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A sermon preached on May 24^th, 2009 based upon John 17:13 – 18, on the occasion of the baptism of Tyler Eric Mortensen, entitled, “Jesus’ Commencement Prayer.”

These words we just heard are parting words from Jesus.

Maybe it is just because of the trip I’ve just made which involved attending the graduations of my two older children, Kate and Andrew, but Jesus’ words sound to my ear a bit like a commencement address, or perhaps a benediction at a graduation, since the words are a prayer on behalf of those of us who would come after him.

Kate graduated from a little Quaker college in Indiana called Earlham College, the same school I graduated from 32 years earlier. I love that little school, which had a big hand in shaping the ideals and values of my life, and in turn, I think after 20 years here, the ideals and values of this little church.

I loved the “commencement address” given at Kate’s graduation, offered up by a man named Chuck Yates, a history professor. He entitled his speech, “Chuck’s Top Ten Secrets to Long, Happy, Useful, Productive and Meaningful Life.”

Though its well worth reading, I won’t be reading you the whole thing this morning — just a bit from the end of his address, when he got down to the number one secret. That’ll come later.

“Commencement” is a funny word, because it implies simultaneously an ending, and a beginning. The words we heard from Jesus this morning are a kind of a commencement address, and as such they seem to fit nicely with a baptism as well — in this case, Tyler’s baptism.

I’m not going to give you my ten secrets this morning, just a couple that I believe are part of what Jesus was saying to his disciples in his farewell prayer — things worth remembering as we raise up our children — raise up one another.

First off, Jesus said that what he had spoken to his disciples was so that his “joy might be made complete within them.”

We often use the words “happiness” and “joy” interchangeably. I think, however, that what the world leads us to understand “happiness” to be all about, and what Jesus meant by “joy”, are often quite different.

“Happiness” tends to imply merely such things as comfort, pleasure, having plenty of money, a nice home, good health — absence of conflict and suffering.

Joy is something much deeper. It may show up where people have what is commonly referred to as happiness, but it may be strangely absent in such conditions as well. There are plenty of rich, healthy, comfortable people in this world who experience a great emptiness in the midst of all the abundance of their lives.

Sometimes joy can show up in situations that are typically viewed as distinctly unhappy — in the midst of illness, poverty, conflict.

Joy comes about when we are living in harmony with God’s will for our lives. It involves doing what God has called and “gifted” us to do. It involves living passionately, purposefully in this world in partnership with the holy spirit. It means being abundantly alive.

Here in the community of Jesus, it is important to remind ourselves that it is joy more than happiness that we want for our children, and for ourselves.

Second, contained in Jesus’ words this morning is a prayer for protection. He prays to God, “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.” More often than not, when we think of being protected from evil, we thing of making sure nothing bad ever happens to us. Protection means things like strong locks that won’t let evil people in to harm us, reliable cars with good brakes, money in the bank, and a well-financed police departments and military to protect us from violent people intent on harming us.

And though there is place for this kind of protection, it is clear that this isn’t the protection that Jesus is praying for us to have. The initial followers of Jesus had many bad things happen to them; they too were arrested, mocked and beaten. They had their possessions taken from them. They imprisoned and killed. When such things happened to them, they didn’t feel as though Jesus’ prayers had failed them, rather, they considered these difficult situations to be opportunities for them to live in communion with Jesus, who had also suffered such things.

The prayer that Jesus is praying is for God to protect us from becoming evil ourselves.

So there is a big question here that must be addressed: What does it mean “to become evil?” Often we get confused between the difference in what it means to “be evil” and what it means to be a “sinner.”

In all likelihood, all of us will be, until the day we die, “sinners.” There will be parts of ourselves that think and act destructively, to others, to ourselves. There will be parts of ourselves that push God away.

God’s not finished with us yet.

The thing is, we are also “saints” — people through whom God blesses the world — even as we are sinners. We are, everyone of us, a mixture of darkness and light, sin and grace.

