First Congregational Church in Auburn UCC, June 2, 2024
2 Corinthians 4:5-12 (NRSV)
5 For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’s sake. 6 For it is the God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. 8 We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, 9 persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, 10 always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. 11 For we who are living are always being handed over to death for Jesus’s sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us but life in you.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
It was years and years ago, back when I was a pastor in rural Maine. My churches – there were three of them – were in one of the most beautiful parts of that beautiful state, and surrounded by kids’ camps. Between the beauty of the area, and the numbers of young adults who’d learned to love our area, my summers were always busy with weddings – sometimes as many as three on a weekend.
The one I want to tell you about today was one of the best. The weather was great. The bride was beautiful, the groom, handsome, the attendants lovely. Everyone was happy, the families were excited to see these two young people, who’d dated all through college, finally begin their lives together. They had planned the service down to the last detail, wanting everything to be right. The year before the wedding, they’d discovered that in the late afternoon, the setting sun’s rays made the interior of the church turn a lovely pink, just for a few moments. And so they timed the wedding for that moment. And it all went as they’d planned, the perfect wedding, bathed in perfect pink light.
About a year later, I got a phone call from the groom. He and his wife had gone to live up in Millinocket, where he was working for one of the paper plants. Their first child had been born, but now the baby was in the Maine Medical Center and they wanted, needed, me to come and pray for him, because it wasn’t clear he was going to make it.
I went, of course, and ended up baptizing the child there in the ICU. As I visited with the parents, it became clear that they were very angry… yes, they were frightened for their son; it was clear that, if he survived, he was going to have some obstacles to overcome. But there was more.
They were angry with God. They told me, “we made a deal with God. We would do everything right for our wedding, and God would bless us. We didn’t even live together, like everyone else, because we believed that would protect our future family. And now God has gone back on the bargain. Our son – even if he makes it, they’re telling us he’ll have problems. Why did this happen to us when we did the right thing?!”
Their son made it. And yes, he ended up having to have rehabilitative therapy. Not long after he got out of the hospital, the whole family moved to upstate New York, and I never heard from them again, except once, to let me know he was making progress.
But I’ve never forgot that little boy and his parents’ wrenching question. Why did this happen to us?
Now, you might thing that this is an odd story for Confirmation Sunday. It’s not really, because Confirmation is a time when you’re saying yes to life, and life is not just good stuff, sometimes it’s really bad. You need to know that joining this church, saying “yes” to God is not going to automatically protect you from things going wrong.
What it’s going to do is give you the way to survive, to find joy in the midst of sorrow. It’s going to give you help in making decisions that are complicated, it’s going to guide you on God’s path.
In our lesson for today, the Apostle Paul wrote: we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted by not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed…” Even in the midst of the worst that can happen, you will still have the presence of Jesus in your lives. Even if you do not feel that presence, it will be there. God never fails us.
Now, that’s not easy, and as I said, you may not always feel it. That’s why we’re here, why we want you to continue building friendships in this church, or in the church where you go to college, or where you eventually live. You need the rest of us, and we need you. When it’s tough, we’re here for each other. We become the spirit of Jesus for you when you’re in need, and you do the same for us.
Local churches exist to be community, friends, maybe even family for one another. There is no other group you can be a part of that welcomes everyone as they are. If you walk into a place that says it’s a church but you do not find welcome there, go find a better church. We’re not all perfect, we’re human, and we have to be honest, some churches are better at being church than others.
One last story for you to remember and hold onto when life gets challenging.
Alexander Coffin was driving home one night, coming home from a tennis game. It was a terribly stormy night, very dark, and he missed a curve and went into the ocean in South Boston. He was trapped and couldn’t get out of the car.
Alex’s father was then the pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City, one of the biggest of the big churches. People asked him how God could have done that, why God had killed Alex, just as he was about to graduate from college…. and this was his response:
The one thing that should never be said when someone dies is “It is the will of God.” Never do we know enough to say that. My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break.
. . . And of course I know, even when pain is deep, that God is good. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Yes, but at least, “My God, my God”; and the psalm only begins that way, it doesn’t end that way. As the grief that once seemed unbearable begins to turn now to bearable sorrow, the truths in the “right” biblical passages are beginning, once again, to take hold: “Cast thy burden upon the Lord and He shall strengthen thee”; “Weeping may endure for the night but joy cometh in the morning”; “Lord, by thy favor thou hast made my mountain to stand strong”; “For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling”; “In this world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world”; “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
And finally I know that when Alex beat me to the grave, the finish line was not Boston Harbor in the middle of the night. If a week ago last Monday, a lamp went out, it was because, for him at least, the Dawn had come.
So I shall — so let us all — seek consolation in that love which never dies, and find peace in the dazzling grace that always is.
So, on this beautiful day when you will pledge yourself to the Christian way and become members of this church, remember that we are here for you in good and in bad, that here you are loved and welcomed without measure, that here, and in every church that follows Christ’s way, you will always have a place to ask questions, a place to feel joy, a place to share sorrows, a place to know love.
Amen.
© 2024, Virginia H. Child
To Believe is to Care. . . To Care is to Do 