Why I am a Christian
I thought that since last month I covered something very broad -- Finding Meaning in Life -- that this month I'd go with something narrower, and a little easier to fit into 8-10 minutes: Why I am a Christian. Nothing? Okay, stick with me here, folks.
Now if you happen to drift off during the sermon, I'd like you to take the time to think about what your stories are--why you're a Christian, if you are, and if you're not, whether this might be the right path for you, whether God might be calling you to be a Christian.
And when I say "Christian" I mean by that someone who is committed to serving God, who tries to put at the center of their lives living out Christian values and doing what they believe God's will is.
So, I think the first and easiest answer to the question of why I am a Christian is this: I was born a Christian. I was born to two Methodists and was baptized as an infant; before I can remember. And I remember from when I was very young going to communion at the church. The church looked a lot like this one, with a center aisle. And we'd walk down the aisle in two rows, and then kneel at the front altar. They'd hand out this wafers--which are like no other food I've seen anywhere--and next would be the grape juice in trays. Do you guys have them here? It came in these--what looked like little shot glasses. And I thought, being so small, that those glasses were just my size. I loved it.
Now just because I grew up in the church isn't the only reason that I'm a Christian. There are plenty of people who grow up but leave later. I think the reason for me that I stayed with it is that I made a decision to do that--to commit my life to God.
The summer I was 13 or 14, I went with my church to a place called Heart Butte, Montana. We were on a mission trip and we were helping add on to a community center on a reservation. It rained A LOT that week. I remember us going out in the rain to hammer together tresses for the addition. Toward the end of the week we finally got most of them up, in spite of the rain.
And I remember during that time really feeling like part of a community--feeling loved and seeing God's love in action in the work we were doing. One woman in particular - her name was Robin - was very kind to me. And so at the end of the week we had this sweetgrass ceremony, where we were burning sweetgrass and receiving a kind of blessing from the pastor with it. And we were singing "Surely, the presence of our God is in this place, I can feel God's mighty power and grace." And I could feel it, that God was present, and I said yes. Come what may, I promised to follow where God might call me to go, follow where Jesus would lead me.
Now that wasn't the end of the story. I had what some folks would think of as a test of my faith. About a year later my mom, who had gone into remission, got cancer for a second time. That was the beginning of a very difficult time in my life. It was like being on a roller coaster. There would be bad news, and things would be really bad, but then we'd get used to them or they'd get better, and then it would start all over again--Mom might go into the hospital again or something like that.
And then the summer after my freshman year of college, Mom got the bad news from the doctors--there were no more treatments for her, she should get ready to die. So I came home from college and took turns with my dad watching her--the morphine sometimes made her not realize where she was or forget that she couldn't do things she thought she could. And finally, in August she died.
Now for some folks suffering is an argument against believing in God. Why would God allow things like Hurricane Katrina, or the earthquakes in Pakistan, or something closer to home like the sickness and suffering of a loved one, like my mom? And I don't mean to say that I wasn't angry with God. I was. But being angry with someone is still having a relationship with them. I didn't turn away, though, and I didn't stop believing.
And I think the reason for that was that I saw God and felt God present with us through the people of our church. When Mom was in the hospital, we'd find lasagnas left on our front porch so that we'd have something to eat. The church prayed for us every Sunday, and when she was in her last sickness people would come to visit her. Some of them didn't necessarily say the most sensitive things, but they were there. I remember three women in particular who came together and just sat around laughing and chatting with Mom in her room. They showed their support, and through them I felt God's presence.
I think what motivated the people of our church to show such love was at least partly the big dream that Jesus talks about in our gospel lesson from John tonight. In the Scripture passage, Nicodemus, who's a big shot--an elder in the community, someone with a reputation for good judgement--hears about Jesus, and he decides that Jesus has something he wants, that Jesus has an "in" with God, and knows something that he wants to know. But he still has a reputation to uphold, so he sneaks out in the middle of the night, when no-one's around, to go and talk to Jesus.
"Jesus," he says, "What do I have to do to have what you have? How can I get this eternal life you're talking about?"
At this point Jesus tells him "You have to be born all over again." Now, most of us have an idea of what it means to be a born-again Christian - that it's a particular type of Christian - and this passage is where that image comes from. But imagine for a minute that you're like Nicodemus, who was the first person to hear this idea, that we know of. What would it be like if your life became a blank slate, and you lost all your memories and your bad habits and your ways of doing things? Or what if you were to rewind your life all the way back to when you were born? What would that be like?
Nicodemus doesn't get it at first--what a strange idea! Is he supposed to somehow crawl back into his mother's womb? It's ridiculous. Jesus can't help giving him a hard time: "Stop taking me so literally," is his first response, and then he says, "You're a big shot and you don't understand how this works?"
The thing is, Jesus is not looking for some minor adjustments in our lives, that we try a little harder, or change our plans for Sunday mornings. Jesus is talking to Nicodemus about a big dream, a total transformation. A time when the world is marked by justice and love, when everyone is included and accepted, when love is the rule and not the exception. That is Jesus' big dream. That is the dream that motivated my church to care for us in our time of need. That is the big dream that inspires me, and Jesus' big dream is, ultimately, the reason why I am a Christian.
