Baccalaureate June 2009

Readings:
Psalm 103: 1-5
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8
I Corinthians 13
Beatitudes Matthew 5: 3-10

For everything there is a season, a season to fight and be frustrated and season to be still and peaceful. A season to hug tight all of those people around you, a season to let go and have some space, a season to plant fruits and vegetables and flowers in the ground and a season to pull them all up an enjoy what they bring into life. A season to learn and study and a season to graduate. A season to mourn about endings and a season to rejoice in new beginnings.

Everything has it's season. That is what we hear from the wonderful lesson that some members of the senior class choose for tonight.

And I think that is a lovely sentiment. I really do. I like the idea of this I do but I also have an observation about seasons. They overlap, and they intersperse and as I stared out the window of my gym the other day (the first day of summer I think) knowing it was barely 50 degrees out and pouring down rain mixed with hail to the point that it looked like sleet I thought to myself hmm...seasons are a little bit more malable than we give them credit for.

Sometimes you know it is meant to be winter but the sun is shining and it is 60 out, sometimes you know it should be spring but the ground is frozen solid. Sometimes you know that you should be thrilled to be moving to a new chapter in your life but you are scared stiff about leaving home or sad because you aren't leaving to go to the college that you had hoped for. Or you know that you should be sad to leave home and friends and familiar space but all you can do is focus on the accoomplishment that you made in graduating and dream about the things to come and the new things that you are starting. That season about mourning and rejoicing, dancing even, is one of the trickiest ones. For most of us, graduating seniors, parents, grandparents and siblings alike this season, right now, is a little bit of both.

So what do you do with that?

I have an idea about that I got from a tree once (different tree than the one a few weeks ago Trinity folks).

There was a tree that I knew once, I say I knew it because it was a huge tree outside of the second story apartment that I lived in as a graduate student. It was so close to a not very big apartment and it was so big that sometimes it seemed like an extension of the apartment. I could see it out of the living room, the dining room and the kitchen windows. In fact if I sat across the dining room table from the window, it was kind of as if the tree was sitting with me at the table. I knew that tree. I watched that tree, closely. I moved into the apartment in the late summer and it had huge white flower petals here and there, some of the blossoms had dropped to the ground, others were hanging on so I thought, if I thought anything about the tree, we didn't know each other so well at the time, that soon the petals would all fall off and it would only have its pretty big waxy green leaves.

Then I noticed about a month into living in the apartment, one day sitting across the dining room table from the tree, that there were still a few white petals on it. As it started getting colder and colder and still there were leaves and petals on the tree. It was like it was never going to get done blooming. I remember seeing snow on at least a few petals and feeling a little warm even though (and many of you will learn this, the apartments that you take as a young person not too far out of high school are never well heated or well cooled). But it filled me with warmth to look at dead, coldness of late fall and to see something blooming. It was hopeful.

But that was a hard winter for me. I was far from home, far from friends, excited about what I was doing but really just not sure that I knew where I was going in life or how I was going to get there. I stared pretty absentmindly out my windows, a lot, pretending that I wasn't tearing up from time to time. And one day while doing this I noticed my tree, sitting there with me. I noticed first that it had stopped blooming, completely. The few rag tag petals that had held on all year had finally fallen off and being in not a great mood I said out loud to myself and the tree, I'm glad that you finally figured out what season it is. It is winter, it isn't the season to bloom, it is the season to be miserable like the rest of us. Now, tree, you look like I feel!

Just as I said this though I realized that there was something that might have actually pushed those last petals off. There were buds on this tree. Huge buds, in the dead of winter in the middle of January in the cold, cold, city of Philadelphia. Way before anything else was thinking about putting buds on, my tree was getting ready to bloom. There was never a day in this tree's life, never a season that wasn't filled with hope. I'm not going to lie and say from that day on I was perfectly content because of the example of the tree but I did have a fleeting thought that started to grow in me about seasons.

There is a season for everything, a season when you know just where you are going and a season when you aren't sure, a season when you are filled with joy but scared, a season when you are excited and proud of yourself beyond belief but you have doubts. A season to graduate and do new things and a season to stay put and work on what is at hand but never, never, never is there a season without hope, never a season without life, without abundant life in God.

Our new testament lesson talks about being blessed by God. About all of the different people who are blessed and all of the different ways in which they are blessed and all of the different times that they are blessed. It is a good mirror to the Ecclesiastes text about seasons. It says that you will be blessed. In great times, when you are on top of the world, able to spread peace you will be blessed. And in positions of power when you are able to be merciful to the people that you meet, you will be blessed and when you have no doubts so that you can walk confidently you will be blessed.

And you will be blessed in the not so good times, when you are hungry and need to be fed, you will be blessed, when you mourn and need to be comforted, you will be blessed, and when you have doubts and need to feel the hope and love of God, you will be blessed. Never will there be a season when you are not loved and therefore blessed.

This time in your lives is a huge landmark for you and many things are changing, everything is exciting and I (and we) are so excited for you but we are also here to tell you that there is one thing that isn't changing today and won't ever change and that is God's love and hope for you. Through all the seasons and all the landmarks, all the joys and excitements, you will always be blessed and beloved children of God, whatever you do, wherever you go, whatever great accomplishments you make, whatever new people you meet, whatever you discover, whoever you become, whatever the seasons of your lives bring, you can always find hope in the fact that you will always be blessed and beloved children of God. This is Good News, thanks be to God. Amen