2025 University Baccalaureate Service

Good Morning. What an honor and a joy to be with you. 

Graduates, this is a day among days in your lives. We think of Commencement as an ending; yet, to commence is actually to begin. So, welcome to Commencement: the day you begin again.

We just heard a gospel story about Jesus appearing to his friends. It was a day among days for them. Like today for you, it was a day they began again.

To begin again we must see in new ways. There was once a day when I began again. It happened many years ago at church.

When our boys were little, their Sunday school teacher would sometimes show them a movie during the first part of the service.

On this particular Sunday, when they came back into the pew, John, who was about five years old at the time, was crying. At first, I tried to settle him down. But, he was having none of it. He became more tearful, and more demonstrative—saying, “I have to talk to you NOW.” So, I took him outside.

Once outside, I asked, “what is wrong?” Through sobs, John said, “Why would that lady show us that horrible movie? Why, Mommy?” Curiously, I asked him to describe the movie. I was trying to imagine what horror this kind Sunday school teacher could have inflicted.

Still sobbing, John said, “She made us watch these horrible men with beards—they were stabbing fish and torturing them—burning them alive. Why Mommy? Why would she make us watch that?” At that moment, a light bulb went off. I remembered the gospel reading for the morning.

John was describing a movie about Jesus and his friends eating breakfast together at the edge of the sea. All he saw was bearded men torturing animals. 

I realize I’m getting scratched off some fish fry invitations as I speak.

In that moment with John, I suddenly understood that something I thought I knew like the back of my hand was not as it seemed. I was being led by a five-year-old somewhere I really did not want to go, led to see in a new way that continues to impact not only my eating habits, but my entire world view. You might say I began again.

Peter gets led where he does not wish to go in our reading from John’s gospel—not in the first part—where he sees the Lord and tears into the water naked, pulling on his clothes—that’s the act-before-you-think Peter we know and love. It’s later, around the charcoal fire, that things get hard for him.

Jesus asks Peter a question at the edge of the sea. Do you love me? This moment comes after Peter had utterly betrayed Jesus, denying he even knew him. So, the question had a context, that of Peter’s self loathing; he knew what he had done to Jesus. So, here he is naked again, his failure bared before Jesus.

When Jesus continued to press him to declare his unconditional, sacrificial love, Peter had to go where he really did not want to go. He had to see himself in new ways. He had to take a hard, close look at his betrayal of Jesus, at his utter failure, and then forgive himself, so that he could love Jesus as his friend again.

We would not be here today in this beautiful, historic chapel, at this blessed Episcopal University, on this exquisite Domain, if Peter, the cornerstone of the Church, the first in apostolic succession, had not gotten past his shame so he could begin again with Jesus.

Beginning again usually involves being pulled where we might not wish to go, so that we can see the familiar in new ways.

There is a brief remark Jesus makes, almost as an after thought to Peter. But I have come to believe it gets at the heart of how we respond to call and discover our purpose.

Just after Jesus presses Peter to declare his love three times. Jesus says this: “When you are young, you will gird yourself—that is, you will tie a rope around your own waist—and go where you wish. But when you get old, another will gird you and lead you where you do not wish to go.”

The rope around the waist girded a person’s tunic in Jesus’ day. Theologian Ronald Rolheiser says the body of Christ is this rope that pulls us, conscripts us, to go where we do not wish to go—where we otherwise might never choose to go. Insofar as this is an institution that arises in response to the call of Jesus to be Church in the world, it is a place true to the work of the rope. Sewanee is an institution that prepares you to be pulled to unexpected places in order to fulfill your calling in this world. (Rolheiser’s concept of conscription is from The Holy Longing). 

Graduates, while you may not have put it this way when you first came to this holy mountain, you came to a place that has prepared you to be conscripted into a life you likely never would have chosen absent this experience. And you are ready, because you’ve had the opportunity to see many things in new ways. 

Today, you become Sewanee Diaspora, that is the scattered ones. Scattered, like seeds across the earth, to take root wherever you are called to go.

