6/11/23 Sermon
My hope is that we’ve provided these young adults in confirmation with more questions than we have answers. That they’re coming here today publicly professing their faith with the understanding that today doesn’t mark the end of a journey, but rather this is a stepping off point, a place where we start, a beginning point for the rest of their lives. I hope what we’ve done, in fact, is not given them any answers, but what we’ve done is helped them develop tools to think deeply, critically, and honestly about their faith. I hope what we’ve done is given them permission to question everything about it. I hope we’ve opened up their hearts and minds not to certainty, but to doubt. Because this morning isn’t about recognizing the end, but about acknowledging this is just the beginning. And that this process hasn't been about giving them the "correct answers" but about teaching them to ask the right questions.
After spending months of their Sunday afternoons with Ginny and me My prayer is that they realize something vitally important about the nature of faith. And that’s something that the theologian Paul Tillich once said: Faith isn’t an answer. Faith is a question. And every question has a hint of doubt in it. But it’s that hint of doubt, that question of who or what God is, that longing to know and connect to this God better, that keeps us searching, and looking, and asking to know God better and in deeper ways. Questions and doubts aren’t the enemies of faith. If they’re used right, they’re integral tools in the development and strengthening of faith.
It’s not that answer aren’t important. And it isn’t that we shouldn’t expect answers to our questions. And it certainly isn’t the case that faith doesn’t contain answers. There are certainties that come with faith. There are answers that we find in our faith. God’s grace and God’s love are things we can take for certain. The theologian Karl Barth is notorious for saying, “Jesus is the answer. Now, what’s the question.” But I believe that the way we get to those answers and those certainties comes through our ability and our courage to ask the questions.
The problem is that too often for some reason people get the idea that church isn’t the place to ask these questions - to step out and examine who we are, what we believe, and what it really means to be a Christian. The Church has developed the reputation of being a place you go to suspend disbelief, blindly accept things despite evidence to the contrary, and give in to absolutes. People are of the opinion that church and thereby Christianity only deals in certainty and doubt doesn’t have a place here. But that simply isn’t or shouldn’t be the case.
Church should be a community that we get to struggle with these questions and doubts together, where we look for the answers together, where we find that maybe the only absolute is God. Church is a community where each of us seem to have different pieces to the puzzle and when we bring our pieces here, we begin to see a little bit better how they all fit together. Church, like confirmation, shouldn’t be a place where you go to be handed the answers, but it’s a community where you get to struggle with the questions together in order to find those answers.
And so To our confirmands this morning, as you begin this new journey, please don’t ever lose your courage to question or let anyone provide you with easy answers. Don’t ever lose your curiosity or let anyone convince you that you have to fit neatly inside of a certain box. Don’t ever stop listening to God speaking to your heart or let anyone squelch that voice. Love openly, feel deeply, accept freely, forgive often, remember God’s grace is forever on your life, and keep the courage of being what uniquely makes you you, knowing that not only does God and Jesus love you but this church loves you as well. Welcome to the church. Your journey is just beginning. Welcome to adulthood. You’re still going to have to clean your room.