11.16.08
iGod: The Spiritual Journey of Young People
Rev. Annie Arnoldy
Psalm 46
This weekend, about 20 youth groups with over 200 middle school and high school kids gathered together in God’s name. Some of them wouldn’t classify this weekend retreat in that way – they are just having a good time with friends, enjoying being away from home! The youth directors and adult sponsors know how powerful a weekend like this can be – the power of a young Christian rock band, a funny and inspiring speaker, and small group time in workshops. All these moments add up to 36 hours when young lives can be infused with the passion and power of choosing to live for God. The name of this weekend’s event is Rejuvenation and it took place at the Avalon Theater and right here at our church. They had a labyrinth walk set up in Gaines Hall, a Communion station here in the Sanctuary, and workshops in many of our classrooms. Our youth group had 8 young people participating along with me, and our new youth director, Emily Gorman. She is actually with our youth group right now at the Avalon Theater where they are having a special closing worship this morning. It’s been exhausting, but inspiring.
Yesterday, our new bishop, Elaine Stanovsky, spoke to the whole group and introduced herself to all of these young people, helping them to know she cares about meeting them and journeying with them in faith. There was a comment she made that really caught my attention – she held up her pocket-size copy of the Bible and she told everyone that the Bible is filled with really strange stories with some really goofy people. She pointed out that not very many of the Bible’s characters are perfect; in fact, most of them are pretty quirky. She told the kids that at 13 years old, she was 6’1”, and it took her a long time to get use to being that tall. She said that the quirkiness of the Bible is to let us know that each of us has a place in ministry and a place as God’s people. God doesn’t ask perfect people to be in ministry because, frankly, they are hard to find. God uses regular, imperfect people, like you and me. As adults, we know this message is good. It’s really important for our kids to hear that they don’t need to be perfect. But, you may have more in common with a 12 year-old than you think. Have you heard that message lately? Have you heard that you don’t have to be perfect – you can be downright quirky, and God still needs you? We need you. Our church is a volunteer organization – we can’t grow unless we have you on board, willing to participate in actual ministry, as scary as that can sometimes sound. Ministry sounds like a really high calling – like only the best of the best should be the spokesperson or the chairperson or the teacher. Is that what we try to teach our young people? No way. We genuinely say to them, “God can use you.” I am saying that to everyone here right now – “God can use you.” Take a risk – step out in faith – reach forward in leadership – use your prayers to lift up our congregation. We have more in common than we think when it comes to faith. We are all figuring it out as we go along – it’s a much easier path to travel when we are in it together, each taking a piece of the ministry that is possible – it becomes a collaborative celebration instead of a lonely road.
The spiritual reality for young people today might be quite a bit different than when you were growing up. They have access to information about every world religion, they are taught about world religions in school, only a few of them actually attend churches regularly or profess to be Christians. The similarities of the faith journey, however, outweigh the generational differences. In your faith journey, have you felt times of questioning what you believe? Have you had a life circumstance that changed your beliefs? Have you had glimpses of inspiration, but never assuredness of God’s presence? Has there ever been a period of your life when you didn’t come to church every Sunday? If any of these statements ring true for you, then you have something in common with any young person today.
I did a workshop for Westside Weekend three years ago called, “iGod,” named after the very popular device called the iPod. If anyone was able to recognize that iGod was not a typo, and that the “I” was not supposed to be capitalized, then you are already one step into knowing young people today. iGod refers to the popularization of technological instruments like the iPod, which plays music and videos, much like the Walkman of my teenage years. There is also the iMac, which is an Apple computer. Most young people know about iChat, which is a way to type messages with friends, while seeing each other on screen through the computer’s tiny camera. So I thought iGod was an appropriate way to talk about young people’s spirituality today. iGod would include the ways young people choose to connect with God. If this already seems like something you will never understand, you might think again. Think back to when you were becoming a teenager, around 13 years old, and then again, when you were becoming an adult, around 19 years old. The first step of connection is thinking back to these times in your life, because then you can remember what it felt like to be in these times of transition.
