Sunday October 27th, 2024 Worship

As I was preparing for this service, I was thinking back to my own Confirmation service, which was unbelievably 13 years ago now. Now, I need to remember that I went to a large church, so my confirmation class was about 50ish kids, if not more. And, I remember the next Sunday after that Confirmation service, my pastor was surprised to see me because “no one ever shows up after they get confirmed.” And the thought of that just makes me sad, especially that this was the expectation. Because, over the years, we’ve ended up treating Confirmation as the graduation of the church world. We check the box, accomplishment achieved, and we go on our way without thinking about it again. And, this isn’t at all what Confirmation is about!
Now, as we’ll hear after this, Confirmation is actually an Affirmation of Baptism. It’s something we can do at other times in the church too, not just when our youth are being confirmed, to remind all of us of the promises that God gives to us in our baptisms, but also the promises that we are making to God in return.
To live among God’s faithful people,
to hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s supper,
to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed,
to serve all people, following the example of Jesus,
and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth?
It is a continuation of the promises held in our baptisms, not as a reminder of all the things we need to check off to be “good Lutherans”, but as a way of reminding us of what are the things that we are all called to in our baptisms, since Martin Luther preached about the “priesthood of all the baptized.” I hate to break it to you, but ministry isn’t just the work of the pastor, but something that we are all called to in the various ways we live out of calls in the world. Part of this comes from the response of the congregation to continue to walk with our confirmands, even after this service is done, as we all continue to pray for and support one another. Now, I know the list of promises seems daunting, but remember, we are not striving for perfection here, and our response always includes, “and I ask God to help me,” because we are not expected to work for these things on our own. It’s part of why we have the promise to “live among God’s faithful people,” as we strive for this together. It matters that we live out our faith in the midst of a community, to support us along the way, instead of constantly trying to figure it out on our own.
I also particularly love having our Confirmation service on Reformation Sunday, not because it’s a celebration of Martin Luther, but because we get to honor the ways the church has functioned, critique those ways as well, and see how God is still reforming the world through the Spirit even today. And as we honor those things, we continue in this tradition of Confirmation, where our youth get to make the promises for themselves that others made for them so long ago, and you all get to continue to find your way of interacting with your faith. It’s a visual representation of keeping on the Traditions of the church, while also acknowledging that the way this Tradition has been done has changed over time. Since, my Confirmation was different than the one today, which is different from all of yours.
In John’s Gospel today, Jesus reminds the crowd around him that “If you live according to my teaching, you really are my disciples” (John 8: 31b). Jesus doesn’t tell that they have to perfectly follow in the word, that they can’t ask questions along the way, that they can wrestle with that word a little bit too. After all, we know the disciples ask a lot of interesting questions and have a hard time following what Jesus is trying to say. It frees us to know that we live with these promises, but we are not restrained by them. That within these promises we are called into a relationship with God, but we are also given the freedom to know that this relationship will look different for each person. That we will each have our own unique ways of connecting with God, whether that be through music, nature, reading Scripture, or any other number of spiritual practices.
We are also given today the covenant that God makes with the whole people of Israel, which was especially important for the peoples who had been dispersed by the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires, thinking that God couldn’t possibly love and care about them anymore. While this covenant is for a specific group of people, it is also a promise that remains for us still today, as we remember that God will be our God, and we will be God’s people. Or as Romans 8 would remind us, that nothing can separate us from the love of God. That no matter what we do, God will still love us. And, I always have to give the caveat that this doesn’t give us the freedom to go do whatever we want with a free pass, but it allows us to more fully be human. To make mistakes, to learn from them, to accept forgiveness and offer it back at times.
So, while it is always true, may we especially remember on this Reformation Day that we are saved by grace through faith alone. That in the waters of baptism, God meets us and calls us Beloved. That every time we affirm this baptism, we get to recall the promises that were made to us. That we are loved, and we are named and claimed, a public affirmation of what we already know to be true within us. And, I love that in Confirmation we really get to focus on exploring what faith means to each of these youth. Not what it means to their parents or their grandparents, not just what the church tells them to believe, or what I preach on Sundays, but really getting to claim their faith as their own. May we all follow the example of these youth who are publicly affirming their faith today, which takes courage to do, as we give ourselves the freedom to explore what our faith means to us throughout our whole lives. Trusting that even when that changes, it is a sign of God’s reforming work that is still active within us and around t