Trinity Lutheran Church

        If I could give you one thing on this day, it would simply be this—the ability to recognize what you already have.

         Some of you have heard me tell this little story before—but it’s important enough to be told again…

         The student asks, “Where should I look for enlightenment?”

         The master replies, “It is all around you.”

         The student says, “But why can’t I see it?”

         The master replies, “You’re not looking.”

         “Yes I am.”

         “No, you’re not.”

         The student, getting frustrated, says, “Do I have to look a special way?”

         The master replies, “No, the ordinary way will do.”

         “But,” the student pleads, “aren’t I looking in the ordinary way?”

         “No.” says the master. “You’re usually someplace else.”

         Mary, Tori, Dalton, Sophie, Matt, Eric, Kassy— If I could give you one thing on this day, it would simply be this—the ability to recognize what you already have.

         Sunday morning, is, and should be for all of us, a break. A break from the rush of a world that wants everything it can get from us. Our time; our commitment; our attention; our money, even our hearts. This world wants all of those things from us and often it wants them for causes that, frankly, aren’t worthy of us, or that are destructive to us.

         And if those things of the world we deal with aren’t bad enough, we’ve got ourselves to deal with to. We wrestle with our self image, we get greedy, or jealous, or overly ambitious, or any of those things that you can write down on a piece of paper followed by a little arrow pointing to another word: sin.

         Sunday morning is supposed to be a break from all of that. It’s supposed to be a time when we shake our heads clear of all the smoke the world blows into our ears, the smoke we delude ourselves with, and we remember the truth—God is with us.

         Today, like many of us in this room, these young people have stood up and declared, to everyone, that they are followers of Christ. They’ve affirmed that we were right to call them followers of Christ since the earliest days of their lives.

         But what is important for them, and for us, to remember, is that what matters in the life of a Christian is not just a decision to follow Jesus. That’s great, that’s important, but the thing that really matters to a follower of Christ is the thing that makes all of that possible—the truth that God has already embraced and accepted us.

         Pentecost brought with it the gift of tongues. Not tongues like we sometimes hear them in worship services around the world now—tongues of many nations, placed in the mouths of Jewish fishermen, farmers and tax collectors. Men who had no business conversing like college professors in many languages. These tongues were a gift from God, a gift given so that God’s word, the word of the heavenly father, could be carried to the nations. A gift given so that God could say, in many respects, “I love you.”

         God had proclaimed this word in other ways before, to Moses in the burning bush. To the people at the red sea. To the exile longing for restoration and return to Israel. To a prophet, hiding from the people he had been sent to for fear of his life. To a young woman, unmarried, who was told she would have a son. To a world, staring horrified at a cross, seeing love die for love. To frightened disciples, hiding from the world, as their friend appeared before them in the power of resurrection.

         What really matters to a follower of Christ is the realization that God has made a business of chasing us, his children, around, saying to us, “Look over here! This way! No, THIS WAY, and listen—I love you.” Pentecost, was just one more amazing time when God grabbed us, told us “look over here” and found yet another way to proclaim to God’s love.

         If I could give you one thing on this day, it would simply be this—the ability to recognize what you already have.

         We have been given all that we could ask. We have been given God’s love. And if there is one prayer I have for you it’s that every one of us will be able to look past the frenzy of life and truly see it. That we will always see and know that we are truly loved.

         And by the way, confirmands, and people of God, making this realization, keeping it before our hearts, isn’t just important to us. It’s important to the world. This world needs us. This world desperately needs people who proclaim and live out God’s love. It needs people who show others that what is important is not how much money you have, or your social group, or what apps you have on your cell phone, or even whether you life is so interesting that they want to follow you around all day with television cameras.

         This world desperately needs people who look past the nonsense and live and proclaim God’s love. The world needs people who can look past their own needs and issues and proclaim this love without judgment and in service. The world needs people who can bring it the gift of truth.

         The challenge facing our confirmands is the same challenge we all face. Keeping this essential truth, that God loves us, constantly in our minds and hearts and then finding a way to show that love to others. To take this knowledge and call to action and bring it into our activities and relationships. To take this knowledge and call to action and use it to look beyond ourselves and beyond even our own communities to see how we might be a gift to the world. To take this knowledge and call to action and live lives that proclaim everything in this world matters precisely because the creator of the world has proclaimed and proclaims over and over again that we matter.

         In a lot of ways, that’s being a follower of Christ in a bottle. Know you are loved. Go love others.

         If I could give you one thing on this day, it would simply be this—the ability to recognize what you already have. God is with you. Know you are loved. Go love others. AMEN