Sermon For April 16, 2000
Palm Sunday
CHRISTIAN TESTAMENT: Jesus Enters Jerusalem ~ Mark 11-1-11
Well, Michael and Susan, you have been listening to me for two years in Confirmation classes. So I will try to be short today, so you won’t have to listen for too much longer. In some ways this Confirmation Sunday is the end. The end of two years of study. You are making an important decision to become an adult member of the congregation, testifying to your faith before the gathered members of the congregation. But I want to tell you that in most ways today is not the end but the beginning. You are at the very beginning of your life journey, of your faith journey, your spiritual journey. And the decision that you make today is a very important one. But it is only one of the steps along that pathway you will be walking. For all of us, that spiritual journey continues on throughout our whole lives. There is never a time when we have all of the answers or where we have completed our work of asking questions, or trying to decide what God wants for us in our lives. As I was trying to think about what I wanted to share today for this Confirmation Sunday, I came across a book that struck me as appropriate. Many of you know that I like to hang out in used bookstores, so I sometimes find books that I wouldn’t automatically be looking for. I was not looking for a retirement book, I have a few more years of ministry left, but I found a book in the finance section about retirement. It’s called “Get a Life”, which is a phrase that is in popular current use. In the introduction it says, “A fulfilling retirement, it’s not for sale.” Just a couple of paragraphs:
“When Americans have a problem their first instinct is to buy a solution. Sometimes it works, you can purchase a house, a car, even a vacation, but despite the relentless propaganda of the investment industry to save, save, save, you can’t buy a successful retirement. Although few people in midlife are ready to hear it, the chances of enjoying an active fulfilling retirement have almost nothing to do with how wealthy you will be. In fact, the life choices that you make during your 40’s and 50’s will largely determine whether you will retire well, or end you life lonely, complaining and sick. If you develop your curiosity, protect your health, learn to make new friends, stay physically active and nurture positive family relationships, you will most surely retire well. But if you devote yourself so much to creating a fat stock portfolio that you fail to “get a life,” your chances of living a good one after 65 will be slim.”
The book also talks about the idealized view that so many of us have of retirement as an extended summer vacation. We remember when we were children going to school. We looked forward to summer vacation and we had ideas about how we were going to spend our time. Often we got to the end of summer bored and realizing that we accomplished few of the things that we wanted to do. We just let that time slip through our fingers, then went back to school in the fall.
The book says that if you are not interested in life now, if you can’t find meaning in life now, if you can’t find a way to be excited and stimulated you are not going to be any different when you get to retirement. The fact that you are not punching a clock any longer or putting in those hours, is not going to change the way that you relate to life. That’s an important thing for all of us gathered here. It’s an important thing, Susan and Michael, for you to think about today. The decisions that you make are not decisions that will help get you to that wonderful time in the future, whether it is graduation from high school, or graduation from college or a career or a family or retirement. You need to live your life now, making important decisions. You need to decide what is valuable, and what is not valuable. What you are going to spend your time on, what you are going to spend you “life energy” on, as another book, “Your money or your life”, describes the exchange. How are you going to spend your energy? What is worth while doing, and what is a waste of your time? More importantly, what do you feel God is calling you to do in your life? However you understand God, there is a call for us to use our talents and abilities to make this world a better place.
If we look to the stories from the Gospel of Mark about Jesus going to Jerusalem, it is very clear that Jesus felt that was the thing he needed to do. He felt drawn, called, to go to Jerusalem, to meet with his friends, to teach, to talk to the crowds. Did Jesus want to go to Jerusalem so that he could die? No, not at all. If we listen to his prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, he said, “Father, if there is anyway for me to not have to go and die, I would prefer that option. Anyway at all. I don’t want to have to do it if I don’t have to. But I am going to go because I believe it is important for me to go.” Did God want Jesus to die? I think this answer is also “no.” I think that God wanted Jesus to live his life fully, to share what he had to share, to tell people about an amazing grace. About a love that had no end. But I don’t think that it was God’s plan that Jesus die, anymore than it was Jesus wish for death on the cross.
The things that we choose to do have consequences. The example that Jesus provides for us is of someone who chose to live life fully, to do something that had meaning. Susan and Michael, as you are confirmed today, you are making important decisions in your lives. Other members of the class, who chose not to be confirmed today, are also making important decisions in their lives. Those opportunities for important decisions continue on. There is not an end to our spiritual growth. There is not an end to our decision making about what is crucial for us in our lives. For all of the members of the confirmation class, and for all of you in the congregation, I pray that God’s spirit and this church community will constantly challenge you, to grow in your faith, to make important decisions about living your life. I pray that you will not be waiting for some wonderful time in the future when you are finished with responsibilities and done with your job so that you can finally get on with living. Because if you wait until then, you won’t know how to live. You have to live now. Live with optimism. Live with joy. Find meaning in your life. If it’s not that way for you then don’t wait for retirement, but make the decision to change now. Confirmation Day, a special day for two of our students, an important day for all of us as a reminder of the decisions that we make in our life.