Tony W. Cartledge

Campbell University

Baccalaureate Address

May 9, 2004

Great Expectations- Micah 6:8

My fellow strugglers in this life, I am grateful for the opportunity to address you. Thank you, Dr. Wallace, for the invitation. Thank you, students and parents, for giving us a good excuse to have this special service.

In preparation, it occurred to me that I’ve heard of baccalaureate services for many years, but have never been entirely certain what the word “baccalaureate” was all about. I assumed that “laureate” has to do with recognition for achievement, as in “Nobel laureate.” I don’t know if “laureate” goes back to the Greek custom of presenting the winners of athletic contests with a laurel-wreath crown, but it’s a nice thought.

But I wasn’t sure about was the “bacca” part. When I first came to North Carolina and served a rural church up near Oxford, I often heard people talking about planting bacca, or priming bacca, or curing or selling bacca. But I don’t think that’s what we’re here to celebrate today.

I looked it up, and learned that “bacca” comes from the Latin word for “bachelor,” as in a “Bachelor’s Degree.” I still don’t understand what a college degree has to do with one’s marital status, but I suppose that is neither here nor there. You don’t have to be earning a Bachelor’s degree to be involved in a baccalaureate program, but now we know what the name is all about.

Having settled that, I also gave some thought to why we have these baccalaureate services. Are they just another excuse for getting our money’s worth out of this funky-looking academic regalia? Are they designed as post-college pep talks? As one last ditch effort to get in one good sermon to a relatively captive audience?

I suppose people have used baccalaureate services for all those reasons. I sort of like the pep talk idea – not as something to pump us up, necessarily, but as an opportunity to explore the question of “Where do I go from here?”

Some baccalaureate and graduation speakers attempt scintillating speeches designed to convince each graduate that he or she can go out and change the world. I always found that kind of talk a bit troubling, because we know that most of us are not going to change the world -- and that’s a good thing. Just think about it. If every person graduating from every college this year went out and changed the world, there would be nothing but chaos! We don’t need a whole multitude of world-changers as much as we need a whole multitude of good, solid citizens who are wise enough to support those few who do have the opportunity to bring positive change on a national or global scale.

I don’t think we can all change the world, nor should we. But I do believe each of us should strive to make our part of the world a better place. We do that one person at the time, beginning with our own person. When we make ourselves better people, we can then offer a positive influence in our workplace, our families, our communities. I believe that process grows out of the simple but focused effort to be the person God has called us to be and to live as God has called us to live.

What does God expect?

Now, that brings up a very straightforward question – what does God expect of us? What is my responsibility in this world?         These are important questions, and fortunately, the Bible offers a very good answer. It is found in my favorite verse in all of the Hebrew Bible, a verse I adopted as a guide for life long ago, one I remember being gratified to hear read during Jimmy Carter’s inauguration as president.

It is a challenge found in the writings of the prophet Micah, who lived and worked in Israel during the eighth century before Christ. Micah, like his contemporaries Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, often pointed out to Israel how they had fallen short of God’s expectations for them.

And, in a speech that opens chapter 6, Micah portrays a dramatic scene in which God has called His people to court, with heaven and earth as both witnesses and jury (6:1-2). Acting as God’s prosecuting attorney, Micah points to the many ways in which Yahweh had been faithful to Israel in providing for them, protecting them, pointing them in the right direction (6:3-5).

In various ways, Micah is building a case against Israel because they had substituted religion for righteousness. They understood rituals, but not respect. They sacrificed countless animals, but would not surrender themselves.

Micah perceived that the people had reduced their religion to a system of bribing God with prayers and sacrifices in hopes that God would change His attitude toward them, but it wasn’t God’s attitude that needed changing. It was theirs. 

The people’s only defense, which Micah quotes in vv. 6-7, still fails to see beyond the categories of ritual and sacrifice. “What do you expect of us?” he portrays them as asking. “How do you want us to approach you? With more burnt offerings? With year-old calves? With thousands of rams, or tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Shall we sacrifice our firstborn children as payment of our transgressions?”

But God was not interested in more ritual sacrifices or more religious acts. God was looking for righteous people. And so, in God’s behalf, Micah offers this remarkable response, one I hope you will memorize and internalize as a guideline for life:

"He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (6:8).

