Canter Bridge

Mrs. Banuo Z. Jamir, Addl. Chief Secretary & Commissioner Nagaland; members of the board of Clark Theological College; Rev’d Dr. Takatemjen, principal of the College; Faculty and Staff, Graduands and Students; Family and Friends of the Graduands; Supporters and Well-wishers of the College:

A strong rain hurled its refreshing liquid onto the roof of my guesthouse room last night, as it did upon the roofs of your homes and hostels. After a day rich with conversation, good food, music, prayers, comedy, parody, story, and laughter, it sounded like a symphony.

As the storm performed its music, I thought about the staff, faculty, administrators, and students whom it has been my pleasure to meet in Nagaland in two theological seminaries over the past few days. But mostly my thoughts turned to you: to those who today become graduates of Clark Theological College, as well as to the families and churches who have loved and supported you on the long journey that has, today, brought us together to celebrate your graduation.

These words are my graduation gift to you. They are all that I have to give you. They come from my heart.

That short, shared song we sing as Christians when we receive a new blessing turns our eyes and our hearts toward heaven in gratitude. I suspect you know it well:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Praise Him, all creatures here below!
Praise Him, above, you heavenly hosts!
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

It is a good song, for it provides a channel for our very best instinct, which is praise. It is a noble song, for it has survived the pressures of time and particular cultural preferences to emerge as a song that is sung widely by Christians around the world.

It asks us to join in that one thing that we hold in common with all God’s good creation: praise of our Maker, our Provider, and our Redeemer. It assists us in glimpsing, here and now, eternity and its unending theme.

Yet we do not sing this doxology—this word of praise—only with dry eyes, robust voice, and uplifted hands. We sing it, sometimes, with eyes wet with tears, with voices that can barely speak let alone sing, with our knees bent in brokenness.

Let me see if I can explain my meaning:

I remember the first time I noticed that the biblical book of Psalms bears as its Hebrew title the word תהלים, which means praises. By the time I began to pay attention to this title, I had already become aware that the one-hundred fifty psalms contain not only boisterous hymns of praise with which the whole Israelite community voiced its praise in the Temple. The same book offers quiet reflections, whispered prayers that expressed the deepest need, and shrieks of agony thrown towards heaven by men and women whose sorrow must have seemed beyond repair.

I knew this diversity well. I simply had never understood that the book, in God’s wisdom, brings all of these experiences and sentiments under a single heading: they are praises.

I wondered how this could be. Time does not allow a lengthy answer during this morning celebration. Yet at the least I suggest to you that the wisdom of the Psalms brings together the totality of human experience and invites us to live that experience out loud in the presence of the living God.

It asks us to do when our hearts are full of praise to him. It asks us to do the same when our hearts are broken. It asks us to live before him in this way when we can scarcely believe that he exists. It invites us to come here to this praise-ful place when we are angry with what he has done to us or what he has allowed to happen to us.

Indeed, the genius of the Psalms lies in its insistence that all of life is best lived out in conversation with the listening and present Lord. In this aspect of its life, I do not believe the book of Psalms stands over against the whole of biblical revelation. Rather I think it represents that broad counsel of God in miniature.

And so, on this moment when you, dear graduands, pass from one chapter of your story to the next, I want to employ these privileged moments to encourage you, in my own voice, to do what the Psalms so powerfully do when they group the expression of all human experience under one heading: תהלים, praises. I exhort you to praise your Maker at all times and in all circumstances.

May I do so, perhaps a bit imposingly, by speaking to you of four things you must do as graduates of Clark Theological College?

You must laugh!

How freely the CTC family laughs!

You laugh at a visiting foreigner who does not know how to wear his Ao Naga shawl! You laugh as your female students parody dances that are well known to you. You laugh at a bull, or a deer, or whatever that animal was last night that had four legs clad in tennis shoes protruding from below its stomach.

You laugh so beautifully!

As you go out in your lives of service, you must laugh often, you must laugh well, you must laugh alone and you must laugh together!

The Psalms invited the ancient Israelites to laugh in celebration before the Lord.

When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.” The LORD has done great things for us, and we rejoiced. (Psalms 126:1–3 NRSV

Yet you must guard your hearts, dear sisters and brothers, against some kinds of laughter.

First, you must protect yourselves from the laughter of Sarah. You know how when informed by the Angel of the Lord that she would bear a miracle child in her old age, Sarah laughed the laughter of unbelief. I believe she laughed in this way because she could not imagine that her good God could be this good. The promise that came to her was extreme to the point of appearing ridiculous. So she laughed and her son Isaac forever bore the phrase ‘he laughs’ as his name (יצחק = ‘he laughs’).

Now the Lord was good to even this laughing, doubting Sarah. Eventually we read of this woman’s laughter turned from doubt to sight, from bitterness to joyful gratitude.

Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Now Sarah said, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” And she said, “Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” (Genesis 21:5–7 NRSV)

The Lord is good to us, too, in this way. Yet it is better to avoid Sarah-laughter.

More importantly, I beg you to protect your souls from the laughter of derision. This is indeed a deadly and death-dealing laughter. It is the false joy of contempt. It laughs at the expense of another.

The world is too full of the laughter of derision. It laughs at the innocence of holy people. Pretending to be the voice of the realists, it makes sport of hope, that most precious human quality. It laughs cynically and mockingly at the possibility of authentic love.

At all times the laughter of derision lowers our expectations and damages our community. It is an imposter, posing as both happiness and knowledge of how things really. Yet it is a deep sadness, it is a lie. The foul odours of Hell itself cling to such contempt.

May this laughter never fall from your lips.

