LTS Conclusio 2024

 May 9, 2024 - Genesis 12:1-5a; Psalm 116; Ephesians 3:16-20; John 14:15-17, 25-27

(A sermon for LTS graduates)

So, are you ready to get going yet? Ready to hit that good road and leave seminary behind and head out into ministry? To proclaim the Gospel, to proclaim the message of the abundant life given to all through Christ?

I hope so. You are ready, after all, gifted with wisdom and knowledge from your time at LTS, and you know that Jesus, or Creator Sets Free, will walk alongside you as you go. No doubt your heart is warm with the excitement and joy that comes when we hear that call from God and finally start on our way.

It's understandable, though, if you also feel nervous, and maybe even some trepidation. After all, it is not a simple thing to transition from one call to the next, especially when, concretely, that transition might include physical relocation, and a community transition, and even moving from living in the identity of learner to occupying that space of graduate. The expectations of you will be different, from  others, from yourself, from the church.

And then add onto that the reality that the church you are about to minister to is not the church any of us remember from before. The church that existed in your childhood, even in the childhood of that generation we call Millennials, doesn’t exist anymore. You are being called to minister to a church that is, in Canada, rapidly shrinking, with those who remain struggling to carry on in some recognizable way. You are being called, in a way, into a kind of palliative ministry. You are being called to a Maundy Thursday kind of proclamation - that resurrection is coming, but death is at hand first. You are being called to proclaim the Gospel of the abundant life of Christ to a people for whom abundant life is taking forms so new as to be unrecognizable. While the Gospel you proclaim will be the same, the ways in which you must proclaim it will be new. And the reality is that while we have tried to prepare you for that, even we are not sure what form that proclamation will take in the coming years. You are leaving here to travel a road that is unmapped.  

Of course, you are called to proclaim the Gospel to the world, not just to the church. You are called to ministry, not to “church service.” That will also be challenging. The changes we see in the church are only mirrors of the changes already occurring in the world, and the destabilization that we are already experiencing in our communities and our countries is going to increase. As you leave here, you are being called to proclaim the Good News of Christ in a world that will see - is already seeing - massive suffering from climate change, from agricultural precarity, from emerging pandemics. Before you retire, you may very well be proclaiming the Gospel to a community that is in perpetual drought, or has been evacuated due to wildfire or flooding or both, or is experiencing civil unrest and even violence. You will be challenged to proclaim the Gospel in ways that are meaningful, and real, but do not deny the reality of suffering or give occasion for false hope.

But hey, get going!

In our reading from Genesis, God tells Abram to get going - lech l'cha - it's a phrase that translates as, Get outta here, according to my family's rabbi. I don’t need to review the story of Abram getting going - it’s a story of migration - many of you know the challenges of that. Excitement, joy, nervousness, trepidation. But if you have ever gone through a transition, you  also know that, above all, getting outta somewhere requires you to be courageous, especially when you don’t know what will meet you on the road. Abram needed not a small measure of courage to leave Ur, that's for certain. And Jesus, knowing that his road would pass through his death before it ended in resurrection, needed some as well. When God calls, you must lech l’cha with courage.

The word courage is related to the french word coeur - heart. To go out with courage is to go out with heart. We are called to go out with our bodies, and at seminary we learn to go out also with our minds, but we must not forget our hearts. And courage begins first in the heart. But when I say we go out with heart, what I mean is that we go out with love. To go out with courage is to go out with a heart of love.

Now I know that you have learned many things in seminary, but I really hope that one of the things you have learned is love. I hope that you have experienced God's love, for you and for the world. Because this love, when you allow it to fill your heart, will give you the courage you need to get going. This love that fills our hearts is the Spirit of God. It is the presence of Christ along the good road.

This doesn't mean the journey will be easy. I’m not offering the false comfort that courage means there will be no challenges, no dark nights of the soul. As Beyonce Knowles Carter says, “Now is the time to face the wind, now ain’t the time to pretend, now is the time to let love in.” To be courageous is to face the troubles that come, not to turn our backs on them and deny them, not to hide from them, but to face them and to do so with hearts full of love. Because the Good News we proclaim is the news of love, of the power of love, of the everlasting truth that the love we see in Christ, the love of God, is both the road and the destination of our collective journey.

So where do we get some of this courage? Well, I know that you know the answer - it comes from God, but let me remind you, "My prayer for you is that ... Creator will gift you with the Spirit's mighty power and strengthen you in your being. .. I pray that as you trust in the Chosen One, your roots will go deep into the soil of his great love, and that from these roots you will draw the strength and courage needed to walk this sacred path together with all his holy people. This path of love is higher than the stars, deeper than the great waters, wider than the sky. Yes, this love comes from and reaches to all directions. ... This love fills us with the Great Spirit, the one who fills all things."

God’s Great Spirit, who gives us our courage, is in the soil beneath us, in the skies above us, in the relations around us. The same Spirit filled Abram as he left Ur, and filled Jesus as he spoke to the disciples before he went to the cross. 

So in the months and years to come, as you find yourselves worrying about how to proclaim the Gospel to the people you are with, “do not let your hearts be troubled”, as the NRSV version of John says. "Do not let the troubles of this world fill you with fear and make your hearts fall to the ground." Do not be discouraged, do not let your heart be emptied of love. For the Spirit of God is with you.

I want to end by reading the last few verses of Chapter 14 from the Gospel of John, again from the First Nations Version. Creator Sets Free (Jesus) said to his disciples, "The dark ruler of this world is coming. His power over me is nothing, but I must walk the path the Father has for me, so the world will know the great love I have for him." "Get up," Creator Sets Free said to the disciples. "It is time for us to go from here."

It is time for you to go from here. Go knowing that the courage of Abram and the courage of Christ will fill your heart, through the Holy Spirit who fills us all. Thanks be to God, Amen.