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Presented by the Rev. Dr. Glenn H. Asquith, Jr.
Professor of Pastoral Theology
Exodus 3:1-12
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-12
“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.” Hebrews 11:8 NRSV
I am so grateful to have been called to speak to you on this day of your graduation, because I feel that we are truly on a parallel journey today. After 31 years of staying behind while students graduate and leave, I indeed feel like I, too am graduating! Like you, this is the first day of the rest of my life, as together we move out of the familiarity of the seminary and into the unseen call of our mission. Like Abraham, we are setting out “not knowing where we are going.” We are about to write a new chapter in our faith narrative or, as Moravians call it, our “lebenslauf”—our “life path” in German.
The intended meaning of the word “lebenslauf” is that the path is like a stream of water flowing down a mountain. That stream never gets to flow in a straight, uninterrupted line. It has to go around barriers that it encounters—rock formations, trees, or berms. It might also occasionally go into a free fall off of a cliff, only to land at the next level and keep flowing. God knows that our life is like that. We know that we’re going in a general direction, but we always have barriers and events that effect that direction—family strife, illnesses, economic setbacks, losses—none of which we could plan for or predict. We also have good things that send us on our way—the rushing chutes and the smooth terrain that allow us to see our goal and move toward it with purpose. All of it is called LIFE—the lebenslauf—and God is present in all of it. During the barriers of the tough times, it is very hard to see God’s presence. That’s why we have pastors, pastoral counselors, spiritual directors, and teachers—like yourselves—to become guides in the midst of the rough terrain. You might say, “How can I be a guide in the midst of someone else’s rough terrain? The main reason is that you have been through similar rough terrain yourself and, like Moses and Abraham, you have assurances of God’s presence in that terrain, so that you can continue to journey, not quite knowing where you are going, but nevertheless knowing for certain that you are on Holy Ground.
Our own lebenslauf, our own faith narrative that empowers us to be a spiritual guide, has a past, a present, and a future—a spectrum of time—in which we have known God’s presence, are currently experiencing God’s presence, and, on that basis, have hope for God’s presence in the future as we move into “things unseen.” Like Abraham, some of us are older, but also like Abraham and Sarah, we are clearly not too old to be used by God in God’s mission. Our assurance—that which allows us to set forth, not knowing where we are going—is because we have a past, a present, and a future in which God has been, is, and will be present.
I. History
As all of you have done in at least one or two of my classes, let’s take a moment to think back on our personal history—what God has done in your life—or, as I like to put it, what brought you HERE, to this place on May 16, 2009?
I always loved the questions about “So, how did a Baptist end up at a Moravian Seminary?” When I first started at Moravian in 1978, there were some older Moravian pastors who were asking that very question—not in a particularly affirming way. People ask that of us all of the time, and they will continue to ask it. They asked it of Jesus. Who ARE you, and who gave you this authority to do these things? People will challenge us, and if we’re unsure about ourselves, we’re tempted to just curl up and say, “You’re right, I don’t belong here.” But those are the times to remember our history. When we remember our history, then we can say, “Oh, that’s right—GOD brought me here!” It was a God moment. There are indeed days that I have no clue why—but God brought me here.
The epistle to the Hebrews was written to people who were starting to doubt their faith, their history, and the presence of God in their life. So the writer inspires them with the faith narratives of people from their own cloud of witnesses—those who have gone before them in the faith—whose lives give clear evidence to God’s work in the world. When we are tempted to give up and abandon our journey, the faith narratives of those who have been our guarantors in life—who have shown us the way—are there to remind us of who we are and who God is for us. They are part of our own faith history, and we have to remember that history in order to live into the present and the future to which God is calling us.
As we know, the early Moravians read Lebenslaufe—the faith journey of others—in order to help the hearers grow in their own faith journey, just as Abraham’s story was evoked in the Epistle to the Hebrews. So it is in that spirit that I share with you some things from my own lebenslauf. I remember a day in my own history, over 31 years ago, as if it was yesterday. It was early in February of 1978. I had already signed a contract to come and teach at Moravian and I was still living in Birmingham, Michigan where I was serving as a pastor. I had come to the Moravian campus for day-long, intensive meetings with Dean Bill Matz and Dr. Earl Shay, who was to be my colleague in Pastoral Theology. The seminary was launching a major new initiative in its curriculum, with a new definition of Pastoral Theology that involved two full-time appointments in the department for the first time in its history. Now that this was a reality, the three of us were trying to sort out how we were going to divide up the work. Those of you who remember Earl Shay, God love him, know that he could be a bit opinionated. So we had some moments of real contention about who was going to do what and who was going to take responsibility for what. By lunchtime on that day in February, the clarity about the division of labor was very muddy—we were seeing through a glass very darkly, and I was becoming more and more anxious about what I was getting myself into. I was asking myself some serious questions and I honestly believed that I had just made the biggest mistake in my life.
