Tonight as we gather here to honor you graduates of the class of 1982, I am reminded of the story about the young man, Miobi, who had come to a village where the people were doing nothing but moan and wail. The fires were not lit, the goats were not milked, because all the villagers were expecting to be eaten shortly by the monster on the top of the mountain. The villagers told Miobi that this monster had the head of a crocodile and the body of a hippopotamus and a tail like a very fat snake, and smoke came from his fiery breath.

But Miobi said: “I will go up the mountain and challenge the monster.”

There he was, sure enough. Miobi could see the monster clearly. But as Miobi climbed and came closer, the monster looked definitely smaller. “This is curious indeed,” he said. “The further I run away from the monster, the larger it seems, and the nearer I am to it, the smaller it gets.”

When Miobi reached the cave he found no monster at all, but a quiet little thing as small as a frog which purred; and he brought it home as a pet. When the villagers saw Miobi return alive, they rushed out and wanted to make a hero of him for killing the monster. Miobi explained he hadn’t killed at all, but brought it back for a pet.

“A pet? But what will you call it? What is the monster’s name?”

Then the little creature answered in a tiny voice: “My name? I have many names. Some call me Famine, and some, Pestilence; but the most pitiable of human beings give me their own names.” Then it yawned and added: “But most people call me, ‘What-might-happen.’” (from The Scarlet Fish and Other Stories by Ralph Lavers)

You graduates of the class of 1982 are going out into a world that is afraid. Like the lad Miobi you are coming upon a people who are letting the fires of life go out, leaving their tasks undone. Paralyzed by fear they are just waiting for the monster whom they expect to devour them.

Other ages have been variously characterized as: “the Golden Age of Greece”, “the period of Enlightment”, “the Renaissance”, “the Dark Ages”. Surely ours will go down in history as “the age of fear”. Though Alvin Toffler names the age now dawning upon us, “The Third Wave”, following the Mechanical Age which began in the 18^th century, one prominent educator has called our time “the period of deepening horror”, when men are afraid.

Another eminent educator, sensitive to the situation of graduates in our kind of a world, represents a college senior meditating, as he sits in chapel just before the graduating exercises are to begin, and saying to himself: “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, I’m scared. Scared not in an immediate, tangible sense, but in a bone deep, ultimate sense. I’m scared about the human race — not hysterically, but somberly and steadily. Most of the time I cannot credit the fact that the Kruchevs and the Khomenis and the Arafats and Kaddaffis and the atom-hydrogen bombs are real; but now and again I can see all the spooks of totalitarianism, hatred, violence and fear staring out at me through my neighbors eyes … The genie of meaningless is all ready to curl out of his bottle, and I am trained to remove the stopper. I’m scared.” (A Soliloquy by David E. Roberts)

You graduates are emerging into a world that is afraid — into an age of fear. But it is not only the hovering dread of a thermo-nuclear holocaust that people fear today. There is also that growing monster our federal deficit and our national leaders’ inability to challenge that dragon. And there is the ever larger growing monster of unemployment in the automobile industry and the airlines and the steel and farm implement companies, and on and on. It is a time of deepening horror when people are afraid.

But why this fear? What makes people afraid? What is the ultimate cause of our widespread fears? It is due principally to our unbrotherliness. Fear has crept into human hearts because of the aching emptiness of our hearts which were divinely destined to be filled with brotherly love.

Many years ago, before the beginning of man’s travel into outer space, Mr. C. S. Lewis wrote a fanciful novel about a man who took a trip to Mars in a rocket ship. This interplanetary traveler, a Dr. Ransom, found on Mars three distinct races. In fact, he found three different orders of intelligent creatures, differing in appearance far more than the various human races and nationalities here on earth. Yet Ransom discovered that these three orders of beings had always lived peaceably together in the Martian world, speaking the same language, respecting one another. But there was one thing Dr. Ransom never found among the people of Mars — and that was fear.

Why are we on earth plagued so violently by that monster fear? Because we have broken the bonds of brotherhood and dealt unjustly, cruelly, violently, uncaringly, with our brothers of other races, nations, classes, and therefore we are afraid.

Remember the old Indian proverb concerning the origin of the white man? “God asked the man who is now white what he had done with his brother and he turned white with fear.”

St. John in his first epistle writes: “For this is the message that we had from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one and slew his brother … because his own works were evil and his brother’s were righteous. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.”

Hodding Carter was eminently right when he observed that “the winds of fear are fed by hate, and suspicion and intolerance …for these are the causes and not the results of fear.” In other words, it is not our fear which causes us to hate, to be suspicious of one another, to act toward our brethren with injustice, intolerance, and cruelty — but rather, it is the other way round. It is our breaking the bonds of brotherhood by unkind, greedy, selfish and cruel acts that makes us afraid.

