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Baccalaureate Service
Habersham Central High School
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Good Afternoon – Superintendent Cooper, Principal McGee,
Distinguished faculty, families and friends and most importantly – Good
Afternoon to the 2015 Graduates of Habersham Central High School. The opportunity to speak briefly with you
today brings me great joy and much honor. Thank you.
Introduction
In 1997 - the year most of you graduates first appeared on
the world’s stage - the world you entered was stable. Newspapers and television
news delivered the world to us regularly each day. The internet - then known as
the information superhighway – was still a novelty. Google did not exist so people still used
books called encyclopedias. Your parents
at their work and maybe their homes were just beginning to use something called
email to communicate. When we traveled, we pulled out huge things from the
glove compartment of our cars called maps to find our directions.
In 1997, the country was in an incredible mood - the stocks
markets were beginning to soar. Stories of secretaries making millions though
internet company stock options filled in the news. Russia was a disaster after
the U.S. won the Cold War. Dreams of
long lasting world peace were everywhere. Tiger Woods won his first masters in
April. Hong Kong returned to China in June and Mother Teresa died in
September.
In 1997 - parents like me pictured a great future for our
new young infants. Life is never without
its difficulties; but in 1997, hope filled our homes and our biggest fears were
trying to get you to fall asleep each night - not what kind of world you would
inherit.
This world no longer exits.
The world I just described might as well be life on Mars for all of
you. Over the course of your life, the
1997 world has morphed into a new world.
And our world continues to change at a rapid pace. The only thing we
know about the future is that change will continue and it will happen at even
faster rates.
The peace of the late 1990's morphed into the longest wars
in American history. Instead of world
peace, you grew up with nightly images of combat, terror, and friends and
family at war.
The financial dreams of the late 1990’s crashed into the
Great Recession. Friends and family
members lost their jobs, their homes, and their security. The financial security in which you were born
became a life of financial instability.
Slowly, I’m grateful to say, our world is pulling out of this – but this
experience has shaped all of us.
The Internet of the 1990's has transformed our whole world
and nothing is the same. There is no
question Google cannot answer at the moment we want it. There is no place on earth we cannot locate –
from the bottom the ocean to the top of Everest. We are connected to everyone via social media
– sharing pictures, events and experiences.
The Internet is no longer a computer it is everywhere.
The world that has formed you will always be a foreign
country to me and to your parents. Yes,
we visit and try to acclimate ourselves to this new, digital world. But we will never be citizens – only
visitors. You, on the other hand, are
natives. You belong in this world. What my generation causes distracted
multi-tasking – doing your homework while watching a Netflix movie on an ipad
while listening to music all while texting – you simply call life and
work. What my generation calls
oversharing, you simply call social networking.
While the world will continue to change dramatically, the
one thing I know about each of you – these 18 years between 1997 and 2015 have
prepared you to enter this brave new world.
The world is wide open for each of you to discover. Yet, this new world can also eat you up. To survive you must prepare yourselves. The lives you want to live will not just
happen – they require intentionality.
Without intentionality and preparation – our lives will tumble in the
rapid change of the world.
So - how do we live lives of intentionality and
preparation? Let me offer you three orienting values from scripture and life to guide you.
These values if embraced will orient your lives to the dreams and goals
God has created for you.
1. Place matters.
This mobile world in which you find yourself will have you
The scriptures bulldoze into our mobile fantasies to remind
us of the power of a place. As much as
the Bible tells the story of God’s work within humanity, the Bible also shares
the story of God’s People in a place:
Palestine, Israel – the Holy Land.
When the Egyptian king releases the Hebrew slaves they travel across the
desert to the Promised Land – a land full of trees, water, and fruit.
Today – you are two airplane rides from that same land. You can take a boat out onto the Sea of
Galilee where Jesus walked on the water.
You can walk up the Via Delosa where Jesus carried his cross. These places are sacred. They have power to settle and remind us of
God’s power in our lives.
Place matters in our lives too. As you make your way in the world – learn the
sacred power of the locations God places you.
Learn its history. Get to know
its people. Meet your neighbors. Preserve its resources. You see, in a mobile
world - place anchors our lives.
You have been blessed to live and learn in a place full of
meaning and power – Habersham County. I
know some of you are eager to leave these hills to make your mark in the
world. At some point, though, you will
realize the gift of this place and you will hear the siren songs calling you
home. You may never come back, but don’t
let that keep you from finding the power of place where ever you are. The first orienting value is this: Place matters!
2. People matter
The fast pace of communication today also allows us to be
emboldened to say online what we would never to say to someone in person. Hatred and bigotry fill the online worlds we
create through false personas. We
release our anger or fear on the world.
Our tweets, texts, and snap-chats can cut other people (friends,
acquaintances, and strangers) to core and we just see it as communicating
honestly.
In the Bible, Jesus gives his followers a command as he
prepares to leave them. In John 13 he
says: “I give you a new commandment, that
you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one
another.”
Jesus says – people matter.
Our family matters. Our friends
matter. Our new roommate matters. Our parents matter. Our followers on Instagram matter. Our Facebook friends matter. These are real people whom Jesus loves and to
whom Jesus invites us to treat as valuable objects.
Over the course of the next few years you will be making
choices about people that will impact the rest of your lives. As you do this – let me remind you of this
value: People matter. The friends we make matter – so choose
wisely. Will they make you better? Will they challenge you to love more?
The spouse you choose matters – choose wisely. “Charm is
deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be
praised,” is how the proverbs state it.
Choose Wisely.
The children we raise matter – so, choose your careers
wisely. Our parents matter – so, choose
to honor them in their older years. Even
people we don’t know matter – the ones who come behind you, the ones who
struggle to get by, the ones living in poverty around the world.
The gifts you have been given to this point in your life are
great gifts – so use them wisely to make a difference in the lives of other
people. Remember – People matter.
3. Purpose matters
Finally, the last orienting value is this: purpose matters.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average
worker today currently will hold ten different jobs before age forty. Forrester Research predicts that today's
youngest workers - that's all of you - will hold twelve to fifteen jobs in
their lifetime.
There once were days – maybe for your grandparents – where a
worker would join a company, work his or her way up, and eventually retire with
a solid pension. Those days are also
over. If no job is ever a certainty, the
challenge for each of you this – find your purpose, your calling, your vocation
and let this guide your life. Purpose
matters.
Several years ago Michael Lerner wrote a book called “The
Politics of Meaning.” Lerner said that too often we give up on our deepest held
values of compassion, caring and community because they do not seem practical
in the real world. We lose our
passionate purpose and our values because we simply have to make a living. An ethos of selfishness and materialism then
prevails by default. These are the values that we settle for when our deeper
values seem out of reach.
The story of Jonah in the Bible reveals a man running from
his God given purpose. Jonah did not
want the purpose God had for him so he ran.
And almost died in the ocean as a result until God saved him in a pretty
epic way.
God had a vocation, a calling, for Jonah. Vocation is different from career. We work our way up in a career. We live out our purpose in our vocation. Our vocation may never be what funds our
family – but it is what brings our living to life.
This week as you release your lives from the moorings of
home and family, let me invite you to listen to God’s voice in your life. Discover your vocation. And remember – purpose matters.
These three orienting values have given shape to my life and
the lives of many people I respect. I
pray for each of you – for your families – and for your futures.
This week – amid all of the exciting graduation events of
graduation let invite you to type into your phone or write in a journal or even
your bible these important orienting values:
- Place Matters
- People Matter
- Purpose matters.
If you allow them, they shape our lives and allow god to
guide you to the great adventure and journey of your lives. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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