A sermon for confirmands... and the rest of us, as well.
One of the camp songs that I
remember most from my days counseling was a little, silly song called “God is
Big.” The refrain is incredibly easy and goes like this, “God is big. God is
big. God is very, very; very, very; very, very big.” As is the case with most
silly camp songs, this one is pretty straightforward until you get the kid who you
can see is thinking this through, and all of a sudden the light bulb goes on and
he or she realizes that most things that are big are also easy to see. The sun
is big, so are the stars and skyscrapers and blue whales and elephants. We can
see them because they are big. But here we are singing that God is bigger than
all those things and… well… “then where on earth is he?”
That’s
exactly the question Solomon asks, although in a different way. “Where on earth
can God live?” Not even the earth or the heavens or the highest
heavens—whatever that means—can contain God. To sum up Solomon: God is big but
unlike most things that are big God is also mysterious and difficult to pin in
place. So while Solomon is building a temple for God to live in he is also
coming to realize that the temple is not enough. Solomon could not contain God,
and neither can we.
Most
of what we do in the church is temple building. We are really good at
constructing walls. We like to contain things; we like to know what
is in and what is out, and who is in and who is out. Wall
building allows us to delineate where the inside ends and the outside begins. Whether
it’s individual salvation, our affiliation with denominations, or church
membership we like there to be clear lines between those on the inside and
those on the outside. If we didn’t have walls you could hardly claim that
anything is outside or inside because there would be nothing keeping the
outside out and the inside in.
Today we celebrate
the ultimate act of wall-building in the church with the confirmation of our
young people. They have been taught to build walls between what God is and
isn’t, what is good to believe and what is not, what is right and what is
wrong. In fact, confirmation is the most foundational example we have of
building walls in the church. Some of these walls are necessary; the temple
itself is not a bad thing. The walls of the temple—just like the foundations we
build in Confirmation—remind us that
God is present with us here and now. However, the danger in this reminder is
that we start to believe this is the only place where God is. In the same way,
confirmation wall-building is good when it gives us knowledge of the true God,
and confirmation is not so good when it teaches our young people that we’ve
captured God and that all the people who understand God differently are
outsiders with nothing to contribute to our faith. It
is easy to move from teaching about God to restraining God.
We tried to give
you, the new confirmed members of this church, the best confirmation we could;
we tried to set expectations and teach you all we thought you needed to know,
but here’s the important matter: God will not be contained; not to a
Confirmation class, not to a church building; not to the people or beliefs of
the ELCA or any other church body; nor to the wisdom of the apostles and saints
who have gone before. We cannot contain God with our knowledge any more than
Solomon could trap God in a temple.
You
will come across people in your lives, especially now that you are full members
of the church, who will use God to justify their actions and beliefs. They will
say they know what God wants even while most of us have a difficult time figuring
out what our cats want.[1] These
people will use God; not the other way around. You see, the whole purpose for what
we taught you in Confirmation was to open you to what God is doing in your
lives in the hope that this will start a life-long conversation between you and
God about your purpose in this world. If Confirmation is the last word in your
relationship with God, then I’m sorry that we have failed you.
With
that said, Confirmation is that rare celebration that isn’t really about you.
You are now a part of God’s church; not the adults’ church; not my church; not
your church; God’s church. And God is going to do some crazy things with the
church in your lifetime. Some of you will be part of the renewal of the church.
Some of you will decide that this isn’t a very important place for you, but in
your absence you will also be part of the renewal of the church.
You
really don’t have a choice in the matter. Neither did anybody else who sits in
worship today. We are all called, apart from what we want, to be members of
God’s church in the world. We are called to build pillars of the faith; we are
called to teach and to preach so that others may discover God in their lives;
and though we will inevitably build walls that are a hindrance to others, we
are nonetheless called to temple building, to creating sacred places and spaces
for God just as Solomon did in Israel.
So,
confirmands of 2012, you have a choice before you today. We talk a lot in
the Lutheran Church about not having a choice as it
pertains to things like your salvation, so it’s not often we talk about the choices we do
have. Today is one of those days. You have a choice. You have had walls built
around your faith. You have been packet-fed information until you got sick of
it, and then you were given more. You learned a lot and forgot probably just as
much. Today, you become full members of this church; you have every opportunity
to vote, to serve, to teach, and to continue to learn about God. Will you do it
or not? Your choice. The wall-building is over. We’re done with that business.
Today you are free. You are free to leave and never come back; for some of you that
is awfully tempting right now—this may even feel like a graduation service. We
put you in robes that look suspiciously like graduation gowns and we parade you
across the front of the church and out into the world, as if we half-expect to
never see you again.
But
here’s the truth: we need you. Not because we need more young people in the
church—we want more young people in the church, but that has much more to do
with our insecurities than anything else. It’s not that, exactly; we need you
because when the church is missing a member it is not the same church minus one
person; it is an entirely different church. The church is like an ecosystem.
You can’t remove a species from an ecosystem and call it the same ecosystem
minus one species; it is an entirely different ecosystem. Each and every one of
you is a pillar supporting the church; not the building—no, far more important
than the building—you are supporting the body of Christ.
Most
of you—probably all of you—feel as if you’re not really that important. Nobody, outside of your parents,
notices when you’re gone. How could you possibly be
important?
Well,
who is it that Solomon calls on God to hear at the end of today’s reading? The
foreigner. The stranger. The person who feels as if he or she does not belong. In
you, God is particularly interested; for you, God is fashioning a new church.
People like me—we’re beyond hope; we’re too tied up in what the church has
been; we’re pillars of stone, unable to move our foundations—but you, you
haven’t yet figured out what you want to be, what you want the church to be, who
you think God is; whether you think God is anything at all. You see, we tried
to make you into pillars of faith, but you resisted; you did exactly what you
should do; you proved exactly why Jesus said it is to children that the kingdom of God is given.[2]
Now, I know,
you’re not children, but you’re not adults yet either. You’re stuck between
worlds—between childhood and adulthood, and because of that you are in a unique
place to give the rest of us perspective. The opportunity is yours; the power
is yours. I am not telling you to be a part of the church of the future; I’m
telling you to make the church of the future. Renew it. Reform it. Retain it. In
the spirit of this Reformation Sunday, you have the capacity to change the
course of God’s church on earth. Solomon’s already asked God to hear your
voices. The question now is whether you are going to speak…
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