MY FELLOW STUDENTS (I hope that includes everyone!) Thank you for the privilege of being with you tonight

COMMENCEMENT ADDRESSES are an interesting genre: the 40 or so I found on the World Wide Web were all American – and in the U.S. of course they’re not at the commencement but at the end of your academic experience. A Commencement address is the ‘You’re gonna make it’ speech by some famous person to the graduating class… The most-talked-about last year was Kurt Vonnegut Jr’s at MIT: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen of the Class of 1997. Wear sunscreen…’ (Quite apt for this state of Queensland)… ‘If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proven by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now..’

Or this, from Seamus Heaney: ‘Calling a spade a spade may be a bit reductive but calling a wooden spoon a wooden spoon is the beginning of wisdom.’ (Someone later might explain that for me).

The typical commencement address:

1. ‘It’s a privilege to be here’ and ‘I’ll be brief’: well I’ll try (as Henry 8 said to his wives, ‘I’ll not keep you long, my dears!’)
   
2. ‘It’s a terrible world’ (ie. ‘we Baby Boomers have messed it up’)
   
3. ‘But we need you to change it’ (rather than simply blame us for the mess)
   
4. Then there’s a penultimate paragraph with a few ‘never forgets/ always remembers’ – a summary of the speaker’s philosophy of life. Like:
   
   
   
   • Be busy but don’t forget to smell the roses
     
   • You’re privileged: “There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university,” wrote John Masefield in his tribute to English universities
     
   • You have a responsibility to pass the knowledge you have gained to others
     
   • As you go along your own road in life, you will, if you aim high enough, also meet resistance, for as Robert Kennedy once said, ‘if there’s nobody in your way, it’s because you’re not going anywhere.’ But no matter how tough the opposition may seem, have courage still — and persevere.
     
   • Always remember to give back to those who have given to you. (Which being interpreted means, when you make your first million $$$ send a few back to your alma mater…)
   
   
5. And finally if the context is secular: ‘Congratulations and good luck’; but if it’s Christian/religious: ‘God bless’ or some such… Madeleine Albright ended hers: ‘So congratulations, good luck, and remember always to sit up straight.’
   

That’s a tested formula, so I’ll stick to it.

(1) IT’S GOOD TO BE HERE.

The first time I addressed a Christian group on this campus was back in the late 1960s. We were on our way to a camp, and one of the students mentioned that an acquaintance of his had been depressed, and was missing from his room last night. As we were driving up a mountain road my friend spotted his fellow-student’s car, parked near a rocky creek bed. We got out and searched around a bit, but couldn’t find any sign of the missing young man. When we got to the campsite we phoned the police. Later we learned that they found him – just a few metres from where we’d searched, almost dead from an overdose; a few days later he was out of danger. This young guy was a loner: he’d never go out of his way to talk to anyone, except the lady in the cafeteria…

(2) IT’S A BAD MAD SAD WEIRD WORLD

Our human voyage is a lonely affair. Universities are full of lonely people… Of course you could do what Rupert Brooke once did, when taking a ship from Liverpool to New York. He seemed to be the only passenger without friends on the dock to wave him goodbye. So he ran down the gang-plank, picked out an urchin, and asked, ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Bill’, said the boy. ‘Well, Bill, you are my friend, and here is sixpence. Wave to me when the ship goes.’ The boy waved a handkerchief in a very grubby hand… So there’s one simple solution to the problem of loneliness – pay someone to be your friend. (BTW I’m serious: this happens in my counseling practice every day).

GENERATION X

And there are more lonely people among Generation Xers than I would think in any other generation in history. There is a Greek tragedy where the Greek says to the foreigner, “If you don’t understand Greek, please signify by nodding.” Now I don’t pretend to understand the generation most of you students belong to – conveniently labeled in this decade ‘Generation X’ or ‘Gen X’ – or ’13th Generation’ or ‘MTV Generation’, postboomers, twentysomethings: and also slackers, whiners (and before that ‘Baby Xers’ as distinct from ‘Baby Boomers’.) The term ‘Generation X’ is from the title of Douglas Coupland’s hip 1991 novel and is the moniker of choice since it signifies an unknown variable, a generation that is still in search of its identity. GenXers were born between the years 1961 and 1981.