We have this unfortunate habit of dividing the human race into sinners and saints, and then we either become anxious and guilt-ridden by the thought that we are one of the sinners, or we become determined to see ourselves as one of the saints which means denying the sin — the darkness — that yet lives within us.

When our hearts harden and we lose the capacity to acknowledge the darkness that yet lives within us — that is when we are in danger of becoming evil ourselves. As such, evil often is found in religious people who are determined to be counted among the holy.

Here at Tyler’s baptism we acknowledge that there is no way to protect him from having bad things happen to him in the course of his life. He will suffer — to be a human being is to know suffering — and one day he will die.

It is, however, to go through life without succumbing to evil — that is becoming evil. This is our prayer and hope for him.

In this ritual of baptism, we remind ourselves that it is our faith that beyond death there is resurrection — that there is nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God.

Third, Jesus says in this passage that he has given us God’s word, and that this word is truth. What is implicit here, and requires familiarity with the rest of the Gospels, is that this word and this truth is always one of love. (When this is missed religion becomes something evil.) Elsewhere in John’s Gospel we hear that the whole reason God sent Jesus came was that God loved the world so. The one and only law that Jesus gives his disciples in John’s Gospel is this: “Love one another, as I have loved you.”

Referring back to our second point, it isn’t really possible to love others — to feel compassion for them — if we aren’t aware of the darkness that continues to dwell within ourselves. We’re all in this thing called life together.

So the part I want to read you from Chuck’s graduation speech at Earlham was what he had to say when he reached his number one secret. He began by referring to the chapter from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians where he says that love is the only thing that never ends.

“We’re here to take care of each other, and love is the energy that makes it possible for us to do that. So here I am, telling you to love. Love yourselves. Love each other. Love this magical mysterious heart-breaker of a world we live in. Love it for what it can become. But love it for what it is too.

“If you choose love,” Chuck went on to say, “you create a center of gravity for yourself that will help you stay balanced no matter what happens. (I think this is Chuck’s way of saying you won’t become evil.) You create a sacred place at the core of your being, a place where there will always be holiness…

“The ability to choose love is what sets us apart from all the other critters. Sure, it matters that we walk upright, that we have these amazing opposable thumbs, this really cool stereoscopic vision, this massive brain. And we can talk, and write, and sing, and even deliver (commencement) messages.

“But what really matters is that we have the ability to choose love…”

Having begun with the apostle Paul, Chuck ended up by quoting the Beatles: “All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.”

At the end of this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus prays that we will be “sanctified in the truth,” which means that over time, we will become more consciously loving. We will stumble and fall, time and again, but each time, we are invited to get back up and try and again, and over time, and if we do keep getting back up, our love will deepen.

God gave life to Tyler, that he might be loved, and that he in turn, might learn how to love. He loves already, but a fully conscious love is what God has in mind for him.

That’s the way we mirror God, is by consciously choosing love.

Our Gospel reading concludes with Jesus declaring,

“As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them (which means us) into the world.” We are here for a purpose, and this purpose involves finding our own unique way to love in this world, and in finding this purpose we will find joy. Let us continually remind Tyler, and one another, that it is for this that we have been sent into this world.

A sermon preached by Bob Keller on May 17th, 2009 based on John 15: 9 – 17

The Gospel lesson that David just read for us is part of what is often referred to as Jesus’ “farewell address” to his disciples.  Last week we learned about “connectedness” as Jesus used the metaphor of a grapevine and its branches.  Being tended by the gardener, God, we are pruned and cared for so that we can bear much fruit.

Today, Jesus talks about love and the complete joy that results from that love.  Love can be a tricky word in the English language.  For example, I can say, “I love a good plate of lasagna,” or, “I love living in Parsippany,” but that word doesn’t have the same meaning as the word does when I say, “I love you,” to my wife or to my boys.

