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UNIVERSITY CHRISTIAN LIFE EMPHASIS WEEK (UCLEW)
Faculty & Staff Convocation
Theme: "Growing Up in Christ: Living by the Truth
and in Love"
Dr. Noriel C. Capulong
3:00PM Guest Preacher, February 4, 2008
"Silliman Way of Growing up in Christ"
Text: Ephesians 4:1-16
Good afternoon!
Once again, we are celebrating
University Christian Life Emphasis Week. And so, this time, Christian
life, Christian faith, Christian values in our teaching and learning,
our office and field work take center stage. This does not mean though
that outside of this one week of Christian Life Emphasis celebration,
we may afterwards de-emphasize if not forget all about these concerns
the rest of the semestral calendar. What UCLEW is all about is that
there is this one week within the semester wherein we can focus our
attention on ultimate concerns about our faith, religion and God as
revealed in the Bible and how they impact our lives and our work as
faculty and staff of a professed Christian university.
In line with this, we have a theme
that implies much dynamism and faith driven movement towards growth
and greater maturity in the practice and living of our faith: “Growing
Up in Christ: Living by the Truth and in Love”. And we have a
scripture text from one of the epistles that is long but so rich in
apostolic exhortation and teaching on the kind of life that a follower
of Christ, a practitioner of the faith and a recipient of various
gifts of the Spirit should live: Ephesians 4:1-16.
There are actually so many themes
that we can discern from this text that are equally worthy of our
attention and emphasis. But let me just focus on three points that may
have very significant bearing on our role in the university as
faculty, staff, officials and administrators:
First: the meaning of calling and the
Caller.
Second: the use of gifts received and
the Giver.
Third: the need for unity even in the
midst of diversity and the great Unifier.
Calling, gifts and unity: all of
these together have very crucial roles on our own striving towards the
kind of maturity or growing up in Christ to which we are all being
called.
First, on calling, we usually relate calling to a lifelong vocation,
or the practice of a certain skill or profession accompanied with a
passionate devotion and strong conviction of having had a divine
influence behind it. It is the carrying out of such vocation or
profession in the course of which the person is able to find meaning
and purpose in his or her life and thus is able to find a sense of
fulfillment and satisfaction. Calling is not all about earning an
income. It is primarily rendering service which may oftentimes come
unacknowledged, unrecognized and many times, even uncompensated.
The teacher who spends much extra
time way beyond the call of duty to be with his/her students to
provide personal supervision, counsel, guidance may in fact be
considered as carrying on a calling which is as distinct and sacred as
it can be. The office worker who is willing to spend more than 8 hours
a day of service just so she can contribute to the achieving of the
higher goals of the institution. For her it is not just a job. It is a
commitment worthy of the trust of her superiors and worthy of the
calling to which she is called. Most of all it is a commitment worthy
of the trust of the one who called us. A sense of being called
emanates first of all from a consciousness of the presence of the
Caller in one’s life.
Our text calls on us to lead a life
worthy of the calling to which we have been called. We have been
called to serve as teachers, staff, administrators and leaders of this
Christian university. In the course of this practice of our calling,
the text even attaches a number of virtues that should distinguish or
characterize our calling as Christian workers from those of others.
That is, our calling is to be characterized by: humility and
gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, and a
constant striving for unity in the Spirit.
As the common expression states,
these virtues are all motherhood statements, nice words, good,
positive values. Nobody will quarrel with these kinds of teaching from
the apostle. But let us look at all these virtues in light of the
present thrust of most educational institutions in our country. For
these are values that are meant to develop character, integrity,
cooperation and caring for one another and upholding the value of
community and relationships. But how do we impart and even model these
values of humility and gentleness, patience and bearing each other in
love to prepare students for a highly competitive, strongly
individualistic, skill dependent, productivity and success oriented,
increasingly materialistic and rationalized world of ours.
In place of humility we see signs of
intellectual arrogance around us as our world now prefers people who
exhibit strong initiative and strong personality to promote and
advertise themselves to achieve some measure of success. Instead of
gentleness, our world prefers people who would be aggressive and
willing to beat others or even overtake or step upon others or take
advantage of the weakness of others in pursuing their own personal or
careers goals in life amidst this perceived rat race in our society.
Those who exhibit patience may even be perceived as lacking in
ambition or enough drive to move on and therefore most likely to be
left behind. Those who show some sensitivity or compassion for others
in distress may be dismissed as being too sentimental or naïve.
To lead a life worthy of our calling
as members of a Christian university community means to carry on with
our respective tasks to which we have been called by our God with
passion for our work and discipline, and compassion for people we are
supposed to serve. In effect, our own sense of being called to our
respective vocations here bestows upon them the quality of the sacred,
the quality of being set apart for a noble purpose or mission.
In the midst of the prevailing values
and preferences of this world we should never lose sight of those
foundational virtues that we need to impart to students and to each
other and to all others that we encounter within and outside of this
university: the need to live and teach and work with humility,
gentleness, patience, bearing and caring for one another in love and
to strive for unity of the spirit.
In effect our sense of calling as
faculty, staff and officers of the university demands of us more than
the usual doing of our respective duties. It demands of us a kind of
life and work ethic that is reflective of the faith we profess and of
the moral values we uphold in this Christian university.