The young men and women who make up Generation X are as diverse in outlook and style as the baby boomers before them. All I can say is that I counsel GenX people, I communicate with them for a few hours every day on the Internet, and Jan and I have had four of them living with us on and off for 37 years! I’m not even a Baby Boomer – I’m in the generation before that, which grew up with no TV. So I’m in a class you might call ‘Old Fogey’.

Some have called Gen X the “paradox generation” because they display characteristics that appear to cancel each other out. The themes and thoughts found throughout Generation X material form a complex mix of positive and negative characteristics. According to GenXer Jeff Bantz, Xers are…

• very individualistic, and yet highly value relationships.
  
• don’t respect authority, yet long to receive instruction.
  
• skeptical yet pragmatic.
  
• have an extended adolescence, and yet, they grew up too soon.
  
• slow to commit and passionately dedicated.
  
• a challenge to manage but are excellent workers.
  
• apathetic, and yet, care deeply.
  
• relativistic and searching for meaning.
  
• disillusioned, yet they are not giving up.

(Source: Generation X, Implications for Mission Organizations of the Sociological Distinctives of Christians Born Between 1961 and 1975, by Jeff Bantz).

And they’re pro-choice regarding abortion but pro-life when it comes to whales and trees (if someone can explain the logic of that I’ll be happy to be enlightened!).

This is the generation (in America) that does not remember where they were when President Kennedy was shot. Either they weren’t born yet, or they were too busy watching TV cartoons to notice.

GENERALIZATIONS ABOUT GENX’ERS

• This is the most aborted, best educated, most traveled, longest-living generation in history.
  
• They are the first to grow up with AIDS, MTV and environmental catastrophes.
  
• Xers are the first electronic generation, having already mastered laptop computers, the information superhighway, CD-ROMs, faxes, modems, the Internet & email, Nintendo, Sega, and Play Station, Cell Phones and Networks. Xers have a tremendous capacity to process lots of information at once. Playing video games while talking on the phone, listening to the radio, doing your homework and making a snack was an after school ritual for many Xers. This skill of “parallel thinking” allows for the ability to concentrate on multiple tasks.
  
• This is the first generation to be raised completely by TV (so ‘everything is image’) and shaped by music: and their lyrics are often passionate and angry, (eg. U2’s ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’), sometimes rebellious, mostly honest (‘I still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’), sometimes spiritual/ religious (who’s song is about ‘One man betrayed with a kiss’?). There’s a pervasive longing for reality, healing, community, and peace. One Xer said: ‘Music is our lifeblood: I’d rather buy music than eat!’ And they’d rather be at a U2 concert than at church singing hymns
  
• They’re anti-materialistic. They have watched boomers destroy families and relationships to achieve ‘success.’ So they’ll have eight jobs or more, and each job will be temporary. They’ll want to put family/relationships before work: work is what you do so that you can have a life
  
• They have insatiable appetites for junk – junk food, junk films, junk ideas, and junk culture…
  
• Boomers were critical or suspicious of institutions, but many Xers reject institutions and “the establishment”. This is a collaborative generation: hierarchies are out.
  
• No other generation has needed the church so much, yet wanted it so little. (Was it T.S. Eliot who wrote about ‘the children at the gate who will not go away and cannot pray’?) Although a ‘spiritual’ generation they know less about the Bible than any previous generation in the past 1000 years of Western European-derived cultures.
  
• They’ve witnessed a dramatic shift in gender roles. In the 1960s, almost all men, but less than half of American women, worked outside of the home. GenXers grew up in the era of ‘women’s rights’. Since 1970 the labor-force participation rate of women has risen from 43 percent to about 60 percent. So most of them experienced ‘two-job’ families. They’re the first ‘latch-key’ generation.
  
• They affirm diversity (they’re multicultural) and can live with ambiguity.
  
