(A Commencement Sermon)
You young men and women are here because you have successfully completed a prescribed course of studies and have therefore earned a reward, which in your case will be a diploma. Coming from a school of excellent reputation, you should as a group be outstanding in the colleges, trade schools, technical school or industries to which you will now transfer your activities.
Perhaps you are inclined to think that your schooling is life itself. Studies and scholastic activities take so much time, that the rest of the affairs of the world sometimes slip by almost unnoticed. But education is not life. It prepares you for a part of life. And here, at the conclusion of a portion of the formal education you are to receive, there is a wise provision made for a religious service. Religion, too, is an important part of life.
Religion grows and develops in our world in spite of constant predictions of doom. Today the Christian church is stronger than ever. Not so long ago, in 1760, Voltaire made the statement “In one hundred years Christianity will no longer be heard of.” At the time of the Reformation, about four hundred years ago, many sincere Catholics thought that the break-down of their ecclesiastical system meant the end of all religion. And long before that in the days of pagan Rome , the few Christian martyrs went to their death fully believing that religion and the worship of the true God was dying with them. When Jeremiah was prophesying, in the days of the Old Testament, he mourned the death of true religion. And even in the misty legends of early Jewish history, we find the same continual prophecy of doom. When the ark of the covenant went astray and the temple was destroyed, the end of religion was seen. So in every age, gloom has been spread by pessimists. and it is no novelty, nor should it be unexpected, that some professional prophets of doom are this very day proclaiming the end of religion as we know it. Through adverse criticism of the Bible and mechanistic theories of the origin and sustenation of the universe, they claim that religion has lost its power and its reason for existing.
Yet I can stand here today and say to you that religion is and always will be an important part of your life. Let me tell you why.
In the first place, religion is fundamental and universal.
A woman once said to me, “I'm not very religious.” She might as well have said, “I'm not very human” or “I'm not very alive.” Religion is an inseparable part of life.
In Russia an interesting experiment has been conducted over the last twenty years. Religion has been outlawed and the worship of God forbidden. In its place an attempt has been made to induce people to worship national heroes like Lenin and Stalin. But after a dozen years of this experiment, which hasn't worked out very well, a Russian communist novelist, Romnov , makes one of his characters say “The time will come when man will realize with anguish the pettiness of external things and return to his forgotten soul.”
After all, at heart the Russians are no different from other people. And all nations, all tribes, all races worship some supernatural God. They may take the form of totem poles, idols, rocks, Nature, imaginary Gods, statues or almost anything else. But in every age and in every clime, civilized and uncivilized people have found some object of worship. In civilized lands this need for God has climaxed in the worship of Jesus Christ and the acceptance of His Gospel.
Although everyone has some religion, we must be intelligent enough to appreciate that every religion is not necessarily a good religion. Some are good in part and some are all bad. In Asia for ages, the Orientals have been downtrodden and depressed by their system of castes and ancestor-worship. In ancient times we decry the influences of lascivious sex-worship. Even in modern times in America religion has not always done good or been good. Cornelia Cannon in her novel “Red Rust” tells of the Scandinavian immigrants in the great mid-West. When the destructive rust settled upon their crops, they refused to fight against it but accepted it as the will of God to destroy their crops. In that case religion became the foe of their economic good.
There are other examples of evil done in the name of religion. I might cite the Korean demon-worship or the Mohammedan fatalism, which long prevented proper hygiene, accepting plagues as “Kismet,” the will of Allah.
I am citing all these incidents to show you that, although religion is fundamental and universal, it is not always a good factor in the lives of men. We need to use our God-given minds and think for ourselves in the field of religion. Jesus warned about blind leaders guiding other blind people, so that they all fell into the ditch. We need to avoid the pitfalls of ignorance, superstition, and blind acceptance of somebody else's ideas. Education should enable you to be thoughtful and understanding in religion. If it is true, as I have tried to show you, that everyone has a religion, it must follow that you have a religion. Make sure that yours is the right one, the best one!
Scientific studies have revealed that any parts of us that do not serve a useful purpose in our lives soon wither away or remain merely as useless appendages. Religion, too, must serve a useful purpose in your life. In order to be useful, it requires some form of expression, which I believe can best be found in the Church. As religion is an essential part of life, so the Church has a definite place in life.
Some people say that we do not need churches. That is hard to prove. It is true that we can be religious without ever going to Church. It is also true that we can be well-educated without ever going to school. But the relation of one to the other is so close as to be essential. Without schools, few if any of you would ever receive an education. And without Churches, few if any of you would ever have a vital religion or a means of expressing it. For the logical development of your life, join some Church and be an active member of it all your life!
There is no need to explain how a Church serves its community. It is a social, moral and educational force in the life of every one of you. Judges and others who are in a position to know have pointed out that church members are rarely in legal trouble, scarcely ever in jail. A man who has the duty of visiting and consoling the social outcasts who are placed in prisons and social welfare institutions tells me that ninety-five percent of them have never been church-goers. People who go to church have a soldier basis for their lives to be built upon.
