HEART OF THE MATTER

Culver Academy Baccalaureate Service
Culver, Indiana

Sunday, Jime 9, 19974

Join M. Buchanan, Paster
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

There is a great moment in the classic motion picture, “The
Graduate,” when Benjamin, recently graduated from college, is
uncomfortably standing around - hanging out I think you might pat it - at
the party his parents have thrown to celebrate the great occasion. It has
turned into something of an adult cocktail party, and a man approaches the
graduate, drink in hand, and says, with that cryptic sense of someone with
inside information: "One word Benjamin, one word - plastics."

Well, i have one word. Jt ta averb, not anoun. The word is love
and I want actually to use it three ways - three Joves, actually.

Love God —- Leave Neighbor -— Leve Seif

There is something wonderfully unchanging aheut what we are doing
this morning. Come May and June, year-in year-ant, ane generation
gathers and tries to find appropriate words to say to the next generation:
as yet another younger generation fidgets, wiggles in pews, or folding
chairs and generally laments the length and sebriety of the whale exercise.
The older ones - the audience, as it were —- sit up and take notice.
Having had the anusual opportunity of sitting there as a participant and a
parent and standing here as a baccalaureate preacher, a number of times, wy
sense jis that the older ones are the ones paying the most attention.

In fact, T cannot recall a single word in the various baccalauroate
sermons directed toward me on several occasions. In fact, in the soft,
green blur which is my memory of several graduations, T cannot recall the
identity of a single baccalaureate or cammencement speaker - a sobering
fact, IT conclude. What — do recall is that my family was there, my
parents. And sa they are this morning, and they are listening intently.

They have a very great deal invested - of their hope, and leve and
eash, They are filled this weekend with pride, They will reach for
hankics a lot. The supporting cast for this drama, the faculty and
administration of the institution, are alsa proud and retieved. They hope
your bills are paid; they will follow you, be watching with attentiveness
as your lives unfold. They'll be very pleased if you remember their names.
And you, the acters in the drama ~- the principals for whom all this hoopla
is arranged — you're excited and I hope pleased, as prand as you normally
allow yourseives to be; maybe a little humble and aven grateful,
uncertain. frightened. And, I do recall, very distracted.

Tt's one af those occastons that looms a little “larger than )ife"
and a let larger than anyone's ability te speak meaningfully to it.
Garrison Keillor told a graduating class a few yoars ago that the one thing
they could always count on in this life was their parents' worrying, He
was tight, of course. They always have worried about you. They always
will. In fact, on graduation day parents worry whether their youngsters,
under their graduation robes, are pressed and tucked-in and have a clean
handkerchief in their pockets, aithough this institution certainly allays
some of those anxieties! In fact, maybe that's why they sent you

here — they would never again have to worry about whether your shirt was
tucked-in.

Beyond the minor parental worrying, we are concerned ahout how it
will be for you, from here on out. We're worried because we're not as
bueyant and hapeful about the future as we used to be.

We're worried because it is not an innocent, primal wilderness we're
sending you out to conquer, but in many ways a first class mess with a lot
of critical problems all coming to a head at once,

Sometimes, after we read the morning paper we say a little prayer of
gratitude that we are not you. We're handing you a lot of problams -
a country with the highest violent crime rate in the worid, highest drug
use, highest percentage of its own citizens in jail, highest infant
mortality rate among developed nations, a nation with major crises in
health care, education and the simple ability of its cities to function.

Sa that's why we still have baccalaureate, I think - to thank God
that you made it, that we are here on this glorious occasion, but also,
because we're worried and it's not unlike old Frederick Nietzsche, who used
to tip his hat whenever he walked by a church even though he had already
announced the death of Gad ~ just in case. Nothing lost, if he is dead,
But if God is not dead, tipping his hat seemed like a prudent gesture.

At Baccalaureate someone not directly involved in the academic
regimen you have completed is asked to come in and say a few things to put
alj of this in a larger centext - and the word I want to say is just this -
"have."

Lave God
Love your neighbor
Lover your self

They are not original with me. Jesus of Nazareth said them, brought
them together in the same sentence actually, because they are not original
with him either. Rather they are at least 500 years older than he. He
learned them as a child as he studied in synagogue.