• Fewer than half of them lived with two biological parents until they left home. More of them experienced ‘blended families’ than any other generation
  

(You can add some more)

And there is a fairly unanimous consensus that there are three pervasive feelings among GenXers – despair, confusion, and narcissism.

1. EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR

A few years ago I spent the International Year of the Family studying relationships and wrote a book ‘The Family’ (HarperCollins). Summary: God puts people into families/communities for three reasons: to learn self-worth by being loved unconditionally; to feel a sense of belonging (home is the place which, when you go there, they have to take you in); and to give back to others in forms of sacrifice and service. GenXers have suffered deprivations in all three areas… (‘I’m homesick for the home I never had!’ screams the lead singer of the Rock Group ‘Soul Asylum’).

The U.S. psychologist Martin Seligman (author of Learned Optimism) says that today young Americans are 10 times as likely to suffer _measurable_ depression as their grandparents did. In a new book, ‘Britain on the Couch’, psychologist Oliver James notes that British people are about three times as likely to be depressed as they were in the 1950s. Christian researcher George Barna says Xers are the most ignored, misunderstood, and disheartened generation our country has seen in a long time. Richard Peace, professor of evangelism at Fuller Theological Seminary, calls this clinically depressed generation. Road rage is about to be certified as an official mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association – together with IAD (‘Internet addiction disorder’), caffeine induced anxiety disorder, inhalant abuse, and telephone scatologia (making heavy breathing sexual phone calls). Pharmaceutical companies – the makers of Prozac, Xanax, and beta blockers for stage fright – love these new disorders.

Australia has the fourth-highest rate of male suicide in the world – and three young males kill themselves for every suiciding female. (And you can add in a lot of single-driver road accidents: last week I counted ten white crosses on one corner north of Hamilton, New Zealand).

Choosing careers is a hassle. In earlier times, children grew up taking for granted that they would adopt the occupations of their parents. A few generations back, children began adopting their parents’ aspirations instead of their occupations. GenXers are likely to choose neither. And in all of the G7 countries save Germany, joblessness among people under 25 is worse than for the workforce as a whole. Douglas Coupland, whose “Generation X” started it all coined the term “McJobs” – low paying, low tech, dead end. In the movie “Reality Bites”, Winona Ryder plays a college-leaver who is either over- or under-qualified for every job she seeks.

When the boomers were twentysomething, they were ready to save the world; Xers feel they are barely able to save themselves. Survival is the goal. A composite statement of Xer frustrations might go like this: Boomers had free love; we have AIDS. They had the War on Poverty; we have a trillion-dollar debt. They had a booming economy; we have downsizing and pollution

2. CONFUSION

GenXers are the first ‘post-Christian/post-modern’ generation in the West – the first generation to grow up without absolute truths, believing that the highest virtue is tolerance of the views of others. The key assumption of modernism is that knowledge is certain, objective, good, and obtainable: the ‘modern’ knower tries to stand apart from the world and be an unbiased observer. Information processing is linear; one’s outlook is optimistic; progress is inevitable; and the focus is on the individual.

The TV series The X-files is all about this paradigm shift in Western thought and culture. Over the past few years it has taken the world by storm. The show’s catchphrase – “The truth is out there” – is based on the assumption that although ‘the government’ is involved in conspiracies to conceal reality from its citizens, it’s possible to find the truth eventually.

Dana Scully is the skeptic. She is a doctor of medicine and a believer in science fact not science fiction. The FBI assigns Agent Scully to work with Agent Mulder solving the X-Files. Their hopes are to discredit Agent Mulder with science and eventually close the X-Files. Agent Scully soon finds that seeing is not always believing and the plan fails. Initially Scully was appointed to work with Mulder to keep a check on him and his conspiracy theories but she soon becomes less hardened to the possibility that “something is out there”.

For postmodern Xers there are multiple centres of truth, no truth is true, and all truth is true. Everything is relative and everything could be truth. Xers can live with contradictory ideas. For the Xer, experience beats dogma.Truth is defined by each individual and the community of which he or she is a part. And so information processing is nonlinear and fragmented; the idea of progress is illusory; and the focus is on community.

