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Dear Members
of the Confirmation Class:
This is
your day. This is your hour. And this is your sermon. Everybody
else in the room can listen in. But I wrote it for you. Some
of you may be wondering about the word "dance" in
my sermon title. Don't worry. I'm not going to make you choose
partners and move to any music ... fast or slow. Because
that would surprise all of you ... and embarrass more than
a few of you.
Besides,
I don't know if you even like dancing. When I was in the sixth
grade, I didn't. Of course, when I was in the sixth grade,
rock and roll wasn't even around. But we had dancing in school.
It was a part of our gym class, as I remember it. Some days
we played softball. Some days we played dodgeball. Some days
we climbed a braided rope from floor to ceiling. And some
days we danced. Not that we liked it all that much. But we
did it. I remember learning how to square dance in gym class.
And I remember learning how to slow dance in gym class.
When we
came to the end of the "slow dance unit," we had
a big formal dance in the gym. Guys were supposed to clean
up, as I remember it. They even suggested we tuck in our shirt
... slick down our hair ... wear a tie ... that kind of
thing. Then we were supposed to demonstrate everything we'd
learned about dances like the waltz and the foxtrot. We danced
to records...78 rpm records ... which went round and round
on turntables ... and were activated by needles. Like I said,
it was a long time ago ... shortly after the dinosaurs left.
And we
couldn't dance every dance with the same partner. We had a
dance card. And we had to have it all filled out before we
got to the gym. If there were ten dances, I had to have ten
different girls' names on my card. Every time the music stopped,
I had to go find the next girl. It wasn't all that much fun.
As I remember it, I liked dodgeball better. At least when
I was in the sixth grade.
So why
is the word "dance" in a sermon title about Confirmation?
One reason. Because Confirmation, like dancing, is something
you do with your feet. To be sure, other parts of your body
are involved ... especially your head ... and, hopefully,
your heart. But in a few minutes, we're going to ask you to
get on your feet. Then we're going to ask you to come up front.
And, surprise of surprises, we're not going to ask your parents
to come with you.
Every
other time something big has happened in your life ... like
when you joined the Brownies ... or when you won the spelling
bee ... or when you earned a merit badge or two ... somebody
from your family came up and stood behind you. More often
than not, somebody even stuck a pin on your mother. But your
mother isn't going to follow you today. Neither is your dad.
Not that they don't care. But when you come up to the front,
you're going to come by yourself. They're going to stand in
their pew when we call your name. But they're not going to
move. This time, you're on your own.
Years
ago, they said they would make sure you were a part of the
church. Years ago, they said they would try to introduce you
to Jesus Christ. And, for better or worse, they did that job.
But this is your time. They can't go on doing everything for
you. You need to stand up for yourself. And you need to step
out on your own. You can't live on your parents' faith forever.
Which
makes your parents proud. But which also makes your parents
nervous. Parents always get nervous when kids begin to do
things "on their own." Because once you're old enough
to cross a few streets ... or make a few decisions ... your
parents aren't quite sure where you are going to go, or what
you are going to do. They are especially worried about who
you are going to follow. Parents are people who were taught
... most likely in prenatal classes ... to say things like:
"I don't care what everyone else is doing ... you are
not everyone else." My father always took that one step
further by saying: "If everybody else got in line and
jumped off a cliff, would you jump off the cliff, too?"
I never told him I thought his question was ridiculous. But
what was equally ridiculous was the fact that, if the cliff
wasn't too high, I might have said "yes."
But my
father had a point. I was different ... and he was just trying
to help me remember that. But, I also had a need to belong
... and he was trying to force me to state my own terms of
belonging.
A friend
of mine, also named William, presently preaches at Duke University.
It is a big and important position. But when he was growing
up in South Carolina, he was anything but big and important.
And he, too, was concerned about blending in with the other
kids. But his mother was equally concerned that he not bend
too far in order to blend too much ... especially when he
became a teenager ... especially when he began to date ...
especially when he began to drive the car. And so it was that
whenever he walked out the door (front door ... back door
... porch door ... garage door), the last thing she would
say to him was: "William, remember who you are."
