For those of you wondering how long this will be, the title of my speech is, “14,000 Embarrassing Things Levi Could Have Said, But Didn’t”….and it will still be shorter than Mr. Reidt’s farewell speech this morning.
Thank you, Levi.
Would you pray with me?
O, sweet Jesus. You hold all things together. We live and move and have our being because of you. We give this evening, our words, our laughter, and especially these our sons and daughters…these loaves and fishes…to you. Multiply our offerings so they might serve your kingdom mightily. Intercede on their behalf before the Father, the author of each story seated up here on this stage. And send your Spirit to walk with them, comfort them, guide them, invigorate them, and sing over them. And we pray these things in your name, Jesus the Christ, Amen.
As Tevye and Golde sang so beautifully, “I don’t remember growing older, when did they? When did she get to be a beauty. When did he get to be so tall?”
Welcome, family and friends, to a celebration of the swiftly flying years, one season following another, laden with happiness and tears. Welcome to that moment between chapters when we turn the page, remembering the last good chapter and anticipating the next. Welcome, graduates to “The Last Time”: this is the last time you will EVER have to sit under the teaching of an Oaks teacher. So let’s cut to the chase.
We all know what you want. We wanted it too. You want freedom:
Freedom to build a new reputation, meet new people, or explore the buffet line at the food court at all hours of the night. Freedom to do any noble or wonky thing you want. Today, you must tuck in your shirt and wear socks. Tomorrow, who knows? Tomorrow, you can play ping-pong all night with some guy who traced his lineage back to the Brandybucks and who showers, on principle, once a year according to the Shire Calendar. You can change the face of Western Civilization by collecting Mountain Dew cans and stacking them into the largest pyramid on Baylor’s campus. Or you can fulfill your life long dream of resuscitating words long dead like “gnarly” and “bodacious”. You could even hold burping contests without getting cuffed over the back of the head or ride a unicycle to class with your clothes inside out. Yes, it’s true Brian, your secret plans are not so secret any more!
One thing is certain: you will have the freedom to choose. That freedom is a weighty thing, indeed, it comes with responsibilities, but your choices are actually quite simple. Like the man in Frank Stockton’s short story The Lady , or The Tiger? you, too, are entering an arena and must choose between only two doors: a lady behind one and half-starved tiger behind the other.
There’s a whole lot resting on your choice. Door #1 or door #2.
Door number 1 is, statistically speaking, the most commonly chosen door by college freshman. Its brass door knob and bright decorations lure even the cautious. They choose it because it looks, to some of them, like a door to love, or a meaningful life, to power, or to a name, even to happiness. Painted over the door frame in gold lettering is this quote from Nietzsche: “For one thing is needful: that a human being should attain satisfaction with himself.”
It is a bright and beautiful door with a wide, paved path lined with hand-painted aluminum flowers that whisper in unison the gospel according to Katy Perry (feel free to embarrass yourselves by singing with me): “There’s a spark in you? You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine ’cause baby, you’re a firework. Come on, show ’em what you’re worth. Make ’em go, oh, oh, oh as you shoot across the sky…y…y.”
And if you lean your ear against that polished door, you’ll hear the pulsing intoxications of blind youth, a party on the other side, straight from Pitbull: “Ask for money, and get advice. Ask for advice, get money twice. Ya’ll call it a moment, I call it life. One day when the light is glowing, I’ll be in my castle golden. But until the gates are open, I just wanna…feel this moment.”
Or you’ll hear something “fun” like this: “Lay your clothes down on the floor, close the door, hold the phone, show me how. No one’s ever gonna stop us now cause we are, we are… shining stars. We are invincible.”
I think the proper Latin response is Phonus Balonus.
And for those of you who didn’t recognize a single one of those song lyrics: God bless you, everyone. May that be the first and last time Katy Perry, Pitbull, and FUN are given airtime at an Oaks graduation. Can I get an “Amen”?
Their tunes may be new, my friends, but the lyrics are old and worn out. Every house of cards since Babel has been built to the rhythm of the same bad poetry, proving that age old maxim: “all that glitters is not gold.”