So Christian apologetics will have to change tack. When I tell Xers I’ve found 22 valid reasons for believing in the existence of God, they’re happy with that (see the article on our website). Re homosexuality: Xer’s parents wanted it in black and white; Xers aren’t so sure. (Perhaps the conservatives and liberals are both wrong).

3. NARCISSISM

A high school teacher went back teaching after having children. I asked her did she notice any difference in how the kids used to be? She said, ‘They’re more selfish these days. We were studying the novel ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’ and talked about the notion of ‘duty’: they had no idea what duty/obligation was all about.’

Put ‘narcissism’ into a Web Search Engine and you’ll come across hundreds of books with ‘Narcissism’ in the title (at Amazon.com). Generation Xers often have what they’re now calling ‘Narcissism pages’ on their website. They used to be called biodata or a CV.

According to Greek mythology, Narcissus would have lived a long life had he never come to know himself. But, after he had angered the gods, Narcissus saw his reflection for the first time in a pool of water. As he bent to drink he instantly fell in love with himself. Each time he clasped at the image it disappeared. As he sat for days at the pool, dying, he cried in despair, unable to embrace his own love.

If, by narcissism, you mean narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), the prevalence of this is about 9% in clinical populations and less than 1% in the general population. NPD is characterized by a sense of superiority, a sense of uniqueness, exaggeration of talents, boastful and pretentious behavior, grandiose fantasies, self-centered and self-referential behavior, need for attention and admiration, arrogant and haughty behavior, and high achievement. However, narcissistic traits are quite common and range across a spectrum of severity – a certain degree of narcissism (i.e., positive self-regard, self-confidence) is actually healthy.

Articles in Psychologists’ journals are suggesting that narcissism is the behavioral disorder of the late nineties: thirty or forty years ago – and for millennia before that – guilt was the main psychological crippler. Not any more. Now I talk to clients who have absolutely no guilt – but they’re not psychopaths either. They’re trying to find happiness the ways the media and advertising and celluloid industries tell them it can be found: while living hypersexual and hedonistic lives they’re empty inside.

Jacques Derrida says there is no “one” narcissism. ‘There is not narcissism and non-narcissism; there are narcissisms that are more or less comprehensive, generous, open, extended. What is called non-narcissism is in general but the economy of a much more welcoming, hospitable narcissism, one that is much more open to the experience of the other as other. Love is narcissistic. Beyond that, there are little narcissisms, there are big narcissisms, and there is death in the end, which is the limit. Even in the experience – if there is one – of death, narcissism does not absolutely abdicate its power.’ (Source: interview somewhere on the ‘Net).

The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (Christopher Lasch) : ‘The new narcissist is haunted not by guilt but by anxiety. He seeks not to inflict his own certainties on others but to find a meaning in life. Liberated from the superstitions of the past, he doubts even the reality of his own existence. Superficially relaxed and tolerant, he finds little use for dogmas of racial and ethnic purity but at the same time forfeits the security of group loyalties and regards everyone as a rival for the favors conferred by a paternalistic state. His sexual attitudes are permissive rather than puritanical, even though his emancipation from ancient taboos brings him no sexual peace. Fiercely competitive in his demand for approval and acclaim, he distrusts competition because he associates it unconsciously with an unbridled urge to destroy. Hence he repudiates the competitive ideologies that flourished at an earlier stage of capitalist development and distrusts even their limited expression in sports and games. He extols cooperation and teamwork while harboring deeply antisocial impulses. He praises respect for rules and regulations in the secret belief that they do not apply to himself. Acquisitive in the sense that his cravings have no limits, he does not accumulate goods and provisions against the future, in the manner of the acquisitive individualist of nineteenth-century political economy, but demands immediate gratification and lives in a state of restless, perpetually unsatisfied desire.’

The trend toward excessive emphasis on self-esteem and self-congratulation may be an overcorrection of earlier traditions of avoiding complimenting children for fear of making them conceited. Self-esteem is most likely to be fostered when children are esteemed and treated respectfully and receive the right kind of positive, meaningful feedback in the form of appreciation, rather than empty praise and flattery.

