Senior Graduation Sunday: Navigating Devil’s
Shoals
A sermon by the Very Rev. C. Dean Taylor
Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is from God. I John 4:7
On this very
special Sunday, this Senior Graduation Sunday, in which we honor our graduating
seniors, I want to take you seniors back to a time that I believe many of you
remember, several times, actually, that you, as a youth group or a Sunday
School class, set out to float down the
You met at the Outfitters, were given your paddles and life
jackets, put on a truck and taken way upstream and put into the river. The
There is a place on the river, however, toward the end,
where the half-mile width of the river compresses into about thirty feet, and
the river becomes a class three rapid—fast and deep and very exciting. The place is called Devil’s Shoals, and the
ride through it is a little like the flume ride at Six Flags, only lots more
fun.
What’s really fun, however, is to float through in your
raft or kayak, but dock behind the big rock, climb onto the shore, and walk
back upstream a half mile or so—with your life jacket on of course—wade out into
the water until the current sweeps you off your feet, and you float Devil’s
Shoals yourself!
Seniors, when you were in Junior High, you did this on a
youth trip, and you held hands as you all walked out, out into the current, and
yelled out with delight as the current took you all down the chute, the great
waves crashing into your faces and turning your around until you got through to
the calm water again.
2.
In many ways senior graduation week is like going down
Devil’s Shoals. Much of your journey has
been long, some even tedious—how long will this class end? How long will this day in High School
last? When will I ever get my license? When will I ever get out of here?
Of course, some of it has been meaningful, and even
beautiful. A few of you were baptized
right here in this holy space, and this congregation promised to uphold you and
support you and pray for you for the whole passage.
Some
of you have been together as classmates since the time you were two-year-olds
in the St. Mark’s Pre School, where Mrs. Ellen and Mrs. Meg and Mrs. Debbie and
Mr. Bill (Remember Mr. Bill and his guitar?) taught you that all people, no
matter what their special needs might be, all people are God’s beloved children—that
“It’s a small world after all.”!
Some of you joined this class in Sunday School or Youth
Group somewhere along the way, and you have memories of your teachers; the trip
to Sewanee working on the Habitat House (remember the guy in charge telling
you, “there’s nothing you can break that we can’t fix”); the long, long journey
to the Heifer project in Arkansas, where some of you ate like first world
countries, and some of you got a spoon full of rice for the night, like half
the world’s population. You have been
together, some of you, for a long, long time.
Others of you have had your own journey, and somehow end up here as
well, at this point where the river bends towards High School Graduation.
Yes, this time is like Devil’s Shoals, when all of the time
before, the whole river, gets compressed into a thirty foot chute, the waves
crash into your faces, you yell with delight and alarm.
You should probably note that there will be many times in
life itself like this, when time and energy are compressed into a too-tight
place, and life rushes at you even more than you rush at it, and you will hold
on for dear life. And some of those
times will be more fearful than fun. At
such times as those, at such a time as this week, the Good news of the Gospel
that we have just read is, as it happens, the same good news that you learned
when you began at the St. Mark’s Pre School.
3.
It is the good news of love. Beloved, let us love one
another, because love is from God.
Which is to say that, no matter who you are, no matter what you are able
to do or not do, no matter what you “achieve” in the world in the way that the
world measures achievement, you are God’s beloved children, as are we all. You are cherished, you are loved; you have
value just because you came into the world.
You
are our beloved children. You are God’s
beloved children. No matter where you go
in life, no matter what great things you do, no matter what mistakes you make, no matter what, always remember that
one, single lesson that you learned in the walls of this place: You are God’s beloved child, and God loves
you, no matter what. Remember that, and take
that into the world as the basis to love one another. Remember that, and there is no Devil’s Shoals
out there that can ever finally defeat you.
And, while we’re at it, I have a final note—a confession of
sorts—concerning your graduation, a confession that the memory of Devils Shoal
evokes. My own daughter sat where you
are sitting now, ready to graduate just a few years ago. She was, let us say, very, very young the
first time she ever “surfed” Devil’s Shoals. OK, far too young, ate age six! Call
it Daddy error—I said, “Oh, sure,” I told your Mom, “She’ll be all right. She’ll be with her Dad. She’ll be with me.”
We waded out into the current, and there was an instant, a
split second, just before the current took us away, that I had one of those
“parent moments”, that flash of sudden insight, in which I knew, I realized,
that this was a mistake. That we were in
for more than we bargained for. Yes, we
rode Devil’s Shoals, Father and daughter, and laughed, and had a great time,
and talked about it afterwards with great pride.
But
what she did not know was that, as she shot forward toward that first great
wave, I was behind her, holding her life jacket from the back, tight in my
hand, holding her up so her head would not go under the water. Mine did, but hers did not, and we got
through it all right. I was holding her up
the whole time.
4.
Now, parents, you who have been holding your children above
water for this long time, it is time to let go.
Time for you to trust your children’s own strength and ability and
tenacity and good sense. That is not
easy. But I’ll tell you the reason that you,
like all parents, will be able to let go.
(No, it’s not just because you’re exhausted—there is that) But no, finally, we are able to let go
because we have come to believe a deeper truth about our passage way through
this life. A deeper truth even than we ever knew in those scary moments.
The
deeper truth is that, ultimately, God’s hand was holding both of us up. God had us both. And that is finally the good
news for this day and for all our days, whether we are on that part of our
river’s journey that is relatively serene, or whether we are headed for another
Devil’s Shoals. We are God’s beloved
children, all of us, called to love one another, and God has us all in God’s
good hands, hands that will never let us go.
So,
congratulations, seniors. May you savor
the beautiful and peaceful passages on this river of your life, and may you
know and feel, when you head toward the next Devil’s Shoals, that the God who
loves you so, so much, has you tightly in hand, and will never let you go. AMEN