These are the words that I spoke over the MFT/ACU graduates on Thursday night, August 7. In that audience were seven members of Justice Team III and three members of Justice Team IV.
The work of these teams has always been a "co-curricular" thing. While the students do take a research course in which they explore via quantitative and qualitative methodologies these things that we write about here, the experiences of travel and interviews and all have been above and beyond the curriculum. They are going to make a huge difference in the world. Already has started.
We Serve a God of Extravagance
MFT Department Graduation Banquet
August 7, 2008
There is a time and a place to speak of extravagance, not in the ostentatious sense of the word, but in the God-intended sense of the word. As I see it, we serve an extravagant God who creates extravagantly, a God who loves extravagantly, a God who gifts extravagantly, and a God who calls us to extravagant living and loving out of our giftedness.
So we come to this place to honor those who wish to honor their calling. I think it is something like this. And then there was a star on the horizon, just as there is every evening as the sunlight fades. Then there is a second, a third, a fourth. Some show signs of brightness, but soon they burn out; perhaps they're not stars but meteors that only exist temporarily. Others find a different orbit than the rest. Some travel widely across the sky and for longer periods of time than the rest of us, Jeff Holland and Gretchen Etheredge, while others are a bit younger, Sarah or Kimberly or Rebecca. Others take rather circuitous routes to reach us, Ruqayyah or Kristi or Carlos or Ty, while others are a little more direct, Jordan, Mindy, or Daniel.
Whatever the path, we wind up in the same place and the same space for a span of time. We don't feel like stars, and we certainly don't always feel terribly gifted, but there are those moments when our calling is clear. It may be after moments of terror with either a professor or a client, but then the chosen and the choosing merge into something meaningful.
It's clear that we're not always in charge of our paths, that obstacles are placed in front of us, to challenge us or to refine our faith as of by fire, or to encourage us to continue in our calling. Back when I was in graduate school, one of my professors who intimidated me immensely, Dr. Jack P. Lewis, coined the phrase "ministry of study," and that, I think is what you do here, while practicing on people, so as to reach that incredible balance of understanding how theory does indeed drive practice and within that context of the therapy room, that intimate, lived moment, we actually get to see attitudes and behaviors change.
It's also clear that someone is in charge of "seasons" of our lives, and that it's not us. The teacher of old wrote, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven."
And so, there's a time to be born and a time to die;
a time to think about MFT and a time to accept the invitation;
a time to plant and a time to uproot;
a time to receive the scholarship offer and a time to ask more from Dr. Halstead;
a time to kill and a time to heal;
a time to wonder if Abilene is the right place and a time to drive away from it nostalgically;
a time to tear down and a time to build;
a time to sit in your first lecture with Milholland and a time to hear Goff for the last time;
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to put the first letter on the first page of your first paper and a time to put the period at the end of your last reference page;
a time to mourn and a time to dance;
a time to watch Hinson interview a family and a time to say,"I can do that, too;"
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them;
a time to feel the anxiety of the client hour #1 and a time to experience the emotional tug of the last hour, whatever the number;
a time to embrace and a time to refrain;
a time to be reluctantly supervised and a time to welcome the coaching;
a time to search and a time to give up;
a time to wonder if you'll ever be worth what folks will pay you and a time to realize that a laborer is worthy of his or her hire;
a time to keep and a time to throw away;
a time to buy those books on bestbookbuys.com and a time to sell them to incoming, unsuspecting first years;
a time to tear down and a time to mend; and
a time to doubt your calling and a time to embrace it tenaciously.
So, how do you put God, extravagance, MFT, stardom, your sitting here tonight, and your calling together? I think it goes like this, and just a little further on in that particular section of Biblical text. In that section, rewritten tonight, is "He has also set eternity in the hearts of people; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."
My prayer for you is that you will embrace the eternity within you, that you will live out your calling extravagantly, and that you will inch ever so closer to fathoming what extravagant things God has done and is doing through you, and by doing so you will both honor your amazing giftedness and make the world a better place.
And, a PS to the social justice team graduates:
A time to consider joining and a time to jump onto the team after much prayer;
a time to ponder the overwhelming injustices in the world and a time to decide that 'I can do a little something about them' in my corner of the universe;
a time to read of the plight of the Black farmer and a time to hear Hinson tell their stories and a time to go and talk to them directly;
a time to write letters to the President of the US and the secretary of the USDA and
a time to read their letters of response;
a time to grieve at the injustices wrought upon Black farmers of our land and a time to be astounded at their resiliencies;
a time to read about the plight of the Black farmer and a time to listen to the interviews;
a time to wonder how you'll be received if you tell your family and friends what you're up to and a time to get in the mail an article from an aunt or an uncle who is now aware of the struggle; and
a time to pray, 'Lord will these meager efforts ever make a difference,' and a time to do them again, and again, and again.
