It’s a beautiful day in early autumn, the warm light of the late-afternoon sun filtering through the yellowing leaves of mature trees. A bearded Jesus, wearing the white robe, sash and sandals in which he so often appears, sits beside a young person, one hand resting gently on the back of the park bench on which they both sit.
On the ground beside the young person, a male in his early twenties or late teens wearing a black leather jacket and faded grey jeans, sits an old knapsack and bedroll, suggesting that he’s on a journey – or perhaps about to set out on one.
The young man, hands folded, elbows resting on his knees, looks attentively at Jesus, ready to hear what he has to say.
Jesus, filled with compassion, quietly explains:
“No, when I said “follow me” I was not talking about twitter”.
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I posted this picture, with a slightly different caption, on the TUMC facebook group early this past week – having no idea at the time that I would use it in my sermon. It gives new meaning to the revival classic, “I have decided to follow Jesus”.
I’m not a big twitter user – at least not yet. And last week I declined an invitation from a good friend to join Google+, explaining that I already too inundated with information – news sites, blogs, facebook, not to mention email. Keeping up with it all takes a lot of commitment.
And yet, in another sense it doesn’t require much commitment at all– I don’t really need to keep up with everything. I can just drop in from time to time – paying more attention some days, less on others.
One of the things about Twitter, facebook, and other social media , is that they do not require much personal investment or commitment. We can easily have hundreds of “friends”, and we can pick and choose on a moment by moment basis whether we will pay attention to them – shifting our interests at will – and it really doesn’t matter that much.
We throw our ideas and images into cyberspace for the world, or at least our 500 closest facebook “friends”, to see, and hope that someone notices. If they do, perhaps “liking” or even making a comment, that’s great. If not – no big deal.
Following Jesus, on the other hand, is all about personal commitment –
Jesus asks, not to be one of our interests, but to be Lord of our lives.
Following Jesus is about how we live, where our ultimate allegiances lie.
Jesus wants much more than our interest in receiving periodic notices of 140 characters or less of what he might be thinking or feeling at the time.
Jesus wants our wholehearted commitment – Jesus calls us to follow him with our whole selves.
And the mission of inviting others to follow Jesus, or as TUMC’s youth ministry mission statement puts it, of actively inviting youth into a personal relationship and everlasting adventure with Jesus Christ, similarly calls for wholehearted commitment.
In today’s text from 1 Thessalonians Paul speaks of his ministry among the Thessalonians as taking place in the context of personal relationship: “So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.”
In light of these words, I want to frame the invitation to engage in youth ministry as an invitation to share our selves with youth, as an invitation to open ourselves up to them, to become invested in their well-being.
Youth Ministry is the theme of our service this morning – In terms of our fall theme of “room for all”,the theme of today’s service might be “room for the youth”. This morning youth have participated in the service in various ways, and we have particularly celebrated the mentoring programme that is such an important part of youth ministry at TUMC.
And this focus on youth ministry will continue after the service is over, when we are all invited to the church basement for a “Soup and Sophia” about Youth Ministry at TUMC – a time of food and conversation about how we serve the youth among us.
The soup part is a fundraiser for the Youth’s service and learning trip to Miami in March – an opportunity for us to support the youth financially through making a donation, and an opportunity to enjoy the soup they have made for us. In doing this we will be participating in youth ministry – financial support for youth programmes is an essential part of youth ministry.
The Sophia part – the wisdom – will be a time of conversation about the direction of TUMC’s youth ministry – an opportunity for us to talk around tables and share with the larger group our responses to the draft Youth Ministry Vision that the Youth Ministry Discernment Group has put forward.
Participating in this conversation is also a form of youth ministry. Listening and speaking with one another about our hopes, and what kinds of commitments we as a church community will make, is an important way in which we can serve the youth at TUMC.
This visioning, these dreams of what youth ministry at TUMC might be and become – these are important to our life together as a community.
But more important is what we do after the Youth Ministry Discernment process is over, how our lives and the life of our community are guided by this vision; how we live out and live up to the commitments involved in TUMC’s vision for youth ministry.
This is where youth ministry asks more of us, calls us to personal investment and commitment.
Staying for lunch and making a donation doesn’t cost us all that much – we all have to eat lunch anyway, and we’re already here.
