Graduation Homily 2020

A Reading from the Prophet Isaiah.

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

because the Lord has anointed me;

he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,

to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and release to the prisoners;

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,

and the day of vengeance of our God;

to comfort all who mourn;

to provide for those who mourn in Zion—

to give them a garland instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness instead of mourning,

the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.

They will be called oaks of righteousness,

the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.

They shall build up the ancient ruins,

they shall raise up the former devastations;

they shall repair the ruined cities,

the devastations of many generations.

Good Morning. I bet you never thought you’d be graduating from high school in the middle of the apocalypse, but here we are . . .

Here we are, in the midst of a global pandemic that has already taken 650,000 lives, 150,000 of those in the US.

Here we are, in the midst of a summer that has seen massive protests for justice and peace, especially for the black lives that need to matter, for the black lives that are unjustly and violently taken on an alarmingly regular basis in our country.

Here we are, watching baseball and soccer teams play to empty stadiums with fan noise piped in over the loudspeakers, watching unemployment rise to alarming levels, watching colleges and universities scramble for workable solutions to extraordinarily difficult logistical challenges, watching each other, often, in little boxes on screens, or in person behind masks.

Here we are, in a year that has not only defied expectation, but has made a mockery of the word “unprecedented.”

I bet you never thought you’d be graduating from high school in the middle of the apocalypse.

Now, let’s be very clear about something: when I use the word “apocalypse,” I use it in a very specific sense, in a sense that is faithful to the Greek word that the biblical writers used. That word does not mean “the end of days,” but rather an unveiling, an unmasking, an epiphany, a manifestation of things previously hidden.

There have been, in other words, many apocalypses before--many periods of human history in which things previously hidden have been revealed. Humans have lived through times of plenty and times of scarcity; they have lived through wars, through tragedy, through pandemics.

We are in the midst of the American apocalypse. Much that was hidden about our country has been revealed. The financial precariousness of so many Americans. The thin structures of politeness and civility that have masked the foundational racism of American society. The desperate need for a better healthcare system. We’ve even learned more than we ever wanted to know about grocery store supply chains. We’ve learned so much in the past few months about things that were hidden and that now are revealed.

It is a difficult time in our nation’s history. It is a difficult time in history, period--and it also happens to be the time that you are graduating from high school and heading into a future that seems as uncertain as any in recent memory.

I know what you’re thinking. Bleak, Dr. Armond. I thought you were a priest now--I thought you’d have something a little more inspiring, a little more uplifting.

I do--but hold on a minute. Stay with me. One of the reasons I am drawn to the Bible, again and again, and to the faith that builds upon it, is that it refuses easy answers. It refuses to sugarcoat reality. In fact, it seems to suggest that times like the ones we find ourselves in at present are pretty much the norm for human nature.

And so the message of Scripture boils down to this: Yes, things are bleak. Yes, things are difficult. And yet, there exists a hope so profound, so deep, so transformative, that we would not even dare to imagine it for ourselves, a hope that, with or without our cooperation, God is in the process of bringing forth life out of death, hope out of despair, light out of darkness, joy out of loss and defeat. And so you’d better get on board, or get out of the way, because God is on the move, especially in these apocalyptic times.

What the Scriptures teach is not that difficult times should be avoided or eluded or ignored. They never promise to eliminate the challenges that circumstances beyond our control present to us. In fact, the Psalms encourage a direct and frank approach to God. We are encouraged by them to pour out our hearts to God, to present to God our anger, our frustration, our fear, our confusion.

In short, lament and hope is the pattern established in Scripture for the living out of the life of faith, and I think that this is a pattern that will enable you to bear the weight of whatever the next several years hold for you.

Lament means being honest with God and with yourself about your feelings. It means letting go of things that are beyond your control. It is hard to do so, I will fully admit. Nevertheless, you have had a lot of practice with letting go in the past few months, and doubtless you will have further practice in the months to come. Lamentation, or naming our losses to ourselves and to God, helps us be honest about our grief; it helps keep us from minimizing our pain; and it helps us from denying the difficult realities we face, from going on as everything were normal, when it is, of course, most definitely not normal.

The passage of Scripture I have chosen for today speaks to these realities. The book of the Prophet Isaiah recounts a terrible time in the history of God’s people, when the Israelites suffered the destruction of their most sacred place, the Temple, and were exiled hundreds of miles from their homes to the land of Babylon. The prophet offers lament and hope; naming the losses, grieving over the uncertain and precarious situation God’s people found themselves in.

But then Isaiah turns to hope, to good news, to the idea that God always builds something new out of the chaos and ruin of our lives. This passage is the same passage that Jesus decides to read in one of his first public acts recorded in the Gospels. The entirety of the Christian story is deeply, essentially hopeful. To those who are oppressed, those who are brokenhearted, those who are in captivity and imprisoned, those who are mourning: there is Good News. And yet Good News does not eliminate the bad news. It does not eliminate the pain of loss: but it transforms it, which is even better.

What will be brought out of this time of testing and trial? How will each of you respond to the challenges of the upcoming years? What possibilities exist for the transformation of your lives, the lives of those you influence, and the grieving and hurting people around you? How will you get on board?

My prayer for each of you is that you will be part of “building up the ruins,” of “raising up the former devastations,” as Isaiah puts it. That, as we sit under these majestic oak trees, you would consider becoming “oaks of righteousness.” God knows that we need justice and righteousness right about now. With an uncertain future before you, it is the best possible investment you could make for the sake of this world, and one that the privileges you’ve been afforded up to this point demands of you. How will you get on board?

Hope is not merely a feeling, and it is not merely wishing that all the bad things would go away. Hope is achieved through living through these times and committing to the continual, ongoing renewal of the world toward the long arc of God’s justice. Though it may certainly not seem the case right now, your graduation in this year, 2020, the year of the apocalypse, of the unveiling, may prove to be an incredible blessing, a blessing of hope, a blessing beyond what you could possibly imagine. How will you get on board?

I’ll close my sermon today with some words from Bishop Steven Charleston, a former Bishop in the Episcopal Church and an elder of the Choctaw Nation. He says this:

I do not pretend to know why you and I were chosen to live during these days of pandemic and national struggle. Is it by accident or on purpose? Is there some lesson we are to learn or some example that we are to embody? I am not sure. All I know is that we are here and here we will stay until the virus retreats and the community recovers. In this way we will be witnesses to a vast time of change.

We will be part of that change. The choices we make now, the way that we conduct ourselves, the paths we decide to follow: they will all be remembered. They will determine the future, perhaps for generations to come. Therefore, as long as we are in this great shift of reality let us make our mark together. Let us lean toward the just, the compassionate and the sacred. Let us walk in dignity with hope for a better world. We may not understand all the reasons why, but let us be the best we can be for those who will come after us, those who will see our lives in the memories we are making. The memories we call human history.

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.