Weekly Update // Pastor Durwood
Dear Asbury Family and Friends,
This past Friday Anne and I and watched, online, the graduation of a dear family friend who received his Masters of Science in Nursing with a speciality in Family Nurse Practitioner. It was a moving moment in his life, as well as his family.
This morning we held graduation for our VPK class at the pre-school. Parents, grandparents, and other family joined for a wonderful celebration of accomplishment and next steps.
At many high school, college, and university graduations, commencement speeches often seize on the significance of the moment and challenge the listeners to rise to the occasion. They call graduates to see themselves as part of a global community, wherein they are part of the solution for the world’s ills. The speakers widen the graduates’ gaze beyond their own social circle, and tell them, in offering their unique gifts and abilities; they can be part of something greater than themselves.
Many years ago I read a collection of some speakers words. I share just a few with you.
This is the straight truth. The righteous truth. It's not a theory; it's a fact. The fact is that this generation -- yours, my generation -- we're the first generation that can look at poverty and disease, look across the ocean to Africa and say with a straight face, we can be the first to end this stupid extreme poverty, where, in a world of plenty, a child can die for lack of food in it's belly. (Bono, University of Pennsylvania, May 17, 2004)
My good friends, we are all waiting. We are waiting, if not for the Messiah, as such, we are waiting for the messianic moment. And the messianic moment is what each and every one of us tries to build, meaning a certain area of humanity that links us to all those who are human and, therefore, desperately trying to fight despair as humanly as possible and--I hope--with some measure of success. (Elie Wiesel, DePaul University, June 15, 1997)
Whether our world is to be saved from everything that threatens it today depends above all on whether human beings come to their senses, whether they understand the degree of their responsibility and discover a new relationship to the very miracle of being. The world is in the hands of us all. (Vaclav Havel, Harvard University, May, 1995)
And then, there is this speech, offered 2,000 years ago, during a commencement ceremony on a mountaintop. Assembled were students of Jesus’ traveling seminary, who had spent more than three years learning, practicing, attempting, failing, and trying again. For this simple band of common people, the world had changed. They were no longer fishermen and tax collectors. They were world-changers-in-the-making. And their time had come. When Jesus stood before them, before he took off into the clouds, he gave his address:
This is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
Like all great commencement speeches, Jesus seized the moment. He told the disciples that there were challenges ahead, and that they were to carry the gospel of God’s love to the furthest reaches of the earth, beyond their small social circles. But along the way, they would not be alone, for the Spirit would come upon them. They would receive the Spirit’s power and comfort to achieve great things for the Kingdom, and participate in God’s ongoing project: the healing of the world and redemption of all creation.
Let’s celebrate the graduates as we move through The Life we Share!
Durwood