Jesus said: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  …..  My commandment is this: love one another, just as I love you.”

We need to love others the way He loves us.

But how does God love us?

He loves us by seeing us more than just skin deep. Therefore, if I’m going to have God as my role model, I need to see others underneath their skins.

In 1 Samuel we read, “People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”   In order to start loving people like God loves them I’m going to have to start seeing people like God sees them!

Fred Coleman sent me an email the other day called “Clay Balls.”  Maybe he sent it to you, too. 

A man was exploring caves by the Seashore.  In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls.  It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake.   They didn’t look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him.  As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could.  

He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock.  Inside was a beautiful, precious stone! 

Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure.  He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left.   

Then it struck him.  He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves.  Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away!  

It’s like that with people.  We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel.  It doesn’t look like much from the outside.  It isn’t always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it.  

We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy.  But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person.  

There is a treasure in each and every one of us.  If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth. 

God is calling us to be like Him, to love others in spite of their outward flaws of appearance and personality quirks and bad habits and aggravating attitudes. We need to love them in spite of our differences. ###

Then we need to be willing to give.  Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.”  Does this mean that we throw ourselves in front of the bus for someone else?  Peter must have thought so.  Remember when they were still at the table at the Last Supper when Peter said, “I will lay down my life for you.”?  Well, we know how that turned out.  Peter, at that time, couldn’t even live for Jesus let alone give his life for him.  Jesus’ statement doesn’t mean to give unless it’s inconvenient, troublesome, or there’s some personal risk involved.  It means to always give.

 

Putting our lives on the line for others is compassionate. It’s sharing.  It’s giving of your abilities or talents, or maybe it’s just giving of your time.

Community Christian Church in Naperville, Illinois did something several years ago that is simply an amazing example of giving.  They reported in the summer 2003 edition of the Christian magazine “Leadership” that they had called the homeless shelters and asked what they really needed. They said shoes. So one Sunday at the close of the worship gathering they ended with a challenge to use that day as a marker if they were really serious about having a Christ-centered heart about helping the poor. “We invited them to come forward,” Pastor Bill Carroll reported, “take communion, remove their shoes and leave them on the stage, and return to their cars barefoot. Besides 1,600 pairs of shoes, people also left coats, hats, and gloves.”

George Bernard Shaw puts it: “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one: the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap, and being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” Leo Tolstoy said, “Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.”

Paul lists joy second in the fruits of the Spirit in his letter to the Galatians saying,: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

Nothing is more indicative of Christian love than giving and the joy that comes from giving.

In verse 14, Jesus says, “You are my friends if you do what I command.” 

Our human nature could react negatively to these words.  We could say, “So, I can only be Jesus’ friend if I jump through His hoops?  No thanks!  I don’t want a friend that keeps a checklist on what I am and am not doing.”

Who is being hurt if we ignore Jesus’ commands?  Think for a moment of a family dispute.  Someone has done something wrong.  The fellowship of that family member may be severed for a while, but the relationship never dies.  The fellowship ,ay be interrupted, but the relationship never dies.

We’re the ones who impair our own chances at fulfilling relationships by disregarding Christ’s commands – commands and instructions that He gives us for our own good. He wants our joy to be “complete.” He wants our relationships with Him and with one another, to be satisfying.

Then Jesus says one of the most astounding comments in all the Scriptures, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business.  Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”

Christ said He isn’t interested in us just being His servants. He wants us to be His friends.

 

A lot of people have a terrible misconception about what following Christ is all about. They think its just about following this long list of rules. Keep the checklist handy – do this, don’t do that, check, check! Well, if we were just servants then that would be the case. But Jesus clearly says here that He wants us as more than servants. He wants us as friends!

Following Christ is not just about rules – it’s more about relationships!

 

Earlier I mentioned that the word “love” is a tough one in the English language.  Well, “friend” isn’t much easier.  A friend is a lover, literally. The relationship between the Latin am?cus “friend” and am? “I love” is clear, as is the relationship between the Greek philos “friend” and phile? “I love.”

