Remarks to King's 2021 Graduates
Welcome to another edition of the Mueller Report!
You may be wondering why the Mueller Report came out on Saturday this week rather than Friday. The primary reason is that I wanted to share these remarks in-person before sending them along in print.
It is remarkable to think about what can happen over four years. Our family has added three children since most of the students graduating today began their time at King’s!
As I was getting ready to prepare this short talk, I stumbled across a remarkable passage from a commencement address by Chief Justice John Roberts. I encourage you to read this if for no other reason than to be challenged and enlightened by his words.
My dear students,
Let me congratulate you on completing your undergraduate degree!
You know better than anyone what it took to get here - long hours of studying, writing paper after paper, navigating work and classes and internships, and a hundred other things large and small.
Today is a day for recognizing your achievement, and for recognizing the grace of God and the provision he has made for each of you through family and friends, through mentors and peers, through the amazing technology we have used to navigate this pandemic - technology that is both a blessing and a curse.
You all know we are living in challenging and uncertain times. Political, social, cultural, and economic turmoil are either here or on the horizon. Let me remind you of what Jesus said about the end times, “And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”
So my first charge to you is this: do not let your love grow cold.
Resist the temptation to turn inward in the face of disappointment or conflict.
Resist the temptation of tribalism; the temptation to surround yourself with those who agree with you and to condemn with anger, fear, and hostility those who are in a different group or on a different side of the political aisle.
There are many people out there: politicians, pundits, media conglomerates, and tech giants who profit from your outrage and your anger. They profit from fueling division. And the danger is that when we are angry, fearful, or suspicious of others, we are ready to believe anything said about them.
The psychologist Jonathan Haidt talks about the great “Untruth of Us Versus Them. ‘They’ must be stopped, at all costs.”
This has led us to a state where:
“Americans now bear such animosity toward one another that it’s almost as if many are holding up signs saying, ‘Please tell me something horrible about the other side, I’ll believe anything!’ Americans are now easily exploitable, and a large network of profit-driven media sites, political entrepreneurs, and foreign intelligence agencies are taking advantage of this vulnerability.”
-Jonathan Haidt
Do not let yourself be exploited or used as a pawn in someone else’s fight. Seek truth and clarity in all things.
And above all, resist the temptation to bitterness.
I recently came across a speech Chief Justice John Roberts gave at a graduation ceremony for his son. His words are powerful and challenging so I share them with you now:
“From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty.
Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either.
And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion.
Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.”
-Chief Justice John Roberts
Many of you have already experienced these things to one degree or another - and have grown from them. My colleagues and I have tried to instruct you for just this end. When you face injustice, loneliness, defeat, disappointment, and failure, will you learn wisdom, humility, and compassion? Or will you harbor bitterness, anger, and resentment?
The purpose of your education is to prepare you, not to overcome or avoid all of life’s trials and tribulations, but rather to endure them faithfully while growing wiser. The Gospel of Jesus Christ gives us hope in the face of these difficulties.
These difficulties will come - no one can prevent that. No technology can end trials and tribulations because we carry within ourselves sources for joy and for misery. Alexander Solzhenitsyn once said, the line between good and evil runs through every human heart.
And this leads to my second charge to you: endure to the end.
Remain faithful, especially in the small things of ordinary kindness, patience, compassion, humility, and gentleness. This is not simply a matter of willpower or resolution in a moment, but of habits, virtue, and a renewed life by the Spirit of God.
Faithlessness runs wild in our country and especially in families. You don’t need me to give you statistics to know that many families in our country are in crisis. Divorce is common. And contrary to what is often said, divorce leaves a train of brokenness in its wake. It is a visceral experience of faithlessness that touches us all.
Even the wealthiest people in the world, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, are not immune from this brokenness. Though they not only shaped and led but created strategic institutions, they stumbled in the ordinary kindnesses and duties of married life.
Even people with great political power, from our last president to governors and senators, are not immune to faithlessness. And as much as it grieves me to say it, even many high-profile Christian leaders have not remained faithful in the “small” things of life and have left broken marriages, broken families, and broken churches in their wake.
You may wonder how relevant the example of marriage is when most if not all of you are not married. I use marriage as an example because the consequences of broken and failed marriages are all around us -and because it illustrates the following point: being faithful in the small things, being faithful to show love, patience, joy, contentment, and hope, may seem trivial, yet many of the “great” people in the world fail at them: businessmen, politicians, celebrities, pastors, perhaps our own family.
Remember, no matter how successful, powerful, or famous you become, your love can grow cold.
Jesus also said, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”
You all are talented and driven, that’s why you are here today. I am excited to see the interesting and important things you go on to do: shaping and eventually leading strategic institutions. Don’t be afraid of that charge and ambition. But at the same time, remember that we are but dust. We are but frail men and women, drawing breath by God’s grace, and needing to rely on him.
Perhaps you feel that frailty even now - as you look for jobs, as you think about what comes next. Or maybe you struggle with feeling inadequate: you want to change the world but you are waiting tables or serving coffee instead. Let me pass along some advice I received from a college professor that has stuck with me frequently over the years and been a source of great encouragement.
Brighten your corner of the world.
You do not need to be famous to be kind. You do not need to be wealthy to be a good friend. You do need large political or social influence to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. And you can achieve external success while leaving brokenness all around if you do not remain faithful in your daily life.
So former students, now graduates,
Do not let your love grow cold.
Endure to the end.
Congratulations again and may God equip you for every good work, large and small!”
Talk to you next week!