Passing on the Flame

Yesterday, I was honored to receive three young women into church membership through baptism and confirmation. They are in the sixth and seventh grades right now. My sermon considered the way that many churches marginalize young church members like these. In my opinion, they will become active church members as adults only if they are encouraged to use their Spirit-given gifts to the church right now. We older members also need to hear their perspective on faith and ministry, since they are natives in an electronic world to which most of us are only immigrants (and late immigrants, at that)! If you choose to read the complete sermon, think about how your own faith community views younger people. Do you allow them the opportunity to minister in Christ's name... or must they wait until they are older?

I hope that all of you are as proud as I am of these three young women. They have worked very hard since last September as members of my confirmation class. They have learned a lot! They have studied their faith – the sacraments, our UCC Statement of Faith, and the biblical basis behind all of it. They have learned about our denomination – our four-stranded history, the four settings of the UCC and what each one does, and how our local church governs itself. They have examined themselves for spiritual gifts, and each one has made a commitment to use at least one gift in our common ministry here at Nashville. And they will continue to work hard over the summer completing their service project to our congregation as we repaint the church nursery!

Of course, there are a couple of things that they can’t do yet, because they are, after all, young women. They’re still in school. They can’t drive yet. They still have some growing up to do. Their thinking and their experience has a long way to go! And because that is the case, the age of the youth who join the church through confirmation is a problem for lots of congregations. In these churches, young women and men like these are “second class members” until they reach voting age. These churches say, in effect, “We know you’re members… but until you’re grown up, you’re not really members.” And that’s unfortunate. We deny ourselves both their enthusiasm and their perspective when we say things like that.

It’s not a new problem. Even the apostle Paul had to deal with it. You just heard part of a letter that he wrote to Timothy, who was a leader in the church at Ephesus (in modern-day Turkey). In the middle of a long list of advice like “Don’t buy into old wives’ tales,” and “Train yourself in godliness,” Paul says this: “Let no one despise your youth.” The Message Bible, a modern paraphrase of the text, puts it this way: “Don’t let anyone put you down because you’re young.” Apparently the older Christians in Timothy’s congregation weren’t paying any attention to him because he was younger than they were. After all, he hadn’t lived nearly as long as they had. They were more experienced in the ways of the world. They thought that he needed to learn from them, not the other way around.

But the truth is that we all have something to learn from one another. We older church members need to listen to our younger church members as much as they need to listen to us. I told these young women that at our final meeting last week, and I think I surprised them. After all, they’re used to hearing people say “Listen to your elders.” And of course, they should listen to what older folks have to say. They know that. But we need to listen to them, too. After all, they are growing up in a world that is strange to those of us who grew up… well, some time ago. We “mature members” are like immigrants who have been dragged kicking and screaming into the unfamiliar country of Playstation, Facebook, and Twitter. If some of you don’t know what I’m talking about… well, that just proves my point. These young women were born into a world of instantaneous communication, global networking, and multiculturalism. They have never known life without cable TV, cell phones, and the internet! And that’s OK. Their world is where the church is headed. In fact, their world is not just the future of the church; it’s the present reality of the church! Maybe it would be a good idea for us to ask them what faith means for their generation – and then listen to them when they tell us!

You may have noticed that I titled these remarks “Passing on the Flame” instead of “Passing on the Torch.” I did that deliberately. When a torch is passed, it stays the same. The torch doesn’t change in the process. This summer, while we are awaiting the start of the Olympic Games in London, we will watch the Olympic torch as it is passed from Athens to Moscow to Beijing to San Francisco to New York and finally to its home in London. During that entire, long journey, it will be the same torch. It simply moves country to country.

Passing on a flame, however, is a different story. A flame may be kindled by one person, but when it is passed to another, it becomes their own. The person who receives it has to care for it. It might burn more brightly for its new caretaker, or it might flicker low. Without the proper care, it might even go out. But it is certain that the flame won’t burn the same way for the person who receives it. The Christian faith is like that flame. It will burn differently for these young people than it does for us. It will take different forms. It will burn in different places. It will touch different people. And while they may be able to contain it, they won’t be able to control it any more than we can. A flame, after all – especially the flame of the Spirit – has a mind of its own!

So, you three young women who have just been confirmed into church membership – today we pass the flame of our faith on to you, just as it was passed on to us. Take care of it. Don’t let it go out. Help it to burn brightly in places and ways that we older folks can never even imagine! And then – when the time is right – pass it on to someone else, so that it can burn brightly in new ways for them, too.