TSM Graduation Address

My remarks as President of the Class of 2012 for Trinity School for Ministry given at Trinity Cathedral, Pittsburgh on May 12th, 2012.

            On behalf of the class of 2012, I would like to welcome all of you to today’s commencement.  I would also like to say thank you to all of you.  Many of you are family and friends, spouses and siblings who have tirelessly supported each of us throughout these years of seminary.  You have put up with our absence due to reading books, or learning Greek or Hebrew, or writing intimidating long papers for Bill Witt or Erika Moore or intimidating short papers for Rod Whitacre or Phil Harold.  You have dealt with us wanting to share new words and concepts with you that we don’t even understand, and have patiently listened for hours on end while we talk about real presence in the Eucharist, or the importance of the Greek participle in the Great Commission, or the often fuzzy and less-than-glorious history of the Church.  And many of you have supported us in very tangible ways, either financially or by feeding us a meal when we have shown up at your door with our best effort to give you puppy-dog eyes.  In short, thank you for all of the patience and love which you have given us.  God has used you to provide for us in so many ways.  Thank you.

            If you turn to the very back of your bulletin, you will see the class verse for the class of 2012.  Isaiah 61:1, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.”  On hearing this, one may think that this is a rather pretentious job description that we have given ourselves, or that we have high hopes for our ministry.  However, I would like to take a few moments to look at this verse together, in order to discern what it means and why it came to be our class verse.

Zombie Apocalypse and the Life of Christ

Below is a sermon preached by Brian on May 1st, 2012 at Prince of Peace Anglican Church in Hopewell, PA.  

            A recent trend that has been sweeping the nation for the past few years is an obsession with zombies.  Many of you may have noticed the dramatic increase of movies, books, and television shows relating to these mythical creatures.  If you do not know, zombies are a type of monster, in a similar category to vampires, who are dead but still alive, as seen in The Night of the Living Dead and Michael Jackson's Thriller.  They tend to shuffle around with large groups, and, according to popular consensus, they hunger for brains.  The trend is so popular, and many people are so obsessed with it, they some people have started to rewrite classic books to include zombies.  One example is the novel, Pride and Prejudice, which is a Jane Austen classic of upper class England.  A few years ago, someone rewrote it to make it Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  I have no idea what is it about, but I can imagine that it is dramatically different from Jane Austen’s original vision.  Yet another example is the large books sales for The Zombie Apocalypse Survival Guide, which gives you tips on how to survive when the great invasion of undead zombies begins.  There has also been a preponderance of these creatures in video games, in which the player must defend themselves against endless hordes of zombies, a trend which I myself have been unable to resist, and currently have a game on my phone where I have to do that very thing.

            Now this is an odd thing, and one might think that it has absolutely nothing to do with Scripture.  On the contrary, I think that in some way, the Bible does tell us about zombies.  The unfortunate fact is that the Bible says that we are zombies, which may be shocking news to many.  However, the Good News from this morning’s reading from John is that, through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, we are given life again, which is union with God, through the Holy Spirit.