Every聽year, a graduate from each degree program is selected by their peers and faculty to speak at Commencement聽around a particular theme. This year, the speakers chose the theme 鈥淐rossings.鈥� Below is the speech shared by David Jaeger, an MDiv聽graduate.
Missouri turned into Kansas. Kansas turned into Colorado. Colorado into Wyoming, into Utah into Idaho and Oregon, and finally, Washington.
In all, I had crossed seven state lines on my way to Seattle four years ago. I鈥檓 sure this is a familiar story to many of you, packing up everything you own in your car and driving across the country, compelled by some unknown force beckoning you forward. But state lines, as you also know, are just the first of many boundaries and borders we crossed when we began our lives as part of 天美视频 Community.
In fact, this is how I鈥檝e begun to think of our time here鈥攚e are border-crossers. Some of us crossed borders by beginning to ask questions we either weren鈥檛 allowed to ask or were too afraid to ask in the past. They were questions about our faith, our relationships, our culture, and ourselves.
And of course, there is the very real threshold that we all crossed as we entered into our practicum rooms and exited two hours later into a new world of, well…something or another. I don鈥檛 think it would be a stretch to say that all of us crossed the borders from the known pieces of our stories and into unknown and scary territory where nothing seems to makes sense anymore.
In our years here, we have moved across all kinds of threshold鈥攂ig and small alike鈥攁nd here we are today, ready to do so once more,聽unsure what exactly is on the other side.
And that鈥檚 the first principle of crossing borders鈥�you never know what you鈥檙e going to find on the other side. I know I didn鈥檛 expect to be on the exact path I find myself on now. And that, maybe, is what has made this place so strange鈥攕o life-giving and terrifying鈥攁nd it may even be what has shaped us into such a strong community of people. We have willingly ventured into the unknown, and we have done it together.
We are border-crossers.
Looking back now, I鈥檓 sometimes surprised I ever left my home of Kansas City to begin with. But I also shouldn鈥檛 be thatsurprised. You see, God calls us to cross borders. It鈥檚 all over the scriptures. If we think of ourselves as explorers or as border-crossers, then we are in good company.
Most of all, I think God calls us to cross boundaries that only love can cross. That, of course, is what Jesus is found doing in Luke 10:13-17. Jesus crosses the social, political, and religious borders and boundaries that exist to keep people separate from one another. By crossing borders, Jesus brings about new possibility and new life. This is what I鈥檝e been learning during my time here鈥�this is who I鈥檝e been learning to be鈥�someone who is compelled by love to cross borders on behalf of others.
And this is what I think we are called to do as well鈥攚e are called, out of love for others, to cross the borders that the world says must not be crossed. Some of us will do so as counselors, some as pastors, and some as cultural and theological leaders.
So, to those of you I know well and those I don鈥檛 know at all, may love鈥攖he real, true, active and self-giving love of God that captures us, compels us, comforts us, and empowers us, the love that caused us to do such a crazy thing as cross the threshold into this community鈥攎ay that love both keep you and drive you forward to always cross boundaries for the lives of those all around us.
May you, my fellow border-crossers, be blessed.