Waiting.

This is the time of year when pastors’ thoughts turn to waiting. The season of Advent is soon upon us, and Advent is all about waiting. We will light candles, one a week, until the Advent wreath is filled, announcing Christ’s birth once again.  

The front pages of the newspapers, local and national, are filled with news of waiting, also. They tell of anxiety and fear in Ferguson and beyond, as we wait for the grand jury’s decision. The waiting is almost palpable. 

Stores around here are planning for Black Friday sales, waiting for swarms of shoppers. (Some are planning Thanksgiving Day sales, but I, for one, will not be shopping that day.  The year that a child who was working retail had to leave our family celebration prematurely taught me that there are more important things than a sale.)

Stores in and around Ferguson are preparing, also. They are putting plywood over their storefronts, preparing for the possibility of rioting.

Our church is preparing for decorations and the Hanging of the Green. 

Churches on the other side of this state are preparing for prayer vigils.  Some are preparing to open their doors as safe shelters from the unrest outside.  They are gathering first aid kits and water bottles. Imagine that. First aid kits that are not for Mozambique or a developing country, but for persons living in a metropolitan area. 

Protesters are waiting for their call to action. Police are waiting for their call to action. On all sides, most are committed to nonviolence. Some are not, and therein lies much of the danger.

Waiting for the birth of the Prince of Peace. Waiting for a grand jury verdict and community responses. These two anticipations are messy and intertwined. It was a messy, unjust, and violent world into which the Christ Child came all those years ago, and things have not changed too much.

No, things have not changed nearly enough. And that might just be the best news of all.  Christ entered our world once, and he still does not shy away from our messiness and pain.  Regardless of what a grand jury speaks, Christ is present among us and brings us hope. 

In a few weeks, we will sing by candlelight about how “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”  Hope and fear often find themselves mingled together, and it is into that very reality that Christ becomes most present. Christ does indeed come, to Bethlehem, Ferguson, Blue Springs, or wherever you may be.  The Prince of Peace is present.

What I Wish I Had Known when I Was Confirmed

(From the confirmation worship service.)

To the Confirmation Class of 2014:  What I Wish I Had Known When I Was Confirmed:

Congratulations on the occasion of your confirmation!  I have loved spending Sunday evenings with you these last months, getting to know you and talk about some important stuff together. Y’all are a brilliant and wonderful group of kids, the type that makes me feel really hopeful about the future of this world. And so, as we celebrate the culmination of our time together, I thought I would share with you some things that I wish that I could have known when I was being confirmed:

What I Wish I Had Known:

- That the cute Stanley H. who was kneeling next to me when I was baptized and confirmed really wouldn’t be the love of my life. That going steady for 3 weeks wouldn’t lead to a lifelong commitment. I hope that the fact that we didn’t end up with each other ended up as amazingly well for him as it did for me.  Although he did have commitment issues, at least in 6^th grade.

- That having thick, wavy hair when straight and long was the style wouldn’t ruin my life forever. And when Farrah Fawcett hair came into style, I wish I had known that my best efforts to make my hair do that really wouldn’t work, and I’d be better off not even trying. And that my mother’s friends who told me that I would love my hair when I got older, that I wouldn’t have to do anything to it and that it would be really easy to take care of, would be right.

And that stuff is true about much more than hair. Everyone has things about them that they wish were  different, a lot bigger stuff than just hair.  And it often turns out that what seems to be the thing that you hate the most and is most difficult for you at one point in your life will serve to make you who you become, and that you might actually get to the point where you look back and say that you wouldn’t have changed that part about you even if you could have.  When Scripture tells us that we are made in the image of God, I think that’s really what it’s telling us.  That God put us together carefully and perfectly, so that we could be exactly who God intends for us to be.

- That promises that I make are important to keep, especially promises to God.

- That having a church community would be something that would be important all of my life. That I would find my truest and best friends at church, including the one that I would marry.

- That my decision to live life as a follower of Jesus Christ, and try to live it in such a way that it actually made a difference in how I acted, was the best decision I could ever make.  It would keep me from making some bad decisions, and it would lead me to some really good decisions.

