Sermon from "FreeRide" Middle School Retreat, 18 October 2014

When I was first ordained, I used to post the manuscript to almost every sermon I preached on a blog, and I got out of the habit. It goes without saying that what's on the page does not always reflect what I say (especially in a case like this where, following the lead of Jason Chesnut, the chaplain at FreeRide 2014, I tried to be as independent of the page as possible), and what I say does not always reflect the way folks hear and understand it. I've gotten back more than enough confirmation worship notes to know this is the case. But in response to a couple of requests, and the fact that the non-middle school aged members of Salem were mostly not there, here's a copy of at least what I planned to say at worship during the Delaware/Maryland Synod's Middle School Retreat this past Saturday.

Mark 12:28-34

The First Commandment

 One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’ Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’ Then the scribe said to him, ‘You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that “he is one, and besides him there is no other”; and “to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength”, and “to love one’s neighbour as oneself”,—this is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’ When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ After that no one dared to ask him any question.

Hey FreeRide. Would you pray with me?

Lord God, We love you.

I mean, we think we love you.

Well, we’re trying to figure out

How to love you.

It’s confusing. And it’s hard.

But thanks for loving us,

Even as we struggle with what that means. Amen.

So, when I was going into seventh grade,

My Dad became a pastor, and my family moved from Ohio to Michigan.

and…It was different.

In Ohio, elementary school went through sixth grade, but in Michigan,

Everybody had already been in Middle school for a whole year when I got there.

It took me like three whole days to figure out how to open my locker. But not only was the place different, but I started to feel different. I had all new friends, I started to listen to different music, I was trying to figure out who I was now. And up here on the screen I want to show you, at the beginning of 8^th grade, who I thought I was. 

This is the cover of my 8^th grade journal that I had to do for school. There’s Archangel and Beast, two of my favorite X-men, Mr. Spock of course, Daredevil (before the lame movie came out), and right here is Chris Cornell from Soundgarden. Oh, my gosh you guys. Soundgarden rocked. I can’t even tell you. I mean, here’s Bono from U2, they’re OK in their own non-Soundgarden-y way, but Soundgarden was just epic. I even drew a picture of me, in my future band, which was going to rock like Soundgarden, and of course Spider-man would be a fan, so that was all going to be great.

But the problem was, I was in confirmation, right? Who here is in confirmation? Who here has to take confirmation from their dad?

Been there.

So we were learning about the Ten Commandments, and about how we’re supposed to have no other Gods, and love God more than anything else, and here was this page full of stuff I loved, but…

Where was God?

In fact, for me, part of why Soundgarden rocked so hard was they were like, dark and brooding and loud, and basically everything churchy music wasn’t, and I was starting to play guitar, and I wanted to make dark, brooding, loud music too, and I started to wonder…

Do I love God enough?

And then, you guys…I started to, you know, meet girls and stuff? And I guess I, sort of liked them or whatever—shut up!—but as I started dating, I thought to myself, “Dude, I definitely do not think about God half as much as I think about my girlfriend. So what’s wrong with me?”

So Jesus is in the middle of a serious throw-down with the Pharisees and Sadducees in

 Jerusalem. They’re debating about God stuff, and the Pharisees are throwing all these Biblical ninja-stars at him, like, “well what about this?” pshhhewww! And Jesus is like, “Well here’s what I think about that,” Whaaa! And they’re trying to trick him, but he’s doing all these sweet Bible-ninja moves and stuff, and while this is going on, this scribe comes up.

And a scribe’s job was to know the whole Bible, because most people couldn’t read, so they’d just ask a scribe what the right thing to do was. And this was a big job you guys, because you know how you have to learn the 10 Commandments in confirmation? So, what if there were, I don’t know, 613 of them? That’s how many commandments there were just in the first five books of the Bible, you had to learn those, and then there were like other commandments you should follow just to be sure you would never break those commandments, so yeah. The scribes were basically people who stayed in Confirmation class until forever. So this scribe sees Jesus’ Bible ninja moves, and he wants to figure him out, so he asks this simple question: “which commandment is first of all?” Not out of ten, but out of 613!

And Jesus doesn’t even blink. He takes something from Deuteronomy, and something from Leviticus and puts them together: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

And here’s where the miracle happens you guys, because for a moment, the Bible-ninja battle stops, and Jesus and this scribe agree with each other. And there’s no other place in the Gospels where this happens.

So this commandment must be huge, right?

So I was listening to this as a teenager, and I had all this guilt, because I loved lots of stuff that wasn’t God, and I didn’t like, spend all my time listening to Church music doing church stuff with church friends

and having a churchy time at church. So I knew in my mind, I wasn’t loving God enough.

Honestly, I wasn’t even really sure

where God fit in.

So a couple years later, I got this weird invitation: I had written some songs—dark, brooding, loud of course—and a pastor invited me to like, play them at a church event, in front of a bunch of church kids. And I was like, “Have you heard my music?” But I went up, and I got onstage, and for the whole time, I was apologizing to the crowd, I said, “I’m so sorry guys, the stuff I do doesn’t talk about God, it’s not really Christian, Sorry.”

So I finished up, and got offstage, and this big burly guy from Wisconsin pulled me aside—he was the keynote speaker for the whole thing—and he looked at me and said, “Tim, don’t ever say your music isn’t Christian. You’re a Christian, and you’re using the talents God gave you, and talking about your life. And that glorifies God.”

And that turned everything around for me, because I suddenly realized that loving God wasn’t just about what all I did inside a church building with other church people, it was about living my whole life, and using all my gifts and all the stuff I like doing, from a place of love.

It was about knowing in my heart that God made me this way for a reason, and that Jesus didn’t die for the fake, smiley, churchy version of me: Jesus died for the real me, who loved to head-bang and read comics and talk to girls, and that God was using all that stuff in me, to help me love my neighbors and make their lives better.

Jesus did that with his disciples: He didn’t call Peter and James and John and say, “Hey, stop fishing because I want you to do my thing!” He said, “Hey, you’re good at fishing, so I want to teach you how to do it for God!”

And that’s how Jesus is calling you, too.

So, believe me: you’re not going to learn all 613 commandments. You’re never going to be able to just spend your whole lives doing churchy stuff and listening to church music

with churchy people,

and God doesn’t want you to!

God loves you! Jesus died for you! The real you! The you that likes what you like, and is friends with who you’re friends with, and plays the sports you play and reads the books you read.

And I know you’re still trying to figure out who you are—here’s a secret: you never stop—but God doesn’t want you to become a different person. God wants you. God wants to use the things you’re already good at, not just on Sundays, but seven days a week—to make the world a better place to live in, a world that’s more fair and kind and loving, and where more people know how much God loves them and that Jesus gave his life for them.

Obviously, we do plenty of stuff that God doesn’t want us to, and it’s impossible to ever fully stop.

But even when we mess up, God uses those mess-ups, because the more we mess up, the more we remember God forgives us, and the more thankful we are, and the better we are at letting other people know they’re forgiven too. See how that works? That’s some forgiveness ninja stuff right there. God is good.

Because God loves you and Jesus died for you—the real you—that love will catch on in your life, in the things you like to do, and you’ll be able to love your neighbor as yourself.

Like a love-ninja. Amen.