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How to
return a Gift
by the Rev. Rich Smith
May 11, 2008
1 Corinthians 12:3-14
Once upon a time there was a church with a
problem. Bats were living in the steeple, and no one knew just
how to get them out. Conventional means like exterminators were
no help, and so in desperation the local Catholic priest was called in
to do an exorcism on the bats. It didn’t work. The local
rabbi was invited over, chanted some mystical prayers, but still the
bats remained. Finally the Congregational minister was
engaged. His solution? He confirmed the bats, whereupon
they departed from the church and were never seen again!
I’m sure this will not be the case with this year’s
Confirmation Class. They’ve worked very hard and love their
church and each other too much to do that. But in many churches
in recent years, confirmation has been viewed, at least by the
students, as a kind of graduation, not only from Sunday School, but all
church participation, which kind of defeats the purpose of what
confirmation is all about.
This wasn’t always the case. In the early days
of the Christian movement, when followers of Christ were an oppressed
minority, confirmation was in integral part of an initiation program,
marking the believer’s commencement into a radically different life.
More than a reflection of the Jewish custom that eventually became bar
mitzvah, it was instituted by the church to address a problem. In
a burst of enthusiasm, converts to Christianity would be baptized, but
because of the difficulties of living as a Christian in a non-Christian
culture, indeed one that was hostile to Christians, these new converts
would quickly fall away, their faith "a fragile reality evaporating as
quickly as it appeared," unable to stand up to the pressures of the
dominant culture. And so the newly baptized were immersed
once again, not in water but in classes designed to strengthen their
faith, and not only through instruction, but through the support and
nurture of the faithful, that is living along side Christians in
community, with mentors, so that the faith would be caught as well as
taught. And I note that the word confirmation comes from
the Latin: Confirmare, meaning to make firm, to strengthen.
Now this all changed when the Emperor Constantine's
conversion in 313 A.D. mandated Christianity as the state-approved
religion. Suddenly, instead of being Christian at your own risk,
you HAD to be a Christian if you expected the enjoy any of the benefits
of citizenship, like getting a job. Confirmation was no longer a
daring, risky act, but rather a requirement, a hoop to jump through, in
order to gain acceptance in society and employment. Confirmation
was no longer a process of strengthening the faith of believers, it was
simply the member-intake system of the state-approved church.
The Reformation did not do much to change this
pattern. Being a church member was still synonymous with being a
citizen. And in fact it became a kind of rite of passage into
adulthood. As one historian tells us, "In some places in Europe,
a young person of fourteen could join the work force and be treated as
a citizen. Some congregations included the duties of citizenship
in their (confirmation) programs. They even had courses on health
to help those who were about to be married (kind of like we do with our
OWL program). It was not at all odd to have young ladies
postponing their confirmation for a year or two so that they could use
the occasion as a kind of coming out party to announce to the public
that they were available for marriage."
Confirmation celebrations of that time, some 400
years ago, even became known as the "great festival of youth", with
much singing and ceremony, and the high point of this great festival
was – I am not kidding – the confirmation sermon! Ah - the good
old days! I am told that these sermons ran anywhere from one to
two hours in length, and so today would be a good time to bring that
practice back.... (Not!)
In America, churches continued to practice
confirmation as a rite of passage, and even though we had no
state-church, no requirement of church membership, it remained a
cultural expectation until relatively recently. But by the late
twentieth century, there were many ways to mark adulthood: getting a
driver's license, buying a car, graduating from high school, joining
the military, getting married, having children (not necessarily in that
order any more). The church is no longer the cultural gatekeeper,
and so confirmation is not the rite of passage that it once was, and
all too often, young people often depart the church like bats once they
are confirmed.
What should confirmation mean for us today? If
it is not simply a graduation exercise, what should it be? I
wonder if we might not return to its origins in the early church for a
clue, that time when it was meant to strengthen the faith of the newly
baptized, so that they would remain in the faith community, better able
to stand up to the world around them, a world that did not share their
values, and would in fact seek to destroy those values. Is it
possible that being a member of a church might once again be
counter-cultural? Is it possible that being a member of a church
might put one at odds with the dominant values of the society -– not
the spoken, time-honored values of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness,
equality, but the values that seem to be lived out: the consumerism,
greed, self-centeredness, and hedonism that so much of our culture
flaunts---- we want to get and grab and hold onto and do what feels
good at the moment.... centering our lives around our selves and our
wants, doing nothing to challenge the racism and sexism, and suspicion
of those who are different; worshiping the biggest and fastest and most
powerful. Being Christian in this kind of world -– as distinct
from simply being a church member -– might well put one at odds with
all this, and might well make you want to think twice about whether you
want to be Christian at all. As Bill Moyers once remarked, “You
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.”
It's kind of like the story I heard about the man
who was driving down the freeway, when his cell phone rang. Answering,
he heard his wife's voice urgently warning him, "Herman, I just heard
on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on the beltway.
Please be careful!" "Heck," said Herman, "it's not just one car
going the wrong way -- I'm the only one who's going the right way."
