Mid-Year Graduate Recognition Sunday

On Sunday, December 7th, we honored three mid-year graduates:

Rebecca Coulborn

M.P.H. Epidemiology, International Health with a Global Health Concentration. Thesis topic: Human Papillomavirus and burden of co-infection with other sexually transmitted infections in the U.S. female population. Rebecca plans to continue working as a Clinical Research Coordinator with the UM Department of Epidemiology. She will also be seeking new opportunities for international health research in developing country settings, preferably within Africa.

Brian Hickner

B.S., Chemical Engineering. He will also be commissioned as a second lieutenant into the United States Air Force as a pilot select. Before entering active service on June 1st, Brian will undertake an internship with Dow Chemical in San Francisco, CA as an improvement engineer within their chloropyridine production plan. On June 6th, he will begin his journey toward becoming a pilot in the world's greatest Air Force. Hua!

Leslie Stierman

J.D. During her time at the U of M, Leslie served as a Peer Minister at Lord of Light and was a co-chair for the UMLS's Food Stamp Advocacy Project which advocates for the rights of those living on food stamps. After graduation, Leslie will be studying for the Massachusetts bar and traveling the world. Come September, she will be working in Boston at Wilmer, Culter, Pickering, Hale and Dorr as an associate in their Environmental Regulation Department.

Leslie graciously agreed to preach the sermon on Graduate Recognition Sunday (2 Advent B). The Gospel was Mark 1:1-8. As you will discover by reading her homily (text below), Leslie did not disappoint! Once again, we are reminded that we are indeed blessed by the creme de la creme of the "leaders and best"!

I had an extremely tough professor for a class I had in undergrad entitled “The Essay”. To get into the class, which was a master workshop, everyone had to submit their writing samples and basically beg or bribe someone to get in because the professor was so legendary, so wonderful, so in demand, that everyone wanted to take the class. But, after our second class, during our first editing workshop, I began to wonder, as he was screaming at us about what good writing was, why I had ever wanted to take this class to begin with.

However, despite the emotional distressed I suffered under this professor’s hand, I did learn quite a few things about writing, and one of them that stuck with me, was the importance of an introduction. He told us that how you start a story is just as important as how you end it. Nothing in life, of course, has a clear cut beginning. Things are always in motion before we witness them, and so the question of where to begin the story can always be difficult.
This Sunday’s gospel begins at the beginning, which, as they say, is a very good place to start. The gospel reading from Mark, is a beginning for us in a lot of ways. It is both the beginning of the new church year, and the beginning of Mark’s gospel. And, since we are switching over to a new gospel, for us, it is the beginning of our examination of Mark’s version of the gospel.

The gospel writers, just like any writers, have their own tone, their own attitude, and their own focus for the telling of Jesus’ life. The wonderful part about having four gospels is we get to see the miracle of Jesus from four different views. And, just as if you took any major event and asked four of us in this room to recount it, each of the gospels are distinct and unique, noting certain aspects and completely ignoring others. So, to look at the very first words Matthew, Mark, Luke and John write down, the way they chose to “start” the story, is revealing of how the view the good news of Jesus and what was important in Jesus’ life.

Matthew, appearing not to want to leave any minute detail out, starts with the genealogy of Mary and Joseph. Matthew goes back to Abraham, which he claims is 42 full generations, which he lists out in their entirety, just to make sure he got them all, and then starts his accounting of Jesus’ life with Mary and Joseph. A practical as ever way to begin a story, Matthew logically starts with the history of Jesus’ earthly parents.

Luke, on the other hand, starts with a personal explanation of why he’s writing down the gospel. He explains that since other people were writing about Jesus’s story, and because he saw everything too, he should also write about the gospel. Then, after his little aside about why he’s writing, tells the story of Zacharia and Elizabeth, who although barren received a child, and then were later told by the angel Gabriel, that along with their miracle, the Son of God would also be coming. So Luke decides to start his story at the first time anyone had heard from an Angel that Jesus was coming.

John pulls back a little bit further with his story and talks about God, and the beginning of the world, and takes a much more abstract start to his beginning of the story. Perhaps to make sure everyone understood the significance of Jesus’s coming. His famous words begin with “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.” Very poetic, John.

And then there’s Mark. Where John is poetic, Luke is explanatory, and Matthew is precise and detailed, Mark is none of those things. Mark, in today’s story, starts immediately, right out of the gates, BOOM: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” No warm up, no genealogy, no explanation of why he’s writing, no bigger picture of God, just straight into Jesus’ story. No nonsense. It is as if Mark is just downright impatient to get on with the good news of Jesus’ story.

So, for a gospel writer who is so no nonsense and seems to have no frills, the time he spends, in today’s gospel on John the Baptist, while although short, is still significant. For if Mark was itching so badly to get to Jesus’ story, why would he spend time on John?

And the answer of course seems to be that it’s because John’s presence in Jesus’ life is so important and is meaningful for us!