Now if you happen to drift off during the sermon, I'd like you to take the time to think about what your stories are--why you're a Christian, if you are, and if you're not, whether this might be the right path for you, whether God might be calling you to be a Christian.
And when I say "Christian" I mean by that someone who is committed to serving God, who tries to put at the center of their lives living out Christian values and doing what they believe God's will is.
So, I think the first and easiest answer to the question of why I am a Christian is this: I was born a Christian. I was born to two Methodists and was baptized as an infant; before I can remember. And I remember from when I was very young going to communion at the church. The church looked a lot like this one, with a center aisle. And we'd walk down the aisle in two rows, and then kneel at the front altar. They'd hand out this wafers--which are like no other food I've seen anywhere--and next would be the grape juice in trays. Do you guys have them here? It came in these--what looked like little shot glasses. And I thought, being so small, that those glasses were just my size. I loved it.
Now just because I grew up in the church isn't the only reason that I'm a Christian. There are plenty of people who grow up but leave later. I think the reason for me that I stayed with it is that I made a decision to do that--to commit my life to God.
The summer I was 13 or 14, I went with my church to a place called Heart Butte, Montana. We were on a mission trip and we were helping add on to a community center on a reservation. It rained A LOT that week. I remember us going out in the rain to hammer together tresses for the addition. Toward the end of the week we finally got most of them up, in spite of the rain.
And I remember during that time really feeling like part of a community--feeling loved and seeing God's love in action in the work we were doing. One woman in particular - her name was Robin - was very kind to me. And so at the end of the week we had this sweetgrass ceremony, where we were burning sweetgrass and receiving a kind of blessing from the pastor with it. And we were singing "Surely, the presence of our God is in this place, I can feel God's mighty power and grace." And I could feel it, that God was present, and I said yes. Come what may, I promised to follow where God might call me to go, follow where Jesus would lead me.
Now that wasn't the end of the story. I had what some folks would think of as a test of my faith. About a year later my mom, who had gone into remission, got cancer for a second time. That was the beginning of a very difficult time in my life. It was like being on a roller coaster. There would be bad news, and things would be really bad, but then we'd get used to them or they'd get better, and then it would start all over again--Mom might go into the hospital again or something like that.
And then the summer after my freshman year of college, Mom got the bad news from the doctors--there were no more treatments for her, she should get ready to die. So I came home from college and took turns with my dad watching her--the morphine sometimes made her not realize where she was or forget that she couldn't do things she thought she could. And finally, in August she died.
Now for some folks suffering is an argument against believing in God. Why would God allow things like Hurricane Katrina, or the earthquakes in Pakistan, or something closer to home like the sickness and suffering of a loved one, like my mom? And I don't mean to say that I wasn't angry with God. I was. But being angry with someone is still having a relationship with them. I didn't turn away, though, and I didn't stop believing.
And I think the reason for that was that I saw God and felt God present with us through the people of our church. When Mom was in the hospital, we'd find lasagnas left on our front porch so that we'd have something to eat. The church prayed for us every Sunday, and when she was in her last sickness people would come to visit her. Some of them didn't necessarily say the most sensitive things, but they were there. I remember three women in particular who came together and just sat around laughing and chatting with Mom in her room. They showed their support, and through them I felt God's presence.
I think what motivated the people of our church to show such love was at least partly the big dream that Jesus talks about in our gospel lesson from John tonight. In the Scripture passage, Nicodemus, who's a big shot--an elder in the community, someone with a reputation for good judgement--hears about Jesus, and he decides that Jesus has something he wants, that Jesus has an "in" with God, and knows something that he wants to know. But he still has a reputation to uphold, so he sneaks out in the middle of the night, when no-one's around, to go and talk to Jesus.
"Jesus," he says, "What do I have to do to have what you have? How can I get this eternal life you're talking about?"
At this point Jesus tells him "You have to be born all over again." Now, most of us have an idea of what it means to be a born-again Christian - that it's a particular type of Christian - and this passage is where that image comes from. But imagine for a minute that you're like Nicodemus, who was the first person to hear this idea, that we know of. What would it be like if your life became a blank slate, and you lost all your memories and your bad habits and your ways of doing things? Or what if you were to rewind your life all the way back to when you were born? What would that be like?
Nicodemus doesn't get it at first--what a strange idea! Is he supposed to somehow crawl back into his mother's womb? It's ridiculous. Jesus can't help giving him a hard time: "Stop taking me so literally," is his first response, and then he says, "You're a big shot and you don't understand how this works?"
The thing is, Jesus is not looking for some minor adjustments in our lives, that we try a little harder, or change our plans for Sunday mornings. Jesus is talking to Nicodemus about a big dream, a total transformation. A time when the world is marked by justice and love, when everyone is included and accepted, when love is the rule and not the exception. That is Jesus' big dream. That is the dream that motivated my church to care for us in our time of need. That is the big dream that inspires me, and Jesus' big dream is, ultimately, the reason why I am a Christian.
posted by Amy Sens at 12:53 PM
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