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I know I don’t need to explain
“MySpace” to graduates and Confirmands, but bear with me for
the sake of the adults. “MySpace” is a website filled with
over 70 million interactive, personal webpages and blogs.
It’s something like the old-fashioned personal pages in the
newspaper (when news came on paper), but it’s more like 70
million personal diaries, all hung out there for the world
to read.
Not all of it is innocent,
however, as the story in yesterday’s Free Press
reminds us. They ran the story of a 16-year-old girl from
Gilford, Michigan who was lured to the Middle East by a
25-year-old man through a conversation on MySpace. The
article begins: “From her little yellow home amid the
cornfields of Tuscola County, Katherine Lester linked to the
wider world through MySpace and launched herself into the
Middle East and international headlines.”
And then this morning’s New
York Times reports that companies are now checking out
“MySpace” before they hire, so you might want to be careful
about what you put out there. Now, I am not advocating for
MySpace.com, but simply acknowledging it as a metaphor of
our times, of our world.
Also, at a deeper level, it is a
metaphor for all our lives—the search for “My Space,” our
place in the world. We all search to find an identity,
search to know who we are and where we belong. This
“MySpace” is not measured by megabytes or band width. It is
measured by the values I hold, the convictions and
commitments, the beliefs which guide my life; the loves and
hates which shape my life. Oh yes, there are some things
worthy of hating…like prejudice, racism and war; poverty,
injustice and oppression. These are the things which define
my identity. Finding “My Space” is all about finding out who
I am.
And
today is just such a day:
- a
day of claiming for yourself what your parents and the
church claimed for you in your baptism.
- a
day of saying, “This is who I am and who I will be—a
disciple of Jesus Christ.
This sacred space becomes your
space as you cast your lot with the people of God when you
stand before this congregation and say, “Yes, I will be a
disciple of Jesus Christ. I will allow my values to be
shaped by his life and my life will be shaped by his love.”
Today is that kind of day.
Now
let me quickly tell you what today is not!
It is not
graduation from Sunday School. It is not just a nice rite of
passage for every pre-teenager to impress their parents. It
is not the end of your participation in the life of the
church. Rather, it is exactly the opposite. It is a day of
claiming your place in this space, signing on, signing up,
logging in to the work of Christ in the world. After this
day you will not come to worship because your parents made
you do it, but because you made a promise to be here, to be
present. You will not put money in the plate because your
parents gave it to you, but because you promised to support
the church with your gifts.
And the model for the day
is Abraham. “By faith, Abraham obeyed when
he was called to go out to a place he was to receive as an
inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to
go.”
He went out and followed the God
who had called him. He went out in search of a home, a
space. He went out, not really knowing much about what was
ahead of him—and my guess is, neither do you. But he made
the decision; he said “yes” to God and spent the rest of his
life figuring it out.
It’s
been more than four decades since my confirmation.
More than forty years have
passed since I said “yes” to the questions you will hear in
just a moment; since Rev. Ralph Richardson placed his calm
and steady hand on my young and squirrelly head and said the
words we will say to you. In so many ways, the world is so
different. At that time, there were no wars raging that I
knew of, and we thought drugs were something you would find
only in the slums of New York. AIDS was yet to be unleashed
upon the world and we had yet to hear of global warming or
“terrorism” and the war which also carries its name.
But like you, at 12 or 13 years
old I was searching to find a place to stand, to find an
identity to make sense of my life, to get to know who I
was…“MySpace” in the world. And when Rev. Richardson asked
those ancient questions, I probably didn’t understand any
more than you, or any more than old Abraham, but I simply
said “Yes.” And I’ve spent the rest of my life figuring it
out.
At much the same time, other
Methodist youth were gathering in other parts of the world I
had never heard of. In Estonia, under the oppression of
communism, the youth had no hymnals.
They were not allowed. So instead, they copied the hymns by
hand, in secret. This small hymnal is one of those
hand-written hymnals for youth, hidden away in an attempt to
maintain the faith in secret. There have been times and
places when it was downright dangerous to do what you do
today, and there still are.
