Sermon: Confirmation

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Confirmation - 2011

By Charles Rush

May 1, 2011

[ Audio (mp3, 3.6Mb) ]

rst of all, I would like to apologize to you on behalf of my entire generation. We've indulged you way too much in stuff you don't need and we haven't given you nearly enough of what you really need.

While you were learning your alphabet at Elementary school, my generation was organized in teams of marketing specialists figuring out how to make you think you are happiest when you walk through the doors of the Short Hills mall and leave laden with a vast assortment of image enhancing products. You would be forgiven for thinking that having all that beautiful stuff is what life is all about. It is not. While you were napping on your rest mat after recess, we had teams of media consultants that invented for this generation the E channel, and Style channel, and so many variations on them that you would be forgiven for thinking that growing up to be a fashion flirt, vacuous, shallow and empty is what we want you to become. We don't. And my entire generation, concentrated slightly more right where we live, have surrounded you a lot of overt and subliminal messages that say that if you just make good enough grades and get into the right college that is really all that matters and that is really all that we expect from you. It is not. You will be forgiven if you conclude from the way that we have raised you in our wider Metropolitan culture that if you simply become successful and have a good job and a beautiful home that somehow your character will just develop on its own without much attention paid to it, that somehow you automatically will become a 'good person from a good family'. You will not. That is the first thing I want to say.

And the second thing, I want to remind you that since before you were born, all these people behind you have been investing quite a bit in you that you take for granted since everyone in our fair town has had the same investment. You have already traveled to more interesting places and seen interesting things than 95 % of the people that have ever lived in human history. You have already enjoyed better vacations and more of them than 96% of all people living on the planet. You have already had more education than more 3/4 of the world and when you are finished, you will be more educated than 95 % of the world's population. Your families all live on more money than 99.5% of the world and because of that you have many fulfilling opportunities at camp, music lessons, sports, visits to the theatre and museums. I hope that you keep this filed in the front of your mind going forward because as Jesus once said, "From those who have been given much, much is expected."

We do expect a lot from you. The world needs you to step up to the plate and lead. In order to do that, more than any other single thing, you will need moral character. In fact, it turns out that this is the single most important thing for fulfillment across the span of your whole life.

This year, we started to expose you to this in a little teeny step, when we were downtown feeding the homeless with Bridges and when we were serving dinner for the homeless in our church.

Just before Christmas, do you remember being at Battery Park handing out soup and sandwiches to the Grandmother with her three year old granddaughter? Do you remember pulling around to Peck Slip with our trucks full of presents and seeing that long line of kids waiting patiently in the freezing cold for you to hand out a Christmas gift? Do you remember the way there were so many more of them than gifts and feeling overwhelmed by the need of the many? I hope that night was etched in your conscience. I want you to remember the patient dignity of those poor families standing in the cold and the rain for us to drive up in our warm, dry SUV's and parcel out from our abundance.

I want you to remember that night because as one of you said, 'everyone ought to have Christmas.' That is right. Everyone ought to have a feeling that they matter to God, that they are important. Everybody ought to have a place at the table.

Up til now, we have been doing for you. From now on, we want you to start doing for others. I want you to start living, right now, in such a way that everyone can find their place at the table. We need you to make a difference. We need you to become leaders that are going to make our world a better community.

And I want you to start practicing that right now. That is how you make your character. Aristotle used to say that you become good by practicing what is good over and over and over until it becomes a habit. That is why everything you do is important.

You know the Bible teaches us that all of us have to give an account of our lives to God. You know why they teach that? Because character is in side of you. The point of our lives is not about following the rules so that you won't get caught. The point of our lives is to find what is intrinsically worth doing. Character doesn't need someone telling you what to do. Character doesn't need a police officer threatening you with punishment if you don't tow the line. Character lives from the inside out and would do the right thing whether any one is watching or not.

You can fake a teacher out when you cheat. You can fake out your parents when you lie. But you can't fake out yourself. You know who you are. God knows who we are. That is why Jesus said, 'Blessed are the pure in heart'. They have integrity. They don't need someone to police them. They are self-directed in the right ways. That is the point of our lives- not that we are perfect, but that we are moving in the direction towards doing good for it's own sake.

So next year, you are going to High School, which is nerve wracking, because everyone is trying to find their place and you are the youngest. Some people will be mean to other people in order to try to fit in with a cool group- and for the rest of your life there will always be some people that behave like this. Don't let them get you off your game. They are saying by their actions, "I don't respect myself or other people and my anxiety needs a lot of work".

You are going to have some acquaintances that will cheat in order to get ahead and they will tell you that it doesn't really matter how you get ahead as long as you do because this is all just a contrived game- and for the rest of your life there will always be some people that will behave like this. Don't let them get you off your game. They are saying by their actions, "I'm not working on my character right now and neither should you."

You are going to have some acquaintances a couple years from now that are going to tell you that the way to have fun is to get so intoxicated that you can't remember what you are doing- and for the rest of your life, there will always be some friends and relatives and even loved ones that behave like this. Don't let them get you off your game. They are saying by their actions, "Right now I am a wounded character or I am a nervous little character and I wish I had a better ability to make genuine friends than I do at the moment."

The best way to stay strong is to have the blessing of good friends around you that are trying to be better people and trying to develop character in themselves. On it's best days, that is what the Church is, a group of recovering failures that are trying together to become better and to grow each other into more solid characters. We all make mistakes but what we need is someone to help point us again in the right direction and encourage us to become what God wants us to become.

Boys and girls, we are here today because you are becoming young men and women. You are on the front end of a great adventure that will be your life. And as you start out, you are saying that you intend to draw upon such Spiritual wisdom as you're the tradition of your parents and grandparents has to offer. It is a wise choice because the Bible tells us the direction that we should be headed without defining too much for us the details of the trip. That will be filled in with the particular challenges that life throws at you. Some of you will be very successful in this life and for that, you will need character. Others of you will endure tragedy and heart ache. And for that you will need character. Others still will have moments of miserable failure. And for that you will need character.

And at the end of your life, hopefully when you are old and wise, all of the stuff you collected will be dispersed to someone else, all of the power you dispensed will be handed off to someone else, and you will be left with the one thing that will never leave you- your character. Don't let them get off your game. Work with each other to make each other stronger. Stay with the Church and the tradition that reminds us where we are headed and what our lives are all about. Pick up the mantle and lead. Make us proud. Amen.