There are certain habits, which I call Holy Habits that were practiced by Jesus that we can claim and live in the Jesus Way to great advantage. To live in any other way is disaster.
The founder of the Methodist Movement, John Wesley described these methods or techniques of spiritual growth or “holy habits” as spiritual disciplines, and he often said in his diary or spiritual journal, that these spiritual disciplines were the “means of God’s grace.” These were the various ways that we could receive God’s grace in our lives. These were the vessels used by God to pour his divine portion into our frail human lives.
These holy habits are quite simple and you know some of them, whether you practice them or not:
Daily prayer, for example—This doesn’t have reference to length of time, but a way of living one’s life. Our Lord spent time alone, during which time we assume that he was praying early in the morning and at times late at night. Often times we are told that he was praying.
The great mystic Richard Baxter once said that we’re beginning to be spiritual when we reach the point when we can say to our worldly cares and concerns what Jesus said to his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Sit here while I pray”.
When we can set aside the clamoring voices and demands of the world and become deliberate and intentional in our prayer time, our lives will take on a new depth. Prayer is a source of strength and Godly power.
Worship and the sacrament — The Bible makes it clear that Jesus worshiped regularly. “As was his custom” on the Sabbath Day Jesus went to the synagogue. William Barclay says: “Jesus went to worship as was his habit on the Sabbath Day”.
This is a healthy habit and one we promise when we join the church when we say: “I will support the church with my presence.” Last Sunday we had 900 persons in worship. Although that is a goodly number, it is only about 30% of our membership. And our attendance runs around 25-30% attendance in worship each week. If our electricity ran into our homes about 30% of the time, we would be greatly hampered in our ability to do what we need and want to do.
The way we in the Protestant Church do church, when we come to worship, we begin to make friends. As we worship together, we are linked with a protective circle of friends and something happens to us in our relationship with the creator. Worship is not a time we necessarily get something out of, it is a time when we thank and praise God. When we worship regularly, we do get a world of good out of it but our coming is to praise the Creator.
Holy Habits — Worship and Prayer and there is Giving — Since I was a little boy and my great uncle gave me a one dollar bill and told me to save a dime, give a dime to the church and spend the rest with joy and thanksgiving, I have practiced that formula for Christian money management. I must confess that it was a little easier then when I had a dollar bill, than when I had a hundred dollar bill, but I have remained true to that spiritual habit.
Save 10%, Give 10% and spend the rest with joy and thanksgiving. I’ll tell you this, especially to those of you who are young, the reason I can think about retirement without being afraid of running out of money, is because I have saved 10% every year since my first job and because I have given 10%. This formula makes a difference and works.
Jesus said more things about money than he did about prayer. I have said to many of you for many years that giving is important, and this was not that we might grow a strong church, it was that we might grow a strong you. People grow strong in character when they give, and when they pray, and when they worship. That is unacceptable for persons who want to claim the benefits of Christian believers.
Many spiritual disciplines are obvious, such as worship and the sacrament, prayer and giving financially to support the ministry of Christ; but I want to point out another spiritual discipline to you which arises in the Hebrews scripture reading for today: “Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered.” The writer identifies Jesus of the order of the priesthood of Melchizedek who is a priest who appears in Genesis 14 and in the Psalms. He is one who is not above suffering but embraces and is submissive to suffering. It is through suffering that both Melchizedek and Jesus becomes for us “The Way.”
It is easy to understand that Prayer and Worship and Giving are means of grace, but here is one that is often overlooked: The Way of Jesus had to do with suffering.
Too often we have assumed that the easy way, the way of the soft under-footing would be the way to victory or success. We will medicate against pain or avoid it at all costs, but I have seldom ever received anything of great value without traveling the pathway of sacrifice and suffering. Gilbert Chesterton has observed, “One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak.”
The story of Jesus from the very beginning indicated that Jesus rejected in the wilderness the easy ways of the miraculous, the way of power, or the miracle worker as ways to accomplish his work. He chose the way of the suffering servant.
Isaiah 53 describes the way of our Lord: “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows…he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.”
Let us not shy away from the “hard way,” “the steep pathway,” and the painful challenges of life. The true successes of life have come at the end of the long road, through pain and sacrifice.
