Dear Port Hope Community School graduating class of 2011, family, and friends.

Do you remember that day, plus or minus eighteen years ago, when you entered the world? Your mom was screaming. Your dad was there, too—no doubt watching the TV in your mom’s hospital room. Your grandparents were wondering—boy or girl, boy or girl, as those were the days prior to our knowing this, beforehand.

As you left your mother’s womb, the umbilical cord had to be cut. In the womb, connected to your mom by that cord, you were completely reliant on her for your life. Through that cord, you received food and oxygen. In that womb, you were kept safe and warm. You grew until you were fully formed and could meet the world.

The cord was cut. You were on your own. Well, almost. The umbilical cord was cut, but a new cord was created. Now, it wasn’t mom who would be doing the screaming, it would be you, whenever you were wet or hungry or lonely. Now, it wouldn’t only be dad watching the TV, but he would train you to watch it too, so that you would shut up and fall asleep. And, your grandparents were still wondering, especially whether you would take after their precious child, or that in-law to whom their child was married.

In those early years, you were completely reliant on dad and mom for your entire life. Indeed, observation has taught us that small children don’t even realize that they are separate, unique beings until they are about three years old. (Some argue that it doesn’t happen at three years old, but not until thirty-three years old.)

You grew up, but the world still revolved around you and your needs. You needed your folks to feed you, and clothe you, and drive you everywhere. You needed teachers to educate you, so that you could reach the spot you are in, right now. You have needed coaches, and helpers, and a host of adults, relatives, friends, and community leaders, to guide you, and train you, and provide you with the many sports and activities with which you have filled your lives, and which have helped to form the person you are.

Your life outside the womb has pretty much been like your life inside the womb, but that cord, too has to be cut for you to be on your own.

The cord is underway to being cut. Graduation from high school is a big snip in the process. And, in the process, life is turning around on you. You are going from being in the spot of everything being done for you, to you doing things for others, and from everything being about you, to what about the other guy?

Now, dear graduates, you are in the spot to ask yourselves how you can use these lives of yours—these lives in which, for your first eighteen years, have been all about what your country, your family, your community could do for you to form you for this day—in the service of your country, your family, your community. They sacrificed for you; now, how are you going to sacrifice for them? How will you serve them?

Are you willing to sacrifice and to serve? I pray that you are. I pray that this self-centered American culture, on which you have cut your cultural teeth, has not so infected you with its My-Space, i-Phone, You-Tube—it’s all about me, me, me mentality that you are able to see that there is a world around you which does not revolve around you.

You are not the sun. You’re not even a star, even if you were a Blue Star. You’re only a gaseous asteroid, which zooms about looking for somewhere to strike.

No one—not your family, not the community, and not your country—needs you to have a me first attitude. If all of the people, of whom I have spoken, who got you to this place, had that attitude, you wouldn’t be here. If there were no teachers, if there were no coaches, if there were no taxpayers, if your families had not done their jobs, you wouldn’t be here.

Now, it’s your turn—your turn to sacrifice, your turn to serve.

It is instructive that we always hold this baccalaureate the day before Memorial Day. Memorial Day might have evolved into a weekend when most folks decorate the graves of their loved ones, but—having begun after the Civil War—it is properly the day when we remember and give thanks for those who sacrificed their lives while serving our nation in the military.

They died for us. They died for you. Thousands, upon tens of thousands, of your fellow Americans have died in places like Normandy Beach, and Guadalcanal, and Gettysburg, and Fallujah Iraq, and Hellmand Province Afghanistan—on land, on water, in the air—in Europe, in Africa, in Asia, and right here in the USA—this century, and last century, and the two centuries before those.

If they had not died, where would you be? You don’t know that answer any more than you know where you would be had none of those other many folks, of whom I have already spoken, not sacrificed themselves for your well-being.

Those soldiers having died for you, those adults having sacrificed for you, you know where you are, and it’s a good place. You are educated. You are healthy. You are safe. You are prepared.

Someone once said, the world is your oyster. I hope you like oysters.

What it means to say that the world is your oyster is that you can do anything, because you are ready and prepared for anything. And, that, dear graduates, you are.

This has been a pretty serious sermon. Well, being cut free to be on your own is serious stuff, and being useful people to your families, community, and nation, is serious stuff. If you won’t sacrifice yourselves to serve, you’ll be no good to anyone, but only a drain on everyone and every resource. The world is your oyster. Now, strive to be a pearl.

As we are gathered in the house of Jesus Christ, and this baccalaureate service is a worship service, the ultimate focus goes to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who serves you as Savior.

Jesus teaches what it means to be useful, to look out for one’s fellow man. He taught it by His sacrifice—that, though He was God, He didn’t get caught up in any ego trip that this world is His. He didn’t claim that it’s My space, or I get credit for the technology behind the phone, or You should always have the tube on my channel. No, none of that nonsense.

Rather, thinking of you, and what you need, He humbled Himself to death, even death upon a cross, suffering your sins so that you could rejoice in His blessing.

So that you could be washed in His Baptism and fed in His Communion. So that you could be pronounced forgiven of all your sins—past, present, and those to come—especially as you will continue to long for the world to look out for you when you are too pooped, or too selfish, to look out for anyone else in the world.

Rejoice, dear graduates. You are cut off so that you are free, and the world is your oyster. My prayer is that you closely examine the sacrifices that have been made to get you to this point—the sacrifices in your family and school and community, and the sacrifices by the people of your nation—and that you ask yourselves: now, what can I do, to do my share?

Rejoice, dear graduates. You are cut off so that you are free, and the world to come is your oyster. My prayer is that you closely examine the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for you so that, whatever you do in life, you rest in His gift of salvation, and look forward to the eternal life of Paradise, when no one will ever have to sacrifice his life, ever again, because Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice—and, He did it, serving the Lord in gladness for you. Amen.