What I learn from teaching Confirmation again and again and again...

I just finished teaching my second Confirmation preparation class at our military chapel. The last four months have been filled with classes and conversations about what it means to live a Christian life. 

I have a long history of worshiping and volunteering in military chapels. It's always an interesting experience. In some places, I'm just another military spouse who happens to have theological training. In others, I have been invited to participate in ways that feel much like "doing church." This is our second time in Stuttgart and the first time we were here I came in anonymous. I was able to scope out my areas of interest and share my background on my terms. This time it was different. We walked into the same chapel eight years later and some of the people we had known from before were either still here or had also returned. So much for anonymity!

At the end of the first service, my friend Rick asked me if I would be willing to talk about starting a confirmation class. There were several youth who had spent the bulk of their middle and high school years in military chapels, where access to Confirmation classes is limited, at best. For the next several months, we had conversation and made a plan. And in January 2015, we started our journey with 8 high school youth - all of them baptized as infants - Methodists, Episcopalians, and UCC young people who gathered to learn about the theology and history of the church.

I've always taken the perspective that Confirmation is a rite of passage. It is a time when youth affirm for themselves the promises made at their baptisms. It is a time for them to learn in more detail what it means to walk on the Way of Christ. But has also been a time to affirm their home church traditions. 

Some of our religious communities ask questions like, "When were you saved?" and "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?" and those are good questions. But within many traditions, those questions are not a great starting place. I remember the lovely folks who visited my dorm room ?*&# years ago when I was a college freshman and asked those same questions. I didn't have a clue what they were talking about, because I never remember a time when Jesus wasn't a part of my life.

And I've always wanted the youth I know to have better answers than I did.  My desire has always been for these youth to understand that God chose them first and their faith in him is an amazing response to all the ways that we have been loved and nurtured, inside and outside of the church.

Some people say that once they've read a book, they never need to read it again. The same is often true of bible studies... we learn the things we need and keep moving forward to the next great lesson. But every Confirmation class starts with the same basic requirements that grow and change according to the needs of the individuals in the class. 

So we talk about God and Jesus, we talk about justification and sanctification, we talk about the history of the Christian church and we talk about liturgy and spiritual disciplines, acts of service and acts of mercy. I remind them often that confirmation is not a graduation but a beginning. I tell them that anyone who says that the Christian life is easy is lying, and this the work of being a Christian will be hard almost every day of their lives.

I hope they remember a few of the things we talked about. And I hope with them, as I have with every group I have ever worked, that my own successes and failures at being a devoted disciple of Jesus Christ hasn't confused them or messed them up too badly.

Teaching confirmation, more than anything, reminds me of the basics of what it means to be a Christian... to keep the main thing the main thing... Love the Lord and love your neighbor... and when you've mastered those, then go on to more complicated theological concepts.

I am so grateful for these wonderful youth, who have willingly shared their own faith experiences and their questions of what might be required of them. I am in awe of their parents, who made our classes a priority and reinforced our weekly lessons with family projects and discussions. And I am thankful for the opportunity to share some of my own gifts, just as God intended me to do.

Peace, Deb
May 2016

Sermon - Called to new life - (3rd Sunday After Pentecost C)

Just when you wonder if you did a good job interpreting the texts, someone tells you how much encouragement your sermon gave them... we are always our own worst critics. Last week was super crazy - family company from the States, three birthday celebrations and hosting a party on Saturday took a toll. I wrote this sermon on Wednesday and never really touched it again. I hope you can take something helpful from it.... Deb

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – Year C          June 5, 2016
1 Kings 17:7-24; Galatians 1:11-19; Luke 7:11-17                 Panzer Liturgical Service

Called to New Life

God is the original author of new life. He spoke a word at creation, and breathed life and light into a world of chaos and darkness. Through the works of his prophets, he proclaimed the good news that all was not lost. When we read through the stories of the bible, we see the upheaval created by the reality of human sin. But we also experience startling moments of clarity… moments when we have no doubt that God is totally capable of doing miraculous things.

