{"id":3495,"date":"2023-05-21T11:00:43","date_gmt":"2023-05-21T15:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=3495"},"modified":"2023-05-24T15:00:02","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T19:00:02","slug":"university-baccalaureate-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2023\/05\/21\/university-baccalaureate-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"University Baccalaureate 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear just the Baccalaureate Address<\/a><\/p>\n

Graduates of the class of 2023, as we gather, we celebrate your success, we honor our esteemed, excellent University leadership, we welcome your parents and friends, and we pause, briefly with you, to ponder the meaning of it all.\u00a0 (Usually, I have the responsibility to speak to the Baccalaureate guest, and among other things gently but clearly remind them that they have just 15 minutes for the Baccalaureate Address.\u00a0 Now, the shoe is on the other foot, and I feel their pain, only 15 minutes.\u00a0 The wheels of justice grind slow but exceedingly fine!) So let me ask you to consider, <\/span>briefly,<\/span><\/i> three aspects of this high, holy moment, your graduation, all three of which are embedded in this Marsh Chapel, and embedded in the meaning of your study here. <\/span>Learning. Virtue. Piety.\u00a0 Life-Long Learning. Social Virtue. Transformational Piety.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We have at Boston University a strange, superstitious tradition regarding the seal embedded in front of Marsh Chapel, which by legend is not to be stood upon prior to completion of courses, on pain, threat or supposition that one such misstep will block one\u2019s progress toward graduation itself, or at least delay the degree, somehow.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For a few minutes at this Baccalaureate 2023, let me upend my own, and perhaps your own, puzzlement, even disregard, for this tradition. Just for a moment.\u00a0 For like a lot of strange traditions, this one about not stepping on the seal may have, oddly, a point.\u00a0 For the seal has upon it three exacting words, words to live by, not just for a bit of life, but for the whole of life.\u00a0 Potent words.\u00a0 Words with electricity, juice, in them.\u00a0 Words, three words, not to be treated lightly, tread upon, scuffed, sauntered over, mistreated, marked or mocked with disdain.\u00a0 Words, three words, fit to carry for the memory of Commencement, the beginning of the road away from school. Words, three words with which not just to make a living, but also to make a life.\u00a0 You and I do not believe in ghosts.\u00a0 Yet\u2026we have our own reasons, over time, to accord some measure of respect, respectful agnosticism, but respect nonetheless to the uncanny, to the numinous, to the strange, to the elusive, even when such are produced for us out of an odd legend.\u00a0 For life is haunted by things we don\u2019t see, things we don\u2019t understand, things we cannot control.\u00a0 Scripture and tradition acknowledge this\u2014from the Midas touch to Lot\u2019s wife.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are three divine words, lasting truths, immutable markers of what matters, lasts and counts.\u00a0 In the vigor of youth, and in the tempestuous vitality of young life, somehow, it may be, our students are on to something.\u00a0 They are teaching us, and themselves.\u00a0 They are chary of, wary of, disdain for the true, the good and beautiful, in places of the heart, of the soul, of the subconscious.\u00a0 In good Shaker tradition, the heart follows the hand, their heart follows their feet.\u00a0 Put your hands to work, and your hearts to God.\u00a0 In three words.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The first of these is learning. That means life-long learning.\u00a0 As you entered the Chapel, above the portal, there is the sculpture of Mr. John Wesley, whose Methodist movement gave BU birth in 1839, and who sang, \u2018unite the pair so long disjoined, knowledge and vital piety, learning and holiness combine, truth and love for all to see\u2019. <\/span>A kind of early One BU. <\/span><\/i>He was devoted to learning, life-long learning, as have been many of our guests here, over these years. In 2018 John Lewis (of blessed memory), Anthony Fauci, Carmen Yulin Cruz Soto (mayor of San Juan) all reminded us of this, both in speech and in example. They embodied the civil rights movement, the challenges in Puerto Rico (remember the former president\u2019s graceless remarks about Puerto Rico that year?), and the importance of science in health (though we could not yet see the pandemic coming, nor Dr. Fauci\u2019s central leadership through it).\u00a0 Experience is the greatest teacher, especially when it causes us to learn through disappointment, but also when it causes us to learn through generosity.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Disappointment teaches us lessons that success cannot fathom.\u00a0 Faith mainly comes from trouble. Mr. Wesley and his early band of Methodists learned to \u2018watch over one another in love\u2019, because life is so shot through with disappointment.\u00a0 Wesley was 200 years after Shakespeare, but he would have known the aching hurts recorded in those monumental plays and poems. You read Shakespeare at some point at BU, and so recall his 66<\/span>th<\/span> Sonnet, awash in disappointment:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As to behold desert a beggar born, <\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>And needy nothing trimm’d in jollity,<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>And purest faith unhappily forsworn,<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>And gilded honour shamefully misplac’d,<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>And right perfection wrongfully disgrac’d,<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>And strength by limping sway disabled<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>And art made tongue-tied by authority,<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>And folly–doctor-like–controlling skill,<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>And simple truth miscall’d simplicity,<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>And captive good attending captain ill:<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>Tir’d with all these, from these would I be gone,<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>We learn through experience, including the experience of grace, the grace, say, to overcome disappointment.