Jennifer Hitt of the Delaware-Maryland Synod receives her degree from President Hughes

Forty-seven graduates honored at 135^th Seminary commencement

Forty-seven candidates received degrees Sunday during the 135^th commencement exercises of The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. The ceremonies were conducted at Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, Lansdale, PA.

A highlight of the ceremony was a standing ovation accorded Louisa D. Groce, who shyly received a Certificate of Study from President Robert G. Hughes as the awards began. At age 80 Groce, of Willingboro, NJ, this spring became the oldest candidate ever to be approved for ordination by the 5.2-million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) or its predecessor bodies. Rostered with the New Jersey Synod, she will be ordained upon receipt of a call from a congregation.

In a keynote address filled with biblical references, Dr. Addie J. Butler, the ELCA's vice-president and a member of the Seminary's Board of Trustees, challenged the graduates to follow their divinely inspired dreams and to heed God's beckonings in their lives.

She spoke of Joseph's "dreams planted by God….Joseph knew he had been called by God to do special work." But despite this blessed assurance, she said, life was not easy for Joseph. The trouble started at home with brothers who hated him for his dreams and conspired against him. "Are there any Josephs here in the class?" Butler challenged.

Butler, a resident of Philadelphia's Germantown section, described Leah, who married a man she came to love but wasn't loved in return. Leah, she said, had difficulty deciding when to serve the Lord until finally giving in.

"Is Leah's story yours?" she asked the graduates. Finally, she invoked Jonah, who recognized God's voice and refused to do as God asked, only to have God pursue him even into the belly of a whale. "Have you sometimes run in the opposite direction when you heard the call of God?" she asked. In life, Butler said, people often have a tendency to ask God the question , "Why?….Why does God choose one and not another? Why you and why me?" In asking, "Why does God love me so?," the pivotal issue is "who" rather than "why," she said.

"You may not know why, but it's critical to recognize Who holds the future for you. I pray that you may become all that God has in mind for you."

Noting that "we are grasped by God, held by God, led by God," graduate Margaret Spring, co-president of her senior class, said, "We stand in the in-between time. So it's a good day for a ceremony, for remembering what has been and for looking ahead to what is coming." She said she and her classmates have learned about scripture, struggled with the authority of scripture, learned about the church -- its history and struggles -- and "learned to see ourselves as standing in a long line of faithful ones. We were amazed to learn how much the questions of our day are in so many ways the same questions Christians have wrestled with for generations. Questions like, What does it mean for us that Jesus suffered and died? What does it mean to be saved?"

She discussed an appreciation for "the communal mind, knowing that each of us has only a piece of the truth, one view of the whole. We need all our diverse thoughts, all our different voices, all our varied prayers…for any of us to approach the whole truth about God and the world."

Spring said that, in struggling with issues, "we've learned to pray with the newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other. We've learned that Jesus goes ahead of us into all the difficult places. We've learned that we'll never be done learning…." She paid tribute to co-president colleague Kent Lee for his partnership in sharing their duties.

In addition to Groce, at left, who received a Certificate of Study, the graduates included:

Master of Arts in Religion: Gregory Clark Bussey, Suzanne Eyer Ernst, Mary Julia McKenzie, Susanne R. Moskowitz, Lee Edna Odom, Suzanne Marie Rigg, Donna Marie Ruf, Sushanthi H. Samuel, Linda K. Walker and Arvid Shalongo ya-Shalongo.

Master of Divinity: Kathleen Ann Ash-Flashner, Laurie Ann Bleakley (honors), Stephen James Bohannon, E. Robert Burkhart, Jr., Kris D. H. Ferkin, Herbert Nathaniel Gibbons, Sr.; Eric E. Harrison, Jennifer Schoonmaker Hitt, Fred William Hodge, Cheryl Lynn Hoffman, Peter Coerte Hutchinson, Stephen Arthur Keiser (honors), Rebecca Wartluft Knox, Llewellyn Ann Murphy Lantz, Kent R. Lee, Thomas Edmund Maehl, Ernest McNear, John Meulendyk, Robert A. Moskowitz, Scott J. Paradise, Kristie L. Perkins, John Hilary Plessner, Christinia Ann Seibel, Margaret Janet Spring, Karen Louise Fleming Weber, Allison Denise Werner, Thomas C. Wilson, Merrill L. Woolnough, and Peggy McMichael Wuertele.

Recipients of the Master of Sacred Theology degree were David L. Hicks, Janning Wolfgang Hoenen, Robert James LaRiviere, Joseph John Scholtes, Jr., and Janice Ann Vogt.

Receiving the Doctor of Ministry degree were Scott Charles Schantzenbach and Robert Johnson Smith II.