Welcome back to Rollins, from wherever you have been. Since we last gathered, most of the Christian world has celebrated Easter. I say "most", because the Eastern orthodox churches with their different calendar will not celebrate Easter until May 1. If you celebrated Holy Week last week, I hope it was meaningful to you, and that you return to your work at Dartmouth with a resurrected spirit.
This term will be a little different at chapel. I will speak as often as I am needed, but I am issuing a general invitation to seniors to speak at a chapel service if they wish. If you are a senior and want to speak, just tell me and we'll put you on the schedule. If you would like to nominate a senior to speak, just tell me. If there is no senior, I will speak. So you have a chance, if you wish, to hear me today only. Next week Vince Bousquet will be the speaker.
When I am speaking this term, I will be talking on the general theme of religion and morality. I begin this theme by turning again to the story of the man who came to Jesus and asked - "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?" This story is told in all four gospels. In John, the man is named Nicodemus. In Matthew and Mark and Luke, it is suggested that the inquirer is rich and young. I turn to this story repeatedly at Dartmouth because I think it is the Dartmouth story. So many students here have been trying all their lives to be good - to figure out the one good thing they must do to …. be class valedictorian, to blast their SATs, to get into Dartmouth, or some place like it. Over and over again, in my conversations, I am struck by how good Dartmouth students are - not just in their accomplishments, but in their desire to be good people. Or so it seems. But often something happens here. The ambition changes from wanting to be a good person to wanting to become rich or wanting to be on top of some pyramid. And, at the same time, often the moral rules that were important to so many of you when you were in high school seem simply to evaporate, so that the way to be good isn't clear at all anymore. Such is the Dartmouth that I see - not always, but often.
Now maybe you don't often think that you are trying to achieve eternal life, but think about it. If that's the top prize, don't you want it? After all, you were either born to achieve or trained to achieve - to aim for the top. Right?
This man, this rich young man, if you will, came to Jesus and asked, sincerely, what good deed he needed to do to win the greatest prize. And Jesus reminded him about the commandments - the ten commandments., which this fellow said he had kept all his life. Now, as it happens, I am preaching during this term on Sunday mornings at the Church of Christ at Dartmouth on the subject of the ten commandments. You can come there on Sunday mornings at 10 AM if you wish to hear about them. But I expect most of you know them, somewhat. And I expect that some of you, like this fellow, have tried to keep them. But maybe you still don't feel you are good enough - not good enough to inherit eternal life -not good enough to win the top prize, not good enough to have no doubts about being who you are supposed to be, not good enough to silence the gnawing fear that you are really an impostor who doesn't deserve the acclaim that you have received, or to overcome the disappointment that you have experienced when your talents have not been recognized and rewarded.
Now I know that I am speaking now to a very tiny fraction of Dartmouth students here in chapel today, less than one percent. But the question we are dealing with - how to be good enough - is one that concerns the vast majority. Some are frustrated that the world is not recognizing their talents sufficiently. Others are worried that they really aren't good enough - and don't know how to be.
Jesus' first words to this young man are important. "Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good." Now this answer should relieve us all. There is only one who is good. Only God is good. All of the rest of us are less than good. All of us - whether we won high school or whether we are majoring in biochemical engineering or whether we have won the volunteer of the year award - are less than good. Now this doesn't mean that our attempts to be good are unimportant, but it does mean that the prize for perfection is already taken.
But there's another dimension to the question, too. Jesus' answer - implied in this gospel, explicit in others - that only God is good - is a statement that many students have rejected. Being good, for many, has nothing at all to do with God. It simply means giving the appearance of being nice to people - not too selfish, not too callous, not too vindictive. All of us, by those standards, are good people, aren't we? Right. We are. Or we know how to appear to be so.
But in our secret hearts, we know how frightened we are. This young man was frightened. He may really have wanted to be good, to win the prize. But as soon as Jesus told him - sell what you have- his fear was revealed. And ours is too. We wouldn't sell what we have and give it to the poor. No way. None of us would. Oh. we'll make a donation, certainly. But sell everything we have and give it to the poor - are you crazy? The story makes all of us shiver. It makes us realize how far we are from the Kingdom of God.
What do we do now? Do we continue on our path of impressing people? How can we ignore what we know to be true? How can we turn that desire to be good - the desire that probably led us to Dartmouth in the first place - into a realistic desire to be really helpful? Why should we care at all?
Why should we care at all? Why not simply take what we can get and forget about others? There are basically two answers to this question: one is religious. God tells us to care. The other is secular: we should care about others because our own good is wrapped up in the good of others. Some people argue that morality requires religion. Others say that morality not only can exist without religion, but even that religion contradicts morality.
It is that difficult question that I will continue to explore during this term. Meanwhile, we are left with the haunting, frightening, tragic image of this rich young man - so appealing, so earnest who gave up the great treasure of his life - the chance to be a disciple of Jesus Christ - because he thought something else was more important.
