EpiscopalCenter at Duke University

All week long I’ve been thinking about the scripture appointed for today and I’ve been thinking about our soon-to-be-graduates. And all week, I’ve been coming back to one thing. Turtles. Loggerhead turtles, to be specific.

My brother spent several summers working as a turtle boy on the barrier islands off the coast of Georgia. A turtle boy’s job is to help protect loggerhead turtles, an endangered species, by safeguarding the eggs they lay on the beaches.

Egg-laying is quite a process for loggerheads: they are massive creatures, several hundred pounds each and not built for speed, at least not on land. The mother turtles haul themselves up onto shore at night, crawl up the beach a few inches at a time, and then use their flippers to scoop out a nest in the sand. It takes hours. If they get distracted before they start digging, they turn around and head back into the ocean and that’s it for that year.

It takes about six weeks for the eggs to hatch and when they do, the little one-inch turtles come out frantically doing the breast stroke. If you hold one in your hand it will swim right off the side.

Baby loggerheads are born looking for the ocean and that outbound trip across the sand seems to be the ticket to their return. The beach itself is somehow imprinted on them as they crawl over it. They won’t come back for twenty-five years or more, but then the females return to the same beach where they hatched. The females find their way back to their beach, lay their eggs, and the cycle begins again.

We don’t actually know how the turtles manage to find their way or how the imprinting works. They don’t have maps or a list of guidelines or rules for how to get where they’re going. Knowing the way is just part of their being. It’s how they are created. Loggerhead turtles come into the world fully equipped to find their way.

Which brings me to our scripture.

Jesus says to Thomas, “I’m going to my Father’s house and there’s a place for you and you know the way to the place where I’m going.” And Thomas answers, “Lord, we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?” And in his response we hear Thomas’ longing to stay with Jesus, to be connected to him, and to be at home with him. Thomas wants to go where Jesus is going. He wants GPS coordinates and a map.

And Jesus answers him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Peter picks up where Thomas left off: “Show us the Father and we’ll be satisfied.” “Here I am,” Jesus answers. “Here is the Father.”

These verses are the beginning of what’s known as Jesus’ farewell discourse. He’s talking to a small, close-knit group of friends some of whom are about to go their separate ways.

I didn’t pick this, honestly, it’s in the lectionary. But I couldn’t have chosen a better passage for the day we celebrate our soon-to-be graduates if I’d tried.  Because in this passage Jesus is talking to the disciples who are soon going to be facing the world on their own, just like our graduates are, and he’s getting them ready.

He’s preparing them for what’s coming next, for the time when they will be navigating without him there to give directions. He’s getting them ready to live in the time in between “Christ is risen” and “Christ will come again”—the time, that is, that we live in. And Jesus doesn’t answer his disciples’ longing to be with him with precise coordinates and a map and a list of rules for finding their way, he simply tells them that he is the way and that in him they have seen the Father. In him they have seen God. Jesus tells his disciples that he is both the way and the destination.

The longing we hear in both Thomas and Peter is a longing to be with God. We are born with that deep longing for God just as surely as loggerheads are born aiming for the ocean. And in the waters of baptism and in the sign of the cross made over us at our baptisms, we are imprinted with everything we need to find our way to God just as those baby turtles are imprinted with their beach. The church, the communion of saints to which we belong, is where that longing for connection to God is both nurtured and satisfied. We can find our way to God because God has given us His Son and one another to be companions on the way.

Valarie, Elizabeth, Graham, Jamie, and Catherine, your graduation will be the culmination of all the good things you’ve done over the last several years, but it will also be the beginning of whatever comes next. Each of you has a pretty good idea of where you’ll be in the next few months or even years, or at least a good idea of where you hope to be. But who knows exactly where any of our paths will lead? As comforting as the idea of a road map for the rest of our lives might be, there isn’t one. Commencement is a celebration of a job well done, but it’s also a setting-off into the great unknown.

You have everything you need for the journey.

You do know the way, but there will be distractions as you go. The world will offer you lots of ways to redirect your longing for God. You will be tempted, as each one of us is, to put a premium on feeling good. You will continue to be assaulted by hundreds of commercial messages every day asking you to believe that your greatest happiness is only one purchase away. You will be invited to have shopping experiences and travel experiences and even worship experiences because ours is a commodity culture and anything can be packaged for the consumer.

Those invitations are invitations to be controlled by your appetites. They will not satisfy your deep longing for God. The invitation to follow Jesus will.

It will be very easy for you, as it is for each one of us gathered here today, to turn away from suffering.

You are amazingly gifted, compassionate, and faithful people. You are not likely to turn away from suffering. But a lot of people expect a lot from you and you expect a lot from yourselves. It will therefore be tempting for you to believe that you are obliged to save the world. You aren’t. That’s been done. I hope that news comes as a relief.

Your call is not to save the world but to stand with those who are suffering and by your love for them to bear witness to the love of Christ who is the salvation of the world. And what will strengthen you to do that is prayer, your ongoing conversation with God. Prayer involves attentive listening as much as it does talking. Most of us are better at talking. Practice listening.

Pay attention to your longing for connection. Jesus Christ didn’t come to one disciple but to a community of disciples. We can’t be the Body of Christ by ourselves. Find a church. Find a community of fellow disciples with whom to worship and go worship week after week after week after week. Getting to know God is the most important thing in your life and it takes practice and it takes community and it takes time. There will come a day when you look around at your fellow parishioners and wonder, “What could a two hour meeting about fixing the church plumbing possibly have to do with God?” Trust me on this one. Don’t give up and don’t go it alone. Find a church.

You do know the way to the Father, just as surely as turtles know their way to the ocean and back. You were born equipped to find your way to God and when you were washed in the waters of baptism, sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked as Christ’s own forever, you were imprinted with everything you need for the journey. By the grace of God Almighty, you know the way, and the truth, and the life.

He is the Way.
Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.
Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a city that has expected your return for years.

He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.

(From W.H. Auden, For the Time Being)

Go with God. And don’t forget to write. Amen.