The three passages for today reflect to us various understandings about new life for the people of God. In the reading from 1 Kings, we see Elijah giving unending food to the widow and her son, raising him from the dead and providing for their every need. In the letter to the Galatians, we hear Paul describing his change of heart and how his ministry went from being one of destroying the early church to becoming a singular instrument of encouragement and growth. In the gospel of Luke, we see Jesus raising to life the son of a widow, this time with only a word, and ironically almost identical to the story from 1 Kings.

In his book, 90 Minutes in Heaven, Pastor Don Piper relates the story of his own death in a car accident in Texas in 1989. For over one hour his lifeless body remained in the car where he perished. A passing minister and friend received a word from God to pray for the man in the car as traffic stopped for the accident. Miraculously, in the midst of the prayer, life returned to Don’s body. Before the prayer, Don experienced the fullness of heaven’s splendor, and was actually devastated at being ripped from the pure joy back to a life destined to be filled with pain. Don’s story of being raised from the dead is a testament to the power of prayer, the faithfulness of God’s people to care for one another, and the authority that God has over life and death. For over 13 months he barely endured, bed-ridden, hospitalized with over 30 surgeries, and burdened with months of agonizing rehabilitation. Over and over he asked, “God, why did you bring me back to life?” And the answer was always the same, “I did it because I love you and because it testifies to who I am.”

Jesus raised the son of the widow, not because he deserved to be raised, but because God chose it as a way to show people who He is. It not only changed the life of the man who had been dead, but also especially changed the widow’s life. In first century Palestine, and even in parts of the Middle East and Africa today, widows are persons without power or property. Their identity was grounded in their role as wife and mother. The death of a husband would be a devastating thing, but the subsequent death of male children would leave a woman with no status at all. So Jesus’ actions have great consequence for this family. Once again, she is a person with status. Even the people gathered around the funeral procession said in wonder, “Look at how God is working to meet the needs of his people.”

First Lesson: New life is about turning ourselves wholly over to God. I hope that this woman will always know that she is living in a new reality. She has been given a chance at new life. Don Piper understands that his ministry is different because of his experience and what he has endured. He knows what pain is, and what it means to be depressed, alone and afraid. So his testimony is pure when he says, “God was with me all the way. This new life of mine belongs to God, and I’ll live it for him until I can go back to the heaven I experienced for a brief moment in time.”

Second lesson: New life is about trusting God to meet our needs. How many people would be willing to do as the widow in 1 Kings 17 – to share perhaps her family’s last meal with a stranger who promised the unbelievable?  The people of Israel were enduring a long drought when Elijah was led by God to the land of Sidon, east of the Jordan. There God sent Elijah to a widow who was gathering sticks to make a fire to prepare a final meal for her and her son from the last of her supplies. Elijah asks her to feed him, too, promising that God would not allow her flour and oil to run out until rain had come to the land. She did as she was asked, not knowing the outcome, but believing in Elijah’s word of promise, which was God’s word, too. Even when her son later dies, Elijah is there meet her needs. He cries out to God for intervention, and life is returned to the son. As in Luke, the widow is once again a person of status.

Often our needs are being met in ways that we do not comprehend or see. Sometimes the pain we endure and the suffering we experience can be the path by which we recognize our need for God. Blessings come in unexpected times and places. Sometimes we expect the worst and downward spiral turns upward to renewed hope. And even in the midst of tragedy, we catch glimpses of God turning darkness in ways we never imagined or expected.

In the movie “A Stranger’s Heart,” a young woman waits in the hospital for a heart transplant. Her life has been sad in many ways. Her mother died when she was a small child and she was raised by a father that never really got over the loss of his partner and soul mate. She suffered from a congenital heart defect that severely reduced her ability to participate in life as she wanted. Surrounded by other patients also waiting for transplants, she began to see that maybe she had given up on life too soon, and she wept for the opportunities that she had never taken because she was afraid to take a chance. Soon enough, she received a new heart, and soon was on her way to physical healing.

