Confirmation Sunday/Ascension Texts May 17, 2015
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Acts 1: 1-11 + Psalm 93 + Ephesians 1: 15-23 + Luke 24: 44-53
Grace and peace to you from our risen and ascended Lord. Amen.
Almost two years ago Sandy, Kyle, Jackson and I joined with our sisters and brothers in Christ at Maple Leaf and Bethany Lutheran churches for our learning together that would lead to this day. We’ve eaten our share of pizza, played a number of silly games, and come to love the crazy videos that went with our confirmation curriculum. We’ve played our share of trivia, the Bible variety in class and the other variety on their phones when they thought the pastors weren’t watching. As we rotated between each congregation location for our classes, we came to learn that we share a lot in common and have a few differences. All of the church buildings smelled faintly of coffee and extinguished candles but only Bethany Lutheran had about five office chairs with wheels in the large room where we met. You can only imagine what that led to.
As the months passed, our group went from being a gathering of strangers to being a community of friends. My mouth to God’s ear….when we noted that it was the final confirmation class the kids were bummed! They want to continue to get together. That’s what life in the Kingdom looks like. Strangers who become friends because of the Gospel.
When I was looking at our Scripture readings for today, I did a little bit of a double take. We are using the texts for the Feast of the Ascension, but I started to wonder if there could have been better texts as we gather. I mean, it’s right here in the Gospel reading…what we did every third Sunday… “then he (or she) led them out as far as Bethany”. We did, that, right? And it goes on…”then he (or she, again) opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”
A portion of what we did in class was about understanding the Scriptures. And another portion involved exploring together what the Scriptures mean in our lives today. What difference does it make, when you are in middle school or high school to hear the story of your faith history? What might it mean to hear that God is a God who is present with God’s people in good times AND in difficult times….especially in difficult times. Even more so in times that feel as though they may never end…as though one is forever doomed to wander in the wilderness that is Egypt or middle school.
Or what difference might it make to be a twelve or thirteen year old and hear Jesus say that all who carry heavy burdens are invited to bring those burdens to him? To let him carry what they can name and what they are afraid to speak out loud…burdens as heavy as a student’s backpack.
There was gift in our learning and there was gift in our fellowship and there was gift in our being together. It’s helpful to learn that some of the people in the room with you wake up some days entirely uncertain about whether God is paying any attention in the world at all. That the person sitting next to you is completely angry over the ongoing violence and crime and bigotry and hatred and sexism and racism in our society. Angry enough that it’s hard for them to pray. and it’s good to know that the person across the table sometimes just wants to stay in bed on Sunday mornings. And those are the pastors.
Our gathering together was something like the Pentecost story, which we will celebrate next week. When our differences were what made us have to work a little harder to see where our understandings of God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit and faith had points of intersection. After all, only two sets of the students went to the same school – our Kyle and Bethany’s Marlena and Spencer and Zachary, who were so hard to tell apart that they became known to us as Spencary.
What we learned, all eight students, and what the pastors learned again, is that community in Christ forms out of our great love of Jesus…not out of certainty and not out of having all of the answers and not out of believing in exactly the same ways. And this is good and helpful news for all of us. That our call as the Body of Christ is to keep the main thing the main thing. Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength and the second greatest commandment that is like it: to love our neighbors as ourselves. After that, we show that love in service.
Oh…service….how can we forget the evening we loaded up in a church van and went to the Compass Center, in the middle of Pioneer Square to fix a meal for the residents of the shelter? The kitchen was a buzz with the chatter of that many teens and tweens in that small of a space…all thrilled about wearing hairnets and plastic food service gloves. But when our guide from the Compass Center said “it’s time to serve” a holy and hushed silence fell on the group….as we looked into the eyes of our sisters and brothers in Christ and served them hot food and received their gratitude and realized, as one of the students said “they could have been our grandmas and grandpas.”
And so on this day, all of what we learned and experienced together brings us here, where each of you, with your families and friends and your community of faith surrounding you…will speak for yourselves in response to the promises that your parents and sponsors made at your baptisms. You, on your own, will make a public profession of your faith. I will ask you, in front of these witnesses: Do you intend to continue in the covenant God made with you in holy baptism: to live among God’s faithful people, to hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s supper, to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people, following the example of Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth?
Wow. That is A LOT to ask of someone…of anyone. And here’s the thing. You actually can’t do this. It’s a TRICK QUESTION! No one can do this. At least not on our own. But what you can do and what I can do is promise to try. Remember what the answer to that question will be? I will and I ask God to help and guide me. That is all any of us can do. Try – and ask God to help and guide us.
And here’s what you can count on: that God will help and guide you. That’s the job of the Holy Spirit that lives within and around each of us. Who helps us get through a day or an hour when we think we can’t make it through another second. Who prays for us when we don’t know how to pray. In the first reading from Acts today Jesus says “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Jackson, Kyle, and Sandy….sisters and brothers gathered here: this is the word of God to us as well. The Holy Spirit empowers us to be witnesses to the good news of the Gospel. Not to have all of the answers and not to condemn others or tell them how to live or what rules to follow or how to vote. The power that we are given through the Holy Spirit is a power that is sheer love. The most powerful force of all. The very basis of those greatest commandments.
When you were baptized, when we all were baptized, others promised on our behalf that we would live in community so that we could find our way forward in love. And today, and on every single day going forward, it will be up to you.
But here’s what I want you to remember…what I hope we will all remember: you do not ‘choose God’. God chose you. God chose us. Which means that on those days when it’s hard for us to believe or understand or get up for church….God still chooses us, just as God chose us in the waters of baptism.
In the letter to the Ephesians we heard these words this morning and they remind me of each of you:
I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.
Thanks be to God. Amen.