“ From Love, Fruitfulness”

Sermon for Student Recognition Sunday, Awarded the “Deans’ Preaching Prize” by Darrick T. Evensen'06, in the Princeton University Chapel on May 14, 2006.

1 John 4:7-21, John 15:1-8

On the verge of graduation one might assume that we seniors ought to know everything there is to know about this University: all of the ins and outs of the academic system, the location and history of each major edifice, and perhaps even possess a little knowledge about the infamous University steam tunnels. However, a quick poll of some senior comrades showed that not even half know this University’s motto. Some had no response to my inquiry, but the majority of seniors answered that our motto is: “ Princeton in the Nation’s Service and in the Service of all Nations.” President Tilghman has coined this phrase as the University’s unofficial motto ever since I set foot on this campus, and I have often dismayed over the fact that our true motto has been forgotten in the process. “ Princeton in the Nation’s Service and in the Service of all Nations” is a worthy statement indeed, but it is a far cry from our true motto of “Dei Sub Numine Viget,” in English, “under God she flourishes.” Or at least I thought these two mottos were completely incompatible before reading this week’s passages from the liturgical calendar.

We learn in First John that if we do not love our brothers and sisters, then we do not know God. Christ tells us through John’s Gospel that in order to be fruitful we must remain in Him. From these passages we discover, therefore, that if we do not love our brothers and sisters, then we will not be fruitful in Christ’s eyes, we willnot flourish. Now we can see that the University’s unofficial motto, “Princeton in the Nation’s Service and in the Service of all Nations,” is really just one way in which Princeton’s student body, and all of us, can realize the official motto of “under God she flourishes.” The scriptures tell us that we will indeed flourish in Christ if we extend the love God has shown us, by loving our brothers and sisters.

Love. Love is perhaps the most worthy issue to reflect on this Sunday in particular, less than a month before graduation. Student Recognition Sunday is a time not only to thank students, but also to give us a final few scriptural lessons to strengthen us as we march out from this place, finally leaving Old Nassau behind. Love has always been the greatest lesson of all, and it is perhaps the lesson that the Class of 2006 needs to hear most of all. The life of a Princeton student is often a very busy life indeed. A typical day may consist of running from class to a service club meeting, to the gym for an afternoon workout, then after choir practice trying to fit in some dinner, before burning the midnight oil while hidden away in the depths of Firestone Library. This characterizes the existence of many a Princeton student. Being involved in campus organisations and focusing on our academic pursuits are admirable endeavors indeed, but in all this commotion, with all this hustle and bustle, do we remember to love our brothers and sisters? And if we do remember, is it only as a side-thought, or is it the primary focus of our lives, as Christ commands?

The Princeton mottos, both official and unofficial, should serve as a constant reminder of St. Paul’s famous declaration that even should we possess the faith to move mountains, without love, we amount to nothing. Fortunately, Princeton has taught us all well, and has given us the skills with which to love our brothers and sisters in this world in powerful ways, even if we have all-to-often neglected that call while on campus.

In the scramble for jobs and summer internships that comes as we draw closer and closer to graduation, the frantic question is often asked, “What on earth can I do with a major in anthropology?” or, “What good is a degree in art history anyway?” Well, if anything, these majors, and all of our time here at Princeton, have put us in a position to love our brothers and sisters in extraordinary ways.

In the most basic sense, whether through four years of intense study, or through the occasional lecture attended by a community member, Princeton’s academic training develops our critical thinking skills. It teaches us how to approach difficult issues and construct complex solutions. No matter what one has studied at this University, he or she has certainly gained a better understanding of the methodologies required to tackle major theoretical and practical challenges. Our time at Princeton has also heavily refined our leadership potential. Whether through serving as an officer in some campus organisation, or by directing the discussion in a precept, we have had the opportunity here to make our ideas known and see them put into action. Finally, our ability to work effectively in teams has been greatly strengthened by our years in this ivory tower. Participation on a sports team is an obvious example of this, but just as obvious to any student, especially to those who have taken Professor Farber’s economics classes, would be the practice working in groups that comes from hours upon hours spent collaborating on problem sets.

