This Sunday, we will celebrate the Confirmation of seven young men who have been a part of our congregation’s Confirmation program this year. They will stand in our midst. They will share their Statements of Faith, a snapshot at 14 or 15 years old of what they think and understand and believe about God and what it means to follow Jesus. And, as a congregation, we will gather around them, both literally and figuratively, knowing that the promises we made when they were baptized are not yet fulfilled.
I have led Confirmation classes and programs for forty years.
It is still something of a mystery and challenge of how to help young adults make room in their lives and thinking for that which we know and name as God and to ask and explore the question of what it means to listen to the words of a person who lived 2000+ years ago. And, to let those words reshape your life.
I don’t remember where I first heard it, but I think it is true.
Faith is caught not taught.
So my hope is that somehow in those hundreds of conversations over all those years I have been contagious. That something of my own life and faith, something of my own questions and searching, something of my own sense of the Holy and efforts to follow Jesus has rubbed off.
So, to those who are being confirmed on Sunday.
Go with God.
And, may your strength and vision be added to mine as we do our best to bend that long arc of history in the direction of justice and do our part of help God’s Kingdom come a bit closer for us and for all.
Tell them they are made in the Image & Likenesses of God Almighty ….& life is very precious…. but your soul is
That part of you which makes us all special in our own way .