Into the Future: A Sermon for Baccalaureate Sunday [Isaiah 55:10-13 - Proper 10A]

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Isaiah 55:10-13

Into the Future: A Sermon for Baccalaureate Sunday 

My first college campus visit did not go as I had hoped.  Five hundred miles away from home, amidst the cornfields of Illinois, my parents turned our van right at the town’s one and only stop light.  And after a long day of travel across some very flat states, we arrived on campus.  I was seventeen and I was nervous.

While my parents lodged in the cozy bliss of the Super 8 that weekend, I stayed with Dan.  Dan had a thick mane of red hair and a brilliant mathematical mind.  He was less adept socially.  Not long after we met, he took me to his dorm room.  And he left me there alone.  He explained that he had plans that evening with his friends.  And rather than invite me to join him, he invited me to spend a quiet evening in his room, by myself.  And while that does sound sad, it turns out that was not the last Friday evening I spent alone in Greenville, Illinois; it was only the first of many.  So, I suppose, since this was advertised as a preview weekend, Dan should be lauded for the integrity and authenticity of his presentation.

Dan granted me the top bunk of his lofted bed.  Before my eyes closed for the night, I had a very good and detailed view of his ceiling from that height.  The next morning I awoke to an empty room – either again or still, I’m not sure.  I looked down from my great height and found no obvious way to de-bunk.  The only option seemed to be Dan’s desk chair, which, I discovered too late, had wheels.  Fortunately, my back broke the fall.   

My first campus visit did not go as I had hoped.  Actually, as you now know, it was something of a disaster.  And yet, not many months later, I again arrived on that same campus to begin my college career.  Despite that first impression, I still felt, for reasons that probably go beyond mere reason, that Greenville College was where I needed to be.

During the next four years, I wondered often if I had made the right choice.  But I never got a definitive answer to that question – perhaps because there was no definitive answer.  I can look back now, of course, and appreciate the many ways in which my undergraduate experiences and relationships prepared me for the life I am now living, and I am grateful.  But I will never know if there was only one, or many paths, to this place.

In life we find laid out before us many paths – some taken, many not.  For every road we take on this journey, we leave many more unexplored.  Would some of those unexplored paths have been more comfortable, smoother on our souls, easier to traverse?  Perhaps.  But that is not for us to know.  And as many of you have already discovered, life moves only in one direction: into the future. 

As I think today of our recently graduated high school seniors, the paths laid out before them, the future yet to unfold, I am reminded of the young people the prophet Isaiah addressed so long ago.  They too were prepared to go out, to walk into the thick fog of the future, even as the nostalgia of youth tugged at their backs.  Those ancient young people chose to walk in the direction of the ruins left to them by their forebears.  In those ruins they chose to see not despair, but the foundations of a better future.  It was a choice they made.  They chose the path that caused their fists to ball and their teeth to grit; they chose to walk the way that demanded of them courage beyond what was easily summoned.  Even as the hills burst forth in song before them and the trees cheered them on, the path under their feet was not easy, and it certainly was not smooth.  They chose that path for reasons that I suspect went beyond mere reason.  Perhaps they allowed their hearts to drag them in the direction of life.

As a young person, navigating the space between youth and adulthood, I worried often about choosing the wrong path for my life; I worried that even one wrong turn, one mistake, would forever distance me from the path God wanted for my life.  As I have grown older, I have come to think of God’s will differently.  I no longer think of it as having the right answers to life’s questions.  But instead, of being guided through life by the right questions.     

Your legacy, the residue you leave in this world, will be defined not by the money you make or the awards you accrue, but instead by the extent to which your life answers those questions.  They are the questions to which you committed yourself by the waters of the font.  Will you persevere in resisting evil?  Will you by proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?  Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?  Will you strive for justice and peace?  Will you respect the dignity of every human being?  If the sum of your life answers those questions in the affirmative, I can assure you that you discovered God’s will for your life.

As your priest, it is not important to me if you walk the paths of riches and success.  It is my prayer for you that you set your feet upon the path of peace, that you let mercy guide your steps, that you walk the way of love, that you follow your heart; it is, after all, the place in which the Spirit of God dwells.

And remember, as you stumble, walk, run into the future, no choice you make will ever cause God to love you less.  No matter where you are, or where you go, God’s love will always surround you; God’s love will be the pillar of light that goes before you. 

There will come a day when you will look back and see the footprints behind you.  You will remember the forks in the road, the many trails untaken, the times you boldly charged into the obscurity.  And you might even wonder if you chose wisely.  It is a fair question.  But one without an answer.  Even so, if you look closely at those footprints, the indentations of your past, I think you will find them wet with drops of grace.  And in those moments I hope you remember us.  I hope you remember that no matter where the road leads, Grace is always behind you.