Thomas Kempis, a Catholic teacher of the Middle Ages, wrote: “No person is fit to comprehend heavenly things who hath not resigned himself to suffer adversities for Christ.” And in the l930’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer, European Protestant teacher, wrote: “A Christian is someone who shares the sufferings of God in the world.” In the suffering experience of pain and difficulty, we are cleansed and renewed and restored. Surely, this must be “The Way of Jesus.”
In time we will all have to walk through dark, lonesome valleys. So I would encourage you by saying don’t shy away from pain and hurt, or from challenge and sacrifice. No, do not run from pain, embrace it, as when we feel the pain, we are perhaps closest to our Lord and Savior. He could have been above and out of reach of pain and sufferings, instead, he chose the way of enduring sufferings, thus entering our pain.
We have discovered that the way of prayer, worship and giving opens pathways for receiving God’s grace. They are surely “means of Grace.” But maybe the surest pathway is one we have overlooked, or shielded ourselves against, or run from. And what is it? It is the way of suffering service. “Dear Master, in whose life I see, all that I desire but fail to be.”
Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide.
The opening words of James Russell Lowell’s poem capture the emotional dynamics of the first Palm Sunday. There were choices to be made that first day long ago as there are choices to be made concerning our life today. The morning comes with its decisions and choices to be made and a story is written.
Will I be generous or selfish?
Will I be known for what I hated, or for what I loved?
Will I get up or not?
Will I be a problem or a solution?
Will I be a contributing resident in the family?
Or a parasite—always taking not giving.
Will I choose the way of peace, or the way of disturbance.
Will I …Life Is One Choice After Another And Then A Life Is Made. The total sum of the decisions that we have made will write our autobiography. Sort of scary, isn’t it? All this authority that God has given to us. How are you feeling about the choices you have been making?
On the first Palm Sunday, the people in Jerusalem were confronted with the decision concerning Jesus. Oh, they had heard about him: about his teachings…, the healings that had taken place at his miraculous touch…, about his confrontation with the religious hypocrites, and his constant preaching that, “The Kingdom of God had come.”
But when the Passover celebration came, Jesus came riding a donkey into the City of Jerusalem presenting the people with a face to face encounter. The Prophet from Nazareth has come to town and it was to be a day for a decision. What would they do with Jesus?
There were Roman authorities who said no to Jesus. These trained soldiers were very suspicious about anyone who appeared to stir up the revolutionary feelings of the Jewish people. Jesus was on their ten most wanted posters. The Passover time was a crowded, tense, loud, explosive time. Passover—the living memory of the slavery years in Egypt and the death angel that passed over the doors of the Hebrews. These Roman authorities could not allow things to get out of hand and any kind of procession, especially one with a man riding on a donkey like the Kings of the Jewish history use to do would not be tolerated. They could do without Jesus, so they thought.
The Jewish religious leaders said no to Jesus. Jesus was definitely a threat to their vested interest. He had publicly charged them with being more concerned about non-essential matters like Sabbath Laws rather than the weightier matters of the law like Love, Justice, Righteousness, Goodness. Jesus had forced the issue by calling them a hypocrite, saying “you strain a gnat and swallow a camel.” “You are like whitewashed tombs.” Most of the Jewish authorities said, “No” to Jesus.
Most in the crowds at Passover were tourists and they would say no to him that day of days, long ago. Most people don’t want to change the status quo. Let’s keep things as they are, even if they are not so good. Thank heavens there were children that day in Jerusalem who said yes to Jesus, maybe because they just liked a parade and palm branches, but for whatever reason, there were a few who said yes.
There were and are at least three reasons which motivate a person to say Yes to Jesus. For fear that there might be some in the holiday crowd of today who have in times past said no to him and his ways, I will share them with you.
First, to be a Christian is the most natural choice most of us will ever make. Some of us are just taught from day one, that this is who we are. We love, we don’t hate. We speak with kindness in our voice, we don’t curse using God’s name. We don’t waste our time, we give our time. It just works better for us. If it is Sunday we are going to church because that is what we do. Things work when you live a life according to what you know will work. And the Christian way works.
