To the New Seminarians

This is a love letter to the seminarians entering Boston University School of Theology in September.

What did you go out to the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? Then what did you go out to see? Someone dressed in fine clothing? Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces. Then why did you go out? To see a prophet?

I don’t know God. I do know I believe in God, and I believe it is possible to know and love God.

I don’t know you. I do believe I ought to know you, and I know it is possible to know and love you.

I believe that somehow knowing and loving God is related to knowing and loving you. That, to be terribly brief, is what makes me Christian.

To know and love God and you better, I chose to study theology; I believe it is something I was destined to do.

That is what brought me to Boston University School of Theology. What did I expect to see when I got here? Knowers of God and knowers of people; lovers of God and lovers of people. Theophiles and philanthropes. People of conviction and people of compassion.

Thanks be to God, I have found them here. Here, we have a name for those who know and love God and all people with a fiery yet gentle spirit: we call them prophets.

And this place has been a special place, such a place that it has been called School of the Prophets. I did not know our school carried that title before I arrived.

This place has been, for a time, the sanctuary of persons who saw their visions of God, humanity, and all that is holy come into focus. This place has not been a refuge from the world—its students and teachers set their faces like flint toward that world.

I knew Martin Luther King Jr. finished his studies here, and I knew his greatness. Before I arrived I knew King as a preacher and a political figure. Then I came here, and they told me King was a prophet, a Christian prophet.

And there have been many more like him here. They came here; they became here. You will learn who they were. God willing, you will become what they were.

I did not fully realize when I came here that I had gone out to see the prophets. The discovery has changed me.

What do you go out to see? Why do you go out?

I wonder what you will see in your fellow seminarians if you come here. Some of them may be reeds swayed in the wind. In this time or that place, that may not be a bad thing—that wind may be the Holy Spirit! Some of them may be dressed in fine clothing or appear to be greatly concerned about such things as fine clothing. That may perk your sense of delight or disdain, according to the way you practice discipleship. Prepare to be surprised by whom you come to befriend. Depend on being shocked to discover who actually manifests the gift of prophecy to you. Be ready to acknowledge the gifts that have been given to some despite your determination never to share a pew with them, and be ready to concede when your best friends simply don’t have the charisms you fervently hoped would become obvious to a benighted world.

I wonder what you will see in your professors. In and out of the classroom and chapel, I wonder how you will look at your professors, the ones you will come to love and hate. Yes, hate. But even hate may be a better thing than cheap like and dislike if you have good cause to despise what they say and do. Nevertheless, as much as you are able, love your professors and pray for them, too … at least promise me you will pray for them as often as you gossip about them.

I wonder what you will see in Marsh Chapel. I wonder if you will ever set foot in Marsh Chapel when not compelled to do so.

Boston is not a desert, but you may feel deserted here at times. I wonder what you will see in Boston. I do not mean all its cultural attractions, though I do not for one moment undervalue them. Do see the sights, smell the smells, taste the tastes, hear the sounds, feel the sensations. When you have begun to enrich yourself—may you never be done—I wonder what you will see when you look past the oasis. A rich, shining city on a hill, a place to play, a place to pray, a place to stay? Will you feel at home or homeless? Will you see the homeless? The ill? The imprisoned? The addicted? Will you find the people of the Beatitudes, or people with snobby attitudes? Will you be a tourist, an observer passing through, or a pilgrim? Or something else and more, if you let the city and its people so shape you?

I wonder what you will see when you behold the School of Theology as a community—its gifts and flaws, its joys and sorrows, its sanctity and its sinfulness. Yes, living in this community is sometimes uncomfortable, even painful. However, one must distinguish between a healthy discomfort and unhealthy threats, between growth-filled pain and death-dealing hate. We must welcome the former things and do everything in our power to destroy the latter things. How do we recognize the difference between these? And how do we recognize difference itself? Maybe, in the final analysis, knowing and loving God and people will depend on how we reckon with difference.

I wonder also if you will see the School of the Prophets. Some say we are no longer the School of the Prophets. Without prophecy, there is no community; or, as the King James Version of Proverbs poetically puts it, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” But there is also a tension between prophecy and community that destabilizes as it constructs. We’ll never be a prophetic people of God if we never risk troubling the safety and security of our worldview or that of others. Unfortunately, one person’s prophet is another person’s persecutor, and the difficulty lies in distinguishing false perception from reality. We need to learn how to discern the Spirit together. I wonder if you will be a part of that discernment at the School of Theology.

Have you come for Jesus Christ? Well, I wonder if you will see the image of Christ in this community of faith(s), or merely a crisis. What does it mean to be in Christ, and how do other identities of race, gender, orientation, and vocation, to name a few, relate to one’s being in Christ? In my experience here, none of us define what it means to be in Christ the same way, nor can we assume that everyone subordinates other facets of their identity to their identity in Christ. In fact, we cannot even take it as a given that being in Christ is the paramount identifying mark for every student and faculty member of the School of Theology. In my experience, though you would earnestly seek the face of Christ Jesus in each member of this body, this community of pastors and scholars, you will not find it unless your image of God is expanded. And that can be a wonderful thing.

This place is neither pure seminary—breeding ground for pastors—nor pure school of theology—an academy of philosopher-theologians. Our university faces the city, but a river runs by it, and it is the river we face when we pray in chapel. Our school plants one foot in the church and one foot in the classroom. Athens meets Jerusalem. Learning and virtue and piety collide. Love and truth meet, although sometimes it’s for binding arbitration; justice and peace kiss, but sometimes it’s because they have to kiss and make up. “In all of this lies the passion” (John Caputo).

And in all of this there lies prophecy. Maybe even the reign of God.

What will you go out to Boston University School of Theology to see?