A fun little fact about Pomp and Circumstance: Edward Elgar composed it in 1902 to be used for the coronation of Edward VII of Britain. He was the son of Queen Victoria. Yale University used it in the 1906 graduation when Elgar was given an honorary doctorate (but they used it as he left the stage after receiving his award, not walking up to it). Not to be bested by a rival ivy league school, Princeton then used it, and then the University of Chicago followed by Columbia. Pretty soon everyone was using the tune and I suspect your school did as well.
So it seems like every family is having a graduation this weekend: I have seen pictures of high school graduations, college graduations, law school graduations, seminary graduations. The one set of pics I have yet to see are pre-school graduation photos, but I know they are coming!
With graduation comes an understanding that one has mastered something: a discipline or a field. There is all too often an underlying assumption that one has arrived, that learning is finished and living begins.
But one quickly discovers that learning is a life-long task. No matter what one’s work is, it continues to entail new lessons, new ways of doing things, an integration of new information.
And even living one's life requires one to be a life-long learner. Many of us who surf the internet are not digital natives. We came of age in the dark BC age, Before Computers. Imagine what our lives would be like if we didn’t commit to learning new technology. During COVID, online worship would not exist. We would not be sharing in each others joys and concerns and holding one another in prayer.
Just like our work and our daily living requires us to be life-long learners, so does our faith. I have met too many people who think that once they have been confirmed, they have arrived and there is no need to continue to study scripture and grow in the faith.
But what I have observed over the years as pastor, is that they have been left with a faith that addresses the life challenges of an 8th grader rather than an adult. Adult crises come as they do to all of us: death and disease, failure and heartbreak. But that 7th grade faith doesn’t provide a strong foundation to weather the stormy seas of life.
A mature life requires a mature faith.
Jesus spent three years teaching and training his disciples, helping them to encounter God and others through a new lens of love. But his teaching didn’t stop with his crucifixion and death. The risen Christ continued to teach his disciples, to both confirm the truth of his teaching but also to encourage them to go deeper still.
And Christ requires the same of us.
Proverbs 4: 13 reminds us, Take hold of instruction, do not let go. Guard her, for she is your life.”
Life-long learning bears the fruit of wisdom. Wisdom that is grounded in God and helps us navigate life’s challenges.
Are you a life-long learner? What do you do to continue to grow spiritually as a disciple of Jesus?
Tomorrow is Pentecost Sunday but for we who are United Methodists, it is also another special Sunday: Aldersgate Sunday. This Sunday celebrates the day John Wesley experienced the assurance of his salvation. Now, Wesley was a very learned man who studied scripture as well as theologians. But it wasn’t until he was attending a bible study on Aldersgate street in London that he felt his heart strangely warmed. He later wrote that while he was listening to someone read Luther’s preface to Romans, “he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."
This broke open not only Wesley’s heart but his life in Christ. It was not the conclusion of study, but the beginning of an even deeper dive into his growth as a Christian.
Wesley developed an understanding of the means of grace. While God’s grace is available to all of us and is unearned, we are to lean into this grace so that our faith might be strengthened and confirmed.
The means of grace are divided into works of piety and works of mercy, and include both individual and communal practices. Works of Piety include things like reading, studying scripture, attending worship, fasting, Christian conferencing, and sharing the sacraments. Works of mercy include visiting the sick and those in prison, feeding those who are hungry, doing the work of justice and seeking to end oppression in whatever forms they take.
The means of grace, these works of piety and mercy, are ways we United Methodists keep growing in our faith as we experience God’s saving grace for our lives. Being grounded in this grace helps our faith remain vital and robust, ready to meet whatever challenges we face in life.
I want to encourage you to not think of Sunday school as something we ever graduate from, or a final point of arriving at something called faith. Instead, utilize the means of grace to keep your faith flowering, growing, maturing, gaining increasing wisdom, this day and every day.
