The following commencement address was delivered at Westminster School at Oak Mountain in Alabama on May 9th.
Seniors — Congratulations. While I recognize that graduation is just one step in a larger journey, it is a very important step, and I hope you enjoy this day. It is an honor to address you, and I am grateful for the opportunity.
The writer and commentator William F. Buckley, Jr., once gave the address at a graduation very much like this one. He admonished the students that just as they had honored the Lord with their minds, so too should they honor him with their hearts. And that is, essentially, my charge to you today. So let’s take a look at how to go about this.
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My charge, very simply, is that you would not be like Mrs. Turpin.
Now let me tell you about Mrs. Turpin. She is the protagonist — the main character — in a short story entitled “Revelation,” written by Flannery O’Connor. O’Connor was an incredibly talented writer of short stories during the 1950s and ’60s; she is one of the great writers of Southern fiction. She was also a sincere and believing Christian — a devout Roman Catholic who shared with St. Augustine a deep understanding of both human sinfulness and the profound reach and depth of God’s grace. In her numerous short stories, O’Connor writes about bizarre characters who, like Paul on the road to Damascus, come face-to-face with the overwhelming power of God’s grace.
Mrs. Turpin is one of O’Connor’s favorite targets, which is to say she is a fine, upstanding, churchgoing Southern woman. She is the sort of woman who truly believes she has it all together. She thinks highly of herself, grateful that she is of a particular race and class and status. The author tells us that “sometimes Mrs. Turpin occupied herself at night naming the classes of people.” She is obsessed with who owns what, who has good blood and who has money, and she finds it curious and tragic that anyone would rise above or fall below their appointed station in life.
Mrs. Turpin is a woman of her time, so her views of other races and economic classes would — and should — embarrass us. Like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, she’s quick to thank God that she is not like them, whoever them may be. And this is not just a conversation that exists in her head — it’s the conversation she has out loud with other people, whether they care to participate or not.
Most of the story takes place in a doctor’s office, where Mrs. Turpin arrives with her husband Claud, a quiet man patiently bearing his wife’s powerful personality. They’re at the doctor’s office because Claud was kicked by a cow and now has an ulcer in his leg. Mrs. Turpin is loud and insufferable. And while she talks about the state of the world, she spies a young lady staring at her. O’Connor describes the young lady in unflattering terms and notes that she’s in college, wearing a sweatshirt from an old Northeastern university known for its progressive politics. It’s a real school — you could go there! And the girl is reading a book entitled Human Development. Her name, we learn, is Mary Grace.
Mary Grace scowls at Mrs. Turpin for several minutes while Mrs. Turpin continues to have an open-air discussion about the glory of her state in life while thanking God that she is not like anyone she considers beneath her. This goes on for several minutes — it’s purposefully painful for the reader — until all of a sudden Mrs. Turpin is hit in the face with a book. Mary Grace has thrown her copy of Human Development right in the face of Mrs. Turpin and proceeds to hit and claw at her until a group of nurses come in and take Mary Grace away.
Mrs. Turpin is obviously distressed by this, but more than that, she is disturbed. She and Claud leave the doctor’s office and return to their farm. For the rest of the day, Mrs. Turpin mutters at God, angry that he allowed such a thing to happen to her.
You see, the problem with Mrs. Turpin is she believes that her status in life is ultimately determined by the work of her own hands. She might acknowledge that God has gifted her in some ways, but she is the one responsible for knowing what to do with those gifts. There’s a sort of double whammy going on here; she believes on the one hand that God’s gifts to her and her family put her in a better station in life, and she also believes that she’s the one responsible for making good use of whatever it is that God has given her.
Of course we all know that we have to get up in the morning, and make decisions. We must wash the car, cut the grass, and manage our money. But those are practical realities of a fallen world. We all have a bit of Mrs. Turpin in our nature — where we are tempted to believe that our hard work evens our debt with God, and perhaps puts him our debt along the way.
Mrs. Turpin was living — as St. Paul might say — in accordance with the law, but that was ultimately a dead end that set up a roadblock between not only herself and God but everyone else she encountered. She lived in a constant state of scorekeeping — and that’s an unbearable burden. We’ve all met people like this — you’re thinking of him or her right now! — and we are all guilty of the same tendency. It took a radical encounter with grace for Mrs. Turpin to begin to understand how God’s economy works.
