Dr. Brett Vaden / August 21, 2019
We are called together. That is what convocation means: to be called together. But who calls us? Not me or any person up here. This morning, and this year, our Great Teacher, Jesus the Son of God, he calls us. With the Father and the Holy Spirit. But I am here on his behalf, to give you a charge. A charge is when someone gives you a task as a duty or responsibility. As I have thought and prayed about this, I have felt the need to give us all seven charges. And here they are:
#1—Students, I charge you to seek wisdom. Wisdom is being able to make the right decision. It means you can tell good from bad. Many people are fools. Do not be one of them. Do you know what happens to fools? They don’t want to learn. They don’t listen to parents or teachers. They think they know it all. But they don’t, and neither do any foolish friends of theirs. They are like a blind person who runs out into the street without asking for any help or without learning how to cross safely or to use a cane.
Sooner or later, if you’re a fool, you’ll get smashed, or fall into a ditch. So, instead, ask the Lord for wisdom. That’s what a good student does. And it’s what a good king or queen does. How many of you would like to be a king or queen? The greatest king of Israel was Solomon. He became great because he asked God to make him wise.
#2—Students in the Grammar School – Kindergarten through 6th grade, I charge you to seek temperance. Temperance means you know when to stop doing something good before it goes bad. How many of you like eating candy? But have you ever eaten so much candy that you feel sick? That’s doing something good too much, so it goes bad. Talking with your friends is good, but you must learn when to stop before it goes bad, like when you are in class and supposed to be listening to your teacher. Teasing and laughing is good, but it can go bad if you let it go too long, or if the other person doesn’t like it. Seek temperance. Another word for it is self-control. When your self goes too far, say, “Self, it’s time to stop.” Dont’ let something else control you. You control yourself. Seek temperance. Your parents and teachers will help you.
#3—Students in the Upper School – 7th through 12th grades, I charge you to seek courage. Courage does not mean you have no fear. To have no fear often means you are crazy or stupid. Being reckless and stupid is not courage. Many people use drugs to take away their fears; they think drugs or alcohol will give them courage. It does not. That’s because if you want to be courageous, you have to face your fears. “To face the unknown even while flinching, unsteady or downright terrified: this is courage” (Mark Eddy Smith). How many of you like to eat good food? How many like to sleep in when you can? And how many wish you were a little taller than you are now? Then all of you are pretty much just like a hobbit. (Even if you don’t have hairy feet!) And in that case, you are like Bilbo Baggins. Have you ever read the part about when he first faced the dragon, Smaug?
“Then the hobbit slipped on his ring, and warned by the echoes to take more than hobbit’s care to make no sound, he crept noiselessly down, down, down into the dark. He was trembling with fear, but his little face was set and grim. Already he was a very different hobbit from the one that had run out without a pocket-handkerchief from Bag-End long ago. He had not had a pocket-handkerchief for ages. He loosened his dagger in its sheath, tightened his belt, and went on. ‘Now you are in for it at last, Bilbo Baggins,’; he said to himself. ‘You went and put your foot right in it that night of the party, and now you have got to pull it out and pay for it! Dear me, what a fool I was and am!’ said the least Tookish part of him. ‘I have absolutely no use for dragon- guarded treasures, and the whole lot could stay here for ever, if only I could wake up and find this beastly tunnel was my own front-hall at home!’ He did not wake up of course, but went still on and on, till all sign of the door behind had faded away. He was altogether alone. Soon he thought it was beginning to feel warm. ‘Is that a kind of a glow I seem to see coming right ahead down there?’ he thought. It was. As he went forward it grew and grew, till there was no doubt about it. It was a red light steadily getting redder and redder. Also it was now undoubtedly hot in the tunnel. Wisps of vapour floated up and past him and he began to sweat. A sound, too, began to throb in his ears, a sort of bubbling like the noise of a large pot galloping on the fire, mixed with a rumble as of a gigantic tom-cat purring. This grew to the unmistakable gurgling noise of some vast animal snoring in its sleep down there in the red glow in front of him. It was at this point that Bilbo stopped. Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterward were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.” (The Hobbit, pp. 192-193)
You upper schoolers listen to me: you have many real dangers ahead of you. In a short time, you will reach the end of the tunnel here at school and graduate. You will leave your parents to be your own man or woman. And that’s when you’ll encounter the dragons, without someone else fighting for you. No one except the Lord, of course – and he will be with you, if you are strong and courageous. But the real battle has already started. And you have to decide: will you be the kind of person who faces your fears, or will you hide from them? Will you avoid what’s hard and scary by doing what’s easy and safe? Or will you face your fear and take risks? Be strong. Be courageous.