We live in a world where people practice prejudice, love selfishness, and walk arrogantly as their own gods. But this is what God expects from us as we go out to put our stamp on the world: that we do justice, love kindness, walk humbly before God. 

Micah did not claim that this was any new revelation. “He has (already) told you,” he says. The teaching of Moses, the 10 commandments, the proclamation of other prophets had often declared the kind of attitudes and actions that God expects.

And this is God’s word to all of us. Most translations say “He has told you, O man, what is good …” The word translated as “man” is “’adam,” which is not only the biblical name for the first person created, but the Hebrew word for humankind.

This is what God expects of all people. This is what is good. These are the characteristics that should define our lives: that we do justice, that we love kindness, that we walk humbly with our God.

Do justice

Let’s look just a bit more closely. What does it mean to “do justice”? Micah uses the word “mishpat.” It is a term that can describe a legal decision or judgment, but it can also refer to actions that are right and just for all people.

When I was a little boy, students from all twelve grades rode the school bus together because we only had two schools. One was for the white children, and one was for the black children, and both of them served all twelve grades on single campuses.

There was a boy on our bus, about six years ahead of me, whose name was Jimmy Justice. I remember liking that name. I rarely had the nerve to talk to older students, but when I was in about the sixth grade and Jimmy was about to graduate, I yelled out to him as he got off the bus for the last time, “Do justice, Jimmy!”

I thought I was being clever, and didn’t realize I was quoting Micah. I’m not sure what Jimmy thought, and I’m not sure that he accomplished much in the way of justice, but that is our calling: to do justice, whatever our name is.

As I spoke those words to Jimmy Justice, it never occurred to me that we were both willing participants in a school system that was inherently unjust, because it treated people of one race as more precious and privileged than people of another race. I was so much a part of the culture in which I lived that I did not question the inherent injustice of it. I had to go off to college to be confronted with my homegrown prejudices, and to appreciate the importance of basic human rights for all people.

Amos, Micah’s contemporary, preached along similar themes. In words that are more familiar to us from a speech by Martin Luther King than from Amos, he also called on Israel to stop putting their trust in elaborate religious rituals. Instead, he said, “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness as an everflowing stream” (Amos 5:24).

It is so easy for custom and culture to blind us to injustice. Popular television programs like “Survivor” depict a setting in which lying, cheating, backstabbing and betrayal are all okay because “that’s how you play the game.” Too many people think of life as nothing more than a game, in which it doesn’t matter how many others you hurt so long as it advances your own interests. But life is not just a game we are trying towin.

I have learned that justice begins with respect for others, including those who look different, those who talk different, and even those who have different ideas.

Both history books and daily newspapers are replete with the terrible results of what happens when people do not respect others. We have this tendency to label others with pejorative nicknames or to lump them into a less favored category, and they cease to be real people in our eyes. Because we don’t see them as deserving of the same respect we receive, it’s much easier to abuse them. That’s how the early American South justified slavery. That’s how Hitler justified the gas chambers. That’s how the Sudanese government justifies the mass slaughter of Christian civilians. That is what enabled some or our own soldiers and intelligence officers to treat Iraqi prisoners with the same abusive disdain as Saddam Hussein. That’s how young men who think of themselves as upstanding citizens can justify terrorizing other young men because they have a different sexual orientation.

Doing justice begins with respect for the humanity and the basic rights of all people – and it includes coming to the aid of those who are victims of injustice and cannot help themselves.

Love kindness

Now what is our motivation for this? Are we to do justice, to go out on a limb, to stand up for others just because God said so?  Are principles and ideals of justice enough?

I don’t think so. Micah’s audience had the law. They had a very clear set of moral and ethical codes to live by – but they weren’t following them. That’s because real justice cannot be motivated by fear of breaking the law alone. Real justice starts in the heart. It not only respects other people, but loves them and wants what is best for them.

That’s why Micah goes on to say “to do justice, and to love kindness.” That latter phrase can be translated in different ways. The familiar KJV and the NIV say “to love mercy.” The NAU and NRSV have “to love kindness.”

The Hebrew has ve’ahvah hesed -- “and to love hesed.” The word hesed can be translated as “mercy” or “kindness.” Sometimes it has the sense of “lovingkindness.” Often it conveys the idea of loyalty or faithfulness. I like the translation “steadfast love.”

