Decision Time

This Sunday is a special day for our six confirmands. After special classes, trips, and a retreat with Matt Bell, the six preteens will be ready for confirmation.

When I take part in a confirmation service, however, I always have a few questions in my mind about the rest of y’all.

I know that many of you never went through confirmation. If you were raised in a church or tradition which does not “do” confirmation, then you didn’t; instead, you were probably baptized as a young person or adult. Often, I get lots of questions about confirmation — what does it mean, what is its purpose?

Let me briefly explain the Methodist understanding of baptism and confirmation. Baptism is a sacrament of joining, and being joined to, the body of Christ. Therefore, we will baptize any adult who makes a conscious decision to be joined to Christ, or any infant or child whose parents wish to make that decision on his/her behalf.

In the case of an infant, obviously the decision is not the child’s own until such time as he or she makes it personally. Confirmation is the formal process by which the church invites the child to do so. We usually make it an educational and social program, with classes and experiences that help someone learn more about what it means to follow Jesus, so that they can make an informed decision.

When they are confirmed, they are taking responsibility for the baptismal vows that their parents said for them. They are owning it for themselves. They willingly take on the rights and responsibilities that go with following Jesus.

My first question to the rest of you, then, is, “Have you ever owned the faith for yourself? Have you made a conscious decision to follow Christ?” This is an important part of the journey of faith. As I said in a recent sermon, we are not born Christian, we are made into Christians. It is an act of the will, an intention, a choice. Too many people have never made a real choice to follow Jesus, but instead rest on the laurels of their baptism, as if it were a magical ritual that saves them from hell. That’s not the point of it at all, though. Baptism is a joining of our lives to Jesus.

Now, while the intention to follow Christ is an important part of the confirmation ceremony, it’s not the only piece. We believe that baptism is a means of grace for the follower of Jesus. In other words, it’s not so much about what we do, but about what God does on our behalf. We are joined to Christ, not by our own efforts or worth, but by the free gift of God. We are given new birth, a new start in life, by the mercy of God. As the baptismal liturgy reads, “All this is God’s gift, offered to us without price.”

So my second question to all of you is, “Have you received the grace of God for yourself? Have you found that the power of the Holy Spirit lives in you, and gives you a strength that is not your own?”

If you have never been baptized, then perhaps it’s time to think about making the plunge (pun intended) for yourself. You are invited to a new relationship with God that begins with the forgiveness of sin and a renewal of your spirit in God’s love. I would be happy to talk about baptizing you.

If you have never been confirmed, then it’s up to you to answer the two questions above. Have you accepted the baptismal vows that were made for you, and have you received God’s grace? Perhaps you simply would like to learn more about what the faith journey is all about. I encourage you to join a Sunday School class or a small group, where you will have the opportunity to learn more about the Bible or the specific shape of the Jesus-centered life.

I certainly hope that all of you will be present on Sunday morning, as we listen to the witness of our newest confirmands, and as we celebrate the next steps they are taking on their own journeys.

Experiencing All of Holy Week

There’s a saying among pastors that you can’t get from Palm Sunday to Easter without going through Good Friday.

Believe me, there is a tendency among many American churches to jump from the parade-like quality of Palm Sunday straight to the glory of Easter morning, without ever delving into the messiness and horror of what actually happened that last week of Jesus’ life. We tend to be very uncomfortable with the blood and suffering; not only does Holy Week veer mightily close to our own pain, but it forces us to look upon a Jesus who was betrayed, battered, beaten, and executed.

No thanks, we tend to say. We’d rather imagine a resurrected, bright and shiny Jesus. We like winners!

But I don’t think the story of Jesus Christ has any power at all unless it is true that he experienced so much suffering. The entire point of the resurrection is that evil does not have the last word in our world, despite the enormous amount of evil that exists in the world.

A Jesus who did not face his own personal terror would have nothing hopeful to offer the people of the world who are terrorized by the threat of nuclear weapons. A Jesus who was not whipped and beaten would have nothing meaningful to say to a Congolese woman who was raped by rebel militiamen. A Jesus who did not die on a cross would mean absolutely nothing to a Syrian refugee whose father and three children had been killed by sarin gas.

