Ezekiel 37:1-14

Acts 2:1-21

NUCC

Pentecost/Confirmation

June 4, 2006

            Some people describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.”  Robert Fuller, a professor at Bradley University in Illinois has made a study of such people.  He claims that 1 in 5 Americans would describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.”  Such people would claim to have spiritual concerns.  They believe in some sort of power beyond themselves.  They engage in practices such as meditation.  They struggle with how their lives fit into the greater scheme of things.  But they do not participate in church.  Church is too organized.  Too rigid.  For this reason “spiritual but not religious” people follow their own, individualized path to the holy.  Some would claim that they have out grown religion.

            One of the stereotypes of confirmands is that they also do not participate in church.  Perhaps you have heard the joke about the minister who was worried about bats in the belfry.  He had done everything.  He had called an exterminator.  He had played loud music.  He had even gone up there himself and tried to shoot them away. All without success.  His colleague from the church down the street informed him that he had solved the problem.  The solution was simple.  He simply baptized the bats and then confirmed them.  He never saw them again.

            Unfortunately there is some truth to that joke.  You know people who were confirmed at this church and disappeared shortly thereafter, perhaps to come back at Christmas or on Youth Sunday.  That’s the problem with Confirmation, especially if you are just going through it to please your parents or grandparents.  It can be a fake ceremony.

            None of us wants to be fake.   But we do want to be spiritual.  And some of us also want to be religious, that is, involved with other spiritual people who want to form a community called the church.

            I think of our scripture lessons today, especially the lesson from Acts.  People, ordinary people were gathered in Jerusalem.  All kinds of people.  From all kinds of places.  They had a “spiritual experience.”   Somehow they felt as if they were filled with God’s Holy Spirit.  But they didn’t keep it to themselves.  They went on to form the Christian Church.  In the process they had disagreements, but they stuck with one another and shared the “spiritual gifts.”  Somehow they were both spiritual and religious.  They knew they needed God.  But they also knew they needed God’s people ---- the church.

            Over the Memorial Day weekend Karen and I listened to an interesting book on tape while we drove to Sheboygan to see my mother.  The book was called Amazing Grace:  A vocabulary of Faith.  The author was a woman named Kathleen Norris.

            She grew up in the church.  Her grandfather was a Methodist minister and she was even confirmed in one of our churches.  When she went away to college and became a writer she stopped going to church.  For 20 years she might have described herself as “spiritual but not religious.”  Then something happened.  She moved back to the town in South Dakota where he grandparents lived and she began to attend a Presbyterian Church.  Then she lived at a Benedictine Abbey for a while.  In the process this “spiritual” person also became a “religious” person.

            In her book she reflected on others who had searched in more exotic locales.  Some had searched out shamans practicing Native American spirituality.  Others had traipsed off to Thailand in hopes of entering a Buddhist monastery.  In the case of the Native Americans, they were concerned about dilatants dabbling in their ancient practices. The Buddhist monks had told the Jewish and Christian seekers to go back and learn about their faiths before trying on another.

            For Kathleen Norris the message was this:  discovery the rich spiritual treasures in your own backyard before searching out exotic locales.  Mine the depths of your spirituality before adopting someone else’s.  Kathleen Norris found her treasure in a small town church in the Dakotas.

            She would invite us to find our spiritual treasures in a small town church in Wisconsin.  In our own community, but also in conversation and connection with other communities.  Not giving up our faith, but learning from other faiths and other spiritual seekers.

            We had this experience on our Urban Immersion trip to Milwaukee.  We enjoyed the connection with Hindus and Muslims and black Pentecostal Christians.  We learned something from them.  But we also learned that being “spiritual” isn’t enough.  We have to be involved and connected.  This we learned at Guest House men’s shelter on Friday evening and Hope House women’s shelter on Saturday morning.  Being spiritual means being so religious that we can’t help but help other people.  And the best way to do it is together --- in the church.

            On this your Confirmation Day I invite you to be spiritual.  You have just begun your spiritual journey.  But I also invite you to be religious, and I hope that will take place right here.

Amen.