Show Up! Christ Will do the Rest

 Confirmation has been a process of reformation. While Luther’s Small Catechism remains a key component, supporting material varies. There is not a manual for clergy to follow or a set curriculum. Confirmation classes are a product of their time, culture, tradition, and the skills of the teacher.

 

Elders in my previous parish, all remembered memorizing hymns as you would poetry. They remember that Confirmation Sunday was the hurtle to being allowed to come to the altar rail and to receive communion. They also recounted how anxious they were on Confirmation Sunday because confirmands, in the presence of the congregation, would individually be asked questions by a council representative. It was like a test to make sure students knew enough. Once questions were asked and answered sufficiently the service continued with the confirmation liturgy. Rachel and Rebekah – any of us for that matter - can you imagine being asked questions to answer in front of everyone?

 

I have been reading sections of Luther’s writings, the reading list for my study trip to Wittenberg. I came across a great question for confirmation and Reformation Sunday. How many Gospels are there?

A student of the Bible, and I suspect most of you, will answer four – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. If readiness for confirmation were based on our knowledge, Luther would have failed us all. Luther was adamant, there is just and ONLY, ONE Gospel.

The gospel is about Christ, telling who he is, what he did, said, and suffered. There is one gospel described by many people - for instance the letters of Paul, Peter, and the early church are nothing but gospel. When we talk about Christ, we too share the gospel.

 

A second question Luther might have posed: Tell me, when does Christ come to you? The response to this question is not as quick as to the gospel question. In some traditions, a person answers in the giving of testimony; others the speaking in tongues is a mark of the Way; in others it is in a mystic experience, vision, or dream. When does Christ come to you?

This is not a trick question, especially if asked during the reading of the Word, the sermon, the hymns, or the words of the eucharistic prayer. Luther explained that Christ comes in the preaching of the gospel; this is nothing else than Christ coming to us.

The preaching and proclamation of the gospel is telling who Christ is, what Christ did, said, and suffered. In this, through this, Christ comes to us.

 

In baptismal and confirmation promises, we promise to hear God’s word, and live among God’s faithful people. Where in the world do we do that? Also, not a trick question. Where in the world do we hear God’s word and live among God’s faithful people? At church. In participating in faith community. Even if the pastor is a lousy preacher, the Word is proclaimed in the reading of scripture, in the Word of the sacrament, in the Word of hymns and the music that winds itself into our hearts. The easy and obvious answer is that, one place where Christ comes is here.

In Lutheran tradition great importance is given to the hearing the Word. If there was one action or demand on us it is putting ourselves in a place to listen and receive Word. Simply put, come to church, and trust that the Word will do the rest. Show up – that’s it. Be curious and open. Listen – here Christ comes.

 

Luther’s perspective, like that of the prophet Amos, was that the cruelest disaster is ‘a famine of hearing God’s word’ and the greatest grace, as written in the Psalms, ‘God sends forth his Word.”

The only thing necessary for the Christian life, righteousness, and freedom is the holy word of God, the Gospel of Christ. Despite what we hear and learn from the world, the gospel is the only thing that satisfies. Luther had an expansive understanding of the Word – the Word is Christ, living today in the very act of hearing it. It is so powerful that the Word of God makes hearers rich because it works faith within – it is an experience, an invitation, that entices not commands, interweaving Christ with who we are. It reminds we have worth and this empowers.  Luther recorded quite a list in defining the Word of God. The Word of God is abundant and enriches because it is life, truth, light, peace, righteousness, salvation, joy, freedom, wisdom, power, grace, glory and every blessing imaginable. The Living Word proclaims that because of Christ we belong, we are loved, we are not alone, we are enough. Praise be.

 

Truth be told, regardless of our answers to the questions Luther might have posed to a confirmation class, all the students would be confirmed. Confirmation is not about what you know. Not about being right. Coming to the service is enough. Each of us came to worship this morning – it is enough.

Because God through Christ has permeated creation with grace and redemption. There is absolutely nothing you or I can do to earn God’s unconditional love and grace. It has already been given through God’s extreme action of becoming incarnate, of suffering and dying, and in so doing redeeming death, sin, and all that is deemed unworthy.

 

Luther used the image of a wedding to describe relationship with Christ. It fits with what is happening here this morning. Confirmation is a giving of a vow – a giving of our heart and intention – where we are married in a way to Christ. We are in a shared relationship where our brokenness is embraced by Christ, and Christ’s essence becomes our own. Some people, when introducing their spouse will call their spouse ‘my better half.’ Christ, the better half, brings a fullness to all that we are, all that we have, and all that we will be. There is a prayer in the wedding liturgy that asks that the love of the couple be seen by others as an example of God’s love among us. Love is not reserved for a couple to hoard and keep for themselves; love that is love overflows beyond any one relationship. Love of God, friend of Jesus, is only such when the love overflows and is of benefit to the whole world.  And all we have to do is show up!

Christ – the Word we hear and experience – does the rest.

 

My best friend when talking about terrible behaviour, particularly people who are rude, disingenuous, or self-absorbed, venting will say, “Just be a person.” That is all that is asked of us, be a person, show up. You are enough. Christ is the rest.

 

Why does it sound so simple? And yet so difficult to accept?  Because the world tries to convince us otherwise. Holding us in bondage, a slavery to the idea that we are not enough, that we are wrong, and backward. It serves the ways of the world, the ways of empire, if we are chained in fear and indecision, and convinced of our inability to change what is. The empire in order to survive, needs hope to be locked in solitary confinement, so that the Word is silenced. The empire is afraid for it knows that the proclamation of the gospel – the invitation to belonging, redemption, and grace through Christ - has power to change and restore everything. And for empire this is too much.

 

And the end of empire begins

In that step of turning towards God

Showing up -  and Christ, the Word, will do the rest.