Hesed is the quintessential attitude of God toward His people, used often in the Hebrew Bible. Do you remember Psalm 118, where every verse is punctuated with the phrase “His steadfast love endures forever”? That’s the word hesed.

Do you remember the story of when Moses on the mountain asked to see God, and the Lord passed by, saying “Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…” (Exod. 34:6)? In that text, “steadfast love” translates the word hesed.

Hesed is in some ways the Old Testament equivalent of the New Testament word άγάπέ, which describes the kind of steadfast, self-sacrificing love that Jesus showed for all people, and that Jesus called his followers to show to others.

More than once, Jesus taught that the sum of God’s commands are to love God and love others. In John 13:34-35, he said “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

To love mercy, to love kindness, to show steadfast love, is to love as Jesus loved. If we are to be the people that God has called us to be and the world so desperately needs us to be, we will do justice precisely because we share that steadfast, merciful love.

We know what it means to receive mercy, and out of gratitude we learn to show mercy.

Now, if any of you need a remedial course in how to “love kindness,” it won’t cost you anything at all. No tuition or fees. Just spend a few afternoons watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, and pay attention.  I’m not kidding.

I have never known a man more committed to bringing goodness and love into his neighborhood than Fred Rogers. There was a time, just over ten years ago, when my wife and I were mightily in need of comfort because our only child had been killed in a wreck caused by a drunken driver. A few weeks after her death, while I was still at home recovering from my own injuries, I wrote Mr. Rogers a letter and thanked him for being a part of Bethany’s neighborhood, for making her feel special every day.

About a week later, the phone rang. Jan answered, burst into tears, and said “It’s Mr. Rogers!” Fred could have responded to my letter with a card, or by having a staff person call, but he didn’t. He took the time to call and reach out to us, beginning a friendship that lasted until his death just over a year ago (Feb. 27, 2003).

We once visited Fred in his office above the PBS studio in Pittsburgh where Mr. Rogers Neighborhood was filmed. His office was tiny and filled with two couches and a chair that were old, but not antique. There was no desk, just piles of trolleys and pictures to autograph for children, books and scripts, writing materials and an eclectic collection of pictures and quotations on the wall. Fred won a boatload of honors and awards in his career, but none of them were displayed. Instead, there was a Hebrew verse about love, and a plaque with the Greek word for grace, and a large piece of Chinese calligraphy that he translated as a traditional Chinese proverb: “If you want to see yourself clearly, don’t look in muddy water.”

I think one of Fred’s greatest gifts was his ability to act as an undistorted mirror – to reflect back to people their inherent, essential worth and loveable-ness. I learned from Mr. Rogers that when you show respect, it helps others feel worthy of respect. When you show love, they feel lovable. When you act as if they are special, they feel special.

That’s the best picture I know of what it means to “love kindness.” You will make your family, your neighborhood and your world a better place if you work at becoming a person who is steadfast and loving.

Walk humbly with your God

Micah reminds us that we are called not only to walk with God every day, but to walk humbly, modestly, attentively with God.

So many problems and issues in our world could be overcome if more of us could learn the art of humility. Any time you have people who are dead certain that they have all the answers, you can be dead certain that strife will follow.

When religious leaders of any persuasion think they have a handle on all truth, or when political leaders think their way is the only way, or when husbands and wives are unwilling to compromise, there will be strife. There will be hurt. There will be pain.

I do not suggest that it is wrong to believe in things or even to believe that you are right about something. But even our strongest convictions should be held in humility. Unless we are willing to admit that we might be wrong about something, or that the reality of a situation might be bigger than we yet comprehend, there is no room for change or growth in our own life, or in our relationships with others, or even in our relationship with God.

I remember very clearly that when I was 21 years old and had just graduated from the University of Georgia, I knew everything. All you had to do was ask me. I have found that the older I get, the less I know for certain, and the more I depend on faith, and hope.

You can’t know all the answers and walk humbly with God at the same time. God is far beyond our comprehension, bigger than what He has revealed in the Bible, bigger than our imagination. There is much God wants to teach us, but we cannot learn if we are not teachable, and we are not teachable if we do not have some humility about us.

There are many things I wonder about in this world, but I don’t have to wonder much about the kind of life God expects me to live during my time here. We are called to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with our God. If we can do that, we can be absolutely sure that our communities, our nation, our world will all be better for it – and that would be a very good thing.

Return