"It's Friday, but Monday's Coming." Jan's Baccalaureate Address at Gordon College, May 15, 2015.

It’s been 4 years since I stood here beside my husband, speaking LAST WORDS to a graduating class and community we loved and hated to leave.  But the time was right, despite how it felt.   AND SO IT IS FOR YOU.

Over your years here, you’ve heard a great deal about leadership, met and heard from significant leaders, as have college and university students all across this country.  I’d like to suggest that while Godly leaders are important, I believe God calls us to LIVES WORTH FOLLOWING.  To a life of FOLLOWING JESUS, come what may.  In my husband’s last months, he challenged us by how he faced death as well as how he had lived his life.  HIs theology and purpose boiled down to:  FOLLOW JESUS.

 It’s Friday but Monday’s coming.  MONDAY…representing the day you begin “life after Gordon”..enter the work force, begin graduate school or, perchance, to sleep.

In preparation for this time together, I’ve prayed and puzzled over what to say to you who’ve heard so much and to a community that’s been through so much.

How to sound smart enough, even erudite, peppering this talk with footnotes so the board or whoever voted to give me an honorary degree at Commencement tomorrow will feel validated in their decision.

And, finally, WWJD.  What Would JUD Do?  A question I’ve been asking myself often during these past six months.

In the end, I decided to be who I am.  A storyteller who loves Jesus, my family, this broken world, and Gordon College..the place I’ve loved to call home for almost 40 years.  I am  also a grandmother and, as a grandmother, I chose the Old Testament reading (Psalm 78:1-11) to remind us older ones that we have a privileged responsibility to tell the next generation about God’s faithfulness. 

Since our children and four of our five grandchildren are here, I can’t help but speak as a grandmother.  With me today are Heather Carlberg Willis, daughter Luke Willis, eldest grandson Basil Willis Chad Judson Carlberg,son and Gordon alum Kristina Harter Carlberg, our daughter-in-love Maggie Blue Carlberg                                     Katharan Poco Blossom Carlberg          My brother, Ralph Jensen…and brother-in-love Jim Abts 

                        

Our eldest grandchild, Lily, a freshman in high school, is competing  with her team in the California state mountain biking finals tomorrow so could not be here.  Go girl!  Her Dad’s there to cheer her on. Lily’s coming  back here for LaVida this summer. Her 5th year…this time as a counselor in training.  A  few years back, Lily’s the one who gave me one of my favorite stories.

Jud was Gordon’s president then, and we were living at Wilson House.  Lily  and I were in the bathroom getting ready to go to church on Easter Sunday.  I stood in front of the mirror, slathering cream on my face.  Lily asked, “What’s that?”   I said, “It’s anti-aging cream.” She took a long look at me and quietly said, “It’s not working!”

STORIES ARE AN IMPORTANT WAY TO COMMUNICATE WHAT does and does not work. Jesus used stories to do that and more. Tonight’s talk is a LOVE STORY—actually three short stories woven together to illustrate one truth…GOD LOVES and wants us to LOVE Him, ourselves and each other.

I can’t remember when I didn’t love to listen to, read or tell stories.  As a young child, sitting in front of a radio—a great wooden piece of furniture back then—I gave my heart to Jesus as Aunt Teresa told another story on station WMBI in Chicago.

Since I grew up in a family where Danish and Norwegian were spoken, the stories I heard often came with accents.  Some of you’ve heard stories from my Mama’s Norwegian side of the family.  Daddy’s Danish side is seldom heard from, partly because their stories were not as repeatable in church!   For you?  Some Danish.

LOVE STORY #1

Daddy’s eldest sister, Harriet, lived with her husband, Frank, in a beautiful apartment, overlooking Lake Michigan in Chicago.  Two proud Danes!  Life was good. They had no children, free to travel to Denmark and spend freely at Marshall Field’s department store and shops that specialized in Danish design and Danish imports.

However, they were two of the most prejudiced people I’d ever met and I’d just come from the South!  Their prejudice wasn’t about black v. white, Republican v. Democrat, rich v. poor.  It was much more narrow.   It was all about being Danish!  If you weren’t Danish you weren’t worth much, which leaves an awful lot of people out.  I barely made it myself, as I was only half Dane. Janice Dawn JENSEN…very DANISH last name. 

But we loved each other, Aunt Harriet and Uncle Frank and I.  We  were family…oddly assorted, but family.   Aunt Harriet bought me things that my folks couldn’t afford, like my first big girl bed, when I was a little girl growing up in Chicago.  Uncle Frank, gave me money when I was little…Anywhere from 5 to 25 cents if I would shut up and go away.  

NOW, people pay me TO TALK!