And talking about youth ministry doesn’t cost that much either – it costs something – many of us have other things that call for our attention on a Sunday afternoon – whether it is a walk, a nap, or perhaps a game we wanted to watch, or concert we were thinking of attending. On the other hand, it’s pretty contained – It is one afternoon, and we’ll be on our way by 3:30.
But sharing our own selves with young people, taking a real interest in them and becoming involved in their lives – that cost a lot more. Entering into relationship with youth as individuals takes a lot of time, energy, and patience – and yet that is what I invite us to do – To make room for young people in our lives – To be open to being involved in their lives.
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As I was thinking about the challenge involved in the invitation to engaging in ministry – the invitation to personal investment and commitment to particular young people – a scene from the book, the Brothers Karamazov came to mind.
In this scene the elder of a monastery is responding to a woman’s confession of the difficulty that she will have in carrying out the elder’s exhortation that she pursue active love.
It’s just the same story as a doctor once told me,” observed the elder. “He was a man getting on in years, and undoubtedly cleve
r. He spoke as frankly as you, though in jest, in bitter jest. ‘I love humanity,’ he said, ‘but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams,’ he said, ‘I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced crucifixion if it had suddenly become necessary; and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he’s too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me.
I trust that these words do not quite describe how any of us feel about the youth at TUMC.
And yet I think the story which the elder tells clearly portrays how much easier it is to support “the youth” than it is to enter into relationships with particular young people.
As the elder’s story puts it, it is one thing to dream up enthusiastic schemes for the service of the youth at TUMC, and another thing to actively love individual youth, to spend time getting to know particular young people – Some of whom linger too long over their meals; some of whom get colds and keep blowing their noses.
It is one thing for TUMC to articulate a vision for youth ministry, and another thing for TUMC – for us – to live out that vision, engaging in ministry to particular young people, making room in our own lives for them even though their presence there may disturb our self-complacency and restrict our freedom.
And yet, I believe that the kind of youth ministry that we are called, a youth ministry that involves sharing our very selves with young people.
Faced with the challenge of enacting love, of loving human persons rather than “humanity”, the woman in Brother’s Karamozov asks the elder: What is to be done? Must one despair?
The elder responds both by assuring her that it is enough to be distressed about the difficulty – also instructing her – to avoid falsehood, especially falsehood to herself – and to not be frightened at her own faint heartedness in attaining love. He concludes:
I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labour and fortitude.
Perhaps it is overstating things to say that youth ministry in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with youth ministry in dreams – but it is a quite different thing.
Youth ministry, as a form of active love, certainly involves labour and fortitude; it requires personal investment, commitment.
And this is the challenge that is before us today – both to seek to discern together as a community what our vision for youth ministry might be – but also to live out this vision in the relationships we build with particular young people. With:
Gabriel Isabelle Jacob Jacobo Lukas
Quinten Siena Sylvie Timoni Sarita
Quintin Bridget Madeleine Cheyanne Dylan
Magdalene Jonah Josh Jerrom Isaac
Clay Chris Ben Ariane Derek
If I’ve missed anyone it is probably because I don’t yet have pictures of some of them.
Now obviously none of us, pastoral staff and TUMY and GERMS sponsors included, can’t possibly connect deeply with each one of these young people. In a seminar for youth pastors and sponsors at the Mennonite Church Canada Youth Assembly this summer the speaker suggested that five was about the maximum number of youth any one adult can really connect with. And that may even be a bit optimistic.
Sharing of one’s self with one or more of these youth – opening ourselves up to them, and becoming invested in their well-being, coming to really care deeply about them as individuals – is not like being facebook friends – it requires real-time conversations, flesh and blood presence – it requires adjusting our lives to make room for another, rather than taking a peek at what is going on in the life of another when, and if, it suits us for the moment.
But the challenge I put before us today is for each of us to seek to build a relationship with at least one of these youth
To get to know their names,to strike up a conversation with them
To take an interest in them – To ask them about their lives
To learn some things about them – where they go to school, what they are good at, what they like.
It is a call, a challenge, to personal investment and commitment to youth, to THESE youth, as well as to the future youth – the children who come forward for the story.
And while there is a sense in which this may be challenging and difficult, there is another sense in which it is fairly simple – because what I am talking about is quite simply friendship.