Wherever you may go

from my message on graduation Sunday, May 25, 2014, from John 14:1-7

Advice.  The great temptation at times like this is to give advice.  "Eat your vegetables...they're good for you."  "These are the best years of your life, make the most of  them."  "Live, laugh, love."  And that classic, "Wherever you go...there you are."

The problem is that our desire to give advice is inversely proportional to the desire to receive it.  In other words, the more we--preachers, parents, teachers, counselors, etc.--want to tell you something, the less you are willing to hear it.

Our desire to give advice comes from a good place.  We only want the best for you.  We want to protect you.  We want you to thrive.  It is like this Suburu car commercial.  (33 sec clip of Father leaning in car window, telling the little girl behind the wheel to buckle up, check her mirrors, drive carefully, no going on the freeway, no talking on the cell phone....she replies, ok, Daddy, and the camera turns back to her she is a young woman behind the wheel)

That's how it feels to us parents, teachers, preachers, etc.  You grow up so fast.  We only want the best for you.  For you graduates, you may feel like the young woman behind the wheel of the car, "Enough already....I can handle it...I am ready to go....let me go...I'm old enough..."

I have no advice for you today.  I simply want to tell you what God is like, the God revealed in Jesus Christ.  I want to share what the life in Christ is like.

It's like a journey.  This is the metaphor that you graduates used with me when we talked.  You gave thanks for how far you have come.  You looked forward at what was to come.

This journey metaphor is biblical.  Abram and Sarai are approached by God in the book of our beginnings and are told to leave their home, their family, and their country to "go to a land that I will show you."  And although they are old...they Go!  It seems that God is always going before us, asking us to leave home and security, to go to some other place.  In fact to go not to a place, but to a promise.

Moses and the Hebrew children are led out of bondage in Egypt toward a promised land.  It takes them 40 years of wandering in the wilderness to get there.  That has been my experience of following this God.  The journey is not always a straight line, a linear progression.

Then there's Jesus.  In the passage today, he says that he goes to prepare a place for us. Jesus seems to be always going ahead, holding out something new, different, better for us.

Our question is like the one Thomas asks, "How can we know the way?"  Jesus answers, I am the way, the truth, and the life.  Many have interpreted this phrase quite narrowly, but I don't.  The Jesus way for me is broad and inclusive.  In John's gospel, Jesus comes to his mom at wedding feast and she doesn't understand him. He comes to Nicodemus at night, this learned leader of the Jews, doesn't understand him.  He comes to a Samaritan woman at a well, and she doesn't understand him.  He comes to the sick and the hungry, and they also misunderstand.  The thing is he keeps coming, he keeps inviting.  His way is one of wooing us, until we get it.  He is about going to prepare a place for us, as many of us as possible.

So today, I say wherever you may go, Jesus is already there, inviting you to his way.  I believe that you have free will, free choice.  I don't believe your life is pre-ordained, all determined for you.  I think God delights in discovering what we choose to do.  I think God keeps inviting us to his way.  So today, a graduate told me he had the choice of going to pursue pre-med at one school and engineering at another school. Which one is the right way?  The answer is yes!!  Christ can work through any way.

My own degree is in mathematics from Texas A & M, not a great school for theology.  My parents had plans for me, to take over the farm or get a good job.  God had other plans for me.  I wonder how many of you here actually work in another field from the one in which you got your degree.  Wherever you go, Christ is already there, wooing us to his way.

I did some post-doctoral work in spiritual direction at Boston College, a powerhouse of Jesuit teaching (Roman Catholic).  This is what I found out about the Jesuits:  they found God absolutely everywhere.  They were known for their studies in mathematics, astronomy, geography, earthquakes, magnetism, electricity.  They had a curiosity about other religions and philosophy.  They were not afraid of other cultures.  Wherever they went, Christ was already there.

How can we know the way?  We can find Christ's way by some of the basic things we do around here.  Worship, prayer, Bible study, small group accountability, service, generosity--these disciplines lead us into Christ's way.  I found that on my journey as I went to the Wesley Foundation at Texas A & M.  It was life changing for me to study the Bible ( I had never really read it for myself before), to do work projects ( to make a difference in the world), to worship ( my choice, not my parents), to pray, to give.  One of the primary reasons I am a pastor today is because of the Jesus I met at Wesley Foundation.

I have no advice for you. I do have a song.  I think it captures what I have been trying to say about Jesus going ahead to prepare a place for us.  I usually sing the song as if I am the one who is looking out for others.  But I want us to sing it as if Jesus is the one who is saying these things to us.

I was there to hear your borning cry, I'll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized, to see your life unfold.

I was there when you were but a child, with a faith to suit you well;
In a blaze of light you wandered off to find where demons dwell.

When you heard the wonder of the Word I was there to cheer you on;
you were raised to praise the living Lord, to whom you now belong.

If you find someone to share your time and you join your hearts as one;
I'll be there to make your verses rhyme from dusk to rising sun.

In the middle ages of your life, not too old, no longer young,
I'll be there to guide you through the night, complete what I've begun.

When the evening gently closes in and you shut your weary eyes,
I'll be there as I have always been with just one more surprise.

I was there to hear your borning cry, I'll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized to see your life unfold.

Wherever you go, Christ is already there.  That's the good news I have to share today.