This is not to say that Jesus’ suffering was unique; his pain was not any greater than any other. Instead, it was representative. It marks him as human, like the rest of us. He was one of us, a member of our race, a participant in our plight.

And what God did through Jesus was to herald a coming age in which humanity would be saved from the plight and plague of evil and wickedness. In God’s reign, tragedy will be transformed into beauty. Jesus’ death and resurrection are a kind of parable of what God is doing in the world — even today.

Frankly, the only way to encounter the fullness of Easter is to become immersed in all the events of Holy Week, to get in touch with Jesus’ suffering, as difficult as it might be.

That’s the reason we gather on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday for worship. We hear the rest of the story, the part that happens in-between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday.

Another way to experience that part of the story is to walk the Stations of the Cross, which are now open and available in the sanctuary at Kessler Park UMC. The Stations of the Cross are an ancient spiritual practice of the Christian church, meant to imitate the journeys of early Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, who retraced Jesus’ final steps on the way to Calvary.

There are fourteen stations, scattered throughout the sanctuary; each one represents a different moment in Jesus’ suffering and death. A booklet guides you to each station and offers a Scripture reading, reflection, question, and prayer. You are welcome to linger at each station as long as you like, and meditate on what it all means to you.

I walked the path this morning, and found myself marveling, once again, that Jesus had the courage and love to say of his persecutors, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.”

These words would mean nothing at all if Jesus said them on the back of the donkey while entering Jerusalem; likewise, if he’d said them on his deathbed at a ripe old age, they would ring hollow and trite. Instead, the fact that he said it while he was hanging on the cross gives the phrase a force that challenges all the world’s evil.

At that moment, Jesus truly overcame the horror of humanity’s inhumanity. Jesus refused to be sucked into the cycle of vengeful violence and hate, and chose to forgive.

Confronted with such a love, our only response can be, “Lord, have mercy on us.”

The Stations of the Cross will be open for visitors on Thursday and Friday from 8:30 am to 9 pm, and on Saturday from 10 am to 1 pm.

Put On Your Marching Shoes!

Church, it’s time to put your marching shoes on!

This Sunday, after we celebrate the triumphal entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem with waving palm branches, we’re going to celebrate unity, empowerment, and family in the streets of Dallas with waving American flags.

After worship, we’re going to make our way to Guadalupe Cathedral in downtown, where we will join the Dallas Mega-March 2017, which starts promptly at 2 pm. The march will end in a rally at Dallas City Hall, and will feature speakers including Martin Luther King III, Danny Glover, Jamie Foxx, and others

I would love to see a KPUMC presence at the march, because this event celebrates the values and principles which our church community holds dear. In general, the Mega-March is meant as a statement that the people of Dallas are united against hate, discrimination, and inequality.

According to event organizers, it is “time to speak up for the voices that often go unheard; time to beat hate with love; time to fight for the generations to come; time to show that our community is unified.”

Specifically, the march will resist three recent developments in the country: aggressive immigration enforcement efforts; the Muslim travel ban; and rising hate crimes. Each of these developments harms our communities and demands a response from faith communities.

Most of us don’t personally suffer the effects of these developments. None of us face deportation; none of us likely have had think about altering our travel plans because of executive orders; and few of us worry about hate crimes.

But just because we don’t suffer, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t march. As the body of Jesus Christ in the world, we need to be present in the streets on Sunday. We need to march in solidarity with those who face these present realities. We must rally around them as brothers and sisters of God’s world, seeking their shalom, and demanding justice. 

This is who we are, or at least, who we must become.

That has been the point of my Lent devotionals. A church which does not pursue justice on behalf of society’s most vulnerable people does not really worship the true God, no matter what it does or says on Sunday morning. People who fast and pray in the most pious ways but live dishonest and unjust lives do not really know God.

Let’s put the truth of what we celebrate on Sunday morning in worship, song, and prayer into practice on Sunday afternoon! Let’s march!