One day a lawyer asked him a few tough questions, designed to cause
him to trip up. The first is about taxes, the second about divorce and

remarriage ~ twa topics about which we and the attorneys among us are still
fussing.

And then this:

hat 1s the great commandment of the law? What is the one thing you
have to know in order to live a good life - a life God wants von to live?

Everybady Knows the answer. Tt's in the Book of Deuteronomy. "You

shal] love God with all your heart, soul and mind." There was no other
answer.

But then, having told them what they already knew, he went one better
and ptiled something ont of an obscure corner of the Scripturs:

“And you shall love your neighbor as yourself."

They knew that one too. What they had probably never thought of is
the relationship between the two commandments ta lave. Separately they are
not unique. Love God. Love neighbor. Together they fundamentally alter
the religious landscape and the ethtieal and ultimately the political
landscape. And when you add one more, "as you love yourself" you have
forever attered religion.

Jasus puts the command to love neighbor on an equal footing with the
basic imperative to love Ged and snggests that the way to fulfil] the first

is hy doing the second. Wow, after all, do you go abont loving Ged?
Oreanized religion, of course, never has a shortage of suggestions:

— kill a spotless lamh or a bull
let the blood run down over the altar,
burn the dead animal:

abstain from evil, don't kill, steal
er cheat, obey the religious rnies;

- say prayers, sing hymns, ¢o to church,
perform the religious rituals;

- send your denation tonight so this
TV ministry can continue to do God's work
and you Will receive a blessing and an
8 x 10 giossy print of the open tamb.

Jesus forever altered the way we think about religion hy proposing
thal the abstract imperative ta lave Gad becomes concrete, specific,
tangible and doable in the person of the neighhor. Forget the sacrifices,
the bloody altars and burning flesh; forget the legalistic moralisms and
rigid bieties, Love your neighbor. Whe is your neighbor? He answered
that in a memorable story about a man set upon by robbers and left to die
until rescued by a Good Samaritan. Neighbor is the one who needs you.

Tt is our secret. The good news of God's unconditional love is
inseparable from the necessity of putting love to work in the trenches, as
it. were, in the human relationships which characterize alJ of ovr lives.
Lave God and lave neighbor as self.

Tt seams simple, but it's not. There are complications and the first
mone is the neighbor. Sometimes he appeals to us, teuches our hearts. But
sometimes she doesn't, Sometimes the neighhor is obnoxious. Sometimes
your neighbor is dirty, doesn't smej] very gaod, doesn't want your help, is
abusive. Sametimes a neighhor is to be avoided at all costs. Robert Frost
reminded us that a good, stout fence makes pood neighbors.

After the Birmingham Church bombing which resulted in the deaths of
several little children, Martin Luther King, Jr. said that it's a good thing
Jesus didn't command us te like our neighbors,

"Like" is a sentimental and affectionate word. How can we be
affectionate to a person who is threatening to kill onr children?

“Love is greater than like," he concluded,

And different. Love, King said, means “creative good will" - and he
didn't say, but we knew, that may mean not liking the neighbor at all.

The Judeo-Christian tradition and its Seripture is clear ahout one
thing. And Chat is that you and [ can't go it alone. We're not made
to ga it alone. You are made for relationship, community, mutuality - in a
word, for lave. Biblical religion wants to make lavers of everybody.

A second problem with loving neighbor as self is the “as self" part.

We have been told, sometimes all our lives, that the self part of us
isn't so good. We've been reminded that we are sinners, that a gaad
synonym for sin is selfishness. And, we conclude it would seem, love of
self is to be avoided, or at least discreetly disfuised. What possibly
could Jesus have meant?

Fartunately, we've learned, thanks to the psychologists and
psychiatrists, that you can't lnve God or anybody else for that matter, if
you have no self-esteem. We knaw now that if you don't think of yourself
as Valuable, worthy, loveable, you are condemned to a lifetime of either
acting out your resentment and anger, or pathetically trying ta hecome
worthy and valuable and loveable.

We know now the appalling secietal consequences when a whole
generation of people grow up having been told that they are not valuable,
worthwhile. We know the tragic stories of thousands of young men and
women in urban ghettos who are not going to make it because the clearest
word spoken to them from the day of their birth has been spoken ina
variety of very effective ways from negligence, ta physical violence, to
the fact that the schools they attend are underfunded. That word is:

"You are not wanted.
You are not important.
You are not worth anything.

