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 6th 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!
