Excerpts from a Confirmation midterm

The following are excerpts from the midterms of our 9th grade Confirmation students. They were required to write essays in 20 minutes on one of three topics. Every one of them happened to write on the question, "What does being Lutheran mean to me?"

I hope you find all of this a dose of hope for the future, wherever this finds you today.

Excerpts:
"That's what I think is special about the Lutheran faith: No matter how many times you ignore the sermon, or sin, or do anything bad, the church is there and lifts you up from your sins and your despair."

"To me I see the church as a family and not a building, a family that picks you up when you're down and cheers you up when you're sad. In my opinion being a Lutheran means you are part of one big, ginormous, loving and caring family. And I wouldn't want it any other way."

"I think I'm a Lutheran because of my mom when my great-grandma passed away, she said she's in a better place."

"Martin Luther, in my eyes, is a courageous, remarkable individual who saw a problem and fixed it. I believe he defines what we are as an individual, group, and ultimately a religion. Martin Luther was not perfect... I'm not perfect, nor are you or anyone else. But being a Lutheran makes me feel as if no one's perfect but we can strive toward the one who is. Jesus also saw a problem in humanity and fixed it by paying a debt he did not owe."

"I believe we as Lutherans are special and unique because we simply do not care what others think."

"This buzz of joyfulness, happiness, and just all around love is what being a Lutheran means to me."

"The music! Most churches nowadays are slowly turning into places of musical atrocity. Churches are slowly incorporating 21st century music into their services... while Lutherans remain faithful to the classic hymns."
Note: I added this one because I find hilarious, but I hope we can agree there is also some good, faithful 21st century music... or maybe not :-)

"Being a Lutheran means a lot to me because of our Scandinavian culture, the type of music we sing, and the fellowship we have."

"Lutherans can be literally anybody. You don't have to be a certain race or gender to be a Lutheran."

"I feel like this church is the place for me because it is okay to be different at our church. You can have your own beliefs or share the same beliefs as others."

John the Baptist makes Lutherans nervous

Matthew 3:1-17

Whenever John the Baptist and Jesus share the stage in the Gospels it demands our attention because nobody is as brash and straightforward as John, and nobody matters as much as John when it comes to setting the record straight about who Jesus is. But John is also—how shall I put this?—not very nice, and, being the Minnesota-nice people that we are, we aren’t very sure what to do with a person like that.

For one thing, John didn’t understand hospitality. If you’re likely to lash out and call people a “brood of vipers” then perhaps you shouldn’t be a church greeter; instead you might fit in better volunteering at Confirmation. And it’s worth noting that this is what John says to the ones who actually showed up. You can imagine what he thought of those who didn’t even bother. Then he hits the Pharisees and the Sadducees where it really hurts, questioning the importance of their lineage. This is the kind of thing that really doesn’t play well in small towns, which is why I’m not so naïve as to tell you that your history doesn’t give you any special standing; I’m just going to reread verse 9, “Do not presume to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham,” and I’m just going to leave that there to do with what you might.

Exhausted

Sometimes the title just says it all. I'm pooped. Spent. Over it. Run down.

And it's all sorts of things.

It's having a ten month old. Sure... but not really.
It's pastoring. Sure... but not only.
It's the cold, dark winter days. Yeah... but only partly.
It's getting over sickness in the house. Yep... but so is everybody.
It's staying fit. Definitely, but that's as much gift as burden.
It's eating poorly. Right... but is that cause, effect, or both?
It's other peoples' faults. Yeah, if only there weren't people to cause stress.
It's my fault. Yeah, if only I didn't cause stress for other people.

It's all those things and a hundred others.

I could list the things that are leaving me exhausted (Lord knows I have to many people close to me), but it doesn't change it. It just ends with me trying to justify myself by all the things I'm doing. Yay. Look at me! And that usually ends with me feeling terrible for all the things I'm not doing. Boo. Look away!

Herod's death meet Jesus' new life

Matthew 2:12-23

This is really not appropriate Christmas scripture. I’m sorry. I don’t know what Matthew was thinking. I don’t know why he didn’t understand that Christmas is a time for happiness, a time to talk about the good things, to share memories, and, above all, to relax and be comfortable. Matthew shows that he is out of touch with the Christmas season by sharing this unsavory story of Herod killing the children of Judea, the children of his own kingdom. No. Matthew doesn’t get it. That’s not what Christmas is about.

It’s just unfortunate that Matthew needs to be so… so… real.

…

Then again, I suppose it is only a real world that needs to be saved. Matthew picks up the words of Jeremiah, referring even further back to Rachel in the book of Genesis, saying, “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” If Rachel is this model figure for the grief of incomprehensible loss, then it’s interesting to note that Rachel is not told to pick herself up by her bootstraps, to get over her loss, and to start living her best life now. She isn’t told it’s going to be alright, or is somebody does tell her that she certainly doesn’t believe it. She refused to be consoled. And Matthew seems to be suggesting, along with Jeremiah before him, that this is the appropriate reaction to senseless loss.

What kind of Christmas story is this?

Not a little more. All.

Matthew 2:1-12

One of the big emotions of this holiday season, and one of the ones we associate most with the season of Christmas, is joy. The wise men had it right there in chapter 2 of Matthew: "When they saw the star had stopped they were overwhelmed with joy." Not just kind of happy but overwhelmed with joy.

Joy isn't necessarily the emotion we associate with wise people, or with kings, or with people who have a lot of education. We tend to think that they're the pensive ones who are just kind of always level. So to have wise people be joyous sticks out. Joy is something we tend to associate much more freely with children. Now, if we think about what it is that wise men we might say that they study, and in those days what they were studying was, among other things, the stars. That happens to be why they noticed this new thing in the first place. It's guys who are looking at the stars who found Jesus, because you can't notice a new star in the sky unless you're looking in the first place. If a new star showed up in the sky tonight I wouldn't have a clue because I wouldn't be looking, and even if I did happen to look up I wouldn't notice that there was anything different about it because I don't know the sky that well in the first place. It's just not something I know intimately. So it was the wise men who studied, who had that background to observe this, who experience this overwhelming joy. It's worth starting there.

My 2014 year in review

So, basically, my 2014 can be summed up in one picture:

That's Bean, and she's a monster of cuteness.

Basically all other 2014 achievements are dwarfed by that monster in pink.

But other things did happen this year. Many other things, actually. In fact, as much as people liked to tell me that I wouldn't have time for other things, 2014 was a year of plenty of other things. Here are just a few:

Stories, not numbers, on this Christmas Eve

Scripture: Luke 2:1-20

After our Christmas concert at Grace last Sunday afternoon one of the high-schoolers said something to me that has been on my mind this week, and since I have a pulpit and a congregation I’m going to think through it with all of you. She said, “There must be a lot of pressure on you to say something on Christmas Eve that will make all those people come back to church during the rest of the year.”

You can tell a young person said that because she still believes that I have actual power and influence and stuff. It’s cute.

The reason I’m beginning tonight’s sermon with that quote is not to make some of you uncomfortable—well, maybe it’s partially to make some of you uncomfortable—but primarily I want to address it because this attitude that our success or failure as a church is determined by butts in the seats just doesn’t work. Numbers tell a story, just not a very deep one. It’s not data but people that matter, and I worry about some of you not because of the percentage of Sundays you show up in church but because, if I don’t see you very often, I don’t know your story. And I don’t know who does. Do your families? Do you? And I don’t know how the Christmas story matters within the story that is your life. Does it?