Spectrum Motor 1. Znachki dlya klana i aljyansa lineage 2.

Congratulations to those of you who are graduating today. You have sacrificed much, given much, labored much, and endured much – and I hope you have received much in return. And congratulations to those of you who have loved and supported our new graduates through their journey here. Many of you have sacrificed much, given much, labored much. God bless you for it. As the Psalmist says, may those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. And congratulations to those of us, staff and faculty, who have walked alongside these new graduates.

We feel proud today. Proud, and hopeful, that this class will bear blessing in their diverse ministries of leadership and service.

And graduates of the class of 2010, may God’s Spirit sustain you with love, with hope, with wisdom, strength, and skill. May you know God’s presence in a personal, energizing, transforming way. May blessing attend you as you go forth. I Friends, sisters, brothers: We are the inheritors of Jesus’ prayer. This prayer is for us. The Gospel of John tells us that Jesus gathered his disciples on the night of his arrest. According to John 13, Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father.

Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. At that meal • Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, and he taught them.

• He prepared them for life after his departure. • He promised them the Holy Spirit, who would guide and instruct them – and most of all, who would dwell within them, bearing divine life. • He warned them that it might be difficult to follow him, that their faithful discipleship would provoke hostility – friends, conflict is a part of leadership – that they must abide in him in order to thrive. As Jesus prepared his disciples that night, he did what you will do when you send someone you love off into the world. He did what we will do today during the commencement ceremony.

Jesus prayed for them. And sisters and brothers, we are the inheritors of this prayer. This prayer is for us. Jesus says he prays not only for his disciples but for all who come to believe. Now, source and redaction critics will tell us that Jesus never spoke such a prayer.

(Those of you who haven’t learned about source and redaction critics, that’s for another day.) And they are likely correct; perhaps Jesus did not speak such a prayer on the night of his arrest. But something more important is true: at every moment the risen Jesus is living this prayer on our behalf. This prayer was written to remind us what Jesus was about – and what Jesus is about. This prayer is written for those who will follow Jesus beyond his earthly career. Sisters and brothers, this prayer is our inheritance. This prayer is for us.

II When I was in seminary people actually typed their papers. We didn’t have email or the web. If you wanted to look up a journal article on a given topic, there was a set of about forty red-bound index volumes you could dig through, one for every year. Student apartments were three miles from the academic complex, five miles if it snowed. Wait, am I wandering? Lock on flaming cliffs 4.

When I was in seminary I took a course on the history of preaching in America. At one point we studied the ecumenical movement, that great endeavor to unite the diverse Christian bodies. We studied it as a grand movement of the past, located in the 1960s and 70s. Preachers like Eugene Carson Blake and Bishop James Pike. And there it was, in seminary at the age of 24, that this Baptist first heard of the United Church of Christ. It sounded grand, this church founded on the vision that all of Christ’s people should be one. I was impressed, so much so that I devoted a day to the ecumenical movement when I taught Religion in America to college students.