Mastering Divinity
Three years ago, as I was packing up my classroom at Lee's Summit West High School, trying to make sure things were in order for the next Director of Debate & Forensics, I was wondering what it would be like to leave the world of Mr. Miller the debate coach so I could go back to the other side of the desk to become a student again. I knew that in a few weeks short weeks, I would be loading up the truck to make the move to the strange new world of Princeton, New Jersey to begin my summer program in Biblical Greek. I knew that I had made the decision to follow this call toward ministry that had been building in my heart and mind for a long time. I knew that I would be leaving almost everything and everyone I knew and putting a 20 hour drive between me and them. Frankly, I wondered if I had made a monumental mistake.
Three years later, as I sit in our apartment, surrounded by half-packed boxes and partially completed to-do lists, thinking back over my time at Princeton Theological Seminary, I am struck by how amazing this journey has been. Since that day when we began the drive from Missouri to Princeton, my life has changed so dramatically, it is hard to even begin to quantify it. There are, of course, the big milestone moments: beginning classes at PTS, getting married, passing ordination exams, doing church and hospital work, just to name a few. However, I think it has been the small moments that have been the most transformative.
One of the running jokes among seminarians is that once we graduate, we have "mastered divinity" - because the official reading of our degree title is "Master of Divinity." For me, the humor is deeper than the obvious inability to ever be a master at something so incomprehensible as Divinity. I think it has to do with the idea that simply by taking enough of the right classes, by reading enough of the right books, or by being able to use the right theological term for something - that somehow we have figured this whole thing out, even a little bit. Certainly, I have learned a great deal in my time at Princeton; I have learned things that three years ago I didn't even know were things I could learn. However, as valuable as my time in the classroom has been, where I have gotten a glimpse of what it means to really learn about the divine has been in my conversations with parishioners in the hospital, in my chats with friends and colleagues over coffee or lunch, and in my slow process of trying to figure out what it means for me to be a pastor.
So, after three years of classes and reading, coffee and bedside chats, the faculty and administration at Princeton Theological Seminary decided that I had done enough to master divinity. This past Saturday, I had the distinct pleasure of graduating from one of the oldest theological institutions in the United States. There is something weighty as you walk down that aisle, following in the footsteps of generations of pastors, professors, and theologians. I know that past graduates of PTS have gone on to be senior pastors at large, flagship congregations, or influential authors and teachers, or even presidents of seminaries (our current president is a PTS alum). However, I also know (and this interests me much more), that for every well known, "influential" person that has graduated from PTS, there have been dozens or hundreds of regular pastors who have walked the journey I have walked. Pastors who have served the Church with passion and dedication, caring for congregations in small towns and suburbs, urban centers and farm towns. Pastors whose name will never grace the stone of a building at PTS, but whose lives have made their corner of the world a little more like God would have it. I hope that I may do the same.
And with this ending of a chapter of our lives, another is already beginning. In just over two months, my wife and I will fly to Northern Ireland to begin a one-year term serving the Groomsport Presbyterian Church as their Associate Pastor with a focus on pastoral care and worship leadership. So, much like I did as I was packing up my classroom, I wonder what it will be like to leave the world of Chris Miller, the Princeton Seminarian and enter the world of Rev. Christopher Miller, the Pastor. I think my feelings at the moment are captured best, as they often are, by literature:
“The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.”
I do hope that our paths and errands meet sometime soon. I am appreciative for all of the kindness and support that all my friends and family have shown me these past years. If you find yourself wherever we happen to be, do look us up. We love company.
Until then,
Peace