There are those who, thank God, know no other way than the way of Christ. Studies have observed that “Parental Influence” is number one in our choosing to be a God like person, but peer group is a close second. Hang around the wrong kind of people and it rubs off on you. There is an osmotic process that takes place in the church. Look around and realize that these people just may rub off on you.
Dolly Conner Davis died this past week after 97 years of life. She was on the cradle rolls of this church. She was brought here for her baptism when the shellac was still sticky on this altar. After she and Maurice married, they were both active here. Dolly was a Christian believer because she was raised that way. She knew no other way.
East Stanley Jones in a book entitled, “The Way” has remarked that there is but one kind of predestination: “God has predestined us all to be Christian. The Christian way is not an alien way, it is the natural way to live. And when I find him, I find myself, and when I live in him, by him and in him, I live. If I live in some other way, I tend to go to pieces, I perish. I am destined by my make up to be a Christian.” Many Persons Will Come To Christ because it is a Natural Choice.
There are others who come to Christ along a more difficult pathway. There are worlds of people who have been looking for love in all the wrong places.
I see them all the time in the courtrooms, jails and drug rehabilitation boarding houses: Kids in the Juvenile Detention Center, walking in the malls, hospitals, schools, and in the grocery stores and transients on the street looking for a handout.
You can choose to reject the way of Christ, and many do. Perhaps they have witnessed their parents smoking or drinking or cursing, but never witnessed them praying a prayer or dropping money in an offering plate. Some people are enrolled in the school of hard knocks because they are the victims of their parents’ poor choices.
These individuals will in time have the opportunity to choose Christ, for they will come to see through their confusion, a plan. They will sense in their despair a hope. They will experience fear and see in him peace and confidence. In their trouble, they will see relief. In their loneliness they will know that they are loved.
They Will Come To Christ By An Intentional Choice In Order To Move From What Has Been To What Can Be.
Thirdly, there are those who come to Christ because they sense in him a challenge and see in him the greatest opportunity of a lifetime.
I grew up on the white side of what was called “the ditch” in a small rural Alabama town. The poverty on the other side of the ditch was, in retrospect, atrocious, just like the poverty in third world countries is atrocious today. We guard our borders against these immigrants and withhold basic human rights from them when they cross our borders to work on our roofs or sweep our streets. They want to get away from poverty, to cross the ditch or climb the wall as those who were black in the 1950’s wanted to cross the ditch and climb over into the land of opportunity. The nation was coming out of the war years, and there was an emerging civil rights movement everywhere in the 1950’s. There was an African American boy, who was 16 years old when I was born, who lived on the other side of the ditch in Linden. He cut our grass. His name was Ralph, Ralph Abernathy. He would, in time, leave Marengo County and go to Atlanta University and become a Baptist preacher, and serve the First Baptist Church of Montgomery when Martin Luther King served Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. He would, in time, organize the “March on Washington.” Ralph Abernathy said yes to Jesus, while the majority of those who lived on both sides of the ditch said no to the Jesus way and threw rocks at each other. He said yes, for he saw it as a way out of a bad situation.
If you are looking for a challenge, then give your life to Jesus Christ and let him guide you and you will find yourself volunteering for jobs, expanding your abilities and helping persons whom you do not know now by name. You will experience your thoughts breaking old bonds, your mind transcending your limitations, your consciousness expanding in every direction. You will experience yourself to be a greater person far better than you ever dreamed yourself to be.
Wayne Dyer in his book on Inspiration lists what he calls 6 essential principles for finding your way to an inspired life. Number five is, “Don't Die Wondering If I Had Only…”
Mark Twain once said: “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do, than the ones you did. So throw off the bow lines and sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the tradewinds in your sails, explore, dream.”
Summary: On the first Palm Sunday, there were those in the crowd who said no to Jesus, but there were others who said yes. Some because they were brought up that way, others because they saw in him What They Were Not, But Wanted To Be, and others because they were simply not going to miss the greatest opportunity that had ever passed by them. I hope you don’t miss it. Choose Christ.
Christian believers are Easter people, they sing of joy. We have Easter clothes which are lighter and more vivid than the dark of the world. We wear Easter clothes, that’s who we are. It works for us. We assemble on the Third Day on the day of the Resurrection when joy was realized concerning Jesus.
