May 18, 2013, 2:00 PM, Burmese ABC Church, Oakland
Message given by Rev. Donald Ng at the American Baptist Seminary of the West Commencement, Oakland, California
Mark 10:17-31
Beginning Comments
Being introduced by my daughter is a blessing beyond words. We who are parents all know that when your children have done well, we have this incredible satisfaction that from trial and error, from having never received a degree in parenting, and from having our senior project to be the actual project of raising up a child, the child came out pretty good! Much credit is due to God who made us all, to ABSW that prepared her for ministry, and to the wonderful gifts that Lauren has in her own right as a child of God.
I want to thank the faculty, the staff and particularly Dr. Jim Hopkins and the Trustees of this seminary who will grant Dr. Kim and Dr. Thorne, and me with these honorary degrees. We are honored and proud to be integral parts of the ABSW family and institution. I am very honored to be associated on this day at the same commencement celebration with our graduates because it is you who will have the opportunity with God’s grace and power to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ. I welcome you into this ministry of service and discipleship and will pray for each one of you to follow Jesus as your Lord.
Appreciation
Let me take a moment to express my warmest gratitude to my friend and President Dr. Paul Martin who has the confidence in me to take these precious moments on this day to share a message. Not often does a local pastor have the opportunity to share at such an auspicious occasion with distinguished and accomplished religious leaders—those who prepare men and women for ministry and those women and men who now have been prepared. I am indeed honored to be in your presence.
Some months ago when I was invited to bring this message, I was both surprised and horrified. I told some of you that it was easier to prepare a Sunday sermon every Sunday for an entire year than to consider even thinking about what to say at a seminary commencement. Dr. Martin, you can’t even begin to imagine how many sleepless nights and waking up in cold sweat I have had for giving me this assignment!
Our son, Greg who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina is here to witness this event. When I told him about this assignment, he reminded me that none of you are here for the purpose of hearing what I have to say. He told me that you are here to receive your diplomas and then to party with your family and friends. He told me that it’s not about you, Dad, but rather it’s all about the graduates. He told me at most, keep it to 10 minutes! This is when you realize that “our sons and daughters are prophesying and seeing visions” and an old man like me is having nightmares in my dreams worrying about what to say! I have been humbled!
In 1975, I missed my own seminary commencement when I received my Master of Divinity. My diploma was eventually sent to me in the mail without all the fanfare and pomp that we have today. The reason that I missed my graduation is that it’s this same son of mine who put me in my proper place was about to be born in San Francisco and my commencement was in Boston. So I am excited to be here today.
Integrity
Two years ago, we had an event in our church called, “Inside Out.” The name came from a young man named, Nate Lee who completed a Mission Year in Chicago. Nate is a very conscientious and focused young leader. He dedicated a full year without any of the comforts and conveniences that we are so used to having in order to relate to, identify with and bond with the neighbors around the house where he and his colleagues lived. He wanted to live his life inside out, through and through.
The Inside Out event at our church was an art show exhibiting creative arts by church members. The hope was that through such creative arts, the artists’ true self would be revealed—inside out.
For the most part, we only see what is on the outside and rarely get the chance to see what’s in the inside. When we first got married over 40 years ago (to my lovely wife, Joy), I actually did cross-stitch on our honeymoon! It’s embroidery. If the football great Roosevelt Grier can do it, I can too! When we pull the thread on the needle in and out, a good piece of cross-stitch embroidery is when the backside of the piece looks just as nice as the front side! I’m afraid my backside was a jumble of knots and hanging threads!
We all are looking pretty good today, don’t we? The faculty and staff are all in their different regalia. We upfront here have our robes on and when we are finished with these exercises, we’ll get the chance to show off the nice threads we have underneath. All of our family members and friends who are here are also decked out in their finest! We look pretty good indeed. But what might we look like inside out? Would we look as nice inside as we are looking pretty darn good on the outside today?
Today, I want to talk with you about personal integrity.