But what
did that mean? It's not like he was going to forget his name.
Besides, if his mom was like my mom, his name was stitched
in his underwear. And it wasn't like she was saying: "Don't
forget your keys ... don't forget your manners ... don't
forget your billfold." In fact, it wasn't even like she
was saying: "Don't forget to put gas in the car ...
don't forget to be home by 11:00." It was more than that.
She was saying: "Don't forget who you are ... don't
forget who your family is." Or (as they say in the south),
"Don't forget who your people are. Don't forget who you
belong to or what you believe in." I imagine that (on
more than one occasion) he wished she'd forget to remind him
to remember, so that (for one night) he could go out and forget
who he was. Which was probably why she never forgot to remind
him to remember.
Every
time you walk out the door, you carry a family name ... a
family history ... a family hope ... and a whole laundry
list of family values. Whether you understand all that or
not ... whether you like all that or not ... whether you
plan to honor all that or not (once you get out on your own)
... that is who you are. It's in your bones. It's in your
genes. It's in that computer in your head that you call a
memory. And it's also in your heart. "Who you are,"
is like underwear you never take off. Even if you get 500
miles from home and never have to walk out your front door
again, you will never be able to shake that voice telling
you: "Remember who you are."
And you
know what? From this morning on, you have something else to
remember. You have to remember that you are a disciple of
Jesus Christ. A few minutes from now, Matt and I are going
to put our hands on your head ... crack through 17 layers
of hair spray ... call your name out loud and say: "Andy,
the Lord defend you with his heavenly grace, and by his Spirit
confirm you in the faith and fellowship of all true disciples
of Jesus Christ." Which means that you belong to Jesus.
And which is going to make you different from people who don't
belong to Jesus. You are never going to be able to wear the
uniform of the world without realizing that underneath it
(in addition to your underwear) you also wear your relationship
with Jesus Christ. Which means that there will be times when
you will not fit in with other crowds ... when you will look
different ... unusual ... odd (or weird). Or to recall Paul's
language:
Do not
model your behavior on the contemporary world, but let the
renewing of your minds transform you, so that you may discern
for yourselves what is the will of God ... what is good
and acceptable and mature.
And I
suppose you are wondering (along about now): "Just how
odd is that going to make me?" Well, in your grandparents'
day, kids who followed Jesus Christ were expected to be pretty
darned different. They didn't play cards. They didn't go to
movies. They didn't go dancing. They didn't wear makeup. And
they especially didn't do those things on Sunday.
Fortunately,
those days were pretty much over by the time I came along.
I danced. I went to movies. I played cards. And the fact that
I chose not to wear makeup had nothing to do with Jesus Christ.
To this day, I have a profound respect for groups that practice
their faith by limiting their contacts with things that others
call "worldly." But I am not suggesting that (as
soon as you are confirmed) you go home, scrub your face, burn
all your CDs and never dance another beat again.
What I
am suggesting is that ... at every critical turn in your
life ... you ask yourself: "Does the fact that I am
a follower of Jesus Christ have anything to say to me here?"
If you do that, I think a couple of good things are likely
to happen.
First,
you will occasionally find yourself doing some "lowly"
work. You will remember that, on the night before he died,
Jesus washed the disciples' feet. Which was lowly work. Dirty
work. Smelly work. But as he went from friend to friend with
basin and towel, he said: "Love does things like this."
Which it does. Love sometimes stoops down in order to do the
simplest things for the neediest people. A nurse gives up
a month's vacation to change bandages in a mission hospital.
A visitor to the hospital, overcome by the ugliness and smell
of it all, blurts out without thinking: "I wouldn't do
that for a million dollars." "Neither would I,"
answers the nurse. "Neither would I."
If you
follow Jesus Christ, you will never again be able to look
at somebody else's need and say: "I don't care. It's
not my problem. No sweat off my back." To be a follower
of Jesus Christ means looking out for people. It also means
looking to find Jesus in the presence of other people.