And yet we live daily in a world which is joy impaired. We are surrounded by chronic seriousness and overwhelmed by constant controversy. The vast majority wants to experience joy, yet tends to focus on the negative. None are exempt. All are tainted.
One of the intentional changes I am seeking, seeing that I am four years older than my brother when he died, is to eliminate negative, evil obstacles which try to destroy the pleasure in life, and to infuse the remaining days of the journey with more joy whether it be for one day or many years. There are obstacles—worries, frustrations, there are limitations, and there are boundaries, big negatives in every individual’s life. You are up a day or two and then you get clobbered by poor choices or accidents or mean spirited people all of which are the results of living in a joy impaired world.
Go with me to that first weekend of Good Friday through Easter and let's take roll of those present there. The disciples came to the tomb “while it was still dark.”
The different Gospels report different people and different events, because they come from the oral tradition of eye witness accounts, and everybody sees things differently.
On Friday, Mary the Mother of Jesus was there. Can you image the devastation of a mother watching a child of hers broken and dying? Yes, some of us can imagine that, can’t we? Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James are there. On Sunday, Jesus first appeared to the women. We turn from the scene having inventoried those present, but we have turned prematurely because two others are there as well. Death is there, pasty and sallow looking with sunken eyes aglow. And Grave is there. Grave - broken, smelly dirty, frightening looking like an old dug up Halloween character. And Death says to Grave, "I can kill him but can you hold him?" "Oh yes," Grave responds confidently. "I can hold him. I haven't lost one yet." Death wants to believe Grave and sort of does, but only sort of. Late on Friday Death calls on Grave and asks, "Do you still have him?" "Of course I still have him," Grave responds. The next day Death returns to Grave and checking out the tomb asks, "He hasn't gotten out, has he?" "No!" Grave succinctly and vehemently replies, disgusted with Death's insulting second guessing attitude.That was Friday and that was Saturday, but now it is no longer Friday nor Saturday as Sunday has dawned and He is alive! What a difference a day may make!
Sunday comes and Grave, ugly broken and smelly Grave is in a panic and is looking everywhere for Death and, finally finding him, says breathlessly, "Do you have him? He got away from me." And a voice from beyond answers back: “Christ is risen.” And the voices of our people for 2,000 years echo back: “He is Risen Indeed!”
They came in sadness and were surprised by joy! We come in sadness and are surprised by joy. Because of this day, long ago, we have a sure knowledge, a confident faith, and a realized joy that the Lord Jesus Christ will turn our sadness into gladness.
Sometimes in this season when we gather, we sing: “Because he lives, I can face tomorrow, because he lives, all fear is gone; because I know he holds the future, and life is worth the living just because he lives.”
Even to this very day, we can face the confusing world and the sad circumstances of our lives with an eternal optimism, not because of anything we have done or can do, but because of the Act of God in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
E. Stanley Jones writes that Jesus Christ is “God’s yes to humankind.”
John Trent tells of a wedding in Birmingham, Alabama he once experienced. When the vows were complete, this man in the audience jumped up and yelled, “Yes, Yes, Yes!” He catches himself and freezes in mid leap looking around sheepishly taking off his headphones and slips back into his pew. Later the minister discovers that the poor fellow had been listening to the Alabama-Auburn football game when his team had just scored, and it had happened as the couple finished their vows.
Easter is a day for Christian believers to pump their fists in the air and say “Yes, Yes, Yes.” Yes is what Easter is about. It is God saying yes in spite of hate, pain, fear, despair, sadness. In spite of everything, Yes!
So you are carrying a load today? So you are broken and overwhelmed? So death and grave have visited your family this year. So your marriage is in the ditch, you health is broken, you are a basket case, so what, we all are. But in spite of it all, God says “Nothing can separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus Our Lord.”
Sure Death is with us and Grave is present as well. But as the apostle Paul said: “He was raised from the dead, the first born of those who have been placed in the grave.” Therefore, nothing can separate us from the love of God! When Paul experienced Jesus, the Risen Lord on the Damascus Road, he experienced joy.
When Mary experienced Jesus the Risen Lord in the Garden area where his unoccupied tomb was located, Mary experienced joy. It was no longer Friday, and it was no longer Saturday, but it was Sunday! He who was dead and buried is now alive. He is alive. He is alive. He is alive.