The concept of the self varies among cultures, and that Westerners typically construe themselves as “independent”, stable entities. On the other hand, in Asia and Africa the self is viewed as “interdependent” and connected with the social context. Westerners view the self as an autonomous entity consisting of a unique configuration of traits. The Asian view is that the self exists primarily in relation to specific social contexts, and is esteemed to the extent that it can adjust to others and maintain harmony.

So are today’s young people more selfish? In one sense no. Every generation has its own way of manifesting narcissism: GenXers are more honest about it…

(3) YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD

The youngest of our children, Lindy, is now 24. When she was 14 I took her to India, and we visited Mother Teresa’s House of the Dying. When she was 18 she heard about the orphanages in China where many baby girls were left to die. So she went there, to cradle in her arms some of those dying babies…

So, my friends, I invite you to be useful, as well as decorative, in this bad, sad world. Former U.N. Secretary Dag Hammarskjold spoke of service in this way: ‘You have not done enough, you have never done enough, so long as it is still possible that you have something to contribute.’

Some medicos here will help fight Alzheimer’s and many other as-yet-unconquered diseases. We need some economists here to work creatively on narrowing the gap between rich and poor – and do something about the one million people in our country who are unemployed. (The level of unemployment we can live with is a _choice_ we make). Some here will develop new communications technologies. (I’m inclined to agree with Nicholas Negroponte of M.I.T. who said that the Internet may be the only development in history in which the reality exceeds the dream).

Those of you doing media studies might like to think about three areas of violence increasing in scope, severity and frequency on Television – increased aggression, increased callousness to the use of violence and increased fearfulness. Do all heroes have to be violent?

Then there are issues of global poverty and hunger. Potentially, three quarters of the 12 million child deaths that still occur each year could be prevented by new vaccines emerging from biotechnology research… There seems to be an increase in global selfishness. Australia has reduced its aid budget every year recently and is down to exactly the world average of 0.27 per cent of gross domestic product, half the level of 20 years ago. The UN target, to which Australia is a signatory of 0.7 per cent of GDP is honoured by a handful of European countries.

More Australian families than in living memory have a social security payment as their sole income source; the gap between the highest and lowest earners is increasing. Only 40% of families now consist of a couple with dependent children in a registered marriage. Average household size has shrunk from 4.6 people in 1911 to 2.7 people today.

Now, you political scientists: there’s a crisis in democracy between principles and pragmatism. How do you satisfy every conflict single-issue group? You can’t. We in Australia have too much democracy – two federal houses of Parliament, about a dozen State houses of parliament, over 600 local councils – all this just to govern 18.5 million people. Trouble is, people who govern us are human, and for humans power tends to become addictive: after a few years they become unbearably arrogant, begin to believe in their infallibility, lose touch with electors, repel criticism and find themselves surrounded by sycophants. Beware the politician who doesn’t care whether they’re liked or not – and beware politicians who care too much whether they’re liked or not.

Above all, like two outstanding Australians who died recently, Nugget Coombs and B.A. Santamaria – aim not only to be clever, but also passionate. (And never ever aspire to be either without the other).

NOW, IN A WORLD LIKE THIS WHAT ATTITUDES WOULD JESUS SUGGEST HIS FOLLOWERS ADOPT? Xers would have felt very much at home with the Jesus of the Gospels, with whom they have much in common. Jesus was in his early thirties when he began his public work; he

had no career path and no place he could call home. His greatest battles were against the dogmas of his day, and he showed little faith in institutions and rules and regulations. Rather, his message was of a Father full of grace, and the context of his work was his personal relationships. He built community, first with his small group of 12, and then across class, gender, racial, and lifestyle lines. He liked a good party, even turning water into wine to keep one from ending prematurely. He spoke against injustice and did not have the stomach for inauthentic people. He thought globally but acted locally.

In the Scripture read earlier from Matthew 5 has Jesus going up onto the mountain. There he gave his ‘commencement address’ to his followers – their initiation into Jesus’ rule/reign/kingdom – and to us!