When I was 10, Daddy moved us from Illinois to the South, where he pastored a church in Georgia…When I was 16, we moved to NC, and it was from there, when I was 18, that Daddy drove me to Illinois so I could attend Wheaton College. 

I was going to be near the more heathen part of our family and where I was born: Chicago!

Both my aunt and uncle smoked. Uncle Frank like a New England chimney in winter.  And Aunt Harriet sneaky-like. Neither cared for church, much less Jesus.

Almost every Saturday, I took a train from Wheaton into Chicago to clean their apartment.  Paying me for that was their way of helping me with college expenses. While I cleaned, I often shot up a prayer for them to find Jesus or for God to find them..unclear on just how it worked.

One Saturday in October of my second year in college, at my invitation, Aunt Harriet came out to Wheaton.  Uncle Frank, though also invited, stayed home.  It was a BIG RISK for her to come to such a HOLY place…not her kind.  She came primarily to check out Jud Carlberg, who I’d just started to date.

She arrived in time to walk with us to the football game.  The Wheaton Crusaders (yes, that WAS their name) were playing.  Aunt Harriet was tall, with reddish-blond hair. Picture Lucille Ball. I LOVE LUCY. She wore plenty of make-up and had a smoker’s laugh that rattled cupboards. But I was so happy she’d come.

She sat to my right and Jud was on my left seated next to his Dad, a Baptist minister. (We called him BIG BOB the Baptist behind his back).  He was pastor of the Baptist Temple in Fall River, Massachusetts, but had come to Wheaton for some meetings. 

Back to the game. At a very tense moment in the football game, my aunt shot to her feet, cupped her hands around her mouth, formed a formidable megaphone and blasted out, “Give ‘em hell, Crusaders!” Well, I can assure you that no girls in short skirts raced out from the sidelines, waving arms and pompoms to get us to jump up and join in!

This was not a pre-approved Wheaton cheer!

Aunt Harriet, oblivious to the stunned folks around her, gave me a wide grin and a THUMBS UP before plopping back down beside me.   Jud flashed his famous smile, eyes twinkling, then gave me a nudge in the ribs.  Big Bob the Baptist withheld comment, eyes riveted on the game.  I tucked my arm into Aunt Harriet’s, leaned in protectively and uttered a silent cry from my heart, “God, help!. Jud will never date me again.” But he did and 3 1/2 years later we were married.  He always liked a challenge!

As the years went by, times changed for my aunt and uncle because of some bad investments.  No more room with a view.  No shopping sprees. No travel except to move across country to California, where, after a while, Uncle Frank died and Aunt Harriet moved into public housing.

By then, Jud and I and our family were at Gordon College.  Aunt Harriet, now in her late 70s, and I kept a loose connection, mostly at Christmas.  One day, when I was about to go to California to speak at a women’s conference, I called her about coming for a visit.  She was thrilled and said she had something exciting to tell me and someone she wanted me to meet. 

When I arrived, she brought me into a small room in her apartment building.  Several older women were seated around a table, Bibles open.  Aunt Harriet, beaming, introduced me around, especially eager for me to meet the Bible study teacher, HER PASTOR, a young man from the Philippines.  NOT DENMARK!  He and loving Filipinos from a nearby church had knocked on her door, invited Aunt Harriet to a Bible study, then to church and had loved her into God’s kingdom over a year’s time.

We went to her church on the following Sunday where she was Aunt Harriet, not just to me but to the children there. She loomed like a giant among the more petite Filipinos. But  you sensed God’s love reaching up, down and all around.

After she died, they named the church kitchen: Aunt Harriet’s Kitchen.  She was diabetic in the last years of her life but every Sunday, from her meager funds, she BROUGHT DANISH pastries (what else?!) to this loving church family who’d BROUGHT HER to Jesus. 

GOD LOVES and chooses unlikely people to love and to do His work of love.  And it is often WORK to love as Christ loves.   Leaders matter…but more than a fresh crop of leaders, our world needs LOVERS WHO LIVE LIVES WORTH FOLLOWING.

It’s FRIDAY but MONDAY’S COMING…when you’ll be away from the safe, the familiar and among those who won’t care much about your grades, your accomplishments, your resume or your leadership skills. It will be more about CHARACTER than CREDENTIALS.

