COMMUNION MEDITATIONS Sunday, April 29, 2007 Members of Fourth Church Rising (Eighth Grade Confirmation Class), Fourth Presbyterian Church Ephesians 4:1–7, 9–13 Erin Juley There is a point in our lives where people expect us to know or have some idea of what we are going to do for the rest of our lives. Some people are still thinking about what they want to accomplish, and some people have so many great ideas that it is impossible to narrow them down. There can be so many distractions in life that can influence your decision instead of listening to yourself and what you think God calls you to do. I believe God gives us choices and in doing so gives us all individual talents that help us make all those decisions. I am sure that God knows if he told us what to do and how to live our lives then we wouldn’t be our own person. I also believe that he sends people to help us make those hard decisions and that is why you have to be open to all of the possibilities of God working in your life. Serendipity is a word we use in our house a lot. We attribute it to all the good things that we receive without looking or asking for. Serendipity is always there if you look for it in your life; it cannot be taken away. This sounds a lot like the grace of God. I believe that God wants us to represent him by doing something we love to do and using our abilities to the fullest. As our confirmation year comes to an end, we will become part of this church and lights among the congregation. We will go out into the world and make a huge impact on the whole church and all the different communities. Fourth Presbyterian Church is a “Light in the City” and even a small light can make a very big difference in a dark room. Let’s go out and do the best we can in God’s name. Will FitzGerald I think this passage of Ephesians is not the easiest passage of the New Testament to understand. The verses that make the most sense to me are verse 7, which says that each one of us has been given a specific grace by God, and the later verses, which talk about how we should use those gifts in God’s service. We all have gifts, not talents per se, but gifts given to us by God. These can be major gifts, like Einstein with his amazing IQ, and minor gifts, like my video-gaming skills. Some of us may doubt that we have any gifts at all. All we need to do to know what our gifts are is to ask ourselves, “How would Jesus see me?” and whatever the answer you get, those are the gifts you have. Don’t think that minor gifts are worthless; they make you special in the eyes of the Lord just as much as major ones do. The diversity of those gifts is what makes the church special. For example, my Rising Group and I went to the Presbyterian Camp in Saugatuck last fall, where we got to know each other. I saw some of the different strengths people had, such as being really funny, strong, smart, or cheerful. Out of all those differences, we have begun to create a bonded community as part of this church. If you have an awful day, just take a second and ask, “How would Jesus describe me now?” Pay no heed to the bad traits, such as being angry all the time, but take heart of the good gifts; they are the gifts of God. Caroline Carter God has given us something to find, almost like hide-and-seek. That is what we have to find: our purpose. But on the way, there are other things in life that we might find too. These things might keep the balance between ourselves and God. But what if we never find this purpose? Then what will happen? I personally think that we will always find what we are looking for. If we ever need help, God will drop us hints along the way. He will make sure that all of his children (or should I say disciples or followers) will find whatever they need before death. This purpose is like a game of hide-and-seek. The people that you have to find are your purposes in life, and when you find them, it’s almost like a section of your life is completed. God will find ways to help you find your purpose in life. This is really cheesy, but some things that he might conduct are finding someone on the street you end up marrying or something like that. It’s interesting how things happen like that. Do you think that it is really a mistake or miracle workings of God? It starts to make you wonder a lot about your life. I think that confirmation is a hint in this hide-and-go-seek game, too. We are becoming members of God’s house, and I think it is something special for God too, because his group of followers is getting bigger. I think that everyone has a purpose in life, but the people who really try to find it are the ones who succeed. The second reading that I will be talking about today is Ephesians 4:9–13. This reading talks about service to others. Life is fulfilling when you help other people. I’d like to talk about a story that relates to this reading. It has to do with our very own Chicago Lights programs. My sister, Gen Carter, and her friend Amanda Kadish are tutors in the Chicago Lights program. They tutor a ten-year-old boy named Darrell. Darrell is a very smart boy, but when Gen and Amanda first met him, his grades were dropping in reading. English is definitely my sister and Amanda’s forte, so they could help him a lot. When Gen came home the first night of Tutoring, she absolutely loved Darrell. She said that he was great, really nice, and a very smart kid. As Gen and Amanda tutored Darrell more, he would bring in his report cards. He was getting good grades in math and all other subjects, and his reading had been boosted up from a D-C student to a B student. Gen and Amanda knew they were making progress. Darrell was also doing his part by being an active learner. He became very fond of Gen and Amanda; other little boys in the Tutoring program became a little jealous of him because he had two girl tutors. Darrell improved so much. I got to meet Darrell and both of his younger brothers. As soon as I met them, I was embraced with loving hugs, and I knew that these kids were so happy to have people helping them. Just last week, my sister and Amanda went to Tutoring and Darrell had a surprise for them. He was on the honor roll! So they had made progress. I think that Gen and Amanda have had so much fun helping Darrell, and they enjoy his company also. To conclude my part of the sermon, I would like to talk about my experience in confirmation class. I think that together as a class we have definitely bonded. I love coming to see everybody on Sundays, and I love to catch up on stuff. It kind of reminds me of my camp, which is something that I love, except every Sunday is like a camp reunion. We all came into this class as people who only knew people from their schools, and now we all know each other and hang out a lot. I was in a school play this weekend, and Chelsea, Erika, Marie, and some of their friends came out to support me. I wouldn’t have known them if I hadn’t been in confirmation. I have had such a great experience and I have so many memories. It is going to be bittersweet when our class gets confirmed, because we like to be together and next year it won’t just be us in senior highs; we will be at the bottom of the food chain with all the high schoolers. So now I really will end my part by saying, I’m going to