An Invitation to Take Care

I’m enough of a dinosaur that I watch network news on television. My favorite anchor is NBC’s Lester Holt, who ends each Nightly News urging viewers, “Take care of yourself and each other.”

That’s good advice anytime. After hanging around theological schools for a quarter century, I think it applies especially to the final weeks of the spring semester. A veteran college dean once observed, “Spring semesters never end, they just sort of unravel!”

While the end is in sight, it’s still a long way until graduation and semester’s end. Papers and final exams loom on the near horizon, for students to write and professors to review and grade. Some may panic in the realization not all topics slated on the syllabus will be covered in the remaining time. For “seniors,” the excitement about receiving a diploma may be coupled with uncertainty over what comes next. Administrative staff prepare feverishly for Board meetings, commencement, budget-building and wrapping up a fiscal year.  

And this year, of course, there’s the storm cloud hanging over everything emanating from an administration in Washington at war with almost everything that appears in values statements of institutions like ours. Many among us feel a high degree of personal vulnerability.

One of my heroes just moved along into the larger life of God. Salvadoran Lutheran Bishop Medardo Gomez faced death threats over and over again as he valiantly stood up for the most vulnerable during a brutal Civil War and in the years since. Known around the world, he had multiple offers of prestigious academic and other positions. But he would never leave his beloved compatriots. Medardo didn’t do so well with Lester’s first admonition to take care of himself. He never faltered in taking care of others.  

Another who gave good advice was the One whose final earthly journey we recall in these latter days of Lent. “Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”