You’ll be working and living among the Uncle Franks, who may never want anything to do with your God and who may even offer to pay you to shut up and go away.  And you’ll find yourself with the Aunt Harriets who don’t always speak your language but need to meet Jesus through you. And that will NOT be as much through words, or well rehearsed answers to questions they may not be asking but through how you LOVE them, just as they are, and how well you DO YOUR JOB, the work that God’s called you to do come Monday morning.  It probably will not be your dream job, my first job wasn’t.  But you’d be amazed where GRACE, GRATITUDE and GRIT can take you.  Remember,”Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with ALL YOUR MIGHT. (Eccles.9:10)

Aunt Harriet was not unlike the one on the side of the road we read about in Luke 10.  She was beaten down by life, robbed by bad investments and a loveless marriage.  Passed over by many since she no longer had anything this world values, until a Good Samaritan, a man from the Philippines and his  church family, poured themselves and God’s love into one old woman.  God who could have the pick up the litter said, ”I choose that tall Dane with lots of make-up, who swears sometimes and still smokes—sneaky-like. I’ve got a new name to go with her fresh start. Call her MY MUCH LOVED CHILD.”

GOD LOVES AND CHOOSES UNLIKELY PEOPLE…to love and to do his work of LOVE. Remember you can sum up the entire law in 5 words, “LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” More than a fresh crop of leaders, our world needs LOVERS.  WILL YOU BE ONE?

One of the most thought provoking messages I heard during my years at Gordon was given by Dr. Vernon Grounds, former President of Denver Seminary.  He spoke at Gordon’s commencement during our early years at the College and posed the question: Do you have a faith to fail?   How tough is your faith when decisions don’t go your way? You don’t get the job?  You fail at the job you do get?  You’re grossly misunderstood?  The relationship ends in failure?   The healing doesn’t come? 

Somewhere along the way, too many of us get lured into a false theology of success.  We struggle with disappointment and feelings of inadequacy and confusion about why God doesn’t do what we’ve asked for.  Do we need more faith?  Is something wrong with WHAT or HOW I believe?  Does the formula need tweaking?  Have I done enough?                                                                                                                                   My daughter, Heather, a psychiatrist, and daughter-in-love Kristina, a psychologist and therapist, recently got me to listen to a TED talk on shame by Brene Brown.  Dr. Brown says, “We live in a culture of scarcity.  OF NOT ENOUGH.  We are never thin enough, rich enough, powerful enough, good enough.  We go to bed feeling like we didn’t accomplish enough and wake up feeling that we didn’t sleep enough”  Can any of you identify with this?  Me,too!

I remember when Mother Teresa came to this county and talked about famine, not of food but of love.  NOT ENOUGH LOVE in this richest of countries.  People dying from lack of  love.

In Luke 10, Jesus asks the “expert in the law,” “What is written in the Law?”  The expert answers, “LOVE the Lord your God with all your HEART and with all your SOUL and with all your STRENGTH and with all your MIND; and, LOVE your neighbor as yourself.”

However,  KNOWING  DOES NOT GUARANTEE DOING.

Mother Teresa was right. We suffer from a scarcity of love in this culture.  We don’t love GOD ENOUGH.  We don’t love OURSELVES ENOUGH.  And, as a result, we don’t love our NEIGHBORS nearly ENOUGH.

Sometimes, I think that originates in frantic attempts to create a world too black and white, to settle for easy answers more than wrestle with better questions.  To improve speech more than tune body, mind and heart to LISTEN BETTER and LONGER.  There is mystery in faith, in following Jesus.  We must remain cautious that we, as evangelical  Christians, do not reduce LISTENING to something we do to MAKE A POINT and GRACE to SOMETHING WE MUTTER to bless only A MEAL.

LOVE STORY #2

Last summer a friend referred me to a story told of John Constable, an English nineteenth-century landscape painter.  It’s a story imbedded in a sermon by Brother Geoffrey Tristram from Saint John the Evangelist, an Episcopal religious community in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  I quote from his sermon:

“John Constable loved painting the idyllic countryside of East Anglia, and he also loved his many children. His oldest son, also called John, kept a diary, and he writes about one particular day which he would never forget.”

“There  was to be a special exhibition of his father’s new works, and critics from far and wide came to their home in the Suffolk countryside to see the new paintings.  The highlight of the day was the unveiling of a very large canvas [picture one of Bruce Herman’s paintings], hidden behind a curtain. The great moment came.  Everyone was very excited, and Constable walked up to the curtain and pulled the cord and the new painting was unveiled.  But there was a groan and shocked intake of breath, because right across the canvas, from top to bottom, was a great tear.

Slowly everyone departed, and Constable was left with his wife and children, staring at the torn work of art.  All his children were there, except John.  Later that evening Young John returned home, looking very frightened and guilty.  His father asked him, ‘John, did you do this?’ He replied,’Yes.’ What happened next is something young John would never forget.  His father looked at him and said these [seven] gracious words, ‘How shall we mend it, my dear?’” NOT…How could you? Why did you? Don’t you know what you’ve done? What this cost me? NO shame, blame NOT…you tore it…you mend it! BUT..how shall WE mend it, MY DEAR?

