It’s Confirmation Sunday this week at Aldersgate. A high holy day indeed. A bright spot in the life of any church. Plus we are all squeezing in together at 9am, instead of spreading out in two services. So, that could be fun, packing the house in order to watch this year’s set of young people claim their faith and join the church. A good reason to gather together, a moment for celebration and thanksgiving, not just for the young people, but for the church in general. It is a good sign that there are still young people who want to say yes.
But then, some might be thinking, that’s great for them, and I’m happy for them. What about me? Not to sound selfish or self-centered. Honest. I’m still going, you might say, still planning to worship, to applaud, to say thanks and all, to gather with the community and catch a glimpse of the Presence that calls us to that place.
Maybe, I’m asking wrong. Wrongly? How does one say that? Maybe I’m asking the wrong question. That’s better. Instead of what’s in it for me, what I really mean is what’s my role on Confirmation Sunday. I mean, I’m already confirmed. So, what am I supposed to do, or to think, or to expect?
A reboot. You know how when something goes wrong with your computer, the screen freezes, a program won’t work, whatever. Well, one of the first things you should try is a reboot. Turn it off and turn it back on. Start over. A mulligan - that’s what they call it in golf. A do over.
I could use a reboot right about now. It’s been one of those weeks. You know what I mean, I know you do. When there are more questions than answers. When everything you do seems to be the wrong thing. When everything you say seems to cause more hurt or confusion or misunderstanding instead of fixing what was broken. When you begin to suspect they’ve finally found you out and any minute now someone in authority is going to say “what made you think you were competent enough to do this job?”
You know what I mean. The thing is, it wasn’t always like that, though at the moment it might feel like it. There was a time when you were sure, when you were on the right track with the wind in your sails and confidence in your soul. Remember when you said yes – to a job, to a move, to a loved one, to God – and all was new and right and full of possibility. Remember?
1 Timothy 1:12-17 I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, 13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners-- of whom I am the foremost. 16 But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. 17 To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
We never think of Paul as needing a reboot. He seems so overwhelmingly confident, standing up in the face of persecution, singing songs of thanksgiving from a jail cell, planting new communities of faith all over the known world, and then writing letters to straighten out all sorts of problems in those churches with clarity and an interesting mixture of law and grace. He never seems to have a moment of doubt or uncertainty, he’s never known to question his call.
Yet, he has to constantly remind us that his whole life is a reboot. In this letter to Timothy, a young leader he is grooming for great things, he starts by telling his own story. There was a before, he says. And there is a now, an after. And that’s all you really need to know. Transformation is possible. Starting over is available. In fact, he would argue, it is standard operating procedure. This is how it is done. There was a before, and there is an after, thanks be to God!
OK, we say, you can’t argue with that. But that was then. This is now. Why is my after starting to feel like a before? Maybe transformation doesn’t always take. Or maybe some of us don’t have the grip we need to hold onto it. Why can’t we have what Paul had? He was that new creation he talked about. He was strong and safe and certain. Wasn’t he?
There’s a word I need you to notice in the passage above. It is tucked away in one of the most important verses in the whole New Testament. And we can miss it because the light is so bright on the other words of that verse. Verse 15: The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. A restatement of the Gospel, some argue. As important as John 3:16, others claim. But it is the rest of the verse that I want us to see. After the dash, Paul says “of whom I am the foremost.” It follows the word sinners in verse fifteen, Jesus Christ came to save sinners – of whom I am the foremost. Overlook the hyperbole for a moment. We roll our eyes at this sort of thing from Paul - the best, the strongest, the worst, the weakest. Everything has to end with “est” for Paul. Sounds like bragging, even though he said he wouldn’t. Overlook that for a moment, the word I want you to see, the word I am clinging to by my fingernails tonight isn’t foremost. It is am. I am the foremost, says Paul.
He said “am.” He didn’t say was. I find that amazing, and oddly comforting. You would think he would have put the sinful part of his nature in the past tense. I was a sinner, the worst of the lot. But now, he could have said, now I am ... What? I am, says Paul, confident Paul, new creation Paul, I am a sinner. Paul is admitting that he prone to losing his grip on his own transformation, it seems to me. Or at least he can see that tendency in himself. It is the thorn in the flesh, it is the evil he doesn’t want to do but still does for some unknowable reason. I am the foremost.
Maybe it isn’t just a theological point he wants to get across to young Timothy and to us. As important, vitally important, as that point is, maybe there is something more. Maybe he isn’t boasting about the transformation worked in his life, or at work in his life. Maybe he wants us to discover that it is in telling the story, our own story, that we regain our grip on the Christ at work in us. Maybe it is in the remembering that we can recapture something of an assurance of that hope at work even in us. There was a time, we say, when we said yes, when we were sure, when we were on the right track because it was His track.
Confirmation Sunday is an opportunity to celebrate the witness of the young people who have claimed that Christ and who are living that transformation. But maybe it an opportunity for all of us to reboot. To start over again, to go back to when we stood where they stand, or where we knelt and felt those hands on us conferring the blessing of the church and of the Spirit. Maybe as they claim Christ, so can we. We who are sinners, but the very ones that he came to save. Even us.
