Inauguration Week worship service focuses on justice, mercy, humility

Event the first in a weeklong celebration of Campbell's sixth president, Dr. William M. Downs

The weeklong celebration of the inauguration of Campbell University's sixth president began Sunday night with a Biblical charge, not just Dr. William M. Downs, but the Campbell community as a whole.

Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly with God.

This simple call from the Book of Micah (6:6-8) in the Old Testament represented the theme of the Inauguration Week Worship Service, kicking off a week of events that will culminate with Friday's Investiture Ceremony. The message was a reminder to the Campbell community as a whole that a close, obedient and humble relationship with God is obtained through actions, not outward appearances.

"Ten words, three actions and one powerful message," said Dr. Barry Jones, dean of Campbell's Divinity school and one of three to present a sermon Sunday night inside Butler Chapel. "These are not just clear instructions. They are universal instructions. … This Scripture challenges us to ask, 'What does God require of us as a Christian university as we rededicate ourselves to our mission under Dr. Downs' leadership?'"

Jones, Campus Minister Rev. Louisa Ward and Vice President for Student Life and Christian Mission Rev. Dr. Faithe Beam each tackled a topic from Micah's verse and connected it to Campbell University, which will inaugurate only its sixth president in the school's 139-year history on Friday.

Jones began with the first sentence, "Do justice." He called Micah 6:9 one of his favorite verses in Scripture because it poses a major question: "What does the Lord require of you?"

"God's desire for justice means that our path to God leads us to what is good for our neighbor," Jones said. "There's no shortcut to pleasing God that steers away from doing right by others. This clear expectation is woven throughout Scripture and the test of justice in the Bible is always this - are the most vulnerable protected? If there's justice for the least of us, there's justice for all."

Jones said that a learning community "practices" justice much like an athletic team practices to get better. Universities learn from the practices and failures of the generations before them.

"When we're practicing, failure isn't final," he said. "It's one step on the path to learning to do it better. To be a community that practices God's desire for justice means our disagreements and our differences aren't disqualifications. They're gifts that enable us to recognize our blind spots and improve our practice."

In her sermon on "Love Mercy," Ward personified mercy as a woman - "one who is vain, does not seek approval and is not afraid to make a mistake."

"It seems the world favors those who look out for themselves - the miserly, the prideful, those who rely on strength and sword and cunning to win the day. But they do so at a cost, because they are not friends of Mercy's," Ward said. "Mercy contends that the gentle, the full and healthy - the one who does the right thing even, and especially, when the odds seem stacked against you - are actually the ones who hold the truths to the kingdom."

Deciding to love a difficult and complicated neighbor and rejecting the lie that some are made poor in God's dominion, Ward said, are virtues of Mercy. She said Mercy came in the form of "a carpenter's boy from Nazareth, the scandalous son of an unwed mother who raised her son to look at things differently. He grew up and he turned the world upside down."

"To know Mercy is to love her. To love her is to become her. To become her is to be more like Jesus."

In her sermon on "Walking humbly with God," Beam began by highlighting the importance of walking in general. It burns calories, increases one's heart health, reduces stress and helps lower the possibility of various diseases, she said. It connects one to their body and to the world around them.

"It's a very human experience and one that is woven deeply throughout Scripture," she said. "The walk to a destination to remember God's faithfulness or the walk of life to know Christ more deeply are a rich dynamic within the experience of the grand story of God."

Yet, "walking humbly with God" is by no means the easy way to worship, she said. Ancient followers would have found it easier to make the required sacrifice or attend the required ceremonies to please God.

"To the pilgrim, God says you need to keep going. You need to keep walking," Beam said. "… The walk with God enables us to see the world through the eyes of God. It helps us to cultivate a posture of attentiveness. It has the power to slow us down, and if we let it, to notice the beauty of simple moments and the goodness found in this world; to truly consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air.

"This kind of walking in the day to day of life has the power to ground us in knowing that we are cared for and loved by God."

And to walk "humbly," Beam said, is to make that walk "real."

"Practicing humility helps us remember that what matters on any journey is not our credentials, our possessions or our place in society, but our ability to hold those things loosely enough to imagine new ways of being ourselves, new ways of being together, new ways of being," she said. "Jesus walking on this earth allowed him to see things like the beggar on the side of the road or the woman at the well. His walk allowed him to see and hear the needs of those around him. … Humility opens us to the needs of this world."

Sunday night's Worship Service ran roughly 90 minutes, featuring hymns and performances from students and Campbell faculty and staff. The night ended with a group prayer for Dr. Downs and First Lady Kimberly Downs, and Ward presented the two with a Bible including words of prayer and encouragement from Campbell students.

"There are beautiful words in this Bible, and they are for you," Ward told Dr. and Mrs. Downs. "They are for your privilege and for your time in this community. We want to walk with you. We want to be pilgrims with you. We also want you to know that you are loved. And it's here that you can be known and can become who God has called you to be."

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