5-3-09

It is nice to have our graduates in church this morning. My thanks to the C.E. Board for serving them breakfast. Who knows when we will have them together in church again? But each of you, from time to time, we pray, will gladden our doors, for this will always be your home church, and you will always be welcome.

Soon you will be packing, some of you: laptop, cell phone, I-pod, blackberry, toothbrush, pajamas, picture of mom. You will be putting it all together for your life away from home. May I remind you, don't forget to pack your faith. Why faith, you ask? Well, thank you for asking. Let me count the ways! No, I'll limit it to three. I know you have a lot of stuff coming up, and I don't want you stressing out right here in the sanctuary.

life away from home. May I remind you, don't forget to pack your faith. Why faith, you ask? Well, thank you for asking. Let me count the ways! No, I'll limit it to three. I know you have a lot of stuff coming up, and I don't want you stressing out right here in the sanctuary.

Remember back in Confirmation Class we had an exercise early on in which you answered three questions: 1) Who am I? 2) Why am I here? 3) To where am I going? Remember? Aah...

And how I called these three questions religious questions. That is, these are the questions religion addresses, who am I? Why do I exist? And is there more to life than this, as in is there after life? Good questions. Which is where faith fits in. How we answer these questions is the stuff of faith. Our answers form our faith, well, just as conversely our faith informs our answers. Anyway, this morning, before you are done packing, I thought I'd take a stab at the answers, that you might toss these faith statements into your suitcase before taking off into the world.

1) Who am I?

Look, we've been asking this question since we crawled out of the cave. "What are human beings that you are mindful of us, mortals that you care for us?" (Psalm 8:4) This is how the psalmist put it 3000 year ago.

What are we?

Well, I can tell you that you more than a brain walking around, though pack it that with you, too. And I can tell you that you are more than a body walking around, though take care of it and take responsibility for it as you exit the nest. Yes, more than this, you are more than brain and brawn. You are more than birds and salamanders. You are, get this, spiritual beings as well.

And you, my erstwhile Confirmands, are a particular kind of spiritual being. You are a Christian spiritual being. And so this, by faith, defines who you are. Let me keep it simple: you are a child of God.

Not that non-Christians are not children of God, too, but we have the gift through Christ of knowing we are children of God. We are blessed in the beginning through our baptism with the assurance that we are God's beloved children with whom God is well pleased, just like Christ, though there isn't one of us here who doesn't test God on this "well pleased" part on occasion.

But it is our gift from the beginning, as Paul writes of it to the Romans, to be adopted by God, that as children of God we might share in the glory of God. Refer to your Romans text for this morning. Not slaves of fear, but children of faith, "made a little lower than God, and crowned with glory and honor," as the psalmist puts it (8:5).

What I want you to know is, this is the most important thing about you: that you are a child of God. The most important thing. More important than your good looks, which are admirable. More important than your good health, for which we are grateful. More important than your good intellect, which is substantial.

You are a child of God. And nothing can take this away from you. I will tell you, we tend to lose this other stuff over time, our good looks, our good health, our good intellect, but you will always remain a child of God.

No experience, no failure, no defeat, no other person, no force, no power, no empire can separate us from the love of God which is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is a sealed deal. So take your faith and pack it in your suitcase.

2) Why am I here? Short answer: to live in relationship to God. This is why we are here. We are children of God, created in the image of God, and called to live in relationship to God. This is why we are here.

How do we do this? How are we to live in relationship to God? By the way we relate to one another and to God's creation.

Again to the psalmist, "God has given us dominion over the works of God's hands; God has put all things under our feet, all sheep and oxen...the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea..." (8:6-8) all are our responsibility.

Well, if this isn't a major reason to be here. Not only to take care of the earth, but to prove up on it, for if we stop and think about it, we are all homesteaders here, given some space with the covenant we will make it better for our having been here.

Jesus reduces this to the two Great Commandments, which I am sure my Confirmands remember:

1) to love God with all of our heart and soul, and mind and strength, and

2) to love our neighbor as our self, as Christ has loved us. This is why we are here!

A young woman was lamenting the world. The poverty, the war, the disease, the drugs, the crime, the terrorism, the abuse. She could see it all. And she was hopeless. So she determined she would bear no children into this world. It was the least she could do.

She took her litany of woes about the world to the angel Gabriel, and laid it on Gabe, demanding to know what God was going to do about this mess on earth. Gabriel delivered her message to God and then returned to the young woman with this response: "I have some good news for you and some bad news. The good news is God has a plan. The bad news is you are a part of it."

Gabriel might well have quoted the Psalmist (8:5-6): "Yet thou hast made you little less than God... and given you dominion over the works of God's hands."

It is not a question of whether you will change the world. Every life affects the world in some way or another. It is a question of how you will change the world. This is why you are here. So put that in your suitcase, and determine to make a difference.

3) To where am I going?

Well, studies show in the short range of it, our graduates are going to have 8-10 different jobs in 3-4 different careers. This is not my father's world, who worked for Shell Oil for forty-two years, not including time out for World War II. Nor my world. E-gads - I've been here nearly one-quarter of the history of this church, and this is a really old church.

Studies show our graduates will have several significant others. They will marry later, which is a good thing, and more often, which is not so good. Again, this is not my father's world, who married his high school sweetheart, till death did them part.

We think the 20^th century was a time of change, which it was. Try the 21^st century. I'm kind of glad I'm going to be getting off in the first half. Dr. Froma Walsh, who is the co- director of the Center for Family Health at the University of Chicago, writes of life and change, "Because our lives are so constantly under stress... because change is everywhere, we realize we can't just look for calm waters anymore. We have to find a way to thrive in the face of these stresses."

(Strengthening Family Resilience)

How do we do this? Thrive in the face of stress?

There is a one word answer: faith. It is the only way.

People of faith survive war.

People of faith survive pestilence and poverty.

People of faith survive slavery, holocausts, and great depressions.

People of faith survive bad childhoods, addictive behaviors, the death of loved ones, 9/11s, & tsunamis.

Where are you going? God only knows, which is good enough, for only God needs to know. But pack faith wherever you go, because you will need it to get there.

In an illustration I have used at baccalaureate addresses, it was following a graduation that a wise old preacher was speaking to the valedictorian of the class.

"Paul," asked the preacher, "what are your plans for the future?" "I plan to go immediately to college and study pre-law," answered the straight-A student.

"What then, Paul?" inquired the preacher. "Then I will proceed with law school."

"What then?" queried the preacher. "Well, I will pass my bar exam and get myself securely established in my law practice."

"And then, Paul?" "Then I will get married and start a family."

"I see, and then?" "Frankly," retorted Paul, "I plan to make lots of money, retire early, and spend a great deal of time traveling."

"What then, Paul?" persisted the annoying preacher. "Well," said Paul, "these are all my plans."

Looking at Paul with fatherly affection and the wisdom of time written upon his brow, the old preacher said, "Young man, your plans are far too small. They can extend only 60, 70, 80 years at the most. You must make your plans big enough to include God and large enough to include eternity."

God has plans. Big plans. And they include you. What is required of you is faith? Lots of it.

So be sure and pack it into your suitcase, along with your picture of mom. And get set for quite a trip, for as we say here in your church, "God is still speaking." So go graduates! For God loves you, and so do we.

Amen