Called to Community

“There’s something special, especially right now, about taking the time to celebrate the good in our world. To center joy, when we have it. To be in community and relationship with one another. To affirm life.” Dr. Simran Jeet Singh offered these words as he began his address to this year’s graduating class, but they nod to an overarching ethos Garrett instills in its graduates as they prepare to serve our aching and fractured planet. In an age of epithets and vitriol, Garrett prioritizes dialogue and nuance. Against broad, sweeping narratives, the seminary offers contextual learning to serve communities’ particular needs. Amid rampant polarization, our graduates seek common ground. Fittingly, commencement was a celebration of those ideals as much as it honored the newest 60 alums who received their diplomas.

Dr. Singh embodies how religious values and ethical practice can prepare leaders to confront intractable problems without spiraling into rage or succumbing to hopelessness. In his remarks, he described how growing up Sikh in Texas presented early and frequent encounters with racism that pushed him to contend with this question. “I was 11 years-old the first time someone called me a terrorist,” he recalled. “It was at a soccer game. The referee was doing equipment checks, got to me and said, ‘I know your people like to hide bombs and knives in those rags. I need to check that, you little terrorist.’” Appalled at the official’s open bigotry but unsure how to respond, Dr. Singh stepped forward, lowered his head, and let the official pat down his turban. “I was so mad at myself. The rest of that day and the weeks that I followed, I asked myself, ‘Why had I given into this person’s racism? Why didn’t I stand up for myself?’” he said. “I knew I was a kid, but also I knew better. After weeks of being upset, I finally gave myself a little grace and said, ‘this is a lesson for next time.’”

He didn’t have to wait long before “next time” reared its head. After basketball practice, Dr. Singh was playfully roughhousing with one of his friends when the other boy snatched the turban off his head. “I wasn’t even mad. He was my friend and I knew he was joking, but I flashed back to this moment with the soccer referee, how mad I was with myself, and this promise I had made that I’d stand up,” Dr. Singh recounted. “I jumped on [my friend]. I tackled him. I started punching, he started punching back. And as I walked out of the locker room, I remember feeling so confused. I thought this was what I was supposed to do, to stand up for myself, but for some reason this felt miserable, too.” By presenting the range between these two responses—a helplessness before abusive authority and an instinctive anger that ultimately left him feeling depleted—Dr. Singh deftly named an omnipresent moral quandary.

For this graduating class, many of whom are already serving faith communities, the combination of widespread suffering, political polarization, and denominational crises

can be paralyzing. Even well-intentioned churches can feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of the challenges that surround them, and ministers are often tasked with finding impactful ministries despite having diminished resources and increased demands for their time. In such circumstances we cannot do everything, but commencement offered several models for how to serve with courage and compassion.

Three honorary doctorates were presented in the chapel that morning. The first to Mr. Roland Fernandes, the General Secretary of the United Methodist General Board of Higher and Ministry. For more than 30 years, Mr. Fernandes has served UMC global ministries, cultivating international partnerships that pursue decolonial models for providing aid—working with partners in more than 120 countries. For that work to be faithful, it must not only be reciprocal between both parties—it must honor both the generations that preceded us and those that are to come. “You stand at the intersection of past and future,” he said, talking to the graduates. “But it is one thing to celebrate change by experience, by faith, by education. It’s another to lose sight of where we come from.” That sense of belonging to something greater than the self was echoed by Dr. Hla Hla Aye, a medical doctor who also worked through the World Health Organization and United Nations as a lifelong advocate for disabled people and for women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. “Originally I just wanted to become a clinician,” she said as she received her honorary degree. “But God led me to become connected to the needs of the people, especially during social and political turmoil.”

The final honorary doctorate was announced as a surprise, to celebrate Rev. Dr. David Heetland who will retire next January after serving Garrett’s development office for 42 years. Over the course of his remarkable tenure, Rev. Heetland helped raise more than $280 million in gifts and pledges to Garrett’s endowment, a towering legacy that will fund scholarships and programs for decades to come. This monumental gift is grounded, however, in the fundamental disposition of gratitude that Rev. Heetland brings to his work. “If you are true to doing what God has called you to do, you will be blessed many times over,” he counseled the graduates. “And that’s how I feel today: I have been blessed.”

This broader commitment to place and people is also represented by the two faculty members who retired as professors emerita. Dr. Hendrick Pieterse leaves his post as Associate Professor of Global Christianity and Intercultural Theology after 15 years, while Dr. K.K. Yeo retires as Harry R. Kendall Professor of New Testament at Garrett-Evangelical Seminary after a stunning 29 years educating Garrett students. Both men’s legacy is not only borne in the profundity of their scholarship or longevity of their tenure, however, but in the hundreds of lives their classrooms shaped. Wisdom and mentorship aren’t bounded in time, they ripple across the ministries they nurture, bringing the world nearer to Christ’s transformative love.

Indeed, a principle that unites all the people honored on that venerable morning is the conviction that local community is where enduring change takes root. Whether our graduates become parish ministers, counselors and chaplains, non-profit executives, or professors, their lives are an investment in grassroots leadership. Even as culture swiftly changes, Garrett commits itself to the gospel’s enduring hope: God is present wherever two or three are gathered in God’s name and resurrection manifests among disciples who follow in the way of Jesus. This is not the first time that the Church has faced monumental threats or existential danger. Christian communities have lived under plagues, wars, and fascist governments, persevered through persecution, economic ruin, and natural disasters, and still have found ways to labor for the thriving of the church and the healing of the world.

That call is not an easy one, however, so Dr. Singh stressed how ritual practice can ground religious leaders in the power that sustains them, reminding them who and whose they are. “When I wrap my turban every morning, I think about my values as a Sikh,” he noted. “I’m wrapping my turban and I’m thinking about service, love, and compassion. I’m asking, ‘How am I going to live these values today?” Whether he was facing the challenge of remaining rooted in these principles against widespread prejudice in the wake of 9/11 or just the promise of another day, spiritual formation offered the foundation for ethical fortitude. “By exercising these muscles regularly, I’d strengthen them to the point where I could carry more than before,” he observed. “When difficulty came, I would be trained to respond with my values rather than from a place of fear or anger.”

In his conclusion, Dr. Singh offered a Punjabi parable of hope in dangerous times. “There’s an old tale about the first time the sun was setting,” he said. “The people were afraid that when the sun would finally set, the night would be permanent.” In a remote corner of the land, however, a small lantern lit its wick. It was unable to extend its power far beyond its own house, but determined to offer what it could. “A nearby lantern, inspired, lifted its wick,” Dr. Singh said, a smile growing across his face. “Then another, and another—one by one—as the people watched in amazement as so many little lanterns illuminated the Earth, and there was brilliance.” Speaking before 60 radiant lantern bearers, Dr. Singh proclaimed the hope they offer against the gathering night. “This folktale has been a compass to me,” he said, “There is so much pain, so much suffering, but each of us can love and lead with courage, humility, and wisdom. Reflect not just on what you will do next, but also how you will do it—with what spirit, intention, and integrity. I invite you to ask yourself, ‘In my small corner, what will I do to share my brilliance with the world?”

Did you miss our 2025 Commencement? Click here to watch the recording!