Peter Marshal once wrote: “Let us not live another day as if he were dead, for He is alive!” Our joy is realized.
There is Love and JOY in this broken world. Undefeatable, sometimes indefinable, always undeniable. Joy.
Therefore we sing on days like this for the Marys of the world with tears in their eyes songs like:
Joy to the World, the Savior reigns…
Joyful, joyful, we adore thee, God of glory, Lord of love;
hearts unfold like flowers before thee, opening to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness; drive the dark of doubt away.
Giver of immortal gladness, fill us with the light of day!
Jean Smith was a minister who never sang much because he didn’t have much of a voice and he couldn’t read music. Though that doesn’t stop some of us, it did stop him. But one year, on an Easter Sunday when the choir began to sing the “Hallelujah Chorus”, he got caught up in the last part when they were singing all of those “Hallelujah’s.” And he was just about to sing a couple more when all of a sudden the choir stopped and the organ froze in a silent mode. And thank heavens, at the last minute, he stopped. But he writes that he went home that Easter with a couple of Hallelujahs left inside of him wanting to get out.
Let us resolve to not continue to live with unsung Hallelujahs in our lives. Let us not live on the negative side of life. Let us not live with the sound of a “No” attitude, but the echo of “The Divine Yes! “ Forever and ever!
Our people have greeted each other for years saying
Christ is Risen, Christ is Risen indeed!
And that is the final word!
The acts of the Apostles depict an age of the disciples of Jesus when there was unity. Because of this scripture, there is a longing in the heart of all believers for unity, oneness, and togetherness, a last gift in God’s earthy kingdom. We live in such a small global village, and yet we do not live in mutual respect or at peace.
Early in my professional life, I participated in the national meetings for Consultation on Church Union (COCU) or as some church wags have referred to it as “kookoo.” I have long since given up on structural union of the church as a poor idea and continue to carry a deep suspicion on the upper echelon in the structure of the institutional church. By the very nature of being an institution, there is to be found a latent self preservation dimension.
The reason for my interest in Church, Government, racial and religious union is that being Methodist, you always apply the Methodist Quadrangle in your search for truth which is a combination of Reason, Scripture, History, Experience; To Apply These Four Spiritual Guides To Your Thinking About Life Gives Birth To A Hope For Unity.
It is Reasonable and history has shown that strong national powers and our modern tendency of self-preservation, self interest leads only to alienation and separation. One’s reason and experience longs for peace not war. But most important of course is the biblical tradition of the life of Jesus. Early on in my faith journey, I realized there were two marvelous prayers which He gave to the world and both carried His longing for unity…Said He: “Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” “Father, may they be one as we are one.”
In the “so called “high priestly prayer” of John 17, there is implied that there is a unity between Jesus, the father and the Holy Spirit and an implied hope for unity of each of us. “I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.”
One of the many marvelous teachings of Jesus was the illustrative metaphor “I am the vine and you are the branches”. This idea of oneness or the connectiveness of humanity was not a new idea of our Lord as the Psalmist had written hundreds of years before him: “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when people dwell in unity!” Immediately after the resurrection, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, there was a unity among the believers…soon the conflicts would come but not at first. Someone has said that “Where two or three are together, there is conflict”, and although that is true, we have had very little lingering conflicts in our church, unlike many.
But today, there is in the world, very little unity. We stand on the brink of a bloody division between the East and the West, the Islamic and Christian faith families, liberal and conservative believers, Sunni and Shiite Muslins and consider the number of family divisions which either you are a part of or you know about. Today we are a long way from the realization of Jesus’ great prayer for oneness voiced 2000 years ago.
And where are the leaders who are calling for unity?
A folk ballad of the 1960’s was a variation of Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” and was entitled, “Where Have All the Heroes Gone?” The song awakens the sadness of an entire generation of Americans as it recalls the early deaths of John and Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King and so many of the young soldiers in the Vietnam War. On real melancholy days, when I read the obituary columns and realize that those dying are my age, I begin to wonder, “Where have all the heroes gone?”
This year Dr. Seuss died and last week William Sloane Coffin, Jr. died. Although you may not have know of Dr. Coffin, he was one of the most celebrated and charismatic liberal Protestant preachers of the last half-century. He stirred things up when I was just beginning my ministry in the l970’s. Last week he was laid to rest. Sometimes you look around and you feel like, as Will Willimon has written; “You Are an Alien in a Hostile World.”
