"I just want to
be happy, successful, and fulfilled. I don't expect all that just to be handed
to me; I'm willing to work hard." If we have not spoken these words, many of us
have quietly assumed all they mean. Because of the quality education received
here, Trinity College graduates should have an advantage as we work for full
happiness, success, and fulfillment. We achievers might even consider ourselves
entitled to such benefits.
There is no doubt
that, in words of the current Catalogue, the College has helped most of us to
discover our strengths, develop our individual potential, and prepare ourselves
for lives that are both personally satisfying and valuable to others. We
experienced here the liberating studies, those that set the mind free from
provincial constraints and intellectual frailty. On this campus many of us
developed cherished relationships that continue to this day.
However, even the
best colleges, of which this is undoubtedly one, are not designed to provide
the entire course to true and complete happiness, success, and contentment.
Among degree holders everywhere, one can discover a significant number bearing
feelings of unhappiness, deficiency, and discontent. For example, a productive,
multi-millionaire with a two billion dollar company was recently quoted as
feeling trapped, saying, "I want to be bigger." Some others who had a keen
awareness of well-being while working acquire an uneasiness after they leave
their careers. In this regard, a New York Times Magazine writer observed
in an April essay: "Several friends who retired recently told me how painful
and demeaning they find it to no longer be who they have always been, to no
longer have the sense of value and worth they always had." Within my hearing a
retired priest lamented, "I'm not asked to celebrate the Eucharist much, and
I'm having a hard time with that; being a priest is a central part of my
identity." Must we be doing something, must we "keep busy" to experience
happiness, success, and fulfillment? For genuine well-being, must we rely on
our levels of productivity? Are we addicted to cherished roles and
responsibilities? Are we primarily what we do? If so, something is missing from
our education; our liberation is insufficient.
I confess to the
conviction that who we are most basically is not anything that we do. Instead,
our fundamental well-being and self-worth are grounded in our shared identity
as unique children of God joining in community as God's own people. Jews can
experience this identity by affirming their hereditary covenant, Christians
through baptism into the new covenant community, and Muslims by embracing their
very nature as children of God.
Fifty-seven years
ago this month I was baptized; forty-five years ago this very day I was
confirmed. The seeds of my identity were planted, even though I didn't
comprehend what was happening at either time. Years later I learned from our
College's only religion professor that it was all right to think about
religion, to distinguish biblical from other convictions, and to believe in an
informed way. Many matters of the mind and heart came together, and during my
sophomore year I realized that I really wanted to be a Christian. Retired
Bishop Lewis Bliss Whittemore was our interim chaplain. In his office here I
nervously told him that my confirmation didn't mean much to me, that I had no
memory of my baptism, and only now did I consciously choose to be a Christian.
Bishop Whittemore stood up behind his desk and, as if in procession, walked to
a large closet and prayerfully donned his episcopal vestments. I wondered
whether my attitude toward my infant baptism and uninformed confirmation
warranted an exorcism! "Come with me," he beckoned gently. I followed, even
more ill at ease, as we silently descended the stairs to the cool, dim crypt
chapel. He lit the candles. We stood before the altar, he facing me. My
uneasiness was quelled as he opened the Prayer Book and adapted the Service of
Confirmation; my vows as a Christian, a child of God, were made new. In this
holy event he laid his hands on my head, touched me deeply, and signified a new
birth.
With each year
that has passed I have been nurtured in heart and mind by all that we do here
this morning. In these liturgical acts we are renewed as to who we really are
or can be, if we choose to affirm our baptismal identity and live it out,
though blundering as we go. No matter how satisfying our resumes are (and we
should take pride in our accomplishments), they do not define us. Nor are they
the most profound or effective sources of true happiness, real success, or
genuine fulfillment. For an understanding of authentic success, hear from
another bishop's words spoken at an episcopal consecration: "And Matthew said
that Jesus came and put forth His hand and touched them. ...That is the secret
and the heart of His ministry, and that is the secret of His life: reaching and
touching out of love in order to bring God's love and nearness...to people, one
by one. ...So in the years ahead, yes, be for great causes and speak for great
causes and work for great causes, for (the) poor and oppressed and for the
disenfranchised, but no more resolutions, no more speeches; let it be touching,
let it be love. ...Stretch forth your hands...and help us to continue to
stretch forth our hands, too. For Jesus stretched forth His hand, and touched
them, and brought them life." You and I touching the lives of others with God's
love and our own, and allowing others to touch our lives as well: this is doing
the will of God; this is true success. Bound up in the same touching love are
genuine happiness and fulfillment.
A vessel that can
provide us with a significant foretaste of complete happiness, success, and
fulfillment is the fallible, irritating, long-winded, divided, sometimes cruel
and unwise Church, the sacred household of baptized people. We need to
understand always that the imperfect Church is not God's Kingdom, but an
assembly of human beings on the way, through Christ. Only in the fully
established Kingdom of God will you and I be completely happy, successful, and
fulfilled.
Today's reading
from Mark reminds us that seeds of the Kingdom of God are growing without any
human efforts. It is being established by God in ways beyond our understanding
or control, often through the Christian Church's proclamation of the Gospel,
through our shared ministry strengthened by God's steadfast faith and love.
Moreover, like the mustard seed becoming the greatest of all shrubs, the
beginnings of God's realm are small, but by its very nature the Kingdom of God
will grow to its intended establishment, startlingly different in size from its
beginnings.
Although our
alma mater bears a sacred Name, education here is not designed to guide
and nurture students as participants in the Church or the Kingdom of God. With
all of its vital, liberating goals and achievements, with all of Trinity's
gifts to us, the College's stated secular mission and purposes do not include
nurturing students in a fundamental identity as unique children of God.
Although this splendid building is obviously here, staffed and is used, I
cannot find any reference to campus ministries for Jews, Christians, or others
in the current college catalogue. Who we truly are, accompanied by profound
foretastes of genuine happiness, success, and fulfillment, will not come to us
by hard work and academic or vocational excellence. Instead, these blessings
are handed to us in touching, life-giving, responsive moments: possibly in a
classroom or a faculty member's office, and, yes, deliberately within the
communal life of biblical heritages, including the household of Christ's
faithful people...perhaps at prayer this morning or at another time in a cool,
candlelit, crypt chapel as a chaplain ministers in the Name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.