Anyone who feels they could live with
their own kind of moral and ethical values apart from and independent
of the demands of our faith may have to re-examine their own sense of
calling and reason for being in this place. For our calling is for a
life and work ethic which provides a faithful witness to the kind of
living that can inspire, not just our students, but also those in the
community and beyond, towards discerning their own sense of calling
and mission in life. In the words of our text, this is equipping
people or the saints for the work of various ministries, for building
up the body of Christ.
Second, on gifts. Everything that we
have, everything that we acquired, everything that we learned and
apply and teach, all these are gifts of the Spirit of God to each one
of us. And these are varieties of gifts with diverse applications and
significance. Right in the university, there are various disciplines
that make up the whole academic program of the university. Even as
teachers, we all have different areas and fields of specializations.
As administrators or staff, we all have our varying expertise and
special skills that are used in the various units or departments where
they are needed. These are all gifts, and each gift, even the
contribution of the ordinary workers, the janitors, the cooks, the
security guards, they all have gifts of the spirit that are as
important and precious as the others.
Each one and everyone is a valued
member of this community because each one is a valued child of God
imbued with certain gifts to contribute for the improvement of the
life and mission of this university. These are all gifts of God’s
grace. As such we always need to acknowledge the giver of these gifts
with gratitude and thanks even if such gift may be the most simple or
lowly skill.
But to show our gratitude, our gifts
then have to be used and be made to work in harmony with and to
complement and support each other for them to be fully maximized as to
their potential for growth and maturity. Together they help create
this beautiful and unique experience that we are all so proud of, that
is Silliman University, one of God’s best gifts of grace in this part
of the world.
Maturity or growing up in Christ
means that we are able to go beyond our own limited spheres and share
with others and then learn to appreciate and even thank the others for
their gifts no matter how modest they may be. For they all contribute
to the deepening and enrichment of our knowledge and faith and values
in this university community.
Thirdly, on unity; we know that our
university is made up of various units that are so diverse in nature
and function. We may then consider the university as becoming
analogous to the apostle’s metaphor of the body of Christ which is the
church, with its various parts and ministries working and being linked
together to provide for the continuous building up and growing up of
the body in the spirit of love. Thus, we can also say that, the
different units of this Christian university, its various departments,
colleges, units also have to function in consonance and in harmony
with the rest of the parts if it is to achieve unity and growth in the
furtherance of its mission and vision.
Many of you may have visited and seen
the rice terraces in North Luzon. It is a real wonder of human
creation and a monument to human creativity, cooperation and unity of
peoples with various skills and gifts coming together to accomplish
this enormous project. Imagine the amount of manual labor put into
this project by our dedicated brethren from the north, matched with
impressive ancient engineering combined with ancient art and design in
moving and arranging those huge blocks of stones, in digging the
irrigation canals, the water system and creating the footpaths and
shaping each mountain side paddy. This is truly a monument to what
humans can do if they just come and work together for the good of the
community. But what makes this project even more impressive is the
fact that these people did it with a higher sense of purpose and
mission. They did it for the sake of the future generations of their
own community.
We too are called to do our work here
not just for today, not just for this semester, not just for this
school year. Most importantly, we do our work here for the sake of a
better future for our people, for the sake of a better future for our
country. And each one of us has a contribution to make to that end.
But certainly, this needs the cooperation and sense of unity of
everyone involved in this university community.
Yes, unity and harmony is possible,
and very necessary especially in the midst of much diversity. In fact,
the achievement of unity in the midst of much diversity is what makes
Silliman quite especial and unique. This is Silliman’s own witness to
the vitality of the Spirit that gives various and diverse gifts to
each one of us in this institution. This means each part, each unit
has its own place of value in the building up of the body and in the
pursuit of the mission of the university.
This means no one part of the
university, no one department, no one unit of the university can claim
to have a better or more important gift than the others. No one
discipline, no one specialization can claim superiority nor dominance
nor bigger turf over the others. We all need each other to uphold one
another in the spirit of love, especially in this university where
Christ is supposed to be at the center of all our search for truth,
knowledge and wisdom using our diverse gifts. But if, instead of
upholding and supporting one another, we actually try to put down or
belittle the gifts of the others, then, instead of growing, we
degenerate into a self-destructing community.
Everything that we have or use in our
work, be they highly specialized or highly in demand or simply one of
the support services, is given to us for our responsible and faithful
use in the service of the students, the university and of the greater
humanity. This is to give others an opportunity to encounter and also
grow in their faith and life in Jesus Christ. In effect this can also
be called stewardship of the gifts of talents and skills that we have
received from God for the greater unity of the community in the task
of living and speaking the truth and the love of God in Jesus Christ
the great unifier and reconciler of us all.
In the exercise of our sacred calling
we carry this out always with the consciousness of the presence of
great Caller leading us towards our mission and vocation in this
university. We then share our gifts of grace to each other in
gratitude to the great Giver and sustainer of our life to advance the
sacred mission of this university. Thus, we all contribute to the
building up of the body and presence of our Lord in this place and to
the unity of the Spirit as intended by our great Unifier and Lord of
us all.
In the process, we experience growing
in our understanding of our place in the scheme of God’s plan and in
our appreciation of the meaning of true community of believers. Most
of all, we experience growing up in our relationship with our God in
Jesus Christ. The best sign of growth however is the ability to bear
fruit. To be fruitful is to continue in our life of growing in faith.
Just like the fig tree that was cursed by Jesus for failure to bear
fruit and became withered, the call and the challenge for us now is
Grow or Wither! May the choice be clear enough for all of us. Amen.
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