Love. As we take this powerful training we have received out through Fitz Randolph gates, let us not forget the greatest commandment of all, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind. And the second commandment, which Jesus tells us, is just like the first, to love our neighbors as ourselves. So how then do we use our critical thinking skills, leadership potential, and experience working in groups in order to love our neighbors and flourish under God? The possibilities are virtually endless, due to the sad reality that the suffering in this world is so great. I have a classmate who will be traveling to India next year to study local community-based environmental governance and how this method of environmental regulation allows people to live in healthier villages. He is surely on a mission to love his neighbors. There are several seniors that will be living and working in some of the poorest communities in this nation, employed by NGOs and local schools, with a vision to improve the quality of life and the chances for a bright future for the our forgotten brothers and sisters in USA cities and rural areas. These young adults have certainly seen how their brothers and sisters are in need and heeded Christ’s call to spread His love. In only a couple months, more than one member of the Class of 2006 will move to arguably the most trouble-ridden place on Earth. As they make their homes in small towns and villages in Sub-Saharan Africa some will try to engineer better ways in which to provide the Africans with clean water, others will attempt to implement sustainable agricultural practices, while still others remain undaunted by the monolithic task of HIV/AIDS eradication. They all have found brothers and sisters in great need of love and resolved to provide as much love as they can. Other students are off to graduate school to learn the skills needed to direct an NGO that helps brothers and sisters in need, or to study to become professors so that they can prepare a whole generation of students to love their brothers and sisters.

These are but a few examples of how my friends and colleagues have stepped forward and accepted Christ’s call to love. Many others will span this country and extend beyond her borders, to the ends of the earth, in an effort to love their brothers and sisters, their neighbors. Perhaps it is worth defining exactly who our neighbors are. Some two thousand years ago a man seeking to justify himself asked this very question to a knowledgeable teacher, “Who is my neighbor?” That teacher, of course, was Christ and His reply came in the form of a parable, the parable that we know today as that of the Good Samaritan. From this parable we learn that our neighbors are not merely the families that live next door. Our neighbors, our brothers and sisters, are of any race, creed, or social background. We also learn that to love our neighbors means first and foremost to attend to their most basic needs. As billions of our neighbors go without clean water to drink, suffer from hunger, malnourishment and disease, and live out their lives in war-torn lands, it seems that many basic needs have not yet been met.

Love. Christ himself tells us what it means to love. He teaches that those who will inherit the kingdom of heaven are those people who gave food and water to the hungry and thirsty, housed strangers, clothed those in need, tended to the sick, and visited the imprisoned. By the words in First John, these are they who have loved their brothers and sisters.

Love. The parable of the Good Samaritan, like Princeton’s unofficial motto, tells us how to love our neighbors. But it also teaches us how easy it is justify not loving our neighbors, and how wrong such a justification is. “For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And Christ has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” Two men of position, educated men, left the half-dead man and went their way before the Samaritan stopped. Perhaps they did not want to soil their fine priestly robes, perhaps they were worried that caring for such a man would drain their purses, or perhaps they were simply too busy with other important duties to stop and help a brother in need. The reasons they could have given for not stopping are innumerable, but all of these justifications are rooted in the love of the things of this world over the love of God.

Will our four years in this secluded and protected Ivory Tower keep us from soiling our fine clothes, to help a brother in need? Will we tie our purse strings more tightly even as we earn vast amounts of money? Will we be so busy setting up the good life for ourselves that we ignore our brothers and sisters who struggle every day just to remain alive? We would all do well to recall the age-old axiom: “to whom much is given, much is expected.” As graduates of Princeton, as underclassmen of Princeton who have a summer at our disposal, as faculty members teaching at Princeton, as community members living in Princeton, we all have benefited from God’s grace by a measure far greater than the vast majority of the people in this nation, let alone this world. Now that we have received such a gift from on high, it is left to us to determine the ways in which to employ our undeserved intellect and resources to serve the kingdom. We must decide how to love others who have not felt God’s grace to the extent that we have.