Its antidote comes in Paul’s instructions about laughing together:

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. (Romans 12:15 NRSV)

This is your laughter, dear graduands. This is the music you will carry with you from CTC out into the streets, churches, and homes of your service.

So I give you this command: You must laugh!

You must weep!

It may seem odd on such a happy morning that I should give you this strange admonition.

Yet it is a certain thing that you will weep in the course of your lives and your Christian service. You will experience loss, sorrow, and anger. You will feel the seductive temptation of bitterness. You will need to decide what you will do with your pain.

If you are wise, you will weep before the Lord. This will be one of your tehillim, one of your prayers, one of your strange praises.

Some will tell you to be strong. They will tell you that Christian leaders do not weep, that time heals all things, that God has a purpose even in your suffering. There will always be a grain of truth in the words of such well-wishers. Yet that truth will fall short of the biblical summons to pour out your heart before your Maker.

The Psalms invite us in our agony to speak to our Lord by means of two piercing, tear-drenched questions:

The first of these is Why?

The second of these is How long?

You can choose not to pray these prayers. But you will be damaged if you take that way of false strength.

In your weeping, you will find that your best friends, your life-long friends, the very warriors whom God has placed around you to watch your back, are those who will weep with you and speak their words only scarcely.

Again, the apostle Paul crowns the truth of the psalms when he offers this now familiar pastoral counsel:

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. (Romans 12:15 NRSV)

Brothers and sisters, this world—you know this as well as I—is too full of tears. Yet the Lord records every drop of innocent blood—it cries out to him from the soil into which it has been poured. He will one day wipe away every tear from our eyes.

In the meantime, your task is not to stop the suffering from crying and it is not to hold back your own tears by strength of will. To the contrary, your praise is to pour your suffering out before God as the Psalms have taught us to do. You will of course take the hands of some who weep and turn their faces towards Zion.

Our Lord knows well how to …

… to provide for those who mourn in Zion— to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. (Isaiah 61:3 NRSV)

Yet this is his work more than it is ours.

You—we!—must learn to weep. It is your strange praise.

You must sing!

Oh, I hardly need to mention this one, for how you sing! I have heard you sing!

Yet I know that it is possible for one to forget how to sing.

Do you see these mountains? They are unspeakably beautiful mountains. I am enjoying them for the first time. I have no words for their majesty.

You have lived among them for many years, some of you for your entire lives.

Have you ever gone through a day … or a week … or a month … without seeing their beauty? Perhaps you have.

You can forget the beauty that surrounds you as it becomes normal, then ordinary, then unnoticed.

So, too, you can forget to sing. Perhaps you have.

You can forget the beauty that surrounds you as it becomes normal, then ordinary, then unnoticed.

So, too, you can forget to sing, even you, dear graduands, can forget how to sing.

But I do not believe you will do so.

The Psalms will call you back!

You will call yourselves to notice, to remember, and to sing with gratitude:

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits— (Psalms 103:1–2 NRSV)

But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, so that those who love your name may exult in you. (Psalms 5:11 NRSV)

Then, in the course of your days full of light and darkness, joy and sadness, you will find the apostle once more refreshing the example of the psalms:

Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:18–20 NRSV)

I hope, though I do not know whether my hope will be realized, that I will one day return to hear you sing again!

But more than this, I wish for your days to be filled with song.

My friends, you must sing!

You must learn!

Of all my four imperatives, this is the only one I fear you may not follow. And so, in my very temporary paternal role this morning, I save it for last.

Dear graduands, you are not really finishing your studies today. You are just getting started on a life-long journey of learning and service.

One of our church fathers summed up all of Solomon’s wisdom, all of the seeking, questing of the Psalm and Proverbs, all the prophet’s longing to understand when he taught us that our praise is to think God’s thoughts after him. Just imagine that: to think God’s thoughts after him!

You must not let the fire of learning die when you exit the gates of Clark Theological Seminary. You have learned so much here, yet you know so very little.

Do not despise your learning. It is a gift that not many have received. It is a tool that not many carry in their hands. It is a window through which only a few are privileged to peer.

The studies you have concluded here are no small thing. They represent an enormous privilege. You may never again in your life have the opportunity for uninterrupted study.

You must take your biblical theology, your ministry studies, your Hebrew and your Greek, your counseling skills, and your church history. You must integrate them into the rhythms of your private spiritual disciplines and the texture of your service to church and society. You must polish and treasure them as you would a gift carefully prepared for your beloved.

Yet at the same time you must assume the humble posture of a learner.

May I remind you that the Greek of the gospels uses the very word μανθάνων to designate Jesus disciples? In the most straight-forward way, a disciple is a learner.

A fool, by stark contrast, is that man or woman who is wise in his own eyes, who thinks she understands enough already not to be bothered with further, deeper questions.

You, dear graduands, will be wise, not foolish; disciples, not dullards; learners, not those who rest upon books once read and certificates that grow dull on the walls of your flat or your office.

You must learn! You must think God’s thoughts after him! You must treasure the life of the mind, even as you penetrate deeper into that love of God and neighbor that demands the very best of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

You … must … never … stop … learning. You must not!

A final word

It is time for me to finish talking and time for you to receive your certificates and awards. You have earned them well.

I must confess, dear graduands, that I have mis-stated my case. I have exhorted you in terms of four imperatives, four exhortations, four commands.

This is not false. Yet the deeper truth is that God’s grace is sufficient for the tasks and the challenges you face.

Those things we take in hand as duties we discover in time to be gifts: your laughter, your tears, your song, your learning … these will be God’s gifts to you, delivered in the time and the moment when they are required.

May God bless you as you receive these good things from your Maker and then turn to place them in service to your neighbor.