major or getting along with your room mate or communicating with your parents. Maybe someone close to you die unexpectedly – or even expectedly. Maybe you find yourself battling cancer – for the second time.

On the one hand, you have the question, information you have gathered, advice from your friends, advisors, pastor.

On the other hand, your brain is still confused, unsure, can’t quite figure it out.

You pray, “Lord, teach me.” And the Holy Spirit begins to work, to open your eyes, to show you new insights, and things come together until the answer is there before you, as clear and simple as can be.

You can’t figure out how you could have missed it!

Let me plant this idea. It’s just possible that, as you are open to God’s teaching, you will discover brand new insights, new discoveries, new inventions that the experts have not yet uncovered. We have barely scratched the surface of what can be accomplished.

What amazing resources are available to us as children of God!

You can’t get that kind of education just anywhere!

Psalm 1 paints a picture of what a life transformed under the influence of God can be like. If you hang around Sin Saloon, Dead End Road and Smart Mouth College, you will become like the ungodly – irritating chaff that blows about in the wilderness, accomplishing little.

But as you choose to chew on Scripture, to seek God’s teaching, you will be transformed into a nurturing tree, with deep roots, full of life, planted by a river of water that never dries out.

This tree provides shelter and sustenance for others and accomplishes what it was created to do. It is a joy and delight, beautiful for all to behold, reminiscent of the Garden of Eden.

What a wonderful picture of a life well lived! How different from the board game mentality – how much more potential to make an impact on our world!

How do we connect today? After all, there aren’t many burning bushes hanging about.

Those of us who were brought up in a church might think about beginning with what Psalm 1 advises. Immerse yourself in God’s Word. Have daily, day long conversations with God in prayer. That’s an excellent beginning, but there are many ways to connect.

Learn from people who are immersed in God’s Word, who are daily under the influence as are the faculty and staff here at Roberts. These amazing people pour out their lives here because God called them to help shape you into the image of God.

As part of this academic year, I would encourage you to participate in the spiritual formation events that are part of the program here at Roberts and Northeastern Seminary, such as the new Faith Integration Fridays – if you haven’t heard about that yet, you will.

Take advantage of the Cultural Life lectures, Academic Day in the spring, the campus readings like Amish Grace and the many conferences that the Spiritual Life Council plans especially to help you find your burning bush, your intersection with God.

Your burning bush education might take you to an inner city classroom in Rochester where children battle daily to overcome life’s inequities. What better place to learn compassion?

Imagine God showing you how to love the unlovely through distributing food at the Open Door Mission to people who have lost their way.

Maybe your path will lead to the Wilmot Cancer Center at Strong Memorial Hospital where patients are fighting for their lives and are desperate for a drink of cool refreshing water of God’s Word.

Perhaps on your journey you will find yourself in Romania, hugging an abandoned orphan child who has never known what it’s like to be loved, and suddenly realizing how much God loves you.

All of these activities are possible here. I mention only a few ways your education might come under the influence of a God who is so non-conformist that he can speak to you through every imaginable construct and activity.

Listen to Roberts Wesleyan College’s Vision 2020 statement:

“Transforming minds and hearts to shape and serve our world.”

Let me say that again. Catch the two legs of the ladder – minds and hearts.

“Transforming MINDS and HEARTS to SHAPE and SERVE our world.”

Roberts Wesleyan College and Northeastern Seminary are places where you can be intentionally transformed by acquiring an education under the influence of the most intelligent Being in the universe.

I challenge you to consider carefully what you will do with this year’s opportunities.

You can choose the path more traveled, scrape by with the bare minimum, get through the semester and on to real job of living. You can gripe about the requirements, escape the distasteful assignments, ignore the tasks God is specifically calling you to participate in this year.

Or you can choose the path less traveled but of immeasurable value. Take every advantage. Seek the divine among the ordinary. Wake up every morning in excited anticipation of God teaching you – both through the gifted and dedicated faculty in classrooms and beyond.

Don’t settle for merely filling your mind with information so you can get a good job and climb on the monopoly board. Listen to that small still voice within you, calling you to turn aside and take off your sandals because God desires to speak with you.

Learn to recognize your burning bush as God reveals it to you. Our paths are chosen of the Lord and sculpted especially for each of us. My path will not look the same as your path.

I cannot urge you strongly enough – choose the burning bush!

Let God transform you.

Become a tree of life.

Our world needs all the help it can get to overcome the violence, war, hunger, disease, and pain. The only answer to these problems is God.

This world desperately needs trees of life far more than it needs dice rollers.

Be willing to do what it takes this year to become a world changer.

When God is part of your education, your transformation will be phenomenal and radical. God promises this to us.

Jeremiah 33:3 says “Call to me and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.”

When God is part of your education, you will go places you never imagined and do things you couldn't have foreseen in a million years.

I urge you – make this year count.

Be transformed.

You will not be disappointed!

Almighty God, grant that this year we all might learn to be world changers.

Allow us to hear your voice clearly,

to see through your eyes,

to have your heart of understanding,

to be filled with your wisdom.

O God, transform us into the image of Christ that we may love and serve the world in the power of your might.

Amen.

Psalm 1 (The Message)
1How well God must like you— you don't hang out at Sin Saloon, you don't slink along Dead-End Road, you don't go to Smart-Mouth College.

2-3 Instead you thrill to God's Word, you chew on Scripture day and night. You're a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month, never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.

4-5 You're not at all like the wicked, who are mere windblown dust— Without defense in court, unfit company for innocent people.

6 God charts the road you take. The road they take is Skid Row.