If you choose door number 1, you will trade eternal gladness for temporary pleasure, divine wisdom for human precept. Although it all sounds like good times, spring songs and free love and hope; and although the tiger you glimpse through the key hole paces with regal power and eye-popping beauty, promising you the same; though he’s smooth, baby, so smooth! I promise you that behind door number 1 is a slow death by strangulation. That’s how tigers kill their prey, they clamp down on the victim’s throat until it suffocates to death. And although tigers commonly kill small game like wild pigs and deer, they have been known to kill pythons, crocodiles, water buffaloes, and even rhinos so I don’t care who you think you are, if you open door number 1, then you’re a dead man. And you’ll probably look your enemy in the eye as he strangles you.
But enough with door number 1. None of you is stupid enough to squander your inheritance and your life story on mere show and empty promises. As Augustine said, “For they that have their joys from without sink easily into emptiness and are spilled out…and in their starving thoughts they lick their very shadows” (Confessions, book 9).
Door number 2, on the other hand, is rather an embarrassment. Unpainted with rusty hinges, it has scratched into its frame by a dull knife the following verse from Psalm 40: “I am poor and needy, yet The Lord thinks on me.” And if you lean your ear against it, you might get a splinter and nothing else. No cheap tricks here. No aluminum flowers. No cranked base. You can take her or leave her, but the woman on the other side of this door will not sell herself and she will not lure you with expensive perfumes. She wears the garb of the poor and sits quietly waiting so even with your ear to the key hole you will hear only silence, but those who choose door number 2 always seem to be singing. Strange folks choose door number 2. Many of them lack the refinement and prestige so paraded by those who chose door number 1. Like Tolkien, they know “all that is gold does not glitter.” They are a ragamuffin bunch, bent backed pilgrims who prompt unbridled hilarity from the world just as little Dagonet did.
Ah, Dagonet: one of my favorite forgotten characters in all of literature. You will find him tucked in the back pages of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. Dagonet arrived at The Round Table late, long after the knights had debauched that symbol of nobility, virtue, and justice by living fast and loose. Tristram, that rival to Lancelot in every way including good looks and the girls, found Dagonet dancing in the hall and reminded poor Dagonet that only fools dance when there is no actual music. And Tristram took down his guitar and strummed some angst filled love songs he’d learned from John Mayer…but Dagonet stood stock still with one foot in his hand.
Tristram was indignant: “Why don’t you dance, fool?”
Dagonet looked him right in the eye and said, “I would more willingly dance to the broken music of my brains than any broken music you can make.”
“What music have I broken, fool?” asked Tristram while all his buddies winked and nodded.
But Dagonet did not shy away. “Because you chase the passions and pet your personal pleasure, you are now more beast than man. And all you can play, all you can sing, is a broken song.”
Come,” cried Tristram, “you are crabbed and sour. Yet I call you swine, for I have flung you pearls and find you swine.”
And little Dagonet mincing with his feet said, “Yes, I WAS a swine. I have wallowed, but I have washed and thank The Lord I am now the king’s brother. The king who loves the unlovely and transforms swine into men and strangers into brothers.”
“And down the city laughing Dagonet danced away; but through the slowly-mellowing avenues and solitary passes of the wood rode Tristram toward his mistress.”
You see, Dagonet knew what Tristram did not; namely, that Jonah 2:8 is and forever will be true: “Those who follow worthless idols forsake their own mercy.” He recognized in Tristram a hungry man dreaming of food who would awake still hungry. Or a thirsty man who dreams of drinking, but awakens faint and thirsty still just as Isaiah foretold (Isaiah 29:8). And so Dagonet chose door number 2, knowing that behind that door was the most beautiful of all women: Wisdom herself. And he was willing to be counted a fool by the world’s chuckleheads, so that he could claim a reward that would never perish.
Many are the Tristrams, my friends, but who can find a Dagonet?
As the good book says, “Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matt. 7:14). Who will show me a man or a woman who loves the King of all kings more than life itself. More than a good name or a good time or good car or a good college or sweet abs or two thousand Facebook friends? Show me the one who counts all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of christ Jesus our Lord and I will show you a rare and happy man: a man after God’s own heart. Are you willing to be so in love with Christ that others will say of you, “There goes a God-intoxicated person!” If so, then you have already chosen door number 2, you have wisdom, and your heart is filled to bursting with a love for God’s wisdom which is foolishness to man.