John has always fascinated me as a character of the bible because I have always wondered what it would have been like for John, preaching that the Son of God would be coming, even before Jesus got there. As Jesus progressed through life, those that were skeptical or had less faith could have easily seen the miracles Jesus performed, listened to his wise parables, seen his following, or even been told that he was the Son of God by a real live angel. But when John began telling the news, none of those things had happened yet. John was simply out in the middle of the wilderness, not even in a town, but out in the wild, living in harsh conditions, baptizing people and telling them that the Son of God was on his way.

…. Now truthfully, I’m not sure, if I saw a man wearing a camel hair vest, eating locusts and honey, if I would necessarily believe him on first glance. And yet, it says that “the whole Judean countryside and all of Jerusalem went out to him, confessing their sins and were baptized by him.”

If what John was doing seems hard, that’s because it probably was. If you ask any older child, they will probably tell you that being the first is no picnic. Your parents overreact, they don’t trust you right away, and everything just seems harder than when your younger sibling comes along. I, as a younger child, absolutely benefited from this set up, and I dearly thank my big brother for doing everything first so by the time it was my turn, it was almost an afterthought to let me bike to the candy store, go to the mall, and go to homecoming dances. And while, as we know, Jesus’ life was not all simple, having someone come before Him, someone who the people of Judeah and Jerusalem trusted come and baptize Him, it made Jesus’ path that much easier.

The story of John also appeals to me, not only because of how amazing it was for him to go first, but because John’s humility is so relatable. While speaking of Jesus, John says “After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.” And while Jesus is truly wonderful and someone who we should all aspire to be like, sometimes, in trying, I can’t help but think “But He’s the Son of God!!!! OF COURSE HE’S PERFECT!!!!”

At times when I’m dealing with a coworker who’s on my last nerve who I know I should be nice to, or with an acquaintance I don’t particularly like who doesn’t have plans for the holidays and I know I should invite home, or with a professor who’s given me a work load I think is unreasonable, but I know I should give a good course review for; I try to stop and think of the classic phrase “What would Jesus Do”, but a lot of the times, I also stop and think “I know I’m supposed to aspire to what Jesus does, but I’m a regular, plain old human!!” I would not be fit to until Jesus’ sandals, how am I supposed to be like him?

So to see and hear about characters in the bible, like John, it takes away that excuse. John is just a regular man, and yet he can inspire a whole countryside to be baptized and prepare the way for Christ. John is just like us, and so it is entirely reasonable and within our power to ask ourselves if we can act a little more like John on those days when we think acting like Jesus is just impossibly out of reach.

So during this holiday season, what does acting more like John mean? It doesn’t mean that you have to move to the desert and live on a diet of locusts and wild honey, (although, I suspect it would be a lot warmer, and who knows, next year it could be the next big fad diet anyways). But being like John simply means preparing for Christ’s birth, for that’s what the advent season is all about. It’s about making space in our hearts every year for Jesus as we remember His birth and what He’s done for us.

To live like John means to do those things he did, to include everyone, to spread the Good News of Jesus’ birth, and to make the world ready for Christ’s coming. This holiday season seems to be a particularly great time to be a little bit more like John. As I said, the wonderful thing about being more like John, is it’s entirely within our power to do. We can invite everyone this year to our Christmas party, even the person who doesn’t seem to have a lot of friends. We can certainly spread the good news of Christ’s birth as easy as inviting a friend to lessons and carols next week, or to Christmas eve service, or even by sending a religious Christmas card this year instead of one with a Santa, or just by telling our children the story of Jesus’ birth. And we can make the world ready for Christ’s coming during the Christmas season and throughout the year.

Getting ready for Christ should be like getting ready for a party. You clean your house, you make sure there’s enough food and drinks and music, and then you tell EVERYBODY you’re having a party. And the same is true for Christ, we can clean up the planet, make sure everyone has enough food and drink, and then remember to TELL EVERYBODY!!! For the salvation that Jesus offers will truly be an amazing celebration that everyone should be at.

And the best news, this Christmas season, is the knowledge that we don’t have to be perfect to do this task, in fact we can’t be. Because Jesus can’t prepare the way for Jesus, or he would have done it. It’s up to us. Instead, we can be, no we actually have to be, human. Flawed. Imperfect, but willing.

So, as each of us prepares our hearts, and prepares the rest of the world for Jesus this Christmas season, remember when you burn the Christmas turkey, when you wrap all your presents and then realize you forgot to put gift labels on each of them, when you’re at the mall at 11 at night and still aren’t half way through your shopping list, we are all human, just like John. And we will all make some missteps. But God has given us the ability to do one of the most important tasks of all: to prepare for Christ’s coming. So throughout your holiday preparations, remember to include some preparations not just for your in-laws, but also for Christ. And this Christmas season ask yourself, your flawed, human, mis-stepping self, not what would Jesus do, but what would John the Baptist do?