June 9 2024 "Confirmation Address 2024"

 Readings:  Psalm 130, Genesis 3:8-15, 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1, Mark 1:16-22
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church on June 9, 2024

I shared a story with the Confirmation class, about my own confirmation. I had gone back to church as a teenager, after being absent for many years. Most of my friends that attended church had already been confirmed. But not me.

In the church that we attended one of the things you were not allowed to do… unless you were confirmed… was take communion. So, whenever there was a communion service, I always felt a little bit left out. That was not, however, my reason for wanting to be confirmed. I really wanted to say “Yes” to the promises made on my behalf when I was baptized as an infant in the Methodist church my mum attended.

I had become a follower of Jesus for myself, started going to the Presbyterian Church and  I wanted to witness to that fact that, like Simon and his brother Andrew, who all those years ago by Galilee’s shore heard Jesus saying, “Follow Me” I wanted to be a disciple. And in that particular church, that meant taking on the confirmation journey.

I went to see the minister, the late Rev. Barrie Redmore. Turned out that year I was the only young person wanting to be confirmed, so I was in a class of “ONE.” He gave me a folder (still got it) of pamphlets to read… and if I had any questions, well we could talk about it. So, no classes. No meetings. Just a lot of reading.

I know some of the youth might have found the classes I offered a little dull, but honestly if you had had to read those leaflets, they redefined the idea of dullness. I gave it my best shot, went to see him one more time. Then on Easter Sunday, 1976, (yes, that long ago) I was accepted into full membership of the church. They gave me a hymnbook which I still treasure it as a reminder.

I guess, considering the way my life has turned out, the process worked just about as well as it possibly could have. But everybody’s journey, is not my journey.

I do not know each of these confirmand’s reason for traveling through the classes. Maybe they were told to take the classes by parents or grandparents. Maybe, just something they had always thought to do as part of growing up in a Christian family. Maybe, just curiosity and a desire to do the right thing. Or maybe, like me, it just felt like the next thing to do in their discipleship journey.

As well as classes, like my home minister, I’ve given them a whole load of leaflets and stuff to read. I truly pray that it has been of value to them in their spiritual journeys. Because that’s what confirmation is, another of those milestones in our spiritual growth. And it does not matter if we don’t understand it all or believe it all or find it all works with where we are or who we are right now. I’ve sown seeds that only God can bring to fruition.

Our reading from Corinthians had Paul telling his readers “We look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen.” And he speaks about our lives as a “building from God, a house not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens.”

Again, I pray that here has been with each you, something going on with God’s Spirit, and that you will commit to carry on growing and building, that you will allow God to help you be the ‘you’ that only God can see right now.

There is so much pressure on youth in every age, to live up to everybody else’s expectations of what they should be and are allowed to do. If I’d listened to the expectations and ideas of those around me, rather than seeking God’s direction for my life, then I would not be standing here today. I hope you come to understand that it is your relationship with God that can determine your life’s paths in ways that nothing else can and nobody else can.

Your church may not live up to your expectations. Your family may not always be supportive. Your friends will let you down. But God is a rock. Sometimes when relationships with church, family or friends don’t work out, people blame God for that. 

My experience has been that God remains rock solid and can always be trusted. While others have let me down, God never has. One songwriter described his relationship to God, with these words. “He’s good for the body and great for the soul, He’s the Rock that doesn’t roll.”

Today, you have made your promises and given your statements of faith and we have been witnesses.  From here on, it’s in your hands as we commit you into God’s hands. I’ve witnessed some folks stay true to their confirmation commitments. I’ve seen others walk away as if their words didn’t mean a thing. Sad to say, but sadly true. So, I hope you understand… it’s all up to you now.

I hope I see you often in worship. I hope you fulfill all the leadership potential that I have seen in you over the last few months. I pray you discover the reality of a God who invites you to dance throughout your life with love and desires that this awesome grace filled  dance will continue on into eternity.  

I hope you’ll discover how the words of life in Scripture can be words for your life. I hope you’ll find, that among all the self-help and suggested ways of coping with life, that the best ways of all are the great privileges of prayer and service.

Confirmation class of 2024, Eli, Ami, Evie, Fallon, Dylan, Hudson, Poppy, Lila, Meadow and Sebastian, Jesus calls you by name, and like those very first disciples by the Sea of Galilee, is saying to your hearts… "Follow Me!” By the grace of the Holy Spirit may you be enabled to answer that holy summons, to the glory of God. Amen.

The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.