KOHLER: STAY GROUNDED, BUT KEEP AN OPEN MIND ON JOURNEY
JEREMY WALTNER – PUBLISHER
Randall Koehler, the pastor of the Hutterthal Mennonite Church who delivered the address at the Freeman Ministerial Association’s community baccalaureate service last Sunday afternoon, May 7, had a message for the Class of 2023 that may have been hard for some to hear.
Graduates, he told those assembled in the auditorium inside the Freeman Community Center, you probably don’t have life all figured out.
But that’s OK. When he graduated from his own high school in rural central Illinois in May of 2008, he didn’t either — even though he thought he did. Koehler had graduated salutatorian of his class, was a starter on the basketball team, the lead singer and guitar player in his church youth group and had the co-lead in the spring musical that year.
“I thought that I was pretty cool,” said the now 33-year-old — “that I had a lot of life figured out already.”
But it didn’t take long for him to discover that “I still had a lot of life to figure out, and a lot to learn.”
Indeed, six years removed from high school, after a switch in majors from youth ministry to elementary education and a change in colleges from downtown Minneapolis to a school closer to home — and after a year spent in southern Africa through Mennonite Central Committee — he finally graduated from college.
In between all of that, Koehler discovered that his path forward was different from what he thought it would be, and one that included an identity with the Mennonite faith traditions — something that ultimately brought him and his wife to Freeman just a few years ago.
He acknowledges that the six years between high school and college graduation made him “a most non-traditional student in any sense of the word,” but that he wouldn’t trade the experience for anything else.”
(And let that be a reminder, he told the graduates: “There will be people in your life who will say that you need to be done with college in so many years — that that’s all the time you have,” Koehler said. “That’s not always the case.”)
The journey that he and his wife are on in Freeman, which now includes enrollment in seminary, “continues to drive a sense of purpose, hope and goodness in my life,” Koehler said in his address on Sunday. “And at the age of 33, on this day, my birthday, I have a better sense than I have ever had about the shape that my life is taking … because the truly human life that God has revealed to us in Jesus encompasses or includes all of the facets of who we are — our identity, no exceptions.”
Like any young adult, Jesus didn’t embark on his calling until later in life, as well.
“I thought of Jesus’ own life journey in the first century among the small rural towns of Galilee,” Koehler said, noting that he went to synagogue every Saturday, took a yearly journey to Jerusalem for Passover, and at least on one occasion stayed behind because of his interest in the religious and political leaders, “and boy were his parents furious with him.”
Koehler said that history shows that Jesus would have been in his mid-to-later 20s when he was working as a carpenter or mason and decided to leave home, join John the Baptist and begin his teachings
“Even Jesus made a massive career change around the age 30,” he said. “So if you don’t have your life figured out at age 18, that’s OK. Jesus didn’t either.”
Still, he said, “Jesus doesn’t just toss out the entirety of his upbringing; he doesn’t throw his faith away, or his youthful conviction, and neither should you. Do your best as Jesus did to name and notice those situations where the answer lies beyond the rules, and the difficult work lies ahead.”
In whatever situation they may find themselves in the years to come, Koehler encouraged the graduates to find a balance between staying grounded in who they have become through adolescence and young adulthood and open to what life may present.
“Just as Jesus and I were, so you have been raised with particular rules, traditions, world views, assumptions and stories that you might take for granted; I know I did when I left home,”he said. “You have been taught these things and it is important that you carry them with you into your next life’s journey.”
But there won’t always be clear answers.
“Your task will be as it has been for generations, to discern the way forward as best you can with the tools you have,” Koehler said. “You will be doing best to weigh what is good and lifesaving and right of the experiences and teaching that are thrust upon you in college, tech school, career, farm or family business, or something else after high school.
“Graduates of 2023, God cares about who you are today — about the life you are moving forward in right now,” he continued. “God also cares about who you are becoming, and through the gift of the spirit has offered you a companion on the journey you continue on your own journey as close as the air you breath, as near as the wind on your face. You can notice about how that spirit moves in you, as well as the ways the wisdom from your childhood here in Freeman, and the good that is ahead of you, will grow together into a life of home, grace and peace.”
Sunday’s baccalaureate included participation in the form of scripture and prayer from other pastors active in the Freeman Ministerial Association — Tom Brown from Bethlehem Reformed OPC, Corey Miller from Salem-Zion Mennonite, Stephen Roussos from the Missionary Church and Shane Van Meveren from Bethany.
The service also included music from Freeman Academy senior Jada Koerner on the French horn and songs by a praise band led by Craig Wollman and featuring graduates from Freeman’s two schools: Angelyn Allison, Seth Balzer, Sam Gering, Koerner, Brooklyn Mendel, Kate Miller and Treyton Waltner.
This is the ninth year the Freeman Ministerial Association has been hosting the community baccalaureate service.
Prior to that it was held at Freeman Public.