I have a devotional book called, “God’s Blogs,” and it reads like the journal God would write, if God had a website, in order to tell us the ongoing journey of faith from God’s side. You see, a blog, is a web-log, a modern day version of a diary, written on a computer. In the chapter called, “Faith,” the author writes, “You have knowledge that seems to give you faith but there is something spooky inside of you that washes all your faith away in times when you seem to really need it. [Faith] is more than knowledge of me … more than knowledge of my existence and my omnipotence. It has to do with relationship. It must be nurtured and grown.”
When I think back to my teenage years and my growing faith, this was the lesson I was learning without even knowing that it was a lesson to learn. We start out “believing in” the stuff our parents tell us. We believe in God, we believe in grandparents, we believe in the tooth-fairy. But, as we get older, the lesson about having a relationship with our faith and with our family can get left out. It is almost as if when we stop believing in one thing, then everything gets put on the table to stop believing in if it doesn’t meet our childhood expectations. When we are taught to believe in someone or something, it is usually a relationship where we are on the receiving end. It is often a tradition to have the belief. But, even in a case like, grandparents, children grow up believing in these wonderful people, who have houses in faraway places, and let you come visit for vacation. When you’re with these grandparents, they give you treats and they smell good and they have all these funny things to play with like typewriters, old hats, and mason jars. As children become teenagers, and as teenagers become adults, they move from the notion of “believing in” to “having a relationship with”? What clicks for me is that it is often about the same age in a child’s life when some of their believed-in things fade, that some of the people fade too. Many grandparents or other figures in their life might die or move away. Suddenly, anything else they have “believed in” gets called into question too. If a child’s belief in God never moves to a relationship with God, then they might easily stop believing in God too.
This is just one of the processes on the journey of growing up, but it is through this process that we, as faith-filled adults, have the opportunity to share how our beliefs in God become a real relationship to be nurtured and grown.
There was another devotional book I was looking through recently and it sparked the idea to use Psalm 46 because the devotion was about life as an ocean. In the third verse of the psalm, it talks about the waters roaring and foaming, and the mountains trembling because the sea is so tumultuous. The writer of the devotion, Nani Bell says, “As a child, the ocean was not my friend. I may have been quick to spend a day in its midst, but there was never a feeling of trust between us” (What I Learned From God Today, p.56).
I was remembering my first time at the ocean: I was probably about 6 years old and my family went to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. My grandparents also had a house there, so we took a day and went to the beach. I wanted to collect shells and my brother wanted to go in the ocean. When we arrived, and walked down to the water’s edge, I remember how big it looked. It was all I could see – just tons of water and big huge waves crashing into each other. I loved water, but I didn’t go in the ocean that day. I really didn’t even remember that I had not gone in, until this summer. This summer, twenty-four years later, I went back to the ocean. This time it was for Eric’s cousin’s wedding in Cape Cod. We met his whole family up there, and my mother-in-law and her sister immediately wanted to take us to the beach. I was skeptical – it wasn’t very warm out, they said the water would be cold – I just wasn’t convinced. But, we packed up and went to the beach. I looked out again and saw the familiar sight – the vast expanse of water, the waves crashing into one another, and the distinct differences in color between the sky and the water. Pam and Kristy immediately ran out and got in the water. They screamed and body-surfed and pushed each other over. Now, Pam and Kristy are not little kids – this is my mother-in-law and her sister! I walked slowly along the shore, just letting my toes and ankles get wet. The water was freezing, and the day was staying overcast and mild. I love water and I love to swim. Pretty soon Eric’s aunt and uncle were saying, “it’s ok, you don’t have to be scared,” and I realized I had to get in – if they were braving the cold water, I could too. I walked out to about hip-level and realized I had to go under if I was ever going to get use to the temperature of the water. Then it happened, I ducked my head under the water, and came up with a pungent taste and smell of salt. I wracked my brain trying to remember if I had ever been in an ocean before – this taste – this water was a brand new experience.