Now
it is your turn, your time to find ‘My Space,” your place in
the body of Christ.
This day is
all about claiming a faith, an identity, “MySpace” in Jesus
Christ.
If
“MySpace” is a metaphor for your world, your days, it is a
metaphor in other ways as well.
You see there is only one way to
get to MySpace.com. That is through the world-wide web. You
see, it is not really private at all. Once you enter, you
are immediately connected with 20 million people all across
the globe. And when you click into this space, when you
choose to become a disciple of Jesus, when you log-on with
the body of Christ, you are automatically connected to the
“World Wide Web” of faith and become one with all who
proclaim the name of Jesus Christ.
This day is not just about your
personal faith, your personal identity and your personal
space. It is about your place in the world-wide, global
family of God connected around the globe.
I want to
share two examples from our trip. The first example:
While we were in Russia,
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, our other mission team was
completing their work in Prague, Czech Republic, where they
just elected a new president. Can anyone here name him?
During this same week, Montenegro declared its independence
and became a free country and East Timor erupted in
violence. Darfur continued its downward spiral, and hunger
ravages Congo and Zimbabwe. Now what do all these nations
have in common? Two things:
- Most
of us couldn’t find most of them on a map.
- The
people called Methodist are there.
When you join this church, you
join a global church, an international family, a bond that
spans the cultures and communities, the languages and
lifestyles.
The
second example:
Last Sunday was Pentecost, the
birthday of the church, the day when everyone heard the
Gospel proclaimed in their own language. While you were
setting off balloons here, we visited Aspiration United
Methodist Church in St. Petersburg, Russia. They meet in a
small building which they share with the Presbyterians. The
Pastor is Korean Russian. One of the students was born of
parents who fled North Korea to Kazakhstan, then on to
Russia. We shared laughter, joy and love in two languages
and broke bread around a table in a Pizza Hut. And near the
end of the evening, Betty Emmert said, “This is the best
Pentecost I have ever had.” And it was. By the time we were
finished, we knew that
In Christ there is no east or
west,
in him no south or north.
But one great fellowship of love
throughout the whole wide earth.
Today for your confirmation we
will give you a small icon from the Russian Orthodox Church
in Tallinn, Estonia. It is a reminder that you are being
confirmed into the universal church of Jesus Christ, the
people of God around the world; that you are now part of a
global family.
When Abraham went out,
he went out into a hostile world. And let’s be honest, so do
you. He went out into a world which was hostile to his
faith, a world which couldn’t have cared less about the call
of God which nudged him and the promises of God which drew
him or the presence of God which held him.
He went out
with no clear idea of where he was going, and I suppose that
describes you, too:
- not
sure about what it will mean
- not
clear about the implications
- going
out, not knowing just where you are going
But Abraham went just the same…
because of his confidence in the One who had called, to
search for his place, God’s place, MySpace in the world.
One more story from our trip.
Let me tell you about Herb Lang. Herb is now 71 years old.
About six years ago, when he was ready to retire, the Board
of Global Ministries called him in Florida and said, “You
are the only active Lithuanian pastor we know. We need to go
back to Lithuania.” Herb had been born there. His mother
fled from there with five small children, first to Germany
where he grew to be a teenager, then to the United States.
He became a contractor, then had a second career in
ministry. HeeHe served in
the Pacific Islands with the Board of Global Ministries and
finally completed his pastoral career in Florida.
At a time when he had every
right to retire and just go fishing, he is now back in the
country of his birth, serving as a volunteer pastor for the
Methodist church in Vilnius. When God called, he went out,
not knowing where he was to go. But he heard God’s call and
went.
Our prayer
for this day…for our youth, graduates and Confirmands:
- to
discover “MySpace”…your personal faith in Jesus Christ, the
convictions and values that will shape your life.
- to
discover “MySpace” in the world-wide web of God’s grace,
where God will call and God will lead.
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