Young Rich Ruler
In all three of the Synoptic Gospels, we see that Jesus met a young man who was rich and with authority. He asked Jesus what can he do to inherit eternal life. In two of the accounts, he not only asked what good deeds he might need to do but he even tries to butter Jesus up with his question by saying “Good Teacher…” We tend to think about people like that to be flaky and insincere. They try too hard to be somebody that they are not. Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”
A person whose inside is out, a person with personal integrity has no need to butter up Jesus. But rather, when this young man was in the presence of the Lord, he should have experienced his sinful and forsaken life and sought for Jesus’ forgiveness.
After Jesus reminded the man about the commandments, he claimed that he had kept them ALL since his birth. We wonder about people when they say they have done ALL the chores. When your professor said to you if you have completed all your requirements, I’m sure you have said, “Yes, I have done them ALL!
But Jesus said to this young ruler that there is still one thing he has not done. He needs to sell his material possessions and give the money to the poor, stop doing what he’s doing and follow Jesus and then he would have treasure in heaven.
Being young, he had his whole life in front of him. Being a ruler, he had all the authority in his hands. Being rich, he had all the means to have anything he wanted. But with all the earthly advantages that he had in his reach, Jesus told him he still was lacking one thing.
A person whose inside is out, a person with personal integrity would see that you “don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matt. 6:19-21).
Jesus saw the young man’s heart deep inside to be different from what he was saying on the outside. His inside was not the same as his outside.
As graduates, you could be like this young rich ruler. Many of you are young, certainly younger than me and you have an entire life and a long ministry in front of you. Will you take seriously God’s call for you to be in ministry day in and day out for the next 40 plus years?
Many of you especially having paid tuition may not feel particularly rich right now and Ms. Regina Pidgeon still has an invoice for you! But you are rich according to the standards of the rest of the world and you are rich over the simple fact that you are here today—an opportunity to receive a graduate degree. Will you invest this wealth of learning that you have received to do good for others?
With this diploma in your hands, you might not think that you are a ruler, but you have the authority of a ruler. People are already calling you “Pastor” or “Reverend.” You have power and authority. Will you, led and anointed by the Spirit of the Lord, bring good news to the poor, proclaim the release of the captives, recover the sight of the blind, let the oppressed go free, and proclaim today, not tomorrow, not when you feel it’s safe, not when you think you are ready but now that this is the time of the Lord’s favor?
The biblical accounts say that when this young rich ruler wasn’t willing to give up his physical possessions, the gospel writers said he went away grieving, shock, and sad. He knew what was expected of him when he asked his question in the first place. When Jesus told him he lacked this one thing—trusting in God and not on earthly treasures, he didn’t have personal integrity. His inside did not match his outside appearance of a young rich ruler. When Jesus turned his inside out, he went away grieving, in shock and sad.
Undivided Self
Earlier this year, a very bizarre event happened. The former NBA player Dennis Rodman went to North Korea and had pictures of himself smiling and laughing with the head of state Kim Jong Un. Upon his return, Rodman said that Kim is an “awesome guy” merely hours before Kim threatened to launch a nuclear strike against the United States.
Writing about this incident is one of my favorite writers in the San Francisco Chronicle, Caille Millner. She believed that Rodman wanted to remain a celebrity and stay relevant with the world. Rodman has been on reality shows and now it took something of this global scale to grab attention.
Millner said, “The rest of us won’t be that compromised—if only because we’re not that famous. But this sorry business is a good reminder that these days, dignity may be the most expensive thing of all.” (March 9, 2012)
Being minister with integrity does not grab attention on oneself but all the attention goes to God.
Being a minister with integrity does not mean being famous or a celebrity in the eyes of the world.
Being a minister with integrity does not compromise the beliefs and convictions that you have in the truth of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
Being a minister with integrity is to have dignity and character that endures especially when you face suffering and persecution.
Being a minister with integrity is having your inside out so that God knows that you are faithful through and through.
The Quaker theologian Parker Palmer in A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward the Undivided Life, says that the true self is an “undivided self” when you are the same on stage as well as off stage. Palmer says,
“We arrive in this world undivided, integral, whole. But sooner or later, we erect a wall between our inner and outer lives, trying to protect what is within us or to deceive the people around us. Only when the pain of our dividedness becomes more than we can bear do most of us embark on an inner journey toward living ‘divided no more.’” (p. 39)
We all can confess that we have had moments when we still lacked something. There have been times when we like the young rich ruler were not willing to give God our ALL to follow him. And with our titles and positions of authority, we sometimes have thought about ourselves to be more important than we really are.
