May 21, 2006
Confirmation Sunday
Year B
For today’s brief meditation today, I wanted us to look at a passage that
one doesn’t usually see associated with the rite of confirmation. Its also
one of those passages that needs just a little bit of historical background
in order to understand Paul’s words to the Corinthians. We have a
moment here where Paul is responding to some word of disappointment
from the church at Corinth that has reached him about the fact that he
has delayed his planned trip to see them. The Corinthians have
accused of him of not living up to his word, of speaking out of both sides
of mouth, making a promise he had no real intention of keeping. More
so than the Paul’s first letter to the church of Corinth, or at least the first
one we have in our New Testament between these two parties, there is a
bitterness reflected in the words of this second letter: feelings have been
hurt on both sides of the ledger and they are just now trying to set their
relationship in the proper perspective. What we have before us is Paul’s
defense of himself against the Corinthian’s accusation that he has said
one thing—yes—when he had actually means—no. Actions speak
louder than words, the Corinthians are thinking. Paul has delayed his
trip, he writes in response, out of consideration for the Corinthians
themselves, who seemed to have held onto some bitterness towards him,
and he simply did not want to aggravate a wound that was already
festering because too much attention had been paid to it. Now, the time
seems to be ripe for some healing and Paul writes to mend some fences
with them, offering his yes to them, though they, the Corinthians, are still
not sure they have a yes to offer back to him in return.
Its an interesting passage, this defensive moment by Paul, to sort of see
him justify a time when he had to break his word, when he had to say
“no” or at least “not yet” to a particular congregation. And its interesting
that he defends his character first, not by explaining himself, but by
referring to a greater principle, a greater yes than the yes he gave the
church a Corinth some time in the past. “God has said “yes” to us, to
you and to me,” he says to them, “and even my no is a yes, because I
chose not to come to Corinth out of care for you.” It’s the sort of that
argument that parents give their children when they have to lay down a
negative in order to create a positive—no, you can’t have what you want,
because it will hurt you and I don’t want you to be hurt—no, you can’t
watch more of the Cartoon Network because you need to finish up your
homework, and be prepared for school, and no, you can’t stay out until 2
AM with your friends because there are not a lot of good things
happening at 2 AM in the morning. You say no in order to pave the way
towards a greater yes—your safety, your future. A negative is meant to
create positive, though if you’re on other side of that negative, that not, it
doesn’t feel all that positive. Even adults have to deal with the no’s in
life—no, you can’t have a wide-screen TV, darling, because we have
credit cards to pay off, etc. You get the drill, but I’ve noticed that as you
get older, the recovery time from your anger at being told no by your
spouse or family or friends, the recovery time becomes quicker—you
have more experience with how the no’s you have received in your life
have sometimes been a good thing, one way or another.
But Paul says that every no, at least in the big scheme of thing, is a yes,
for those who follow this Jesus of Nazareth. All of the universe seems to
be in a divine conspiracy to answer God’s gift in this Christ by saying
yes, and, much to my surprise, I think that really is true, at least it has
been true in my own life. When I was somewhat younger, I think I really
believed the opposite—that, if anything, the universe was in conspiracy
against me, that all that was being said to me was no, whether it be
personally, professionally, financially, or any other part of my life. All the
closed doors, all the disappointments and all the struggles with
bitterness over the way the world ought to be—each of them festered for
such a long time, like the open wounds at this Corinthian church. But
something happened along the way, and I am not sure what, really,
except that maybe the yes’s became more apparent, more noticeable in
my life, and time gave me the perspective to notice that even the no’s
I’ve encountered have given birth to those great moments when the yes'
surprisingly surrounded me.
At the beginning of the Nietzsche/Kierkegaard class we just finished,
Sylvia asked why in the world I would be interested in the writings of
Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher who’s not known for being the most
happy-go-lucky sort of guy—it didn’t seem to her to make much sense
since she saw me as such positive person. That stunned me, because I
don’t think of myself that way, as being a positive person, and I don’t
think you would have met many people 10 or 15 years ago who would
have thought of me that way. But that is what time and perspective
does, maybe, and maybe that is what God does in one’s life, given
enough time, because I can’t explain it any other way. Maybe, just
maybe, all the no’s in my life, our lives, maybe there is some purpose to
them, maybe some of those no’s have a meaning behind them, and
maybe if we pay attention to our lives, we can see the ways that we have
been strengthened and made stronger because God or the universe or
mom or dad or my best friend, said no at some point in the past. Don’t
get me wrong—I don’t think all the bad things that happen to us have
meaning or purpose—some things that happen are simply meaningless
and horrible—but I do think that God can take a no—a body of a
crucified man, let’s say, outside the city walls of Jerusalem—and create
an incredible yes out of such horror, out of such human cruelty—a
resurrection, life when there was no life left to be found. And, Sylvia, I
still don’t think of myself that way, as being positive—the glass still
remains half empty for me, and I still think that on every Saturday in the
fall during football season that somehow, my beloved alma mater
Alabama will find someway to lose a game they are leading in the 4th
quarter. But obviously I’m wrong a lot of the time, and sometimes my
pessimism is not well founded, and for that I am very thankful as well.
I guess, the whole point of that little bit of testimony is to say to the
Confirmands something I hope they learn quicker than many of us have,
which is this truth: maybe our part of the work of being transformed or
converted from the inside out, from taking the negatives within us and
making them into positives; maybe our part of this great work God is
doing is for us to say yes, when all of our instincts say no, when all of our
instincts say that nothing good can come out of the grave and there will
be no resurrection. If God has said yes, and has even said yes when a
no has been seemingly been uttered in our lives, than maybe our reply
to God’s yes should be our own powerful yes.
So, I would say this to you, Jacob, Natalie, Kent, Charlotte, Eric, Victor,
Nicole, and Will—say yes, try to say yes, when life seems to say no to
you—say yes to your doubts, say yes to love, say yes to hope, say yes
to your questions, say yes to the hard things that just come with growing
up and becoming the adults you will soon become. But also say yes to
God, say yes to God’s own love and embrace of you. The no’s will
certainly come in your life, the difficult things will always be there and
even then we are still asked to embrace the hard parts of our lives,
knowing that God can make a yes out of those things, even when it
seems absurd to believe that such a thing could really happen. I know
that to be true in my own life—when there was no way, a way was found,
and I could hardly half believe it when it did happen. YES is the answer
God has given us, and unbelievably I admit, the answer YES has
somehow been programmed into the heart of the universe, if we are to
believe Paul here in this passage. The right answer, the one answer
that is a cleanly and crisply given to us by God, is yes. So, you now
have the answer to the quiz that is life, the quiz we are all destined to
take. I’m telling you, 2006 Confirmation Class, it is the answer that even
in the midst of our deepest despair, and all the no’s that we have been
given or will be given in the future, it is the answer that crazily, somehow
makes the quiz itself worth taking in the first place—that yes given to us
by God makes life worth living, or at least it does for me. May you go
from this place and from this day knowing that God has said yes to you—
that truth, more than any other word, that will give you the answer to all
the many questions that life will certainly throw your way. Amen.
