To The Class Of 2008 - Towanda PA
If I were a great preacher, I would have silver streaked hair and I would stand here and talk to you about how you are the future of the world. I would say something like, “Go forth into the world like Joshua, blow your horn, and take the world by storm, decimating the walls that divide people throughout the world. Instead of walls, construct a new heavens and a new earth where all will live in peace and harmony, and where we will preferably all make $100,000 a year. I just threw that last part in. A great preacher would not say that. But, I thought that those leaving High School and going into the theatre would really like that last part. They desperately desire to land a role other than, waiter. “Would you like some pepper with that sir?”
If I were a great preacher I would stir in your souls a vision of the athlete who works and works and works until their body is sculpted into perfect shape. I would instruct you in the ways of exercising your soul so that in time, in the future, when you really matter to society, you will be able to move mountains with your faith. But, not yet, now is the time to exercise. And, if I were super great, I would do it all with an amazing PowerPoint presentation of futuristic mountains shifting and morphing.
I would also use cyber lights. Oh how I wish we had cyber lights. They, of course, are the cool moving concert lights that automatically twist and turn and change color and shape. As they beam their light intensely on me I would say, “Now go forth, grow in your faith, and be the mountain shapers of the future.” And, the cyber lights would all move simultaneously to the back of the auditorium blasting open the doors and spilling their powerful light out into the world as if the children of God were just born and were soon going to conquer the earth.
That would be awesome. But, you didn’t get a great preacher, you just got me. I was cheap. Like, I cost nothing. Typically you get what you pay for.
Really, I am too young to preach something good to you. That is what I have been told anyway. I remember vividly the first time that I stood up to lead a worship service. I walked in front of the congregation, and just as I was about to open my mouth, a lady whispered pointing to me, “Isn’t that kid supposed to be lighting the candles?”
Another time I walked into a hospital room, offering to assist in any way that I could, “Hi, how are you today? How are you and God getting along?”
“When is the pastor coming in?” he replied.
When I told him that I was the pastor, he just laughed. He thought I cracked a great joke. He looked around the corner for the real pastor who was pulling his leg.
Now, I hate to say this but, don’t hate me just because I am beautiful and young.
If you have not heard it already, you will hear very soon, “Aren’t you a little young to be a doctor? Aren’t you a too young to be a lawyer? Don’t you need to be seasoned more to play in a professional orchestra?” “Do you really know enough or have enough experience to be guiding us in any meaningful way?” “You can’t really be 21; show me your ID.” And the grandest one of them all, are you ready, “you are the future.” If I am the future, what am I now? Dead air? “You are the future.” It seems like a nice sentiment at first, but if you really think about it, it sounds very much like, “Take a seat until it is your turn.” And, these words can zap the energy right out of you.
They were obviously zapping the energy right out of young Timothy as he tried to correct a Christian community which was driving itself off of a cliff. They were forgetting simple things like, “it’s OK to love each other and to even get married,” and “all things are acceptable to God, both food and people. Nothing and no one is trash to God.” Timothy knew these simple truths, but how do you do anything when you are simply a future and not a now? It is tempting to just say “whatever” and walk away.
“Don’t just walk away,” Timothy is encouraged in this letter to him. If you just walk away, you are doing the very thing that everyone else is trying to do to you, abandoning your God given gift. Christ chose you. “Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of elders.” Christ chose you. “Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.”
So, I am not the greatest preacher in the world, but Christ has given me something to say, and I am saying it. And, you are not great either. But, who cares? That means nothing. Christ has claimed you in love and has given you a unique gift also. Forget the dismissive words that a parent said to you in anger that one day, "You can't do anything right." Forget what a teacher said on a bad day or a frustrated coach one evening. You are a gift, and you have something to share now. You are not the future, you are the now. Hey, I think I just coined a great new catch phrase, “I am the now.” Alright, maybe it is not that great. “Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example.”
In the end, I chose not to dismiss the woman or the man or the countless others who tried to brush me off as being too young. I wanted to; believe me. But, I took a chance that Christ actually gave me a gift to offer these people. So, I stood up straight and preached to the woman, and I asked the man in the hospital bed a second time how things between him and God were going. Soon after the worship service was over, the woman met me and said, “Thank you, Pastor.” And at the end of the hospital visit the man said to me, “Make sure you come back preacher kid.” Take the chance and use your gift. Christ gave it to you to be used. “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example.”
All Scripture quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyrighted, 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and is used by permission. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment