JOHN THE BAPTIST
I.
There is a certain cognitive dissonance in celebrating the ministries of
college and university chaplains on the feast of
The
image we get of
Face
it. John did not have people skills. And he didn’t hesitate to
preach hellfire and damnation to those he was calling to repentance.
He did not “comfort, comfort” God’s people and he did not “speak
tenderly to
I can’t help thinking there must have been some tension between Jesus and John, and not just in the matter of whose followers were following whom. Jesus did not preach repentance in the same way at all. And his manner of dealing with people was more by invitation rather than confrontation and threat, even though he did knock over the table of the moneychangers in the temple.
And yet it’s curious that Jesus never rebuked John or publicly disagreed with him, even though the disciples’ questioning gave him ample opportunity to do so.
And that was because in one overwhelmingly important way, John was fulfilling the prophecy, fully actualizing God’s purpose for him. In one core essential, more important than his preaching style or his judgmentalism, John bore witness to the Messiah, to Jesus the Christ. “And you, my child, shall be called the prophet of the most high, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins.”
As it says in the Epistle, “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?”
II. You have been sent, just as sure as John the Baptist, although my guess is your fathers were not struck dumb in the process. (Although I cannot say for sure.) And like John, the people you are sent to are largely unchurched, even though they might bear the identity of a particular religion. But—dare I say it? -- I think in some ways your ministries are more challenging.
I believe that each of us carries within ourselves, indeed still inhabits the world we grew up in. That’s natural. That is the gift one generation has to give to another. Those are the stories we carry and share. But I believe that Church Developer Tex Sample is right when he says that the advent of computers has brought us a cultural shift as huge as that which occurred at the time of the first printing press. Young people today are wired differently. They communicate differently. They relate differently. And they do not look to religion, -- if they look to religion at all--for the same things their parents did--if their parents looked to religion at all. Add to that the pluralism, atheism, substance abuse, academic pressures and apathy toward religion with which our campuses are rife, and well, you have your jobs cut out for you.
And yet you do them, not only with faithfulness, but with joy, at least most of the time. First, because it’s your call. It tends to be true that if the call to a particular ministry is genuine, then the ministry energizes, no matter how difficult we may find it. (If you doubt that I recommend you read Three cups of Tea or Mountains beyond Mountains.)
And because these sociological sweeps I have been talking about are not so important when, in the course of your day, you have the opportunity for a deep conversation with Miko or Fayad or Samantha or Bob or Megali or Juancarlos.
It seems to me that chaplaincy involves meeting three deep hungers of the soul.
The first hunger is meaning. What is the meaning of existence? That is not simply an abstract question relegated to philosophy class. It doesn’t matter if the question is articulated in that way or not, it’s there, as older adolescents begin to think deeply for themselves about life’s questions. And sadly some destructive and nihilistic answers result in the tragedy of campus suicide.
You as Chaplains stand over against that nihilism to bear witness to the Christ, to a God of love, in whom everything, but especially suffering, even suffering that seems random and meaningless, takes on meaning through the paschal mystery of Christ’s cross and resurrection.
The second hunger of the soul is for experience. It is not enough to talk about God without providing the context for encountering God. Or for seeking out, honoring and validating experiences of God that occur outside of church contexts. Many of our students have no liturgical vocabulary to fall back on. They do not thrill automatically to the strains of Onward Christian soldiers. They have their own vocabulary, their own vernacular and it is incumbent upon the church to learn to speak it. You learn to speak it. You are bridge people and translators for the church to this new generation and for this new generation to the church.
The third hunger of the soul is for presence. That goes for everyone, not just college students of course. But this generation of students was more apt to be latchkey children then those ten years ago. No one was home. You need to be home for them, even if presence to them is a really interesting conversation engaged in via text messaging. (Keep those thumbs strong!)
And we as a church need to be home for this generation in ways we have not been before. We need to repent for our abandonment of young people through the defunding of chaplaincies several decades ago. I believe this is changing now and I hope you are feeling renewed support as we try to establish more opportunities for campus ministry.
III. You see where I am going with this. You like John the Baptist, bear witness to Jesus, the Messiah to the students you serve. But you also bear witness to the church of the Jesus, the Messiah you recognize in your students.
We ought not to make the same missiological mistakes we made in the past. Yes, we have things to teach, most definitely. But we also have things to learn from the people we teach. The witness of chaplaincy is a ministry of mutuality, mutual necessity and mutual abundance.
So God bless you as you engage this conference. May your souls’ hungers be fed that you may be strengthened to do the work God has so clearly given you to do. God bless! Amen