Jesus is saying, “I want you as my friend. I want to be your friend!”

We need Jesus as our friend.  Without that friendship with Him we are just servants following, and most likely failing, the checklist.

It’s been said that a friend is someone you can call at 4 AM to come bail you out of jail.  However, a true friend will be sitting next to you in jail saying, “Dude!  That was a blast!  When can we do it again?’

 

Now I’m not suggesting doing anything illegal in the name of friendship.  And maybe that’s not the best example to use in a sermon.  But I hope you get the idea.  A friend is someone we can share with: our ups and downs, our hopes and our failures, our smiles and our tears.  We choose our friends carefully, don’t we?  While working on this sermon, I got to thinking of the number of friends I’ve had over the years.  Some I still have.  Some I only have occasional contact with.  Others have completely faded into the mist of my life’s journey.  My solace, as I sat and thought about whatever happened to…..was that maybe they were at some point in their life saying the same thing about me.  And these were people that knew, at the time, my deepest secrets.  They saw me unmasked and I saw them.  But having Jesus as a friend is everlasting, eternal.  Yes, we may interrupt the fellowship, but the relationship is always there.

Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you….”  Jesus called the disciples just as He calls us.  I can’t think of a single disciple that ran after Jesus calling, “Hey!  Hey, Jesus.  Can I join your club?”

 

 

In Revelation, Jesus said,  “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in…”

I asked Barb if she would mind changing our closing hymn today.  It will be #526 – What A Friend We Have In Jesus.

More than a century ago, on the streets of Port Hope, Ontario, a man could be seen walking along carrying a saw and a sawhorse. One day a rich man from across the street saw him and said to a friend, “He looks like a sober man. I think I’ll hire him to cut wood for me.” “That’s Joseph Scriven,” the friend replied. “He wouldn’t cut wood for you. He only cuts wood for those who don’t have enough to pay.” And that sums up the philosophy of Joseph Medlicott Scriven.

Scriven was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1819. At age 25, he finally settled in Canada.

His faith led him to do menial tasks for poor widows and the sick. He often worked for no wages and was regarded by the people of the community as a kind man, albeit a bit odd.

In 1855, a friend visited an ill Scriven and discovered a poem that he had written for his ailing mother in faraway Ireland. Scriven didn’t have the money to visit her, but he sent her the poem as an encouragement. He called it “Pray Without Ceasing.”

 When the friend inquired about the poem’s origins, Scriven reportedly answered, “The Lord and I did it between us.”

Scriven never intended for the poem to be published, but it made its rounds, and was set to music in 1868 by musician Charles Converse, who titled it “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” It has since become one of our greatest hymns.

Scriven died in 1886. In his memory, the town of Port Hope erected a monument with this inscription from Scriven’s famous song: In His arms He’ll take and shield thee. Thou wilt find a solace there.

As you sing this hymn, please listen to the words with your heart.  Know that Jesus is God, but, more importantly, He is your friend.

Please pray with me:

 Heavenly Father, we thank you for the words of your son, Jesus, that we heard today.  Please help us to love as Jesus loved us and to accept His offer of friendship as our own.  Amen.

 

 

 

 

A sermon preached by Bob Keller on Mother’s Day, May 10th, 2009, based upon John 15: 1 – 8 and 1 John 4: 7 – 12, entitled “Being Connected”

 

The topic today is ‘being connected.’  The current state of our world economy demonstrates our interdependence.  However, our connectedness as Christians makes us unique.

 

Let’s look back to the Gospel lesson from John that David read just before the children’s sermon.  In summary, we can look at this passage in some distinct parts that make the whole.

 

First, Jesus says, “I am the true vine.”  The vine is the source of life and it carries the burden of creating the fruit.  If a branch is cut off of the vine, it withers and dies.  It certainly can bear no fruit.