Gert Behenna
was a rough, big-boned woman who was very much an alcoholic.
Sometime after her 50th birthday, she met Jesus
Christ, gave up the booze, put her life together, and began
telling her story. She became a celebrity on the Christian
speaking circuit. But since she didn't like to fly, she drove
from place to place. Which meant that she spent a lot of time
in her car. And which also meant that she spent a lot of time
in gas station restrooms ... .which, she said, were so gross
that she felt like wearing galoshes every time she entered
one. It got so bad that she complained to the Lord about the
terrible inconvenience that was associated with driving around
the country speaking for him.
Then,
one day, it was as if she heard Jesus saying to her: "Gert,
whatever you do for the least of my people, you do for me."
And then she said: "Lord, do you mean you use these restrooms,
too?" Which was when she realized that Jesus Christ might
be the next person coming in after her. So she figured she
had better stop complaining and do something. She writes:
"Now, when I go into a messy restroom, I pick up all
the towels and stuff them into the wastebasket. Then I take
another paper towel and wipe off the sink, the mirror and
the toilet seat. After leaving it as clean as possible, I
say: `Here it is Lord, I hope you enjoy it.'"
Don't
miss the point, kids. The point is not that you ought to go
home and clean the bathrooms (although I could probably get
your mothers to give good money to leave the matter just as
it stands). The point is that followers of Jesus Christ are
going to find him ... and serve him ... in some of the world's
messier places, while looking after some of the world's messiest
people. It's not always pretty. But once you're a Christian,
you can't turn your back.
Second,
in addition to doing some lowly work, Jesus Christ is going
to ask you to make some hard choices. Six months after I was
confirmed ... in the winter of my seventh grade year ...
something incredibly significant took place in my life. My
neighborhood was about to change with the movement of a single
black lady and her two children into a house on Northlawn
Avenue (four blocks away). Everybody was afraid of the change.
And everybody was angry, which is often what happens when
people become afraid. This poor lady (and her two little kids)
were harmless. But she was the first black person coming into
our neighborhood. So for three nights running, people gathered
in the street by her house ... more or less milling around
... and, I suppose, making her life miserable. And on the
day before the second night, several of my friends said: "Let's
go over to Northlawn and throw rocks at the black lady's house."
The idea of being with my friends sounded cool. And the idea
of being part of the action sounded exciting. But, somehow,
I knew that I couldn't throw rocks at the "black lady's
house." And, what's more, I knew that I couldn't go on
thinking of her as "the black lady." So I didn't
go.
And I
wish I could tell you that I was able to stand up and tell
my friends that Jesus Christ was the reason I couldn't. But
I couldn't tell my friends that. Not just then. A couple of
years later, I could have told my friends that. But, at the
time, I just made up some excuse about too much homework (or
said that my mother wouldn't let me out of the house). But,
in my heart, I knew that the reason I couldn't go had something
to do with my Confirmation ... what I had said there ...
and who I had said "yes" to there.
So, Andy
... Anna ... James ... Brooke ... Taylor ... Colin ...
Matthew ... Graham ... Kevin ... Todd ... Sarah ... Erich
... Meghan ... Royce ... Chad ... Evan ... Liz ... Doug
... Zack ... Lissa ... Sarah...Hunter ... Garrett ...
James ... Jon ... Evan ... Jenni ... Jack ... David ...
Laynie ... Jonathan ... ... .. .Kelsey ... Steve ... Richard
... Justin ... Becca ... Casey ... Emily ... Katherine
... Michelle ... Rob...Alex ... Brittany ... Will ...
Madison ... Alexander ... at every critical turn in your
life, I trust you will ask yourself: "Does the fact that
I am a follower of Jesus Christ have anything to say to me
here?" Because I think it does. And if it doesn't, I
think it should. So when Matt gives you the high sign, dance
your way up here. And when you leave the church at the close
of the service, remember who you are.
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