Now, at first blush, to speak here of a diaspora may seem odd. I mean, we focus here at Sewanee on the ministry of place. Returning to one sacred spot over and over is central to the spiritual life of this institution. 

I recently read Dr. Haskell’s compelling book, The Forest Unseen. My brother, Dan, who is here today, told me about it. It absolutely captures what I love about Sewanee. For those who have not yet read the book, Dr. Haskell recounts the story of a year he spent returning to the same one square meter grid of land, right here on Sewanee mountain, day by day, season by season. 

The life of the Spirit is nurtured here in the crucible of one small patch of land—perhaps not quite as small as Dr. Haskell’s blessed grid, but small, nevertheless, on the scale of this fragile earth. The Forest Unseen reflects the core Sewanee value of the ministry of place. I pray Professor Haskell will extend me grace as I reflect on the impact of his work on me.

Here’s the thing I realized as I read this account of Professor Haskell’s year returning again and again to the same one-square-meter patch of forest: He learned day by day to see in new ways.

On one such day, he finds himself attending to the Carolina chickadees in the cold of winter. He kind of pulls a Peter—in a good way. In solidarity with the chickadees, he strips down bare naked to feel the elements. Feeling the sting of the harsh cold within moments, he imagines the chickadees, with much less body mass, will surely soon perish. Yet, miraculously, many of them in fact make it—on that cold day and every winter.

I am ill qualified to detail the finer points of natural selection Professor Haskell outlines in this chapter. Suffice it to say, by his voluntary solidarity with the chickadees in the cold, he quickly learns he is no match for their capacity to survive. He learns much from them—the value of shivering to protect oneself, the importance of navigating complex social dynamics, the importance of balance in life—taking in enough but not too much. He realizes there is no way he can experience what these birds endure. Yet, by trying his best to be with them in their experience, he deepens his respect for these small creatures. He closes his chapter about the chickadees with one simple statement: “Astonishment is the only proper response.” 

In these days, many among us are living in fear and despair. Many are displaced not as a response to a calling, not from positions of privilege and choice. They find themselves flung into realities that are foreign to them, frightening and risky. They face elements which, like cold to the chickadees, may threaten their very existence. Those of us who enjoy relative safety and freedom of choice have a call upon our lives. 

Graduates, in your various vocations, you are called, conscripted, to be with them, to learn from them, to bear witness to their struggles, to help where you can, to be astonished by the truths they reveal to you.

The rope will pull you to places you cannot imagine yet. Being conscripted will break your heart; it will test you; it will demand your courage when you are afraid, your perseverance when you are weary, your hope when you despair. It will require your all.

When you let the rope pull you, you will learn much, just as Professor Haskell learned from the Carolina chickadees who faced extreme cold with a small body mass. You will learn how to preserve your life. You will learn how to navigate complex dynamics in this world. You will learn how to balance demands. 

And in those times, you will also draw upon your sacred memory of this holy mountain, of the chill in the early morning, the quiet in the forest, the laughter of your peers.

There are troubles in this world. War rages, weapons kill, storms destroy, chasms widen, hatred divides, greed corrupts, and freedoms wane.

But there is a love that defies them all. A love without condition. A love that asks us to begin again and again, like Peter, beyond our shame and our failures. For no one lives a life absent these things.

It is this love that will pull you where you might never go on your own. And there, you will begin again. And again. And again.

Many years ago, my five-year-old pulled me where I did not wish to go. By showing me an old story through fresh eyes, he helped my heart grow wider to encompass the animals he so loves. And I began again.

Let love’s rope pull you to places you might otherwise never go.

Seek out those you do not yet know, those you do not understand, those whose experiences you can only try to imagine. Be with them. Go to the square meter where they live. Learn from them.

Behold the world afresh, through their eyes. For when you do, you will find, “Astonishment truly is the only proper response.” 

God go with you on this day among days as you join the diaspora of this holy mountain. Let the wisdom tended in you here guide you.

God go with you each every day, wherever the rope may pull you.

Blessed Commencement. Begin again.