There was a gathering last Saturday evening to bid farewell to a loved and respected teacher and leader of Elmhurst College. Bryant Cureton completes 14 years with the College this month, and the new President, Allan Ray begins July 1. And then again at a specifically clergy gathering on Thursday we had a chance to meet with Bryant once more, and to hear him speak, and to remember some of the hallmarks of his leadership. I hope that many of you had the opportunity at one time or another to hear him speak. He always had a meaningful message.
Listening carefully to him one could detect a repeated refrain. Of course there were the statistics: a larger student body, higher test scores of entering students, growth gift to college and endowment, the high ranking in US News and World Report, and deeper relationships between the College and the community - an example of that: the jazz band concert last night. But there was another aspect too, and it had to do with vocation - the calling of each individual to a life of service and the connection of the meaning of life with such service.
Bryant led the institution in ways that linked this aspect of fullness of life with a liberal arts education. His vision went beyond rote learning and test scores. It had to do with wholeness and commitment. So in these last months he would frequently challenge us to think about four aspects of liberal education: to think deeply, to connect broadly, to serve usefully, and to live faithfully. When a crew of students went out to work at a Habitat work site, he challenged them with these words that stuck with a student, "Remember: you are not here for you, you are her for people."
It's been encouraging to see Elmhurst grow with this kind of emphasis, to affirm that building character is part of education, not just an extra curricular option. All this at the same time the University of Phoenix and other institutions went another direction - a kind of production-line approach. Elmhurst cut against the grain and made its path.
For society as a whole was defining freedom as the freedom from...freedom from worry and care and concern, freedom from obligations and commitment. So how we've needed to reclaim a different definition: freedom for commitment and calling and a dedication to values and ideals. In fact, it seems to me that we need totally different words. "Freedom from" is so very different than "freedom for," they operate on such different plains that its confusing to even think of them in the same category, to use the same word.
Cutting against the grain sometimes is one's calling. While you can develop the head, if you don't develop the heart too, people get lop-sided. They're top-heavy. They're out of balance. People need to grow their hearts along with their heads, to be whole, to be able to make clear decisions, to see a larger good, to look beyond simply what's pragmatic.
Now don't misunderstand me. What I mean by "heart" is not just some sentimental affections. Sure, to heart does mean the ability to feel some tenderness. But it's not just that. Having heart cuts both ways. It involves tenderness toward those who suffer, but also strength to stand up to those who cause suffering. It means working for openness and inclusion and community, but it also means the ability to oppose prejudice and hate and a spirit of divisiveness.
People used to wonder about how the God of the OT and NT could be the same God. The God of the OT seemed angry and violent while the God of the NT seemed full of love and grace. Well, both are a characterization. And it could be they are two sides of the same coin: a God who loves justice and who hates oppression.
So Jeremiah stood alone. And this passage speaks about his struggle. On the surface it seems like the cry of a paranoid, maladjusted psychotic. "I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. For whenever I speak, I must cry out, I just shout, 'Violence and destruction!' ...For I hear many whispering: 'Terror is all around! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!' All my close friends are watching for me to stumble..." You can just see Freud leaning back in his chair and stroking his beard, "Do you feel this way often?"
But the point is this: if the world is crazy then people of character will stand outside the world's norms. And sometimes it may just be crazy to be like everyone else.
During my ministry I've had the blessing of knowing some individuals who have struggled with their addictions, including the addiction to alcohol. They are people we all should know...and do know perhaps casually. But if you have the chance, listen to their stories.
One told me he had been sober for 15 years, and yet every single time he watches a sports event and a beer commercial comes on he has to deal with the waves of urges to give in. With another, I was able to celebrate with him 25 years of sobriety. And quietly, on Monday nights, here at Bethel Church the group gathers to support each other in resisting their own destructive drives. They have to stand outside the larger culture because typically the larger culture has no patience at all for their weakness. So they must develop a strength of character. They must seize the freedom to set their boundaries, to make a commitment to wholeness, to find their way.
But that story of addiction is just one of the many of the paths that faith-stories can take. And I sometimes think in the Church we're sitting on a gold mine of personal faith experience and we haven't even begun to know each other. So our sense of community is more superficial than it might be. Now I think Bethel is further along than some. But even we haven't scratched the surface. And the pull still tends toward conformity and practicality rather than honoring and supporting the many ways that God is still speaking, the true rainbow of variety that enriches everyone who comes in contact with it.
A priest turned corporate consultant says, "The first step is this: Reunite people with their histories. Help them rejoice in their ethnic origins. Let them tell you what their [teachers were] trying to teach them about being a person. Encourage reflection on the kind of people their parents and grandparents were.... Ask for stories about the manager who taught them the most. Let them know that it is legitimate in this organization to be an individual. Character is waiting to emerge. The reason it does not is that we have not allowed one another our histories... We have told one another that there is an instant corporate character that will be handed out along with ID cards..." (Small Decencies by John Cowan, p. 93)
In this, I'm afraid that sometimes the influence has gone the wrong direction: that businesses instead of becoming more like churches in honoring character it is our churches that have been influenced by business and sought to mold everyone into a common corporate culture.
Jeremiah was a character...not a bullfrog. But he was a characters who stood on his own. He would nothing to do with it.
And if we should dare to share with each other all that we truly
are, maybe we would realize what gifts we have to share, and how
deep our faith can grow.
Let us pray,
The journey we are on is full of challenges and pitfalls. How difficult it is to find our way alone. We need you, O God. And we need each other to truly be ourselves, to truly fulfill our calling. Come, Lord Jesus. Show us the way. Amen.