\u00a0 That is faith, whether in secular or religious attire.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Likewise, we learn too through giving.\u00a0 You only have what you can give away, what you have the freedom and power to give away.\u00a0 You only truly possess what you have the liberty to give away.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>So, 200 years after Shakespeare, along came John Wesley, teaching a tithing generosity, Mr. John Wesley who greets us at the door, coming and going.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>This morning we gather up in prayer the experiences of four years and lift them all in a spirit of grace and peace.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>This morning we embrace the graduates of 2023, as you commence with the rest of life, and lift them all in a spirit of grace and peace.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>This morning we open ourselves to the world around us, and pledge ourselves to live not only in this world but also, and more so, for this world, for this world in a spirit of grace and peace. Horace Mann: \u201cbe ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>John Wesley was the founder of Methodism, the religious tradition that gave birth to Boston University in 1839. His motto: <\/span>Do all the good you can. <\/span><\/i>The words are simple:\u00a0 that is significant.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>The language is universal:\u00a0 that is significant.<\/span> The tone is thankful:\u00a0 that is significant.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>The phrasing is memorable:\u00a0 that is significant<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Words fit for use morning by morning, day by day, year by year, all in a lifetime:\u00a0 that too is significant.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Do all the good you can,<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>By all the means you can,<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>In all the ways you can,<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>In all the places you can,<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>At all the times you can,<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>To all the people you can,<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>As long as ever you can.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Do all the good you can.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Learning, lifelong learning.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The second of the three words embedded in the central, haunted Plaza seal, the occult and subconscious dark backdrop of life (life as Hobbes said that is solitary, nasty, brutish and short) the second of these words is virtue.\u00a0 That means social virtue.\u00a0 That means common, civic, communal virtue.\u00a0 Your class has known the importance of shared, national virtue, which was needed to overcome a raging pandemic which impacted every one of you, every one of us.\u00a0 Your class lived through the raging furies of January 6, 2021 which had the potential to impact every one of you, every one of us.\u00a0 Your class lived through the surges of isolation, anxiety and depression, which continue to challenge us.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, we have a second permanent guest in Marsh Chapel a fellow who knew much about this.\u00a0 He is in the back corner, on the pulpit side, up in stained glass.\u00a0 Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln.\u00a0 He is reminder that virtue is the bedrock of shared, national, social, cultural life.\u00a0 Real leaders have virtue. Virtue is not optional in a nation\u2019s leadership.\u00a0 Shun mendacity. We may differ about the size and scope of a budget, or the most apt programs in foreign affairs.\u00a0 But we cannot differ about telling the truth, about personal virtue, about lies, including big lies.\u00a0 Personal virtue, especially in leaders, is the basis for national virtue.\u00a0 Class of 2023, in warning, we say:\u00a0 do not be fooled, here.\u00a0 A house divided against itself, on this, cannot stand.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember who you are and whose you are.\u00a0 Listen to the few paragraphs of Lincoln\u2019s greatest words.\u00a0 Listen for the anaphora in the beginning, and the epistrophe at the end. Listen to the gravity and realism, but listen also, out of a dark corner and hour, for the hope.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate \u2014 we cannot consecrate \u2014 we cannot hallow \u2014 this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us \u2014 that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion \u2014 that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain \u2014 that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom \u2014 and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Both history and mystery are at the heart of a regard for virtue, and at the heart of any real college education.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Virtue, social virtue.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The third of these three words is perhaps the strangest to our ears, but maybe the most important.\u00a0 It is piety. That means transformational piety.\u00a0 This year Jonathan Eig has published <\/span>Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Perilous Power of Respectability). <\/span><\/i>King lived to transform.