 

Second, God the Father is the Gardener.  Now what does a gardener do?  We’re told in this passage that God does several things to ensure that the vine bears fruit.  Most modern translations tell us that God “cuts off” or “takes away” every branch that does not bear fruit.  On the surface this can be quite disturbing.  How can a God that claims to love me simply “cut me off?”  How can we read in the passage from 1 John chapter 4, that greatest truth of the Bible, that “God is Love” and have Him just cast us away?  This really troubles me.

 

However, the original word from the Greek texts is “airo.”  Airo has as many as four possible meanings. It can mean “to lift up or pick up”. It can mean “to lift up figuratively, as in lifting up one’s eyes or one’s voice”. Third, it can mean, “to lift up, with the added thought of lifting up in order to carry away”. Last, it can mean what most translators have taken it to mean, that is, “to remove”.  But doesn’t that removal go against the overall theme of Christianity?  There is compassion and forgiveness to be found everywhere else in Scripture and I think it applies here if we use the definition of “lifting up” rather than “removing.”

 

Admittedly, I had to do some reading about grapevines.  What I found out seems to better fit that Jesus meant that God, the Gardener, lifts us up.  After winter’s end, a vintner will survey his vines and pick up those that have fallen to the ground.  Grapevines have these little shoots on their branches that will attempt to take root on their own if they are left in contact with the ground.  It’s Jesus’ desire that we remain in Him and Him in us.

 

Next, God prunes us.  Is this an example of “Why God lets bad things happen to good people?”  Several volumes have been written on that topic and we’ll not go there today.  Here’s another occasion where the original Greek text better tells the story.

 

The word “prune” also means “to clean.”  A vintner will always check his vines for parasites and moss growth that can impair the production of good fruit.  When he finds them, he prunes, or cleans, the vine so that it can be even more fruitful.

 

Then Jesus comes to His promise.  He says, “I am the vine; you are the branches.  If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ….If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you.  This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

 

The story is told of a native from a remote mountain village that had the opportunity to visit a large modern city for the first time. He could not bring much home with him, and he had little money. But he was amazed at the electric lights which he saw everywhere. So he bought a bag full of electric light bulbs and sockets with switches so he could turn them off and on.

Arriving home he hung the light bulbs in front of his home and on his and his neighbor’s trees. Everyone watched him with curiosity and asked him what he was doing, but he just smiled and said, “Just wait until dark–you’ll see.”

When night came he turned on the switches, but nothing happened. No one had told him about electricity. He did not know the light bulbs were useless unless connected to the source of their power.

 

That’s what Jesus was talking about.  Being connected and staying connected and allowing Jesus to be in control of our switches so we can be useful lights, lights than dispel the darkness.

 

Can you see the parallels to motherhood?  Today we recognize mothers, but, since an ever-increasing number of Fathers are “stay-at-home” Dads, I’m going to include them, too.

 

Can you imagine a child growing up who’s disconnected from proper parenting?  Parent and child both lose.  A child needs to have guidance.  Remember, “Bring up a child in the way he should grow and when he is old, he will not depart from it?”

 

Those among us with older children know it all too well and those with younger children will learn it all too soon – there is joy and pain in parenting.  And if God is our Father, He knows this as well.

 

We’ve taken the training wheels off of bicycles and watched them fall.  And we’ve been there to pick them up.  And then we watched them ride to the end of the street, wobbly at first, but making it there because we taught them how to ride.

 

We’ve watched them wander off in a crowded store because they were “a big kid now.”  And we kept a watchful eye on them and were right there when they started to cry because they felt they were lost when they could no longer see you.

 

Of course we’ve kept them away from real injury.  We didn’t allow them to touch hot stoves or to go in the deep end before they could prove they could swim in shallow water.

 

We’ve also exposed our hearts as they grew and were there when their hearts were broken for the first time.  And their tears blended with ours as hearts healed and became the stronger for it.

