Worship and Doubt: A Sermon for Confirmation

Here's my sermon from May 18, 2008, Confirmation Sunday at Central Lutheran Church. I post because 1.) Only those at 9:45 service heard it. 2.) I apparently was talking so fast that most of 9:45 service didn't REALLY hear it. 3) I though it was pretty good.

It's based on Matthew 28: 16-20, the great commission

Thanks for reading! And now, the sermon....

It’s a typical Sunday afternoon Confirmation class at Central Lutheran Church. Gathered around a table in the upper fellowship hall, some students worship and some doubt. Some listen to the pastor, asking thoughtful questions, writing answers on worksheets, looking up passages in the Bible, really thinking about how faith matters in their life. But some are not listening. Some are doodling, some are coloring their arms with markers. Some are reading the sports scores in the Daily News when they think I’m not looking. Some think this whole God thing is baloney. Some wonder how this really helps when you’re getting picked on in math class or ignored by popular kids. Some worship, some doubt.

It’s a typical Sunday morning at Central. Some worship, some doubt. Some are singing the hymns, greeting their neighbors, listening to the message, noticing God’s presence, praying in thanksgiving and in supplication. Some sit like statues in the back row. Some of them are hurting, grieving, angry or resentful. Some of them wonder why they even came. Some think God has forgotten them. Some of them wonder where God was when a loved one died or when they heard the doctor’s diagnosis. Some worship, some doubt.

It was not a typical day when Jesus appeared to the disciples on a mountain in Galilee. Jesus had died and the disciples were left alone and hopeless. Then they heard the word from Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. Jesus was alive! And he wanted to meet the disciples in Galilee. So they went. When they saw Jesus, some worshipped him, some doubted. Even though they had gone to the trouble to show up, still, some worshipped and some doubted.

You’re finished with Confirmation. Done, done, done. No more class on Sunday evenings, no more sermon notes (except Donovan, you still owe me one). And it’s easy to see Confirmation as the ending. Show’s over, lights off, nothing to see here. Jesus’ disciples may have though the same thing when Jesus died and rose from the dead. Great, everything is finished. Except that Jesus’ goodbye message put them to work. He gave the Great Commission.

Sigh. Just when you thought you were finished. It wasn’t enough to learn the Lord’s Prayer and Apostle’s Creed? Jesus’ words: go and make disciples off all nations, baptizing…and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. It’s a tough assignment and one that seems more and more difficult in our world. Basically, Jesus is saying to GO, get outside your comfort zone, don’t just live for yourself. Form an alternate community with values that are different than the Roman empire (which valued success, power through violence, money). Rather, practice compassion, healing mercy, and inclusive community and life-giving words.

So basically, I’m encouraging you to live for others with Christ-like values at the very time in your life when teens put all their focus on themselves.

Some worship and some doubt.

Sounds like there was a mixed crew up on that mountain with Jesus, those worshippers and doubters. Yet they all got the same commission. Jesus didn’t say, you who are the faithful church attenders and ushers, go spread the good news. No, he instructed everyone to GO. Even those who doubt still got a commission.

Looking deeper into the Greek, one notices the word for “some” (as in some doubted) isn’t there. And the word “but” could also be translated as “and/on the other hand.” So another translation could be, “They worshipped him and on the other hand they doubted.” Those worshippers and doubters were the same people. Part of them worshipped and part doubted.

Which reminds us of one of our basic teachings about Lutheranism in Confirmation Class. Help me out here, Donovan and Emma. We are at the same time good and bad, we are ____ and ____ . Whew. I didn’t warn them there’d be a public quiz.

So even when we doubt, God still commissions us. We are still to go out and love others and tell about God’s love, even if we don’t really understand the Trinity or can’t remember the words to the Nicene Creed. This reminds me of when Martin Luther worried that he wasn’t holy enough to preside at the communion table. His mentor asked him, “Do you think this depends on you?” God has commanded us to GO and proclaim God’s love in word and deed. Do you think it really depends on how good YOU are? If God has commanded this, God will give you the strength to do it.