Where have all the “Heroes Gone” are they all filling the graveyards of the land?. Do you hear their voices in Congress or Parliament? In the Queen’s Palace or the White House? In the Religious Councils of Islamic leaders, or Rabbi Circles or Christian executives? Although Pope Benedict did call for Peace in his Easter Message, the heroes are for the most part silent.
The issues of today are as large and in so many ways the same, as they use to be when the giants spoke out, but today there is a haunting silence. Are we still fighting with the same manifestations of evil as we have always fought against and a more haunting question is “Are we yet losing?
And where are you? Yesterday on “Earth Day” we were asked, what are you doing to be good stewards of the Earth? Where are you when it comes to works of unity and peacemaking? What are you doing?
We could accomplish the Christian imperative for unity in a huge way if When You Have A Choice Between Being Right Or Maintaining Unity, You Chose Unity. We could improve our situation is we stopped judging (Judge not that you be not judged), if we would love rather than hate, if we would eliminate a great deal of our gossip and substitute praise and affirmation, we could make a difference.
What The World Needs Now are believers who pray for and work for peace and unity.
Not so long ago I visited in Detroit, Michigan a wonderful museum called the “Ford Museum”. There before my very eyes was the first Model T Ford, the first Edsel, and the actual convertible limousine in which John Kennedy was riding when he was assassinated. Also in the area of the museum was a reconstructed turn of the century village, l9th century that is. I was struck with the fact that all of the homes had front porches and the amazing thing about it was that you were drawn to sit in the rockers and wave to the strangers who strolled by walking down the street. Is it just a nostalgic longing for a day gone by, or is it but an expression of the basic hope for oneness?
Maybe what we need Is More houses with front porches and more Kitchen Tables Where Families sit together and Share.
Unity. Oneness. Togetherness. Connectiveness. It is the longing of God for a broken world. And you in your own small yet significant way can make it happen.
You are such a wonderful congregation for so many reasons:
You care for one another, meaning you pray for one another in your needs and are intentional to do acts of kindness to help one another.
You, as a congregation, are generous in supporting ministry causes, both here in the church and community, and in places and causes around the world. These may be places you will never go, yet you are supporting people and places you will never know nor see.
You encourage the church’s ministry to the children, and with the elderly and the poor.
You are a wonderful congregation for so many reasons, one being you have listened to my old stories, even when I have told them to you before. You will laugh or cry as though you have never heard the stories ever before. Even the staff is kind, as not too long ago I had told an old story and asked one of them between services if I had told that story before, and they said: “Well, maybe once, but it was a good story.”
You are a wonderful, forgiving and encouraging congregation, you have been for a long time, still are, and will continue to be.
So that being the case, let me tell about a time when I was growing up in Marengo County, Alabama. As a teenager I would live for the weekend. My parents did not allow us to watch TV nor go out on school nights, as homework was very important for average students, so it was important for me. But when Friday and Saturday nights came along, we were ready to roll, or at least as much as the Marengo County Sheriff would allow.
My Dad made it a point to be near the door when my brother and I would be leaving the house on a Friday or Saturday night, and would always say, “Boys, you better remember who you are.”
These were weighty words and we knew what he meant. He did not mean that he was uneasy about our remembering our name or our street address or how to get home. He wanted to be sure that we would not lose sight of the values of our family, our good name in the community, our religious commitments, and that we would not do something stupid that would embarrass him, or for which he would have to come get us out of jail.
It is sometimes difficult in modern life, amidst the conflicting claims and confusion of values, to remember who we are. I especially have a strong sympathy for young people today who are in search for their true self, but are faced with a myriad of multiple choices between causes, philosophies, attitudes, and opportunities, strangers and friends who intrigue us, but who don’t really represent familiar values. It is really easy to make a fool out of yourself, forget who you are or really want to be, and do something really stupid.
You see multiple illustrations of this in the kids who have destroyed cemeteries in our community, and the former Birmingham Southern College students, all of which because of one crazy night will spend the rest of their lives in jail. Or the kids who were drinking and driving, hit a tree and killed a friend. I wonder how good the liquor really tasted or how high the drugs really sent them that night, or if it was really that funny? They, regretfully, will have a long time to think about it.
