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May 4, 2007
 Calling Presbyterian College the "sacred space" where mighty struggles occur, 1974 alumnus Dr. Ted Wardlaw called on the Class of 2007 to prepare themselves, as Jesus' earliest disciples did, for the outcome - "a new teaching - with authority."
Delivered by the president of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas, this year's baccalaureate address was a reminder of the transformative power of a liberal arts college in Clinton, S.C., to unleash the Gospel.
"You're probably not yet in a frame of mind to entirely get this yet, but just mark my words," he said. "This space in which we are now gathered is sacred space. I don't mean this in the way you might be thinking - that, literally, this room is a sacred space - a place where worship happens, say, on a weekly basis. It's not. No, what I'm saying is that this place - and not just this room, this building, but maybe this whole campus, maybe this whole community - is sacred. You may not see it now but you will see it - sooner or later. I promise."
This community is sacred, he said, because of something important that happens here.
"(It's) Sacred in the sense that an important struggle happened here, where what was at stake was your life, your future, your soul," Wardlaw said. "Some imprint got placed upon you here. Some angle, at some time or other, invited you to wrestle; and you wrestled with that angel until daybreak. Or until you declared your major. Or until you said no to someone because something more important was at stake and you had an appointment with destiny."
Wardlaw said he rediscovered the sacredness of PC and Clinton as he reclaimed familiar paths - past Whitefords, past what used to be Buddy Burger, past the Sigma Nu house, past Neville Hall "where Dr. Neal Prater flipped a switch in my mind one day and lit me up for the study of English." That path carried him, as well, to several local churches and finally to First Presbyterian Church and a destiny as a Presbyterian minister.
"I drove all over town and all over this campus and thought to myself, 'It's all sacred,'" he said. "It's sacred because an important struggle happened here for me, and I imagine for you."
Society is trained, though, to see sacred space in a totally different way - "as somehow vaguely platitudinous and irrelevant, with an organ playing softly in the background," he said.
"And, whatever else tends to happen in it, it's certainly not anything that much resembles struggle," he added. "We don't associate sacred space with struggle."
But the gospel lesson in Mark 1:21-28, where Jesus teaches in the synagogue and drives out an evil spirit, said Wardlaw, proves that sacred space is far more than most people consider.
"For sacred space, as far as Mark is concerned, is not primarily a place for candlelight and Kumbaya," he said. "It is instead primarily a place for struggle."
And not just a struggle, he said, but THE struggle - between Jesus and the powers of darkness.
"Right there in the middle of sacred space, where, as far as Mark is concerned, what was going on was not quiet repose but bloody business," said Wardlaw. "And right there, somewhere between the narthex and the robbing room, Jesus exorcised a demon. To which the congregation responded, 'What is this? A new teaching?'"
It was this new teaching, according to the Gospel of Mark, "with authority," that students at PC have been exposed to, said Wardlaw - establishing an authority to challenge "the demonic assumptions of our time."
These demonic assumptions, said Wardlaw, include partisan squabbles between Left and Right and simple assumptions of Good doing battle with Evil.
"Original sin does not exempt any ideology or nation; and if in the name of defeating the beast, we become the beast, then it's only the beast who has won," he said. "And who in the world will say that, if not people who, in the midst of sacred space, have encountered teaching with authority – teaching that turns the world upside down."
In the Presbyterian Church USA, there is a great deal of concern about remaining relevant - a player, said Wardlaw. Diminishing church membership has caused some to predict that the PCUSA will become the "Amish of the 21st Century," if current trends hold.
"I saw the charge in print in some of our church's magazines, I heard the charge repeated disdainfully at various church meetings – we would become the 'Amish of the 21st century," he said, "and whenever that prediction was repeated, people would laugh ironically at the thought of it."
Then some ironically did happen, Wardlaw noted. Last year, after a gunman killed five girls and himself in an Amish one-room schoolhouse, one Amish community reached out to support the wife and family of the man who killed their children.
"We watched in open-mouthed disbelief as they summoned a strength that ultimately was impossible, humanly speaking, and then dealt with the sin and the tragedy that had penetrated their world by beholding it all with the right kind of eyesight," he said. "We watched as they returned love for evil, as they reached out in forgiveness and healing and redemption. We watched in complete awe as they directed our gaze, if we had the eyesight ourselves to see it, toward a light shining in the darkness that the darkness - try as it may - could not overcome."
A new teaching - with authority.
"And, speaking for myself, I would be pleased for my church in the 21st century to be compared to that witness," Wardlaw said. "I would praise God if my church, too, could be compared favorably with people who see the world, dark and threatening and full of terror as it often is, people who see that world with the right kind of eyesight. Eyesight that enables it all to be turned upside down! In the name of a new teaching - with authority!" |