Consider this: Jesus trusts his entire earthly ministry to worshiping and doubting ones such as the disciples…and such as us!

And God gives presence. Matthew’s Gospel begins and ends with Emmanuel, God with us. In Matthew 1:23, the angel tells Joseph to call the child Emmanuel. In Matthew 28:20, Jesus tells the disciples (and all of us) he is with us always, to the end of the age. And this is for all of us, God’s presence, all the time, whether we worship or whether we doubt. God will be with us always, even to the end of the age.

So Jesus says GO and I say GO. When the disciples went out, they began their teaching and healing right there in Galilee. Only then did they spread farther into the world. So maybe your invitation is to GO and make disciples right where you are. Show Christ’s love in your corner of the world, in your family, home and school. Go and make a differenc. And may God go with you.

God: A geographical search

At the 20-somethings women's Bible study last week, a couple gals were pondering this question, "Where exactly do we see God in our lives?" Oh, we batted around the usual answers like: in the mountains, during prayer, at church, in acts of kindness.

One woman suggested the following: God is most prominent in laughter and tears. She went further: maybe that is God. It's another way to think about God, a more Eastern way to ponder God as that which connects us, makes us truly human.

This same young woman teaches grades 5-6 in Sunday school at Central. When discussing the First Commandment, she reported, one of the kids protested. The kid said, "Do I really have to love God above everything? But I want to love my parents first." (I paraphrase her report of his comment).

The teacher noted she was a bit stumped. What are we to say? "I'm sorry child, you have to love this thing you can't see even more than your mommy and daddy." It does sound odd.

But maybe, suggested this teacher, maybe we need to explain to children that when we laugh and cry and love with our families and friends, that is God. And these are the places we are to put our love and attention. These meaningful human interactions become something of God to us. After all, isn't God love?

She wondered if she could truly explain this to a child. What do you think?

Who can be healed?

Further reflections from the Alaska synod assembly (April 25-26 here in Anchor-town)

New Testament scholar Barbara Rossing was here to talk on climate change and the book of Revelation. She reminded us that God's intention is to heal/save the world, not to destroy it in a wave of terror. Just so we're on the same page.

On April 26, Rossing led a Bible study about the rich man in Mark's gospel who asks how he can get eternal life. Rossing examined this story with language of illness and healing, rather than sin and repenting. She takes this from the Greek "sozo," which can be translated as "saved" can also be translated as "healed." So after rich man leaves Jesus the disciples ask "Who can be saved?" (healed?)

Rossing reminded us of the problems of affluenza, a term coined to mean the suffering of too darn much stuff and not enough meaningful relationships. She posited the young rich man in Mark 10:17 might have the same problem. He knew he was sick and asked Dr. Jesus for a prescription.

Jesus says to go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor. The rich man leaves in saddness (the text says 'grieving'). He can't fill Dr. Jesus' prescription.

Rossing noted that in Bill McKibben's commentary on Job (McKibben's work is great; read it) it is our desire for More that makes us ill. So, who can be healed?

Put another way, what/who can heal us? And how?

Rossing reminds us that the rich man's request for eternal life doesn't just mean a safe, happy home in a heavenly mansion, with angels singing in the windows. The Greek for "eternal life," is "zoe ionian," or life of the ages, life that will last.

The rich man (and maybe us too) thinks eternal life is for the individual. He's wrong. Eternal life, the life that lasts, is life lived in community with God and each other. And this eternal life is available. Life with God, available now. No charge.

Rossing challenged us to consider how the church can help to lift up community. Authentic, life-giving, connected community. Churches (Central!) can be a place where people expereince life of the ages, a life of fellowship with God and others.

So maybe we need to eat some meals together. Invite someone for a walk. Go to church with a friend. Find recreation that doesn't cost money and just values time together.

I read an article once that suggested if more families (and friends) took time to eat meals together, it would transform the national landscape. We would be changed. we might even find eternal life.