One point should be clear by now, but I must make it explicit, if simply for the fact that I have personally found it to be one of the easiest ways by which to justify not loving my brothers and sisters. In the parable of the Good Samaritan the Samaritan sees a man lying half-dead by the roadside. As students at Princeton we would not normally encounter this same situation even metaphorically. As a Princeton student, most people that we encounter on a regular basis have their needs met to a similar extent as we do. Therefore if I spend all my time in Princeton and the small farming community in New York that I call my home, I can rightly claim that I have cared for my neighbors, as the needs are met for all whom I encounter daily, right?

How easy it is to think this way, and how Biblically incorrect such thoughts would be! Do I not examine the New York Times, even in my room in Princeton, and read the words and see the pictures that tell me of suffering domestically and abroad? As an environmental policy major, do my professors not tell me of how our pollution and disregard for the planet is poisoning our brothers and sisters as well as decimating the rest of God’s creation, which God declared to be very good? Simply walking from class to class do I not view the posters put up by campus organisations speaking of the injustices in this world and reminding me of those who suffer because of them? In a global age where we know a great deal about the conditions across the world, Christ’s commandment to love our neighbors has truly become a global mandate.

Love. Even after hearing Christ’s declaration that we cannot bear fruit if we are separate from the vine, and hearing the words of First John tell us that in order to be part of the vine that is Christ we must love our brothers and sisters, this does not sit well with the graduating senior. We are afraid, afraid that by loving our neighbors we will not be successful. Even with Princeton’s strong mottos, the University atmosphere has a strange way of independently defining what it means to be successful. The perceptions on campus might tell you that to be successful is to have a three-car garage, or perhaps a penthouse apartment in the Upper Eastside, or a membership to the most exclusive country club. In fact, the largest issue looming over most seniors’ heads at the moment is likely the fear of not being fruitful in our next endeavors, whether that be a job, internship, or grad school.

As such, it is no wonder that it is often hard for us to love our brothers and sisters. We heard in First John that there is no fear in love. How can we expect to be successful in what God wants us to be successful in, if we are always worried about being successful in what the campus climate tells us we should be successful in? God has promised us in His sacred and holy Word that we will flourish if we love our brothers and sisters. For me at least, I choose the road that leads to God’s guarantee for success, over the guarantee for success espoused by some of my classmates.

Again though, it is easy to try and justify our reasons for not loving our neighbors while following the sure-fire path to worldly success. Perhaps we say that we will earn a lot of money and then we will be in a position to love our neighbors all the more. A very kind history professor once told me that there should be three stages in our lives. The first third is spent learning, the second third is spent earning, and the third third is spent returning. However, when I shared this formula for living with another wise professor he pointed out that there is something wrong with this “learn, earn, return” analysis. Christ does not tell us to accumulate and then to give back when and if we have established ourselves and made a very comfortable living. He tells us to love our brothers and sisters now.

It is not up to any one person to dictate for you the best way in which to love your neighbor, me least of all. I am simply another student in the process of answering this question for myself. But what I can say is that Jesus calls us to love our neighbors now and always. We all have the extremely powerful academic training that flows from the greatest minds in their fields. We have all that we need to love our brothers and sisters in a very powerful way. Money cannot be seen as a substitute for love. Giving money to help the poor and suffering is a necessary but insufficient step in loving our neighbors. Christ said, “Sell all you have, and follow me.” Donating money to help equalize unjust disparity in the world was, and is, a prerequisite for the wealthy who follow Christ, but it is not the act of energetically pursuing Christ.

Love. Whether you back your bags and leave Princeton for good in three weeks, or whether you return after a summer away, all students have the opportunity over the next few months to realize God’s greatest commandment by finding a job, internship, or position of some sort in which we can love those who suffer throughout our world. As we decamp from Princeton, let us remember the skills that our Professors have worked hard to instill in us, let us remember the two mottos of this University that stand side-by-side, but most importantly, let us tie these skills and mottos together with God’s Word. As we leave this great Gothic Cathedral today, may we all strive for the highest success. And may we drive away all fear with the knowledge of God’s promise, that when we love our brothers and sisters in need we will flourish and bear much fruit, and God will live in us, and in us His love will be made complete.

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