DDH marked the close of its 127th academic year on June 3, 2022. Summer PhD graduates Joel Brown, Hyein Park, and Sarath Pillai were honored. Four Disciples Scholars were spring or summer MDiv graduates. Ross Allen, Monica Carmean, Emily Griffith, and Benny VanDerburgh. Three MA graduates were members of DDH’s interfaith residential community: Cetovimutti Cong, X.K. Ding, and Jeffrey Sanchez. Festivities began around 3pm outdoors before the service at 5pm: they concluded with dessert and toasts.
The 2022 Convocation speaker was Yvonne Gilmore, Interim Administrative Secretary of the National Convocation and Associate General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Taking Hebrews 11:39-12:3 as her text, Gilmore exhorted the graduates to re-read religion, “make the exodus movement legible,” and extend joy.
What makes exodus movement legible? What gives us eyes to see and comprehend the promise of liberation historically? What makes the work of exodus legible in the Hebrew Bible, in our text, and in the world today?, Gilmore asked. The subtext of our text is the practice of communal re-reading. It is re-reading religion that extends exodus movement and makes possibilities for future flourishing legible to us and our communities of care and service….
The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews echoes promises, persons, and events from Israel’s past as they search for a better country and face an impermanent future by faith. References to ancients promises, inheritance, and land of promise are often associated with the exilic period. A closer read suggests that the author is not invoking exile. Rather, exodus and wilderness wandering is the core narrative. By faith, the persons in the text never entered the rest that was promised. The writer of the epistle extends the Exodus narrative and re-reads them as people in search of a promise. Through their lived experience, Israel is re-narrated as a people at the border of a promise that has yet to be realized. Extension isn’t merely an act of continuity or replication. It’s a constructive task. It’s the practice of resurrection. Extending and re-reading is the work of making memory legible, legacy available, researching and writing with clarity and courage.
Joy extends exodus moments and the movement of liberation between and among us. Gwendolyn Brooks, the legendary poet from Chicago, shared a word of caution with a group of students, "Don’t swallow. Chew!" Nourishment from food and the process of digestion is aided by chewing. Analogously, learning from experience is the product of chewing and conversation that doesn’t evade but integrates complexity. The church is a theological community that must actively practice faith seeking understanding as it locates and relocates lived experience in our shared life.
You have already begun the work of re-reading religion in this House. As you go from this fellowship and growing habitation of theological imagination, ecumenical daring and visionary scholarship and leadership that we call the Disciples Divinity House, may you continue to the rigorous and liberating work of re-reading religion as you discover and extend exodus movements, and make legible the vocation of community everywhere you study, live, and serve.