Where you go, we cannot follow, but we know that you will find many who are like Ephraim in Hosea, chapter 5, “oppressed and broken in judgment, because he willingly walked by HUMAN precept.” Human precept has a short reach. Divine wisdom? Well, what can compare? In the long run, human wisdom is a short-sheeted bed. Those who share that bed with Ephraim will toss and turn, cramped, all night. Ephraim will choose door number 1, but if you look closely, there are some still willing to choose door number 2. Follow them. Ephraim will choose to do common things, but Dagonet will do that which is uncommon.
The Dagonets amongst you will choose the humble and, therefore, hard road. The Dagonets amongst you will find an old person as a mentor as soon as possible (and 25 years old doesn’t count). The Dagonets amongst you will invite yourselves over to families in the church and cook a meal for them and share life together. The Dagonets amongst you will go to bed so that you are refreshed, ready to claim the day God has given you in more than just your mental pajamas. The Dagonets amongst you will read old books while others fizzle out watching Pretty Little Liars in the next room. The Dagonets amongst you know that a happy life is characterized by far more than simply how fun it was. A happy life is characterized by gratitude.
Look, I know what I’m asking. I know that it would be no small miracle to have 100% of you choose purposefully to live as Dagonets. So I dare you. I call you out and dare you to live uncommonly, to live like Dagonet and choose the door of the humble and the needy.
Door number 1 or door number 2: There’s a whole lot resting on your choice.
Door number 1 will deliver you a yacht full of momentary pleasure, but a small country’s worth of regret. Door number 1 will provide you a limo full of human precepts, and though you’ll be riding in luxury, you’ll be riding down a blind alley. Even if all your frat bros are at the same door, remember this: they are not your people. Your people are God’s people. God’s people are different. They choose different doors.
They do not dance to the world’s broken music and neither will you. They do not promise peace when there is no peace and neither will you. But you will be a Joseph to the world: a foreigner in a foreign land filled with men and women tormented by bad dreams. By God’s grace, you will be their interpreters, speaking into their nightmares a new and living way (Hebrews 10). And you will be like Esther, born for such a time as this. And you will be like Nehemiah, who built a city with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other. And you will be like Anna, declaring to the world the arrival of their only sure hope, the Christ. And you will be like Noah who built a boat to save the world, though all the world giggled glibly. And you will be like Hannah, pleading with God on behalf of a barren world. And you will be like Boaz, sowing fields of grain to feed the refugees who flee a life of sin.
Today is tomorrow’s yesterday. What you sow today, you will reap tomorrow. The present is the future’s past and the past, my friends, CANNOT be erased. What you do now, even now in these moments between chapters, will likely dictate the outcome of your story. Your decisions can NEVER be undone, not even by the blood of Jesus. They can be covered by the blood. Thank God they can be covered, but they can never be erased from your story. “So choose this day whom you will serve for God has set before you this day life and good, and death and evil, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live” (Deut. 30:15 and 19).
Some say that college constitutes the best years of your life. I hope not. There is SO much life to live AFTER college. Live with THOSE years in mind. Remember your children and your grandchildren. And when you are old and grey and some idealistic freshman asks you what were the best years of your life, you won’t say, “college!” You’ll say, “ALL of them!” For you lived your days out in the light of God’s only Son and you opened door number 2, above which is carved, “I am poor and needy, yet The Lord thinks on me.”
If this hard-fought education has taught you anything, it better be this: “The works of the Lord are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them” (Psalm 111:2).
We have taught you, from the cradle until this very hour, to join Job, saying “As for me, I would seek God, and to God would I commit my cause, who does great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number” (Job 5:8-9).
Go, my Dagonets. Freedom beckons. Go with our blessing and our love, but come back as often as you can. You are family and we love you as family; in fact, we’ve bought a lot of stock in you as family. May that stock only rise. And may the world know, with no uncertainty, that your lives serve as a fork in the road declaring to each person you encounter this truth: “choose you this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).
May you forever seek God who has lifted you from out of the pit, out of mud and mire, and who has set your feet on a rock and given you a firm place to stand (Psalm 40:2).
“May you seek God and rejoice, being glad in Him; may those who love His salvation say continually, “Great is the Lord!” (Psalm 40:16).
You have a tremendous task, an absolutely monumental task with generational impact ahead of you: it’s called “Life”. This life is sweet all the way through eternity if you choose door number 2. But life cannot be done with one eye on each door.
Make a decision: The lady or the tiger.