Each begins with the exclamation ‘How happy!’ or ‘Congratulations!’

1. Congratulations to those who realize you are ‘the poorest of the poor’: you’ve got nothing; you’re beggars, you’re nobodies. You know you’ll never make it on your own; you have become utterly dependent on God. You’re not ‘in the system’ (the higher up the system the more trapped you are. If you’re not in the system you won’t have to defend it). You’re free of all its trappings. You see reality better. They say a Bishop never gets two things – a bad meal or the truth. Notice present tense – kingdom of heaven _is_ yours, now. You are free now.

2. Congratulations to those who mourn – they will be comforted (5:4). You are in touch with the grim reality of pain in the world. Tears are healing – there’s some evidence that the ‘saltiness’ of physical tears are washed-out toxins. The ones who grieve, who cry, are the ones who are cleansed of superficiality. Life is not sanitized for them: they understand. The saints – like Francis – speak of ‘the gift of tears’. The Syrian Fathers wanted tears to be a sacrament in the Church – but others whose theology was more ‘in their head’ vetoed this idea! Saint Ephraim said until you have cried you don’t know God. Most of us think we get to know God through ideas, through theology. Jesus says the ‘weeping class’ can enter into solidarity with the pain of the world. That’s why he says the rich aren’t in the kingdom: they are able to buy unreality with money and shield themselves from a lot of human suffering: it may happen at their gate, but they don’t know about it. Richard Rohr, to whom I am indebted for some of these insights (Jesus’ Plan for a New World) says the young man who cannot cry is a savage; the old man who cannot laugh is a fool. But our culture tells young men they shouldn’t cry. (Women cry more than men – and they live longer)! I recently read the Psalms right through during a four week holiday-time: half of them are sad or angry! Which is why they are so authentic.

3. Congratulations to the meek – they will inherit the earth (from Psalm 37:11: ‘the humble shall have the land for their own’). Most land was got by oppression, violence; then the peasants could only survive depending on the landowners. But Jesus says it’s all going to turn around: actually God owns the land (see Psalm 24:1; Leviticus 25:23) – we’re simply stewards, pilgrims, strangers here. Indigenous/aboriginal peoples understand the freedom of the land better than technologically advanced cultures. We put fences/walls around land and call it ‘mine’. In a sense we don’t possess anything – it’s all God’s. Mother Teresa, they told me in India, owned three saris and a bucket. That’s all. That’s why she’s a saint. We who possess so many things eventually realize (perhaps when we’re six feet under) that we don’t really possess anything.

4.Congratulations to those who hunger and thirst for justice – they shall have their fill (5:6). Most translations soften this word – ‘what is right’. The word in Greek is clearly ‘justice’. To live a just life is to identify with the poor, those who mourn, the meek. Justice, says Walter Brueggemann, is figuring out what belongs to whom and returning it to them. Father Richard Rohr says that in all his years hearing confessions he’s never heard anybody confess to violating the tenth commandment – about coveting our neighbors’ goods. Yet coveting is what our whole culture is built on. Advertising is all about creating desire. Very few Western Christians seriously question the goal of increasing or maximizing profits. Why not fast from advertizing for a while? (Rohr’s definition of a shopping-mall boutique: ‘a shop that sells nothing you need!’)

5. Congratulations to the merciful – they will have mercy shown to them (5:7). Mercy and forgiveness are the whole gospel. The God who makes the rules forgives – freely, gladly – the one who has broken them. This is the God of the Hebrew Scriptures too: mercy is what pleases him, not religious ordinances as such. The Hebrew word is ‘hesed’ – loving-kindness, covenant love. Pride says ‘I’m good enough; I don’t need mercy’. It takes humility to surrender to the Divine mercy. Refusing to forgive is our quaint human way of trying to hold on to power, to seek the high moral ground over another. We refuse to acknowledge the other, as a way to shame them, to manipulate them, to control and diminish them. But God isn’t interested in this over-under stuff: God chooses to be powerless, to humbly forgive us. So in a lifetime of ten thousand surrenders to mercy we become merciful. I’ve found that by praying the ‘Jesus prayer’ many times a day, and last thing at night, I’ve become more merciful. (‘Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’)

6. Congratulations to the pure in heart – they shall see God (5:8). If your heart is right, your vision will be right: you’ll see right. You’ll see with God’s eyes. Jesus asked Simon the Pharisee: ‘What do you see?’ Simon saw a woman-sinner; Jesus saw someone desperate for authentic love. With God’s eyes, you’ll see others as made in God’s image. And you’ll see your own motives for what they are. When people do a retreats at our place one of the questions is: ‘For what non-altruistic motives did you enter pastoral ministry / missionary work, whatever?’