So this morning as we prepare for those of you who are to be confirmed, and are to affirm your desire to live a Christian life, I ask you to “Remember who you are.”
I have asked the questions concerning your rejection of evil and your commitment to Christ for 40 years as a minister in Christ’s Church and they are as important today as ever.
Do you renounce the evil powers of this world? Will you place your trust God’s grace? Do you confess that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior? Will you be faithful to the church and the values of the Church? Will you remember who you are?”
The World will tell you pretty quickly who you are:
You are a consumer, a spender of money. You are a rational, thinking, reasoning being. You are a sexual being with desires and hopes and needs. You are a lot of different things.
The world will tell you “who you are,” but so will the church.
#1 To the pressing question, “Who am I?” the church answers, “You are a child of God.” I love the statement by Peter, read in the scripture today; “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people. Once you were nobody, but now you are God’s people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
The Christian message is not that we should try real hard to “act like somebody.” The Christian message is simply that “You are somebody.” You are a royal priesthood, members of a chosen race, God’s own people.
The way for a Christian to find out who he or she is, is not to jump on the rear of a Honda and head west, but rather to consider their reflection in the graceful waters of the Baptismal bowl.
I have learned over the years that if you will hold a child a little forward and stir the water of the Baptismal Bowl, they will see themselves reflected in the waters of the Baptismal Bowl and will relax. Sometimes if that doesn’t work I will lean them way over and they lose their breath thinking, “This idiot in the long black robe is about to drop me on my soft spot.”
Stop worrying about what you are going to do or what is going to happen to you, and at least for today, enjoy the reflection in the waters of the Baptismal Bowl of God’s own child.
#2 You belong to a family, and it is a gift of God. This is a very old and important family with a fascinating history.
In the service of Confirmation, you will see an ancient tradition called, “the laying on of hands.” Through this mysterious and sacramental act, God passes on his spirit to each succeeding generation.
On these confirmands, I will lay my hands.
In l968, Bishop Kenneth Goodson laid his hands on my head.
On his head, Bishop Paul Bentley Kern in 1937 passed God’s spirit.
On Kern’s head in 1907 were placed the hands of Bishop E. E. Hoss, on whose head was placed the hands of H. H. Kavanaugh in 1870.
On Kavanaugh’s head was placed the hands in 1825, of Bishop William McKendre, on whose head in 1790 was placed the hands of Francis Asbury, the frontier circuit riding minister of early American Methodism, on whose head in 1784 was placed the hands of Thomas Coke, on whose head was placed the hands of John Wesley, the Anglican priest who founded the Methodist movement. This means that nine hands away from today’s confirmands stands the founder of Methodism.
If you trace historically this apostolic succession on back through the Anglican Church and then the Roman Catholic Church, you realize that you who kneel at the altar are only 53 hands away from Jesus of Nazareth. From one generation to another our faith tradition has passed down one person to the next.
Your membership in this family is not something that you have discovered or earned. It is something that today is given to you. There will be much in the future that you will discover, create, and earn, but not this day, not this event. Your parents, grandparents, or a friend, or somebody has loved you enough that they have brought you to this day to know that you are God’s child and that you belong to a family. Now whether you maintain our values, whether you remember who you are, will be left up to you. But today’s event and your identity in Christ is a gift.
There are parents in our world today who tell its young in effect: “We have no values, nothing to pass on to you, no claim upon your life, no identity or faith to pass on to you, so go out and find your own identity and make it on your own.” How foolish, how idiotic, how insensitive, how crazy.
No wonder we have kids today who are adrift on a sea of uncertainty or paralyzed by anxiety, who will go anywhere with anybody, but in fact, are going no where fast.
After you are confirmed today, 80 years from now you will be 92 years of age and I hope you will feel that you have earned the name of “Christian.” Today it is given to you. One day, I hope that you will be proud that you made a decision today that shaped your life and that you have remembered the commitments of this day.
John Wesley once said of his Faith commitment day: “Strange how some moments live forever.” Here is a moment that is given to you.
May in the days ahead, you remember Who You Are and what this day meant for you.