The first discovery I had that day was that I had always said, “I’ve been to the ocean.” All that time, I didn’t equate the difference between having been to the ocean and having gone in the ocean! This was the first time I had gone in the ocean and experienced it for myself. I tasted this salty water that is unforgettable and I felt myself being pushed and pulled by the waves. Pam and Kristy now love to tell me that they loved hearing me exclaim over and over again, “but it’s so salty,” as if there was some kind of mistake and God added too much salt to the ocean. This experience wasn’t when I was 6 years old - it was just this summer! Much the same, if children become teenagers and still think of God as just something to believe in without experiencing the relationship, they are likely to dispose of it at some point. But, if they are able to experience a relationship with God – where they taste, smell, hear, and feel everything that a relationship with God can offer, they will know for themselves the unforgettable experience and never want to let it go.
My second lesson from the ocean happened just a month ago. I can’t believe after never having been in the ocean, I was fortunate enough to go twice in one year. A month ago, I travelled with Eric’s family to Mexico, where his sister chose to get married. This time, being on the gulf coast of Mexico, everyone kept saying that the ocean would be so different than Cape Cod because the temperature is so much warmer. It was different – the sand was fine and soft, and the water was warm, like bath water. I got in the ocean first this time, and exclaimed to Pam and Kristy, “it’s still salty!” We all played in the water, even though we stayed close because the waves were rough outside the swimming area. A tropical depression was passing over the area we were staying, near Tulum, on the Mayan Riviera. I didn’t witness the scary event that happened the next day, but Eric told me what happened.
Just like the first day, everyone went in the ocean the next day and swam, snorkeled and had fun. Uncle James, an avid swimmer, went out to the barrier, which separated the swimming area from the whole ocean. He sat on the giant sandbag for a rest. Before he knew it, a wave crashed over him and then pulled him out to sea. He tried to swim back, but got pulled farther out. All in about 30 seconds, he was suddenly desperate for someone to help him get back to shore. Four lifeguards had to go into the water, kicking and pulling, fighting against the rip-tide effect of the waves. Uncle James was finally able to get to shore, completely exhausted from the ocean’s turbulence. The second lesson in thinking about the ocean was that it was unexpected, and sometimes dangerous. If we first think about our relationship with God being something we must experience for ourselves, then we must also be taught that life happens freely around us. God gave us, and everyone, freewill and that means life can be dangerous and unexpected. But, when those events happen, we have to pull our way back to our faith and reexamine aspects of our faith, but certainly not leave the whole thing behind. We must call for help at those times. Uncle James was back in the ocean the following day – more cautious, yes, but not abandoning everything he loved about the ocean.
Psalm 46 is powerful when we talk about young people because it contains so many sentiments about the ups and downs of life. If any of you have raised a teenager, you know about ups and downs. There is mention of the earth changing, the mountains trembling, and the nations in an uproar. It sounds as if this writer could have been a modern newspaper reporter – we still have this same scary news. This psalm also says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” It says, “God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.” This is the side of life that young people don’t learn through school or the newspaper. They only learn that God is a refuge and a very present help through us. It is through hearing about the times when your faith felt shaky, and then how it became strong again, that you become like the lifeguards who helped Uncle James get out of the turbulence of the ocean. A powerful quote in God’s Blogs says, “Sometimes you have to go through the worst of life where you almost lose your faith in order for it to become real faith.”
As young people experience their first love, their first broken heart, their braces, broken arms, sports, homework, exams, and their own faith, they look around to see where the guidance comes from. If real honest stories aren’t coming from us, then they look to anyone else who will tell them something they need to hear. Within this psalm, a line of faith is repeated, “Be still and know that I am God.” This generation, who are now teenagers, have never known a time without technology and computers. They have always known the fast-paced, multi-tasking, war-torn world we are living in. It is probably more difficult than ever to “Be still,” and even more difficult to, “know that I am God.” In times when science claims to know everything, there is a shrinking space to allow God in. It doesn’t mean that science is wrong, but forming a relationship with God allows another layer over the top of everything else that allows for hurt and mystery and questions and faith.
You may feel like their world is so much different than yours at their age, but their questions are the same. They look to us – not to have all the answers, but to hear our stories. The Bible has powerful stories of faith, but God asks that we trust our stories to be the stories that guide the next generation to an authentic relationship with God, through Jesus, and led by the Holy Spirit. You all make a difference in a young person’s search for spirituality.
Amen.
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