If you never ate, you would soon starve to death. There is no argument about that. And if you never provide food for your spiritual life, it will waste away and die. Oliver Wendell Holmes said “There is a plant in the corner of my heart called reverence, which needs to be watered about once a week.” Remember that, and go to Church. The Church has a definite place in your life.
Now let me speak about the influence of religion on life. You are a practical group. You are likely to ask “What will religion do for me?” You have a right to an answer.
Religion gives purpose and meaning to life. Why should we build the Empire State Building? Why have a great World's Fair? Why should we work hard for a living? Why be honest? What is the purpose behind this struggle called life? Is there a purpose? Sometimes we are inclined to quote Dorothy Parker's poem, which expresses in rhyme the disquieting sentiments of so many young people in this age of swingaroo,
There's little in taking or giving,
There's little in water or wine;
This living, this living, this living
Was never a project of mine.
Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is,
The gain of the one at the top.
For art is a form of catharsis,
And love is a permanent flop.
And work is the province of cattle
And rest's for a clam in its shell.
So I'm thinking of throwing the battle --
Would you kindly direct me to hell?
Well, there are many signposts in this age pointing the way to hell. Foolish people come along and try to tear the signs down. But it doesn't do any good. The paths are still there. What we need to find is a sign that points us to the other direction. In religion we find the answer that gives some meaning to a good life.
It's not possible to enter too deeply into this subject, for life has to be lived to be understood. We need to see all of life in its true perspective to get a right and true answer. Perhaps you have worked out a jig-saw puzzle at some time. One piece of that puzzle, taken alone all by itself , certainly looked like a silly thing, didn't it? But that silly shape in conjunction with a hundred other apparently meaningless shapes finally turned out to be one complete picture. Life is like that. It unfolds as we go along and with each additional step of progress it becomes more beautiful, more full of meaning. Think of the lives of some people who have really accomplished things, and you'll appreciate my meaning. Men like Socrates, Paul, Augustine, Luther, Lincoln or a host of others serve to illustrate this. The purpose behind life makes life worth while, and religion serves to provide that purpose. Jesus could say of His life, “For this purpose came I into the world” and with single mindedness that endured even pain and suffering He carried out that purpose. That kind of faith makes life worth while.
Purpose, of course, isn't enough. We need power to carry out our purpose. And religion gives power to life.
Behind all of our great power plants there is a large lake or reservoir, storing up water. When that stored-up energy is released and flows through the dam, it is changed into electricity or some other form of useful power. It must flow through the dam to be useful. So it is with the power of God. He possesses all power over heaven and earth. Religion allows that power to flow through our lives and be useful.
Our age certainly needs that sort of power. We see around us crime, immorality, social inequality, faults in our economic system, human sufferings that cry aloud for some remedy. History shows that religion is the only practical influence with the power to make any progress in the struggle against these evils. Even George Bernard Shaw, who has no particular love for religion or for the Church, says “Civilization needs religion as a matter of life and death.”
The power that religion gives us enables us to transform or transcend life. We all have difficult adjustments to make in life. We have to get along with other people, some of whom we don't like any too well. We have to find our place in social, political and economic systems that are far from perfect. But religion gives us practical aid in making these essential adjustments. In his book The Return of Religion, Dr. Henry C. Link, famed New York psychologist, urges religion as a practical cure for social maladjustment and other ills. When in faith and understanding we realize that we are all children of God, despite race or nationality, and that without prejudice we all have equal access to the person and power of God, we are better able to take our places among men.
And when the world is too much with us, we are able through religion to withdraw a distance from life and find transcendent peace and renewal. Many great men have obtained their fabulous strength through the proper exercise of the power of prayer. We all know the anecdote of Washington on his knees in prayer during the severe winter at Valley Forge . And Lincoln turned to God for renewed power in his hour of stress. When we wonder and marvel at the strength of those whom history records as strong men, let us realize that much of their strength came from a source open to us all, through the power of prayer.
Religion gives us the assurance of our conquest over life. Does life ever seem to big for you? There are such vast spaces, so many people, such huge tasks! But from the earliest pages of the Bible to the testimony of the present day, we learn of man's dominance over this world. Today in an age of powerful machinery and of regimented millions, we need this knowledge of our power.
And religion gives us the assurance of our conquest over death. In the year 125 A.D. a Greek named Aristeides , while corresponding with a friend, wrote in amazement about the Christians “If any righteous man among them passes from the world, they rejoice and offer thanks to God. They escort his body as if he were setting out from one place to journey to another nearby.” Thus faith has its final triumph, even over this last enemy, death. “He that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die” said Jesus the Christ, So what terror can arouse our fear in life or in death, when such a glorious assurance awaits us?
These are factors religion gives us in facing life: purpose, power and the ability to transform and even transcend life. But Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin adds a pertinent warning when he writes “Religion is not a utility but a satisfaction.” That is to say, religion is not a tool like a devil's pitchfork to prod us through this world, but is rather a peace bringer. If offers us the supreme fellowship with God in the community of His children. It enables us to see meaning and purpose in the world and to obtain power and to overcome and redeem it. From a negative standpoint we can well ask what life would be without religion. It would be empty and often meaningless. But the true relation of religion to life is aptly expressed by Christ, Who said, “I am come that ye might have life, and have it more abundantly.”