 

It’s a process of “lifting up” and “pruning” their development. 

 

Like I said before, some of you have been there, done that, and many of you even have the T-shirt to prove it!  Many of you are on the parenthood journey now.  Some have yet to start it.  But we all have at least witnessed it from the child’s-eye view.  If not from our own parents, we can witness it as being children of God.

 

Do you see the “connectedness?’  In the passage from 1 John we learned that God is Love.  And that “everyone that loves has been born of God and knows God.  …..This is Love; not that we loved God but that He loved us.  …..since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

 

We can only accomplish this when we stay connected to God.  Whether the example of the grapevine works for you or perhaps you’re better suited to think of being “plugged in” like the light bulb.  Whether you think of being a child of God or think of your role as a Mother makes no difference.  We can only find joy in our lives when we’re connected to God and to one another.  He is the Gardener that will lift us up, prune us when necessary and He delights in us when we bear good fruit.

 

I’d like to conclude today with a tribute to Mothers written by the late Erma Bombeck: 

When God Created Mothers

When the Good Lord was creating mothers, He was into his sixth day of “overtime” when an angel appeared and said, “You’re doing a lot of fiddling around on this one.”

And the Lord said, “Have you read the specs on this order?

·       She has to be completely washable, but not plastic;

·       Have 180 movable parts… all replaceable;

·       Run on black coffee and leftovers;

·       Have a lap that disappears when she stands up;

·       A kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair;

·       And six pairs of hands.”

The angel shook her head slowly and said, “Six pairs of hands… no way.”

“It’s not the hands that are causing me problems,” said the Lord. “It’s the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have.”

“That’s on the standard model?” asked the angel.

The Lord nodded. “One pair that sees through closed doors when she asks, ’What are you kids doing in there?’ when she already knows. Another here in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn’t but what she has to know, and of course the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and say, ’I understand and I love you’ without so much as uttering a word.”

“Lord,” said the angel, touching His sleeve gently, “Go to bed. Tomorrow…”

“I can’t,” said the Lord, “I’m so close to creating something so close to myself. Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick… can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger… and can get a nine-year-old to stand under a shower.”

The angel circled the model of a mother very slowly. “It’s too soft,” she sighed.

“But she’s tough!” said the Lord excitedly. “You cannot imagine what this mother can do or endure.”

“Can it think?”

“Not only can it think, but it can reason and compromise,” said the Creator.

Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek. “There’s a leak,” she pronounced. “I told You You were trying to push too much into this model.”

“It’s not a leak,” said the Lord. “It’s a tear.”

“What’s it for?”

“It’s for joy, sadness, disappointment, pain, loneliness, and pride.”

“You are a genius,” said the angel.

The Lord looked somber. “I didn’t put it there,” He said.

Please pray with me:

 

Father, we thank you for Jesus and that we can be connected to you through him and through your Word.  We thank you for giving us the responsibility of motherhood and for so many examples of those bearing fruit by going through it with You.  We ask you now to help us see your Love as a shining light to follow toward being better connected with You, through Your Son, Jesus Christ.  Amen

 

A sermon preached on May 3, 2009, based upon John 10:10 – 15, entitled “A High Adventure.”

In the Gospel lesson from John this morning Jesus contrasts the life of “thieves” with the life of the Good Shepherd, which he embodies. The thieves are just putting in time for a pay check. When any situation arises that calls forth from them any real sacrifice, they flee. Jesus the good shepherd, in contrast cares passionately about his sheep, and is willing to lay down his life for them.

So here’s a question to consider: is our religious practice leading us to a passionate engagement with life and the human beings God gives us to love, indeed, a willingness, if necessary to lay our lives down? Or is our religion just an accessory to our lives — there only as long as it doesn’t inconvenience us?