miss this class and this experience so much. Quinn McCarthy The first time I read these passages, I really didn’t see any connection between the two parts of the reading. The first sounded like it was a set of guidelines to follow as a servant of God, and the second seemed to be talking about how God appoints certain people to be teachers, prophets, pastors, and so on and how it is their job to prepare God’s people for works of service and to build up the body of Christ. I thought about these two separate parts of the reading for a while and started to see them as one message. Even if we have different jobs or responsibilities in the church or community that God assigns us to (as the second passage says), we are all still trying to serve the same purpose, which is described in the first passage. No matter what our job is, we all have something we can do to fulfill the duties that the first part of the reading talks about. I think that a lot of people nowadays start to feel like they can’t do anything to serve God and help others because they aren’t going on big mission trips or donating a lot of money to charity. But there are lots of small things people can do, like buying a homeless person a sandwich, praying in a few spare moments they have, holding the elevator door for someone, or giving up their seat on the bus for an elderly person—and the list goes on. And while these small acts of kindness do help, they also inspire the people around you. If someone sees you holding the door for a stranger or helping someone pick up the groceries that they dropped, that is going to stick with them, and the next time they have a chance to do something small for someone, they will. All of the duties that we are told to do in the first part of the reading don’t require us to take extra time out of our schedules or spend more money or go to any great lengths to fulfill them; we just have to think about how we can serve God and others around us in the small things we do every day. Mary Mussman Fourth Church Rising has been a welcoming community for me since that warm September morning last fall when I stepped into the Crow’s Nest for the first time as a member of the confirmation class. Over the course of this year, I feel that we have formed a group ourselves, instead of having been grouped together. We have bonded through learning each other’s strengths and weakness, the qualities that set us apart. Some of us are wonderful speakers, full of witty things to say that can be shallow but strong enough to break the ice in a hard discussion or deeper and more spiritual than I could have guessed they would think to say. Others bring a nearly effervescent bubbly feeling to confirmation class, taking delight in describing details of their daily life, from parties to homework. We’re all dedicated to being a group, and we portray that through insisting on waking up parents to drive seventy minutes to church or coming to Parents’ Day with a soccer injury. During our weekly meetings, we break into four smaller groups. In my group, everyone has something to contribute: a mere suggestion of whether or not to sit at a table that turns into a small, friendly bicker, or the more intense question that gets tangled up as we decide what we believe about the web of destiny and providence, or even an intensifying debate during Coffee Hour, after our meetings are officially over, about what we believe is the most important problem in the world. And yet we still accept our differences, knowing that everyone’s opinion is truly valid and does make sense on some level. When one peer mentions a story about their sister, I can’t understand on an experienced basis, as I do not have a sister, but I can understand what point they are trying to bring to our group through their anecdote. As I read today’s passage, the words struck a chord inside of me. Though Paul’s words conveyed more of a plea for unity in the church and Christ giving gifts, I felt that his words reflected the unity through diversity in strengths and weaknesses that has come into play in Fourth Church Rising. In some ways, I see this year’s confirmation class as a tapestry, with all of its interesting details, and vibrant threads that could stand on their own or come together with the others to create a whole picture. It wasn’t necessarily what we got out of the picture that mattered; it was the contributions we put in to make it beautiful. In a more worldly sense, this Bible passage reflects the way Christians come together under one faith, one God, no matter where or how they live. Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are two of the poorest countries in the world and with greater percentages than any country should have of people living with diseases such as AIDS. Also, they have some of the largest Christian populations in the world. Surely their outlook on faith is different than ours, as Americans living in one of the richest countries in the world, but they believe in the same God as we do, and we share faith in faith, faith in redemption, faith in God. Ben Quazzo Expectations. Almost every human being on this planet has expectations to live up to. Have you ever heard about Alfonso Soriano? He is being paid $136 million for the next eight years to play for the Cubs. If he can’t bring victory to Chicago, then he will be marked as a failure. And that kid who sits next to you in English class, well yeah, he got straight A’s last semester. He has to do the same thing this semester, or else he can kiss the Ivy Leagues good-bye. That’s just the way we function. In this world we are pressured by our friends, family, and other people around us to do things the way they want them to be done. It is what they want for you, and it usually defines the expectations placed on your back. It is these people who rate your success and judge you based on that information. But should all that really matter? Have these people ever walked in your shoes? Do they know how it feels to be you? Not really. According to Ephesians, there is only one expectation that should be lived up to, and that’s your own and God’s. I am looking out into the crowd, and many of you seem puzzled. You are probably thinking, “Oh great, this kid could not even pass a second-grade math class. God’s expectations and your own expectations equal two different expectations, not one.” But actually, what I said was what I meant. Even though these are two physically different expectations, each one should be telling us the same thing, which is why they should be united as one. One of my all-time favorite passages in the Bible is spoken in Luke, chapter 4. It says, “To whom much is given, of him much is expected.” This quote defines God’s expectations for me and my own expectations for myself. God wants all of us to take our abilities and apply them to something great. It is what he expects from us. This idea can be carried out in hundreds of different forms, whether it’s playing baseball for the Cubs or studying at school. To conclude, I would like to say that all of us have been called on by God to this Earth. We were all given great gifts and abilities. It is now our responsibility to live up to God’s calling by using all that we have to make life better for everyone. .