7. Congratulations to the peacemakers – they shall be recognized as children of God. This is the only time ‘peacemaker’ occurs in the whole Bible = one who reconciles quarrels. The assumption – nonviolence; you can’t achieve real peace through violence. You don’t ‘stop killing by killing’. Violence creates more violence. What do we do with Saddam Hussein? He’s got all these terrible biological means of mass destruction. But, says his Arab neighbours, so has Israel. The history of the world is the history of those who build empires, so that those in the centre / at the top can enjoy security at the expense of peoples around the edges: so millions are tortured and killed and displaced and taken into various forms of slavery. There’s a world of difference between the Pax Christi which sacrifices power and the Pax Romana which creates a false peace by sacrificing others. One thing you could never call Jesus was a ‘patriot’. He belonged to a far bigger world…

8. Congratulations if you are persecuted for the cause of justice – the Kingdom of Heaven is yours. Blessed are you when you are reviled (5:10,11). Persecution for the cause of Jesus is inevitable. Luke puts this in a negative form: ‘Alas for you when the world speaks well of you. This was the way their ancestors treated the false prophets’ (Luke 6:26). If the church, if Christians, are at home in this ungodly, alien culture, we’re not being true to the religion of Jesus. He turns conventional values on their head…

(4) BUT NEVER FORGET:

1. DON’T GIVE UP ON THE CHURCH (YET) BUT GET TO KNOW JESUS: The next millennium is upon us soon. All kinds of doomsayers are predicting dire apocalyptic happenings after January 1, 2000 (or 2001). But that aside, was it Alexander the Great who asked someone to tell him three times a day, ‘Alexander, remember you must die’? My friend, you must die. A good exercise is to write your eulogy honestly if you knew you were to die tomorrow. What would your mourning family/friends say about your life? Well? Jesus calls us to live authentically in this world and prepare for ‘eternal life’ in another world. Thomas Merton, a famous writer and Trappist monk used to walk up to his students and shout “Your life is passing you by very quickly.” Your longing for another world, as CSLewis reminded us, is a pretty good sign that another world exists. In the Problem of Pain: ‘All your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness: the day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it, or that it was within your grasp and you have lost it forever.’

2. But enjoy this world. Set some GOALS – big ones (to change the world: mine involve communicating about Jesus to a million more people each year on the Internet). One goal this year could be to find the wisest person you know and ask him or her if you can talk to them once a month. And develop a few trivial ones. (They’re called hobbies: one of mine is to get a streak of 100 wins in Miscrosoft’s card-game Freecell, and also collect the books of one author, Australia’s most prolific religious writer until recently, F.W. Boreham)…

3. REMEMBER THAT TRIUMPH AND DISASTER ARE BOTH IMPOSTERS, as Kipling said. Success and achievement are really not all that important in life as ends in themselves. They tend to tarnish with the passage of time. Every day we both succeed and fail. Every day we have to work hard to refine and reinforce values. Every day we must remind ourselves that we have intrinsic worth as human beings. Every day we work on our faith and our relationship with God – the ground of our values and self esteem. Every day we struggle to expand our knowledge base. Every day we realize we are responsible for our own positive attitude. Every day we must remind ourselves of the importance of self improvement… Back to success and failure: my best year was a year of failure… It’s OK to fail, but never ever call yourself a failure. Winston Churchill’s second-most-famous speech: ‘Boys, never, ever, ever, give up!’ It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from comedian Lily Tomlin. She said: “I’ve always wanted to be somebody. But now, I realize I should have been more specific.” Well, you already ARE somebody. But CONTINUED success requires being a bit more specific.