So at lunchtime, I asked for some “introvert” time—I was in serious need of it. From the HUB I walked out onto the college campus and encountered the absolute thickest fog I had ever seen during daytime hours. Talk about a metaphor! Having grown up on the New England coast, I KNEW what fog was, but this was a very exceptional fog. I could not see the library from the HUB—it was Brigadoon! And so I stand in the fog, slowly inching my way forward so as not to bump into something, and I am calling out to God (in my own introvert way), saying “God, what have you done? What have I done? Did I hear you wrong? Did I just blow it and follow MY will instead of yours?
The answer came in the still, small voice. It wasn’t a Charlton Heston moment or even a Mel Gibson moment. It was just a simple nudging that said, “Go back in and keep talking.” Period. That’s all you get. “Go back in and keep talking.” So I went back in. And, thanks be to God, who that day was a voice from the fog, I saw my future colleagues in a new light. I saw them as children of God who are partners in a mission to which God has called all three of us. With that perspective, at 32 years of age, what was at stake for ME mattered a bit less. Yes, I was taking a cut in pay and uprooting my young family to move 600 miles to PA Dutch country, the land of fog and schnitz und knepf, to the small seminary of a small but very historic Protestant denomination. I was a stranger in a strange land. But none of that mattered any more. Like Abraham, I was given the assurance of things not seen, and, like Moses, I turned aside and discerned Holy Ground.
II. Present
Which leads us to the present, which is about what God is doing today. Thank God that Moses turned aside to ponder a burning bush. Had he not done that, had he just said, ”Oy, it’s really dry up here--I’d better find some water to put this out,” the people of God would have missed a major revelation. Verse 4 of Exodus 3 says, “When the Lord saw that Moses had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush.” We have to turn aside from our own agenda, our own preoccupations, in order to hear God! Whether it’s a burning bush, or those blessings that fall like thousands of winged seeds from a maple tree that Thomas Merton talks about, it would be very easy for us to miss God in the present if we are too lost in ourselves and our own little plans. Remember the lebenslauf! That water is cascading down the mountain, but we don’t have full control of where it’s going. The Creator, our Creator, has created the terrain. We literally have to “go with the flow.”
One of the things that the great contemplative, Henri Nouwen, taught us is to always look for God in the interruptions of life. God in the interruptions! That requires being spontaneous, or, in Myers-Briggs language, allowing some “P” (in-the-moment) into the “J” (planned) focus of our lives. Being spontaneous became the mantra of my first 2 units of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), where my supervisor and peer group kept saying to me “Be spontaneous—live in the moment—you might find something there and actually enjoy it!” So, as an off-the-scale “J,” finding God in the interruptions because a major spiritual discipline for me. But now I thank God daily that I took on that discipline. When I received a call from a former student in Nicaragua to come and evaluate her work with the victims of civil war and their post-traumatic stress, I said “Yes” and was blessed myself beyond imagination. When I got invited to pick up and move to Atlanta, GA for 6 months to help get a massive, first-ever reference work in my field into production (that blessed Dictionary of Pastoral Care & Counseling that all of you have lugged around!), I said “yes” and, as a result, dozens of doors were opened into my own scholarship in the field. When I was invited to teach at a small denominational seminary that was not of my own religious tradition, I said “yes,” stayed 31 years, and was blessed beyond measure with opportunities to serve the Lord.
No wonder the burning bush became such a powerful symbol for me! Into ALL of our lives come things that we never expected. A bush that is burning, but not consumed. A kairos! A thing of wonder! God bids us to turn aside, to take off our shoes, and to recognize the Holy Ground of God’s presence in a place where we never, ever expected God. Sisters and Brothers, you already know about Holy Ground. You experienced Holy Ground when God called you into ministry. You experienced Holy Ground at seminary as you did the hard work of preparing for that ministry. Holy Ground now awaits as you leave seminary. It will show up in the most unexpected, the most apparently ungodly places—on street corners, in places of poverty, in the tears of loss, in the midst of a congregation struggling to be faithful to God. The burning bushes appear in the present all of the time. We need only to turn aside and see God in that wondrous and strange event.
III. Future
So what of the future? A few years ago, I had the opportunity, along with some others at Moravian seminary, to participate in a program at Northampton Community College that was organized by our own Marcia Theadford when she was employed there. We formed an interracial, interfaith chorus to sing great Gospel hymns of faith in order to honor the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As a result, having turned aside to that burning bush, I learned hymns from the black Gospel tradition that I had never sung before. My favorite became this one:
“I don’t feel no ways tired
I’ve come too far from where I started from.
Nobody told me that the road would be easy
And I don’t believe He brought me this far to leave me.”
“I don’t believe He brought me this far to leave me.” The message of Abraham and Moses’ faith narratives is that “God has brought us this far by faith” and prepared us for the future. The assurance of God’s presence in our past and present life makes it possible for us to “set out not knowing where we are going” and LIVE into the future. What gives us the spiritual authority to invite others into the future is not that we are ordained, not that we are educated or licensed to counsel, but that we have been called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light. Having been called out of darkness, we know it is possible for others to be called out of their darkness.
Sisters and brothers, where God has brought us now has prepared us for the future—for the next chapters of our faith narrative. We can trust that, because we can trust the God who brought us here. As so, we set forth, not knowing where we are going, but willing to turn aside and stand on Holy Ground. Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord.
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