But Callie is unprepared for the emotional trauma that her new heart brings to her life. She knows that she wants to be more present to life’s opportunities, but she really doesn’t know how to begin. One day, she is resting on a park bench when she is strangely drawn to a young girl playing nearby. Without any explanation, she finds that she needs to know more about her and eventually figures out that she has received the heart of the young girl’s mother. In time, she believes that her growing love for this young girl has been embedded in the heart that she received, and is pouring out into her life, teaching her an unconditional love she has never known.

Scientists are skeptical that the individual and collective cells in our bodies have memories of what we know and do, even amidst the anecdotal reports from transplant recipients. My purpose in sharing this story with you is not to question the scientific validity of such ideas, but to impose on them instead a spiritual dimension. What if the new life that we receive through Jesus Christ gives us ways to love that we never experienced before? We are burdened in our own spiritual doubts and frustrations, absorbed with our own needs, mostly not seeing or responding to the needs of others. What if this new life – new life in Christ - gives us new eyes, new hearts, and new hands, all given solely to serve the God who has given us a second or seventieth chance at living?

Paul’s journey to Jesus is well-recorded in the book of Acts 9 – how he persecuted the church, how he was on the road to Damascus, literally knocked off his well-intentioned pedestal and blinded by the light of God’s presence. Only after three days was Paul’s vision restored, and with it, a new heart for God beat in his chest. This heart understood his call as God’s chosen instrument, to proclaim Jesus as the way, truth and life. Paul’s life was totally turned around, and his life journey reminds us that God can change anyone’s heart.

Third lesson: New life is about living our lives in a new way, believing that it is our relationship with God that gives our lives their real meaning. Maybe that’s what happened to Callie – her heart was opened up to all the possibilities that she couldn’t see before. Life was hers for the living, not to squander away, but to serve and love others in response to the love that God has for us.

Most of us will never have a family member raised from the dead, but we can get glimpses of God’s glory in healing of body, mind or spirit. Most of us will not be asked to give the last of our food to someone that we barely know or trust, all in response to promises we don’t even know can be kept. But we do all have the opportunity to turn our hearts and our lives over to God, to experience the memories of God’s love for God’s world and to act them our every day.

Jesus didn’t raise this woman’s son because he felt sorry for her. It went much deeper than that. Jesus dared to enter this woman’s world, unrecognized and uninvited. With just a word, he made a new future for a family that only had a past. And this moment of transformation changed the lives of many, not just the widow and her son. Even the surrounding crowd knew that something miraculous has happened.

In our own experiences of new life, like Paul, we are called to set aside our former lives and turn to a new path and new calling. It’s too easy to accept Christ, and then keep living our lives the ways we always have. But despite indications to the contrary, we are asked to live in solidarity with those whose lives are more vulnerable than our own lives and to help make new life possible through our work together. New life changes not only our destination, but our paths along the way.

These are not just stories about what God did for other people. They are also the blueprints of what God does for us… raising us to new life every day. And in the process, God has the ability to help us discern how we are to serve those who are in need. In concert with our spiritual and physical gifts, we are called to practice compassion and to be in partnership with God in the ongoing work of transformation.(2)  The love to which God’s calls us is a love that is seen, lived out every day in the lives of people who don’t live their faith in secret, but for everyone to see. Christian love is a love that is inclusive, gathering in all people; even those we assume might be excluded because of previous assumptions and ideas about who is in and who is outside the Kingdom of God. New life in Christ calls us to a love that is active, bearing fruit in our lives – like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.(3)


And so with the witness of these people before us, I say to you, “People of God, rise! You have been called to new life.” Amen!

Peace, Deb

1- Don Piper, 90 Minutes in Heaven
2- Pulpit Fiction Podcast – show notes Episode 170.

3- Steve Scott, “A Lasting Legacy of Love,” Holy Cross Lutheran Church and School website, http://holycrosslutheran.net/sermons/a-lasting-legacy-of-love-john-15-9-17/