4. In this place, enjoy LEARNING for its own sake, rather than as a job ticket. Develop your mind: but don’t forget your spirit. Don’t inhabit simplicity this side of complexity for too long: that is to be childish or a fundamentalist. But don’t wallow in complexity the other side of simplicity. Rather move from simplicity this side of complexity, through complexity the other side of simplicity; to where the saints are – simplicity the other side of complexity (if you understand what I mean).

5. Be CONSERVATIVE about some things: in a world of ethical relativism, know what you stand for, where your faith lies. Live by a few strong convictions: hold to Christ – and for all else be uincommitted. There’s so much information: know the difference between good information and bad.

But don’t be conservative about everything: embrace change. Be RADICAL about some things. But to be conservative in everything is to have your life dominated by fear; to be radical in everything is to be driven by anger.

6. Have a WORLDWIDE perspective: we’ve all been thrown into a melting pot called the “Global Village”. Be something of a dissenter: constantly do battle with what someone has called THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE CAPITALIST APOCALYPSE – KNOWLEDGE, FREEDOM, POWER AND WEALTH. Simone Weil, the French mystic, defined violence as whatever transforms human

beings into things. My conviction is that about 99.9% of us are addicted to something, whether it’s coffee, chocolate, eating, shopping, movies, blaming or helping people. An addiction is anything we do to fill the void within that God is supposed to fill. Only the saints are not addicted to something other than God…

7. Be HONEST: I heard of a meeting between a first grade student and a third grade teacher. The teacher asked the student if he had any advice for her. He replies, “Keep your promises and do your best.” Pursue excellence – for the right reasons. Live with integrity. Have only one ambition: to be a saint. (If you have God and everything else, you have no more than having God only: but if you have everything else and not God, you have nothing).

8. Own your own stuff. You are mature when you have FORGIVEN YOUR PARENTS (and other authority-figures in your life) for being human. Know that, in your relationships with others, acceptance precedes repentance (with the Pharisees, the enemies of Jesus, it was the other way around).

9. Believe in the (spiritually) therapeutic value of the GENTLE DARKNESS. What I hope for you, for all my sisters and daughters, brothers and sons, is that you will be able to live there, in the dark place: to live in the place that our rationalizing culture of success denies, calling it a place of exile, uninhabitable, foreign; where you critique institutionalized competition, aggression, violence, authority, and power. Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country. (The seed has to be placed in the ground, a place of darkness, loneliness and death, before it can sprout, reach towards the sun, and eventually become something of beauty and fruitfulness). So learn to pray – and pray as you can, not as you can’t. How you pray is the best index of who you are.

10. FAITH, HOPE AND LOVE – these will remain as the greatest of human virtues. And they are the perfect antidotes for confusion, despair and narcissism. Faith is trusting the God Jesus told us about; hope is the deep conviction that God who promised to be with you through thick and thin will keep that promise; love is a gift from God – the relationship between subject and object that creates worth in the object rather than responding to worth in the object. The greatest of these is love. And never forget: You are an unrepeatable miracle of God’s creation. There is only one of you – and that’s good. Just as Jesus got his feelings of self-worth and identity from hearing hearing God his father affirm ‘You are my son; I delight in you!’ so you are a delight to God. And never forget: God does not share out love between all of God’s creatures: God gives all of God’s love to each of God’s creatures (Hugh of St.Victor).

Rowland Croucher March 1998. http://jmm.aaa.net.au

Note: the Commencement Address was (fortunately) shorter than these fuller notes might indicate…

P.S. INSIDE THE SOUL OF THE NEXT GENERATION: INSIGHTS AND STRATEGIES FOR REACHING BUSTERS by Tim Celek & Dieter Zander with Patrick Kampert ($9.99 / ISBN 0-310-20594-8 / Softcover / 176 pp. / 1996 / Zondervan). Two pastors of churches with ministries to Generation Xers give insights and practical advice about reaching this mysterious group.