#4—Teachers, I charge you to seek… mirth! Other names for this virtue are joy, merriment, and the root of this virtue is hope. Teachers, you have a difficult job. You are given the role of mentor and guide, of correcting and disciplining. You must be the one to bring order and direction to the classroom. How many of you want to stir young minds and hearts? How many of you feel the power—even magic—of the things you teach? How many of you sometimes find your task is hard and wearisome? Then you are like Gandalf the wizard. Don’t take that as an insult – I’m not saying you look like an old man with a beard dressed in grey dirty robes! Rather, I’m saying you are like him, because he, too, was faced with your tasks – stirring hearts, guiding the wayward, and bearing heavy loads. Have you ever read that part in The Lord of the Rings where Gandalf and the young hobbit Pippin have just arrived in Gondor, in the great fortress city of Minas Tirith? At this part of the tale, things are very dark and evil is about to attack in full force. Gandalf is burdened with his cares, and Pippin is afraid to talk to him. Afraid of making the great wizard angry. Yet, when Pippin steals a glance up into Gandalf’s careworn face, “he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth.” Teachers, seek this mirth. Seek this joy. Seek to have it at your core. Often it will be hidden; your students will see instead your seriousness and discipline. But, at your core, keep mirth. And let it be the joy that lightens all your cares this year. Keep hope. Keep joy and laughter. Keep mirth.
I want to briefly speak to all adults here, including parents. Particularly, to you as men and women. Our culture is in serious disarray about what mature masculinity and mature femininity are. So, I want to speak to the men as men and women as women.
#5—Women, I want to charge you to seek faith. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. There are many things you don’t see but believe; you may not see the full fruit of your labors as women, as a wife, or as a mom, but keep faith that God will bring to completion the good work he has started in you. You may not see the world recognize your worth or your value; instead you may see abuse and ridicule and dismissal of you. But keep faith that your voice is still needed, your help still necessary, and your love still precious. The Lord sees you. So keep faith and don’t give up. The first will be last and the last will be first.
#6—Men, I charge you to seek justice. Justice means rendering unto others their due. “It is an old name for everything we should now call “fairness”, it includes honesty, give and take, truthfulness, keeping promises, and all that side of life” (C.S. Lewis). Men, many people have been unjust to you. How many of you have been lied to? Stolen from? How many of you have looked to other men for justice, honesty and fairness, and not seen it? Do not become yourself like those men. Do not choose the way they chose to get power, to protect themselves, to succeed. That would be like taking the Ring of Sauron, the Ring of Power, and using it for oneself—to become like Sauron. Don’t do that. Instead seek justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly. Let young ones see justice and love and humility in you. I am not charging you to be “nice”. Being nice in itself does not mean much if it’s mere politeness. Politeness, or niceness, can be very good, but often we as men use it as a facade, a mask to cover bad motives. I much prefer the word “kindness” to being “nice”; kindness reminds us of treating others in kind, as people like us. We should be just and kind, treating others as we would wish to be treated. Sometimes that means being polite or nice, but very often it means being righteously angry, using our voice to protect others or stop something wrong or dangerous. Do not just be nice. Seek justice.
#7—Administrators, Staff and Board Members, I charge you to seek stewardship. Stewardship requires all these virtues I’ve mentioned: wisdom, temperance, courage, mirth, faith, and justice. Stewardship is a kingly virtue, because it means marshaling all the resources and virtues you have to care for other people in your realm. It is rooted in the theological virtue of love. A good steward uses power to make sure others thrive. A good steward loves those under him or her, seeking to serve rather than to be served. Seek stewardship.
In conclusion, I leave you with the most important—indeed really the only thing to seek; may the words of David be our prayer this year: “One thing I have asked of the Lord, this is what I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to see him in his temple.”
Dr. Brett Vaden serves as the Dean of the Three Fourteen Institute in Saint Louis, whose mission is to equip leaders to serve Christ in local churches. He received his MDiv and PhD from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and has experience both as a writer and practitioner in classical education. Dr. Vaden serves on the Board at Providence and is married to Rachel and they have three children in the grammar school at Providence: Story, Arrow, and Harmony.