But the cause of our fear goes deeper still. It is fundamentally a failure of faith. Had we really believed that God is our Heavenly Father and that His love commandment is really meant for our keeping: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” — if we had really believed, then we would not have broken the bonds of brotherhood and plunged into our frenzy of fears.

Our age has not failed its youth in education: we have supplied every boy and girl who wants it with as much education as he or she will take. Our age has not failed youth in scientific development: we have laid bare the secrets of the physical world, that lay shrouded in mystery for centuries, and bequeathed this heritage to the youth of today and tomorrow. Our age has not failed youth in the production of material things: we have the “know how” and the “can do” to supply every man, woman and child with enough, and to spare, of this world’s goods to sustain life. Our American stored-up surplus of food stuffs is a costly embarrassment to us today.

Our failure has been fundamentally a failure of faith — therefore our deep-set fear. Howard Mumford Jones wisely wrote: “It is one of the paradoxes of our time that modern society needs to fear only the educated man. The primitive peoples of the earth constitute no menace. The most serious crimes against civilization can be committed only by educated and technically competent people.”

Jesus put squarely before His disciples the affinity between a failure of faith and a rise of fear. When the storm broke on Galilee and the waves leaped and the boat rocked and the disciples were afraid, Jesus rebuked and quieted the tempest saying: “Peace, be still.” Then turning to the disciples, He rebuked them by saying: “Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith?”

Walt Whitman was right — “Faith is the antiseptic of the soul.” When faith fades out of the human heart, fear crawls in, a vile and slimy thing. By the same token, when we win faith, which is reason grown courageous, fear is driven out. Someone put it this way: “Fear knocked at the door. Faith opened it, and lo, no one was there.”

How then should you graduates in the class of 1982, emerging into the world in an age of fear, handle your precious lives and ply your polished talents? Oh, let faith and love be your guiding lights. Faith in God and love for all His creatures are the perfect, specific antidotes to poisonous fears.

After all, there are just four things that any young person can do with life.

First, you can run away from life — dodge every duty and difficulty; shun every responsibility. You can play the coward, give way to your fears, run away from life. But of course this is futile, for eventually we all have to come back and face what we’ve run from and pay the interest compounded by our cowardice. We everyone discover like Miobi, eventually, that all monsters grow less to those who go forth to challenge them and grow larger when we run away from them. First, we can do this with life, we can run away from it.

Second, we can run along with life, hunt with the pack, think with the herd, in obedience to the stupidity so well expressed in the phrase: “everybody’s doing it”. We can be afraid to be different, fear to stand against the crowd. We can be ever so careful never to offend the sacred instincts of the herd by being the least bit different, by daring to stand on our own convictions of faith and love.

A third thing we can do with life: we can take hold of life with some faith and purpose, undergoing discipline, practicing courage, and run it to some end. All great lives show us men and women doing just that thing.

But the fourth and supreme thing we may do with life is to give it up utterly, in self-surrender, to a person or a cause, in complete dedication and let that someone or something run our life. Dwight L. Moody used to say: “Let God have your life: He can do more with it than you can.” That is just what the Apostle Paul found out from his own experience. “No longer I live,” said Paul, “but Christ liveth in me. For me to live is Christ. I can do all things though Christ who strengthens me.”

And to you graduates of the class of 1982, I give you my word of honor, that this Christ who had more to say about fear than He did about sin, but who was always saying: “Fear not” and “Be not afraid”, to you He is saying in the midst of an age of fear: “Fear not, it is your Heavenly Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness. Be of good courage: be not afraid, for I have overcome the world.”

 

PASTORAL PRAYER

O God, our Great Companion, who in Thy mysterious mercy dost guide Thy children through days of preparation, and then givest them work to do, with Thee for Thy Kingdom; we give Thee thanks for all those whom Thou hast used as the instruments of Thy mercy to us — our parents and kindred and friends whose supporting love and undergirding confidence and sacrifice, borne for us, have helped us on our way; for teachers whose love of truth and devotion to learning have borne fruit in our minds and spirits; for the freedoms and opportunities of this good land which open inviting doors of privilege and growth to us; for the founders and patrons of institutions of learning who have prepared before us the way for our preparation; for all these and more, we give Thee thanks.

Our future as our past, O Lord, is in Thy keeping. Bless these graduates now, we humbly pray — giving them bright ideals of service, enabling them to keep their visions fresh against the world. Guard them from the selfish use of talents given them by Thee, who art the giver of all good gifts. Above all give them faith and love and courage. Make them adventurous for truth. Lead them into places where they may do battle for righteousness and peace, and give them the glorious sense of fellowship with Thee as they strive to serve their Master, Jesus Christ. Amen.