\u00a0 Real piety is transformative. The piety here, the faith here, in your BU old bones, is transformational, not just personal, but transformational piety.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My dad was born in the same year as King, and was here as a student at the same time.\u00a0 My dad was raised by a single mom, with no dad at home.\u00a0 But not all of our parents are natural parents.\u00a0 Some are relational parents.\u00a0 He met a teacher, a homiletics teacher, here at BU, who became such, a relational not natural parent, and so when their first child was born, they gave him the middle name, \u2018Allan\u2019, after that teacher, Allan Knight Chalmers.\u00a0 He is the rascal speaking to you now.\u00a0 None of us got here alone.\u00a0 Others helped, others practiced a transformational piety.\u00a0 Thank one, two or three of them today, if you have a chance.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no greater voice, near or far, of transformational piety, than that voice celebrated in the heart of our plaza.\u00a0 For your meditation, here are selected epigrams from your fellow BU alumnus, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When it gets dark enough you can see the stars.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Say that I was a drum major for justice, for peace, for righteousness.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.\u00a0 Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Faith is taking the first step even when you don\u2019t see the whole staircase.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>I have a dream that one day my four children will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u2018You\u2019ve got to have a dream, if you don\u2019t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?\u2019\u00a0 Have some dreams, even if, as Nina Tassler told us in 2016, you have to edit your dreams.\u00a0 It would be great to have some of the children of King\u2014Rafael Warnock, Deval Patrick, Marilynne Robinson, Barack Obama–here in autumn 2025 to celebrate the 75<\/span>th<\/span> anniversary of the dedication of Marsh Chapel.\u00a0 May we find the grace to seek and serve his cause of justice in the years to come.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>A story, one of transformational piety, which King repeatedly told, is of Marian Anderson. She was awarded an honorary degree here at Boston University in 1960, a black opera singer, whose voice was perhaps the greatest of all in the last century.\u00a0 But it was her mother who made it possible:\u00a0<\/span> I remember when Marian was growing up, and I was working in a kitchen till my hands were all but parched, my eyebrows all but scalded. I was working there to make it possible for my daughter to get an education.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One day somebody asked Marian Anderson in later years, \u201cMiss Anderson, what has been the happiest moment of your life?\u00a0 Singing in Carnegie Hall? Performing for the Kings and Queens of Europe?\u00a0 When Toscanini said a voice like yours come only once in a century.\u00a0 No\u2026No\u2026No…And she looked up and said (smiling) quietly, \u201cThe happiest moment in my life was the moment I could say, \u201cMother, you can stop working now.\u201d Marian Anderson realized that she was where she was because somebody helped her to get there. (MLKing, \u201cA Knock at Midnight\u201d).\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>And somebody helped you too.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Piety, transformative piety.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Learning. Virtue. Piety.\u00a0 Personal. National. Global. Lifelong. Social. Transformative. They are your words, now, now that you have crossed the seal, your words chiseled in the stone of Marsh Chapel, your words, embodied in the beauty of this chapel, with Wesley and Lincoln and King.\u00a0 Nod to Mr. Wesley, President Lincoln, and Dr. King, in sculpture and window and monument, as you depart.\u00a0 But class of 2023, carry them in memory, not for a day, but for a lifetime.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Let love be genuine<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hate what is evil<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hold fast to what is good<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Love one another with mutual affection<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Outdo one another in showing honor<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Never lag in zeal<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Be ardent in spirit<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Serve the Lord<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Rejoice in your hope<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Be patient in tribulation<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Be constant in prayer<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Contribute to the needs of the saints<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Practice hospitality<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Class of 2023:\u00a0 <\/span>Bon Voyage!<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-The Boston University 2023 Baccalaureate speaker was The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Boston University’s Marsh Chapel<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service Click here to hear just the Baccalaureate Address Graduates of the class of 2023, as we gather, we celebrate your success, we honor our esteemed, excellent University leadership, we welcome your parents and friends, and we pause, briefly with you, to ponder the meaning of it all.\u00a0 (Usually, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[53,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3495"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3495"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3498,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3495\/revisions\/3498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}