You are not loved."

ARC lee Aico kuow there is a powerfally positive side ta the “as self"
part as well.

Dr. Rernie Siegel is a surgean at Yale who spands mast af his time
with patients who have cancer. He has, aver the years, carefully observed
the relationship hetween bow. one feels about oneself, how one feels about
others, and one's physica] health.

When people feel unloveahble, their ahiiity ta love shrivels up.
There fe nethine more deadiy than that, he coneludes.

Siegel is canvinced that "uncanditional love is the most powerful
known stimulant to the immune system" and there is evidence that he is
rigent,

A study at the Menninger Faundation added seientifie data to the
euphoria and aliveness which accompany "being in love." People whe are in
@ laving relationship feel good ahant themselves and simply feel good,

Have you noticed? J hope sol The Menninger people discovered that there
are reasens. They have Jess lactic acid in their blood and so Feel Lass
Lired; their white cells are more responsive and their endorphin Jevels
increase sa they feel less pain. Sa, there is something to that ineredible
sensation of loving somanne who loves yon.

Stomayhe we noel a wiele new way of Ehinking religiously, a way that
encourages us to lave the world instead of hating or distrusting the world
as an evil, sinful place, as religion always does, precisely hecause we want
to Tove Gard..., we need a way of being religious that begins with our awn worth as
chitdren of God and then proceeds to love the neighbor.

God knows the world needs people with hearts big enough to lave

Thera are ecological and enviranmental issues confronting us which
are so big that until now the best political response we have cone up with
is ta deny that they exist.

There are econemic iasuns confronting aur cities and our nation that
are so big and so complex that the hest we can come up with is to put off

the vesolution until next year and hape you and yonr childran will pay the
hill,

There are human issues in our center cities so complex and difficult
that the best we can do is wring our hands and stop wetting off the
expressway at those exits,

This leve of God and neighbor and self is anything but a theolorical
abstraction. [Tt is the opposite, in fact, of religion traditionally defined
as other worldly nicty... contrary, the number of angels dancing on the
head of a pin... arguing over the coler of the vestments while poor people
starve to death on the church doorstep. This religion is social —-
political. Love means getting invalved, getting your hands dirty, being
responsible. So, the baccalaureate word is “love": Become a lover.

Love this precious life - every minute of it. Be apen fo wonder and
beauty and mystery, Be a lover of the world, of starry nights and chot
siuamer cays, of music and wind in the trees and the laughter of children.
Love life so much you feel pain when it is denied elsewhere. Love it so
much you are hurt when peopie are oppressed, discriminated against, hungry,
cold, poor. Love life enough to get angry when it is taken for granted.

Love your family: never forvet to tell Chem you love them, Sometime
taday make yoursel? do sométhing that may be difficult and embarrassing.
You may never have dane it befare, or not for a very long time. Tell thom,
your parents — your significant adalts - laok them in the eye and say it
"{ lave you." Love your community, your school, your nation, Love enough
to allow tears of affection to be a benediction on veur Jife.

Now the basic dilemma is that yan can't love Ged until you lave your
neighbor and you can't love anybody until] you lave yourself. And you can't

Jove yourself unless somebody tells you you are Toveahle, shaws you that you
are worth loving.

That's what real religion is - a good word about us. Christianity
begins not as a religion, but as good news that we are loved: that the
Creator of the universe loves us, intends us, knows us, has given the life
oF an only son for the sole purpose of showing us how deariy we are loved.

I think the man wanterd to know. He was missing samething. He hac
tried to be gond, had followed all the rules and it didn't feel right. He
tWissed the connection between the lave of God, his lave for his neighbor
and his love for himself.

And so 2,000 years ago, he has our question on his lips. Tt is the
question before you. "What is the great commandment? How are we going Eo
live fully and responsibly in the future?"

Jesus inde a lover of that man, I jike to think. I like ta think
that hecanse of his encounter with Jesus he actnally began to like himself
and then he began to jove the world and his family and his neighbors, and
tis city and nation,

God wants that far ali of us.

God wants to make a life-long lover out of you

May God sive you grace, mercy and peace. May the Gocd who has
brought you to this hour give you courage and love for the journey.
Amen.