One of the great summations by Jesus of what he is about is found at the beginning of our lesson: “I have come that you may have life, and have it abundantly.” The thief, in contrast, diminishes life. If your religion is truly derived from Jesus, it will bring you more abundant, passionate life. In contrast, religion in this world all too often leads people to be consumed by guilt, fear and hostility, or simply boredom.

The early Church was short on doctrine. There was essentially just one doctrinal affirmation: Jesus is Lord, but this affirmation was one for which the early Christians were willing to die if necessary when the State pressed them to compromise their ultimate allegiance. Instead of a bunch of abstract ideas, the religion of the early Church was a way of life that consisted of imitating Jesus. It called people into a high adventure.

It was hard to miss the distinctiveness of this way of life, and its power to transform. Here is an early Roman commentator describing the early Christians to Emperor Hadrian:

“They love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who hurt them. If they have something, they give freely to the person who has nothing; if they see a stranger, they take him home as a brother or sister in the spirit, the Spirit of God.”

Even as there was in such descriptions a begrudging respect, there was also something that the authorities clearly recognized in the way of Jesus that was downright threatening to the social order. The early Christians practiced a radical equality that threatened the established hierarchy. They refused to succumb to the power of the Empire to make people cower into submission.

One of the distinguishing aspects of the early Christians was the way they responded to the plagues that left millions dying on the streets. They were willing to risk getting infected themselves in order to practice the compassion for the sick and dying they inherited from Jesus. It raises an interesting question of what the Christian response should be to the “Swine Flu.”

There is this joke that preachers tell. It involves a couple of preachers sitting around lamenting their common problem of bats up in the belfry. As much as they tried, they couldn’t get those bats to leave. Finally one of the preachers pipes up. “I had the same problem — that is till I figured out the solution. It’s simple, really. I took my book of worship, climbed up into the belfry and confirmed those bats — every single one of them. Haven’t seen them since.”

Usually confirmation class goes something like this: adolescents squirm in seats around a table for an hour or so each week for several months while the pastor tries to fill them with information about Christianity. The adolescents are bored silly, retain little information, stand up in worship one Sunday to make confessions of faith they know are expected of them, and then, shortly thereafter, quit being a part of church.

When I realized that we hadn’t had a confirmation class in a couple of years and there were several teenagers in our congregation of confirmation age, the standard scenario for how to do confirmation wasn’t too appealing to me. I enjoy the creativity of theater, and so I hatched an alternative plan. I wrote a play that gave an overview of my understanding of Christianity, and then I cast the youth in the lead parts. Adults would be recruited to play smaller parts and to help with the back stage work. We would work together for several months getting the play ready to perform, and along the way, hopefully, they would absorb information. More importantly, however, I hoped to give the youth a shared experience that would give them a taste of the high adventure Christianity was envisioned by Jesus to be.

Most of the youth and adults I recruited were novices to theater, and so there was a good deal of skepticism from the outset. I’ve been involved in theater productions for over thirty years, so I was pretty confident of what we could create if we just stuck to it.

It was slow and tedious early on, but it still beat sitting around a table with me piling information on them. In time the production began to pick up steam as the kids and adults bonded together and began to care about what they were creating. A willingness to sacrifice took hold.

By the end there was a tangible sense of adventure. The youth had helped created something beautiful and funny that was far bigger than themselves — something they could never have done alone. At the outset, several of the kids had been downright terrified at the prospect of getting on stage to perform in front of an audience, and in conquering those fears they experienced something of the power of faith to overcome fear, a thrilling lesson indeed. They took ownership of what the play was trying to express, a vision of Jesus and the faith that challenged the audience to take responsibility for the miraculous gift God had given them of their lives.

In short, I believe they got a taste for what Jesus meant when he said he had come to give life, and give it abundantly.

Youth is a tender time when the direction in life gets charted. My hope is that our youth are catching hold of a life-long vision of following Jesus as the life-giving adventure he had in mind.

May it be so for all of us.