I came into the Pastor’s Study (usually a place of calm erudition and measured judgment) to a blooming, buzzing confusion. The eighth-grade confirmation class, plus some adults and recent confirmands, were studying for the upcoming exam. And they were all talking at once, but apparently all listening, too, and all excited. They were figuring out the answers to the exam questions and I think they were surprised by all they had learned. I realized (again!) how much I enjoy it when they are like this, all talking and giggling, enthused and hard at work. I was struck by how much the scene resembled the description of the original Christian Pentecost nearly two thousand years ago described in Acts. All talking at once, all enthused, all amazed by this thing that had come over them, this new knowledge, this new certainty. Peter had to step in and be the grown-up to reassure the crowd that they hadn’t gotten into the spirits but rather that they had been overtaken by the one Spirit.

As it happens, I’m also reading a book called Messy Spirituality by Michael Yaconelli. I’ve borrowed it from my wife, Linda, who has borrowed it from Bonnie Stump, who got it from Carol Blatt, who borrowed it from someone named Laura who I don’t know – another messiness, of course. The book seems to be sort of a guerilla classic. I’m surprised that all of these very tidy and upright people have read and enjoyed this book because it is all about how Christ comes to us not in spite of, but rather because of the messiness, the incompleteness, the downright incompetence of our lives. It’s full of wonderful stories and I highly recommend it. Yaconelli writes, “What characterizes Christianity in the modern world is its oddness. Christianity is home for people who are out of step, unfashionable, unconventional and countercultural.… Followers of Christ are odd. Oddness is important because it is the quality that adds color, texture, variety, beauty to the human condition.”

I once told one of the confirmands that I thought it was nice (actually, I may have said “neat” – good grief!) that young people could go to church and still be popular and “with it” and cool. She set me straight – “Oh, no,” she said, “I’m a nerd and glad to be. I stopped being cool a couple of years ago.” It turns out that the cool people were getting into things that she didn’t want to be about, so she decided to take her own path. Now, I’m not sure I completely believe her – she seems too talented and, well, “with it” not to be popular, but I’m certainly glad that she has the judgment and self-assurance to be able to decide for herself what kinds of people she wants to associate with and not simply be a slave to whatever is popular. I’m not sure I was as self-possessed as that at her age.

As I’ve said more than once, when my colleagues ask me what has surprised me about the experience of ministry, I tell them that the biggest surprise is how much I’ve enjoyed the confirmation classes. Not so much that I enjoy how I am with them (I still feel hopelessly ancient and out-of-step). I just enjoy them. I enjoy their liveliness and energy and sheer sense of fun, their promise and talent and potential. One might think that as long we can attract young people as lively and gifted as these, there’s a future in this old church. But while that’s true, the real truth is the other way around: This endlessly surprising God who never gives up on us also never fails to enliven the Body of Christ to do his work of taking back the world. Welcome to Pentecost, and the Confirmation Class of 2006.

Pastor Greg