Well, who's to say? If you are really trying
to be a follow of Jesus, a person who tries to live out the values he
taught in this world, then you might end up feeling a bit like
Herman. And that's where confirmation comes in. In this
kind of world confirmation can once again become what it originally
was, not a rite of passage or a graduation exercise, but a
strengthening -– through instruction and involvement in a faith
community -– a way of strengthening believers in their faith and in the
Christian way of life.
I can't say for sure how well we've done that with
this group joining us today -- only they can provide the answers as
they live their lives among us and in the world. In some ways
it's quite unrealistic to expect that our meeting twice a month for a
couple of hours would precipitate the metanoia, or radical change of
heart, that confirmands in the early church were expected to
have. It's simply not possible for us to provide all the tools
they need to live the Christian life, tough to equip them fully to take
their place as full members of the Body of Christ in this place in
three or four hours a month of class work, even with the marvelous work
and commitment of their teachers and mentors, who provide worthy
examples of walking the path of faith. But the story of Pentecost
reminds me that it's not all up to us. The Holy Spirit has been
confirming, strengthening, them for as long as they have been alive,
and indeed has been working actively in the world for a lot longer than
that, providing the spiritual gifts they need, just as with those first
Christians who found themselves able to communicate the Good News in
ways they have never imagined!
That’s what Jesus promised the disciples, and this
is what the Apostle Paul told the church folk at Corinth: “To each is
given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” That
is, these are gifts, not something you earn or deserve, but given to
you. It’s what makes you unique, it’s your special talent, and
while you might want to work at developing a lot of different talents
and skills, you have a special ability in this area. It’s God’s
gift to you, and while you can’t exchange it for another, you can
return it – but only by using it, and not for your own benefit, but for
the good of the whole community, the “common good.”
Paul goes on to list the various spiritual gifts he
had seen in the Corinthians: one could utter wisdom, another
knowledge. That is, some have the facts at their command and
others know how to interpret them. One had the gift of faith,
faith not as belief but as trust. And faith is a great gift,
because it is hard to trust that there is any more to life than you can
see. We’ve all known people who have had that gift, whose faith
has led the way for us, has made it possible for us to have faith as
well. Another could heal. Not like Oral Roberts placing his
hand on your forehead and curing your disease, but rather the promotion
of wholeness or reconciliation. If you’re a healer, things will
get better in your presence, not worse. One could work miracles,
another prophesy, which doesn’t mean predicting the future, but
speaking the truth, telling it like it is, something every church and
nation needs! One had the gift of discernment, could see deeply
into a situation or a person, could look into your eyes and see what’s
behind them. Another had the gift of tongues – didn’t mean they
spoke ecstatic gibberish, but could communicate, speak in ways that
would be understood. Still another could interpret, that is,
listen deeply and hear what was really being said.
All these were gifts of the Spirit, as Paul
experienced them in the early church. Different members had
different gifts, but they all used them, worked together for the common
good. Your gift might be one of these, or it might be something
else. You might be an artist or a musician or an athlete.
You might have the gift of compassion. You might be good a math,
or poetry. You might have the gift of steadiness, being able to
remain calm while others are losing their heads. And surely, you
have the gift of love! Whatever it is, it not only strengthens
you for living your life, for living a Christian life, it provides you
with an opportunity to share yourself in some special way with others,
as you give of yourself, and give the gift away. As Paul said, “For
just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members
though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one
Spirit we were all baptized into the one body....and we were made to
drink of one Spirit.”
Confirmation is when we drink of that Spirit, and
acknowledge that each of us has been given some gift of the Spirit,
which, when we discover it and accept it and decide to return it by
using it well and unselfishly, we will live out our baptism and be a
follower of Jesus in this world.
I want to leave you with three brief points:
1. Confirmation is a continuing process. Today
is not the end of the journey. Your faith will continue to change
and grow, as many of you indicated when you wrote your statements of
faith. Many of your expressed your faith in God as faith in the
essential goodness of humanity. I believe that, too. But I
promise you, you will find that belief challenged. And what you
affirm today, you might not affirm in just the same way five years from
now. Most of us could say that. Faith is a journey, not a
destination.
2. We’re here to help in that continuing
process. It’s not just you joining the church. The church
is also joining you, joining you on your journey. We want to be
here for you and with you as you continue that path, and maybe we’ll
figure it out together.
3. At the same time, the church needs you –
not because you will be another body in the pews or a number on the
membership rolls – but quite simply because we’re more interested in
the future than we are in the past. We need your gifts, your
ideas, your honesty, your perspective, your style of living out your
faith. Just as your life will be changed by being part of this
community, so all our lives in this community will be changed, because
you are a part of it!
And finally, I offer you my favorite benediction:
“And now may God plague you and torment you; may God set an impossible
task before you and dare you to meet it; may God give you strength to
do your best. Then, and only then, may God grant you peace!”
.
Last updated Wednesday, Februrary 29, 2008
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Westmoreland Circle
Bethesda, MD 20816
301-229-7766
Email the church office: churchinfo@westmorelanducc.org
www.westmorelanducc.org
An
Open and Affirming Congregation
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