I confess that I had and still have moments like that. When I graduated from seminary in Boston in 1975, my first call to ministry was at First Chinese Baptist in San Francisco. My friends at Andover Newton were amazed that we had this wonderful opportunity to relocate out here in the beautiful Bay Area and at such a historic church. I felt famous like Dennis Rodman!
After a mere 3 years in San Francisco, I had another opportunity that I felt I couldn’t resist and accepted the new call to move to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. I thought bigger and better. I was that young rich ruler. But only years later did I realize the disappointment and pain that I caused by leaving a creative ministry at First Chinese Baptist Church so quickly.
A young man told me when I came back to this same church in 1998 that he was sad that I left and was looking forward to having me as his youth pastor like I was for his older sister and brother. I will always carry with me this young man’s words to remind me about humility, the importance of relationships and that I was called to just be this kid’s pastor.
When I was younger, my outside didn’t always match my inside. I might have looked like a pastor but inside of me, I was trying to be famous and rich and a ruler. My life was not yet undivided. For my own personal integrity to become whole again, I made a commitment to settle in and to endure whatever “hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, for in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:35, 37).
To be whole again, I served 7 times longer in Valley Forge than I first did at First Chinese. And today, I have served 5 times longer at FCBC than I first did in 1975. I told this young man who is now married and a father of 5 children that I’m not leaving this time.
Camel Through a Needle
The challenges and prognosis for ministry in the future is not necessarily bright.
According to the latest ABC Ministers Council newsletter, a Duke University study found that 85% of seminary graduates entering the ministry leave within five years and 90% of all pastors will not stay to retirement. Studies by the Alban Institute and Fuller Seminary found that 50% of ministers drop out of ministry within the first five years and many never to go back to church again. These statistics are not working toward your favor!
Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:25). It’s easier for you to have the backside of your cross-stitch embroidery to look as nice as the front side than for you to forfeit your treasures on earth and to trust the Lord and follow him.
I just returned from Germany with a group visiting the Lands of Luther. Martin Luther 500 years ago said that if we followed the Law, we end up thinking that from our own merits of doing works, we can achieve salvation. Martin Luther teaches us that it’s only from the grace of God that we are saved. Therefore, it’s only when we believe in the Gospel in what Christ has done for us is when we are saved from the inside out. God’s forgiveness of our sins made possible by Christ taking upon himself all of our sins and paid the debt for us is when we are transformed from the inside out!
The seminary has done all they can to prepare you for ministry but it is now up to you and God’s grace and power to serve the Lord inside out. Jesus told his disciples that after they strip away all treasures, all fear of mortality, their houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children, and fields to follow him in his name’s sake, they will receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life.
You might be young and ambitious, but Jesus is telling you that it’s not about you.
You might still want to be rich in the eye of the world, but Jesus is telling you that your treasures are in heaven.
You might want to be famous and a celebrity pastor at a big church, but Jesus is telling you to be a humble servant with dignity and integrity.
You might want to be a ruler and have authority and dominion as far as you can see, but Jesus is telling you he is the king of glory.
We are all pretty darn good-looking today but Jesus wants what’s inside of us—our hearts. That’s the treasure he wants.
Jesus wants to turn your inside out to reveal your true self in order to live an undivided life, filled with wholeness and integrity. In doing so, by the standards of this world, you may be last, but from the truth of the Gospel, Jesus says you will be first in his kingdom.
Let us pray.
Gracious God, fill us with your Spirit leading us to become your humble and faithful servants of your Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Challenge us to set aside the standards of success and expectations of importance of the world in order to pick up the cross ourselves and to lead by our daily words and actions in a life of discipleship. Create in us a clean heart, an undivided self, a life of integrity that our inside is as beautiful as our outside. Grant us courage and power as we begin the ministries that you have called us to do and that we have adequately prepared for in this great institution known as the American Baptist Seminary of the West. Continue to bless and bestow upon ABSW the necessary resources and abilities to educate and graduate women and men to the Christian ministry confident that each person will be faithful and dedicated people of God inside out. In the name of Christ Jesus, we pray. Amen.