Celebrating the Class of Now
Boston University School of Theology (STH) celebrated an inspiring commencement this year, sending 92 graduates out into the world with moving charges from STH alumni, Rev. Dr. Zina Jacque (STH ’97, ’05) and Cornell William Brooks (STH ’87).
A Journey With a Promise
At the STH Hooding and Diploma Ceremony on May 16, the musical selections spoke to the theme of joy in the journey. The Seminary Singers sang the anthem, “We’ll build a land where we bind up the broken; we’ll build a land where the captives go free, where the oil of gladness dissolves all our mourning.” A djembe drum accompanied “Baba Yetu,” the Lord’s Prayer sung in Swahili.
Speaking on the text of Numbers 33:1-6, 50-56, Rev. Dr. Zina Jacque, Lead Pastor of Community Church of Barrington, Illinois, told the graduates that challenges and failures would await them, but so would moments of joy.
“Your journey, though completed in these halls, is not completed with God,” said Rev. Dr. Jacque. She named the places where the Israelites journeyed—places like Marah, translated bitter, and Zalmonah, translated in the shadow of death. But they also traveled through places like Mithkah—sweetness.
“The bitterness will not last always because God has ordained that you will find days of joy,” said Rev. Jacque. “This journey is not easy but it is a journey with a promise. Here’s the promise: ‘I will be with you. … You are not alone. I am a God of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I will lift you up. I will hold you.’”
Outstanding Graduates
Valedictorian Kaitlyn Ann Martin (MTS ’15) challenged the graduating class, “We, and our humanity, are made of all the people we have met along the way.” The people in our past are also still a part of our journey, she said—issuing a challenge to remember the impact that we all have on each other. Lindsay Ruth Popper (MDiv ’15), salutatorian and also recipient of the David H.C. Read Preacher/Scholar Award, encouraged the class, “The world needs brave and humble people … We are not alone in this task.”
Other award-winning students from the Class of 2015 included: Kristen Lee Redford Hydinger (MDiv ’15), The Massachusetts Bible Society Award (for excellence in liturgical reading of the Scriptures); Deborah A. O’Driscoll (MDiv ’15), Hoyt L. Hickman Award for Outstanding Liturgical Scholarship and Practice; Mary Magdalene Gann (MDiv ’15) and Samuel William Needham (MDiv ’15), The Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts Award; and Daryn Bunce Stylianopoulos (MDiv ’15), First Place Award for The Garner Prize for Preaching. Art Gordon (MDiv ’16) was recognized for receiving the Donald A. Wells Preaching Prize from The Massachusetts Bible Society.
After the hooding ceremony and presentation of diplomas, the faculty and staff applauded the accomplishments of our extraordinary graduates, and the graduates applauded those who had helped them along the way. The closing hymn captured the spirit and the theme of the ceremony: “Go forth for God, go to the world in peace.”
An Extraordinary Lineage
On Sunday, baccalaureate speaker Cornell William Brooks, president and CEO of NAACP, returned to the Marsh Chapel pulpit where he preached his first sermon years ago. He exhorted the graduating class–whom he called “the most important class in the history of Boston University … the class of now”–to reflect on the fact that they are going out into the world at an extraordinary time, at a crossroads of history and personal narrative.
“You stand in the midst of an extraordinary moral and ethical lineage,” he told them, noting the legacy of Howard Thurman, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Walter Muelder, whose leadership ensured that at one time, half of the African Americans with PhDs in religion were graduates of Boston University. “You stand in the lineage of righteousness and justice and hope and peace.”
Referring to Esther 4:13-16, Brooks charged the graduates to consider if they have come to this special place for such a time as this: “Can we fast and pray, can we wrestle with the deep questions of the age, can we engage with the Scriptures, can we fellowship, can we sing and praise God together and hold on to one another knowing that we can bring about justice in our time, with our God?”
Brooks noted that Boston University itself has been wrestling with questions of diversity in the school, and he told his own story of being offered a scholarship to attend Boston University School of Theology, at a time when he was torn between the ministry and the more practical path of law school. “When you open the door of opportunity wide, people come in, people with talent and ability and aspirations and hope, from all over,” he said. “The surest path to a meritocracy is diversity.”
At the Commencement Ceremony following the baccalaureate worship service, Brooks received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from Boston University.
We congratulate our graduates as they “go to the world in peace”!