Maybe that ought to be the legacy of 9-11, as well. Not an excuse to hate, not a call for revenge, but a reboot back to the foundations of our nation, the legacy of freedom for all. “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...” Maybe that’s who we could aspire to be again. Reboot.
Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Even you. Believe it or not. Even me. Thanks be to God.
Shalom,
Derek
But then, some might be thinking, that’s great for them, and I’m happy for them. What about me? Not to sound selfish or self-centered. Honest. I’m still going, you might say, still planning to worship, to applaud, to say thanks and all, to gather with the community and catch a glimpse of the Presence that calls us to that place.
Maybe, I’m asking wrong. Wrongly? How does one say that? Maybe I’m asking the wrong question. That’s better. Instead of what’s in it for me, what I really mean is what’s my role on Confirmation Sunday. I mean, I’m already confirmed. So, what am I supposed to do, or to think, or to expect?
A reboot. You know how when something goes wrong with your computer, the screen freezes, a program won’t work, whatever. Well, one of the first things you should try is a reboot. Turn it off and turn it back on. Start over. A mulligan - that’s what they call it in golf. A do over.
I could use a reboot right about now. It’s been one of those weeks. You know what I mean, I know you do. When there are more questions than answers. When everything you do seems to be the wrong thing. When everything you say seems to cause more hurt or confusion or misunderstanding instead of fixing what was broken. When you begin to suspect they’ve finally found you out and any minute now someone in authority is going to say “what made you think you were competent enough to do this job?”
You know what I mean. The thing is, it wasn’t always like that, though at the moment it might feel like it. There was a time when you were sure, when you were on the right track with the wind in your sails and confidence in your soul. Remember when you said yes – to a job, to a move, to a loved one, to God – and all was new and right and full of possibility. Remember?
1 Timothy 1:12-17 I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, 13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners-- of whom I am the foremost. 16 But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. 17 To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
We never think of Paul as needing a reboot. He seems so overwhelmingly confident, standing up in the face of persecution, singing songs of thanksgiving from a jail cell, planting new communities of faith all over the known world, and then writing letters to straighten out all sorts of problems in those churches with clarity and an interesting mixture of law and grace. He never seems to have a moment of doubt or uncertainty, he’s never known to question his call.
Yet, he has to constantly remind us that his whole life is a reboot. In this letter to Timothy, a young leader he is grooming for great things, he starts by telling his own story. There was a before, he says. And there is a now, an after. And that’s all you really need to know. Transformation is possible. Starting over is available. In fact, he would argue, it is standard operating procedure. This is how it is done. There was a before, and there is an after, thanks be to God!
OK, we say, you can’t argue with that. But that was then. This is now. Why is my after starting to feel like a before? Maybe transformation doesn’t always take. Or maybe some of us don’t have the grip we need to hold onto it. Why can’t we have what Paul had? He was that new creation he talked about. He was strong and safe and certain. Wasn’t he?
There’s a word I need you to notice in the passage above. It is tucked away in one of the most important verses in the whole New Testament. And we can miss it because the light is so bright on the other words of that verse. Verse 15: The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. A restatement of the Gospel, some argue. As important as John 3:16, others claim. But it is the rest of the verse that I want us to see. After the dash, Paul says “of whom I am the foremost.” It follows the word sinners in verse fifteen, Jesus Christ came to save sinners – of whom I am the foremost. Overlook the hyperbole for a moment. We roll our eyes at this sort of thing from Paul - the best, the strongest, the worst, the weakest. Everything has to end with “est” for Paul. Sounds like bragging, even though he said he wouldn’t. Overlook that for a moment, the word I want you to see, the word I am clinging to by my fingernails tonight isn’t foremost. It is am. I am the foremost, says Paul.
He said “am.” He didn’t say was. I find that amazing, and oddly comforting. You would think he would have put the sinful part of his nature in the past tense. I was a sinner, the worst of the lot. But now, he could have said, now I am ... What? I am, says Paul, confident Paul, new creation Paul, I am a sinner. Paul is admitting that he prone to losing his grip on his own transformation, it seems to me. Or at least he can see that tendency in himself. It is the thorn in the flesh, it is the evil he doesn’t want to do but still does for some unknowable reason. I am the foremost.
Maybe it isn’t just a theological point he wants to get across to young Timothy and to us. As important, vitally important, as that point is, maybe there is something more. Maybe he isn’t boasting about the transformation worked in his life, or at work in his life. Maybe he wants us to discover that it is in telling the story, our own story, that we regain our grip on the Christ at work in us. Maybe it is in the remembering that we can recapture something of an assurance of that hope at work even in us. There was a time, we say, when we said yes, when we were sure, when we were on the right track because it was His track.
Confirmation Sunday is an opportunity to celebrate the witness of the young people who have claimed that Christ and who are living that transformation. But maybe it an opportunity for all of us to reboot. To start over again, to go back to when we stood where they stand, or where we knelt and felt those hands on us conferring the blessing of the church and of the Spirit. Maybe as they claim Christ, so can we. We who are sinners, but the very ones that he came to save. Even us.
Maybe that ought to be the legacy of 9-11, as well. Not an excuse to hate, not a call for revenge, but a reboot back to the foundations of our nation, the legacy of freedom for all. “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...” Maybe that’s who we could aspire to be again. Reboot.
Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Even you. Believe it or not. Even me. Thanks be to God.
Shalom,
Derek
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