- That there is some Christian music that is really awesome. And a bunch that is. . . not.  But the good stuff, which includes some of the oldest hymns and some of the newest stuff on the radio, has a way of sneaking into my head right when I need a word of encouragement or peace. And that just because no one will ever pay money to hear me sing doesn’t mean I shouldn’t sing along loudly when I’m in my car or standing in church.

- That just because someone says they are a Christian doesn’t necessarily mean that they know everything about Christ. And that sometimes very sincere and earnest Christians still get it wrong in what they say and do. And that also means for me, too.

- That I don’t have to be perfect to be a Christian. But that even though I believe fully in forgiveness, living for Jesus deserves my very best efforts.

- That I should always err on the side of grace and don’t assume the worst about anyone. If people need to prove their worst to you, they will have ample opportunity to do so, without any need to assume on your part.  So assume the best at the outset and leave the rest to them.  You’ll save yourself a lot of time that would have been spent otherwise in suspicion, distrust, and even hatred.

- That I should take time to talk with the quietest person in the room. Just because they’re not speaking up doesn’t mean they’re not listening. The quiet wisdom is often the best wisdom.  And that sometimes it’s okay to be the quietest person in the room.

- That John Wesley really did get a lot of stuff right, especially how he talked about grace. (That’s prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying, class, in case you forgot.) That it really does take that prevenient grace, with God doing whatever it takes to reach out to us, to get us on the right path. That it’s God, not us, that makes us right with God. And that, with God’s grace, we can live lives that are worthy of someone who is called a child of God.

You see, the stuff that seems the most important right now-  what you’re going to wear next week, if that cute guy or girl even knows you exist, will you be able to get that new video game you want- really isn’t going to be important in the long run.

And the stuff that you don’t think much about right now will end up being most important after all- your family, how you act when no one is around, what you end up doing as a career, and the way you treat people who aren’t popular or who can’t do anything for you.

Some of the questions and answers that seem the most simple and obvious to you right now aren’t, and some questions that seem really hard and difficult will turn out to be simple after all. Those hard questions tend to be about who you are and who you’ll love, and as long as you remember the simple but deep truth that you are God’s beloved child, all of the rest will fall into place. It really will.

And what about faith? During Confirmation, we’ve talked about some faith questions, although we’ve not had much time to glance at many important questions. Some of that is a result of time, some of it is intentional, because some of the deepest faith questions are ones that you don’t yet know how to ask. Those faith questions will come up during the middle of the night when you’re sitting at a hospital bedside with a sick child, or when all of your plans for your life suddenly seem small when you get a sense that God has something much more in store for your life than you ever imagined. And at those times, you’ll have questions that we never could have begun to cover in our time together.  Our best hope is that Choong-Ho and I have given you some tools that will help you find the answer to those questions.  And that when you’re having trouble holding onto your faith, and everyone does at one time or another, you’ll find that your faith is holding you.

And the answer to those faith questions?  I’ll give it to you now, though you may forget for awhile, I hope it comes to you in those moments. The answer is love. Sometimes, the specifics of that answer might be found in human love, like the love for parent and child, or of one spouse for another.  That will get you far in this life. But the bigger answer, and the answer on which human love is based, is found in God’s love for you. You are all God’s beloved children, each one of you. And God’s love for each one of you, even before you were born, was so great that God chose to live and walk among us in the person of Jesus. We’re going to be celebrating his birthday soon. And Jesus lived love through his life and through his death, and his resurrection from the dead tells us without a doubt that love will have the final word.  And that God thought that each one of you was worth all of that.

So congratulations on your Confirmation. I know my words will fade soon from your memory, perhaps not much beyond the cake and cider out in the lobby. I do pray for each one of you, that the promises that you have made with such faith this evening will strengthen you and carry you through the rest of your life. And even if the day comes when the words that you spoke tonight might seem to fail you, even then, God’s love will never ever ever fail you.

Welcome to God’s family!