STUFF doesn’t matter…RELATIONSHIPS…PEOPLE MATTER. TRUE MENDING requires COURAGE, HUMILITY,  SHARED responsibility, TRUST and massive doses of LOVE in deed and word, My DEARS.

We’re broken folks, living among broken people in a broken world. Sometimes we’ve done the slashing; other times we have been torn apart by the choices of others.  WE ALL NEED MENDING.  God knew that best.  That’s why Jesus died.  To restore us to what God intended us to be from the beginning.   We’ve stripped and ripped our world and each other through wars, greed, careless words, fanaticism rooted in lack of Love for God, ourselves and our neighbors. IT’S FRIDAY but MONDAY’S COMING when we’ll expand our awareness of this broken world and have fresh opportunity to ask in love, “HOW SHALL WE MEND IT, my DEAR?” GOD NEEDS LOVERS who will become LOVING MENDERS. Will you be one?

CLOSING STORY

I close by telling the first story I ever told in chapel at Gordon, many years ago, and often since, but never for the class of 2015.   In 1964, still newlyweds, my husband and I were living in Denver, Colorado, where he was in seminary and I worked for Mountain Bell Telephone Company.  NOT my dream job!  My Norwegian grandparents were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in Brooklyn, New York.  We didn’t have money for both of us to go, so I took a Greyhound bus from Denver to Brooklyn, providing an ADVANCED DEGREE IN HUMAN NATURE!

The day after the festivities ended, I sat in the kitchen with my grandmother (“Bestemor” in Norwegian) to gather up as many of her recipes as possible.  With limited resources, they were always so hospitable.  I figured the key was in her recipes which seemed to expand to feed the number of unexpected guests who showed up at their table.

After requesting several recipes, I asked for her Lamb Stew.  At that she  smiled and said, “Ya, dat vun is a secret.” And I smiled back and begged, ”That one always feeds so many.  Please tell me.” “Ya.  I vill tell you.  The secret to my lamb stew is NO LAMB.”

“WHAT?!”

“Ya.  Dat is da trut.  I  never had da money for da lamb.  I vould go to da butcher and ask for da mutton bone vit a lille meat on it.  Den I vould take it home, put it in a big kettle vit vater and seasonings.  Den I vould add carrots, potatoes, onions and cook it and cook it.  Den I vould add flour and ticken it.  Do you know how to ticken it?”

“I tink so!”

“Den I vould remove da bone, ladle the lamb stew into my best shina dish, sprinkle parsley on top, if I had any, pray over it and den serve it.”

“Grandma, I thought all those years everyone else got the lamb before it got to me!”

She laughed, ”Vot do you tink I vas praying for in da kitchen?”

Then she spoke truth into my heart, “Yanice, you live in a culture dat tells you that you vill never be happy vitout lamb in your stew…and you need extra in your freezer. But I live a vunderful life vitout da lamb.  Do you know vy?  It is because I know da Lamb of God and da Lamb of God knows and loves me.  Now, dats a recipe for real life!  Do you need to write it down or can you remember dat?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget.”

AND I’VE TRIED NOT TO.

It’S FRIDAY but MONDAY’s COMING … MORE THAN A FRESH CROP OF LEADERS, GOD NEEDS LOVERS.  LOVERS who pour the oil of kindness into the Aunt Harriets of the world and blanket them in love…the kind that can draw them to Christ. LOVERS who, having been mended by God, become menders in a ripped apart world. LOVERS who know which LAMB’s worth running after come Monday. 

Frederick Buechner in The ALPHABET OF GRACE writes,”When you wake up in the morning [MONDAY MORNING], called by God to be a self again, if you want to know who you are, WATCH YOUR FEET.  Because where your feet take you, that is who you are.” 

I pray you will be courageous men and women, who watch your feet, who choose MONDAY and every day to live out God’s CLEAR command:  “LOVE the LORD YOUR GOD with all your HEART and with all your SOUL and with all your STRENGTH and with all your MIND; and LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR as YOURSELF.”  

Women and men who choose to love the neighbor who is different, not your kind, because you have chosen to FOLLOW JESUS. Men and women who refuse to hide behind legalistic evasions about “who is my neighbor?” Who choose to live a life worth following where character counts more than credentials . 

IT’S FRIDAY but MONDAY’s COMING. GO  with GRATITUDE, GRIT and GRACE to do the hard work of LOVING and MENDING. And take courage: the only LAMB that matters, goes with you MONDAY and every day for the REST of your life!

Note:  Those of you who heard Jan’s talk live will notice some differences between that version and this one.   She made some small changes on the fly.  So there’s a little content here that’s missing from the spoken version.  She received a very warm and most enthusiastic standing ovation from those present, an ovation led by the Class of 2015.