And just to be sure, she was given a glimpse of heaven with everyone that she considered to be life’s losers leading the great parade into God’s presence.
Before the story closes, Mrs. Turpin stands along a fence line at her farm somewhere in south Georgia, angry at God in a scene reminiscent of the closing passages of the book of Jonah. God hears Mrs. Turpin’s complaints and in response he gives her a vision. The sky opens up and she sees a long parade into heaven, and leading the parade are the two groups of people she looks down upon the most — Black folks and poor folks — marching first into heaven. And then she sees, and I’m reading now from the text …
battalions of freaks and lunatics, clapping and shouting and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who, like herself and Claud, had always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right. She leaned forward to observe them closer. They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were on key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.
To put it into more familiar language, we might say that Mrs. Turpin has wrapped her entire identity in her wealth, her race, and her status — and only a brutal encounter with grace is capable of grabbing her attention. Mrs. Turpin’s life shows the practice of keeping score is a miserable thing that isolates her from both God and those around her. Mrs. Turpin lives under the burden of the law, believing that her own efforts are ultimately the thing that will bring her to a right place with God. But because her own efforts are never enough, she must be reminded that grace is the only thing that will bring her peace. And when you cease to live by the law, you realize that the time for scorekeeping is at an end.
So again I would charge you to not be Mrs. Turpin. But who or what should you be? Let’s think about that.
Many of you have probably heard of Ben Sasse — the former senator from Nebraska who went on to be the president of the University of Florida. He resigned a few years back to help tend to his wife’s health, and then last Christmas he announced to the world that he is dying from an intense form of pancreatic cancer. Thankfully his cancer treatments are holding steady, and he’s been making the rounds on podcasts and television interviews. He’s even started a podcast of his own entitled Not Dead Yet.
The man has a real sense of humor.
In response to these interviews — which are really wonderful — many people have noted how calm and poised Sasse is in the face of such a serious diagnosis. Commentators have expressed awe and wonder at it. And I understand their point — it’s truly a remarkable thing to witness. Yet I don’t wonder at its source. You see, the reason Ben Sasse can face death with such poise and good humor is very simple:
He knows that his Redeemer lives.
The demeanor Sasse exhibits in the face of death is the demeanor of a man who knows the gospel — the reality that God in Christ has defeated death and hell and fulfilled the law on his behalf. Having been freed from the burdens of the law, the senator is set free — no more scorekeeping, no more worrying about who is in and who is out.
You see, one of the practical, real world effects of the gospel is that when you are liberated from the burdens and expectations of the law, you are liberated from the need to please anyone. You are liberated from political and cultural tribalism, and instead you can speak openly and honestly about the problems that face your city, your state, and your country. You can love truth, beauty, and goodness — and leave behind fear, anger, and resentment. What’s clear in listening to Ben Sasse these days is that he has been liberated from the need to be proven right. Moreover, he’s not out to prove anyone wrong.
We talk often about finding your identity in Christ, and that’s a good thing. We all need to be reminded that we are more than our GPAs and ACTs, our bank accounts and credit scores. But there is more to it than that.
The source of our identity will ultimately demand our loyalty.
Any serious sports fan has felt the tension inherent when the favorite player or coach exhibits what we’ll call “poor life choices.” The temptation to defend the jersey weighs heavily on us. And of course that tension extends well beyond sports and into many other areas of our lives. But when our identity rests firmly in the grip of the gospel, we are free to walk away from such temptation with boldness and confidence.
In the years to come, you will not just be citizens and students. You will be spouses and parents, teachers and coaches, bosses and business owners, maybe even pastors or politicians. And the only thing that will free you up to speak honestly about the challenges faced by the institutions in your life is the gospel itself.
So as I close, it’s probably pretty obvious — don’t be like Mrs. Turpin. Do not trust in your own righteousness but in the manifold and great mercies of a God who gives his life for yours. And seeing as how we are also not dead yet … What astonishing news it is — like being hit in the face with a book — that we are free, right now, from the curse of the law. All the scorekeeping has come to an end!
And as a result, a charge, this charge, isn’t a burden but a glorious opportunity to keep your heart, soul, mind, and strength set on your Creator so that, by God’s grace, you too may love your neighbor as yourself.
