"an Autobiography" John 4: 39-42

This Sunday our confirmation class joins the church. They will profess their faith in Jesus Christ and commit to being his disciples.  I will anoint each of them as a response to their profession of faith.  In that context, I am reflecting on how the stories we tell of our faith are autobiographies -- they are our stories.  I cannot live someone else's faith; nor can I make someone else have faith.

I have been reading William Placher's book the Triune God.  In his introduction he describes the problem the Soren Kierkegaard had in introducing Christianity to peple who lived in a Christian world.  Placher noted that "Christian faith involves a personal process," and "faith has to impassion Christians, transform the ways they live their lives" (Placher, 26).  He goes on to describe three categories of Christians Kierkegaard uses:  the aesthetic life, which is always full of passion, but moves from moment to moment without making a commitment; the ethical life, which gives continuity and commitment, but ultimately breaks down because ethics cannot be the final word on human life (read Kierkgaard's work on Abraham and Isaac for a powerful analysis of that perspective); and religiousness A, in which believers work their way toward some spiritual connection to God (perhaps those who say they are spiritual, but not religious in our day fit this category), but cannot deal adequately with the persistence of human sin (Placher, 26-29).  I have been playing with those images this week as I think about preaching a sermon in the context of confirmands professing their faith.  What does it mean to them?  Or better yet, how can I help them lay claim to what it means for them?

Can you remember when you professed your faith?  Did you feel a change in your life?

I am reminded a scene from the movie Tender Mercies. Rosa Lee, the owner of the Mariposa Motel located on a deserted stretch of dusty road somewhere between Austin and San Antonio, watches as her son Sonny and her husband Mac Sledge, a formerly down-and-out songwriter into whom she had breathed new life through words of encouragement and acts of hospitality, are baptized in the local Baptist church.

On the way home in the pickup, a conversation passes back and forth between Mac and Sonny.

Sonny comments, “Well, we done it, Mac. We were baptized.” “Yeah, we are,” Mac responds.

“Everybody said I was gonna feel like a changed person,” Sonny continues. “I guess I do feel a little different, but I don’t feel a whole lot different, do you?”

“Not yet.”

Sonny strains to check himself in the rear view mirror, “You don’t look any different. You think I look any different?”

Mac smiles and shrugs, “Not yet.” Tender Mercies, Screenplay by Horton Foote, quoted by H. Virginia Jackson-Adams in Word and Witness, January 10, 1988.

the John passage is a snippet from the wonderful story of the Samaritan woman at the well.  I am struck by the fact that the people make the point of saying, "We do not believe because of what you told us.  We have heard Jesus for ourselves, and we believe it on our own."   In a way, that's what the confirmands are doing -- they were baptized as infants because of their parents' faith; now they claim it for their own.

I'm pretty sure quoting Kierkegaard will not impact the confirmands, but maybe there's s sermon here somewhere.  

Peace,


richard