Good morning everyone.
You may have noticed that I’m
not Mark.
We do both have glasses, but
that’s pretty much where our similarities stop. I’m here today because it is
Youth Sunday, and Anne and Mark have faith in me to be able to preach to you
about God’s word. So, I’d like to thank all of you for being here and being
willing to listen as I discuss today’s readings.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus
gives us one simple command: love each other. And while I’d like to be able to
stand up here and say that I simply love everyone, you and I both know that
that’s just not the case. I know how hard it can be to love someone, especially
if you’re in a fight with a friend, or even your mom. I’d love to tell you all
a story about that one, but I’d prefer to have a nice Mother’s Day (I love you mom).
As a typical teenager, I work
a nice, minimum wage job in food service, and anyone will tell you that
customers are the worst in the food industry. I’ve met some wild people, and my
coworkers have told me countless horror stories about people they’ve
encountered. None strikes me more though, than hearing about a man who screamed
obscenities at my friend and told her, a teenager, to take his order and shove
it somewhere I’d rather not say, all because his order wasn’t ready, when he
was the one who showed up earlier than he was supposed to. And Jesus wants me
to love this person? He wants me to be willing to give my life for this man?
Jesus loved us and he gave
his life for us. He didn’t know any of us, but he gave his life for you, he
gave his life for me, and he gave his life for that man. All he asks is that we
love each other, just as he loved us. But how do we go about loving each other?
One of the first steps is to
love ourselves. You’ve probably heard it before, you can’t love someone else if
you have no love for yourself. In a world filled with millionaires, successful
artists, engineers, and entrepreneurs, and social media that is dominated by
unrealistically attractive people, it’s so easy to feel as if you’re not
enough. In schools today, academics are so competitive that you have
16-year-olds in Calculus 2 and kids leaving high school with 7 or even more
college credits, just so they can get a GPA boost. Teenagers are recommended to
get 9 hours of sleep each night, but most of my peers get 5 or less staying up
all night to maintain their good grades. There is so much pressure on our youth
about academics these days, and life is hard when you cannot measure up.
Since I was a kid, I’ve
always been good at reading, good at math, science and history were a breeze,
and I was labeled as gifted. Throughout my school career, I’ve valued myself
based on my grades being better than others’ and being top of my class. But
this past year, like many of my other peers, I’ve struggled with school. And
while I’ve struggled, I’ve watched others maintain their amazing grades and
scores like normal, and I wonder, “Why aren’t I that smart? Why am I struggling
when they’re doing just fine? Why can’t I have their talent and their grades?”
One of the 10 commandments
states: Thou shalt not covet.
We cannot love each other if
we covet each other’s abilities and belongings, but we cannot stop coveting others until we love ourselves.
If you didn’t know, May is
mental health awareness month, and while addressing the multitude of issues
surrounding mental health, one of my favorites that is being addressed is the
simple and extremely common issue of low self-esteem. There’s been a trend
going around that focuses on appreciating your body and yourself for the simple
things. God gave you this body, and even if it has its downfalls, your body
gives you the ability to smile at someone, maybe even make their day; it lets
you share an embrace with someone you love; it lets you feel a warm summer
breeze and smell the scent of fresh rain on a late evening in spring.
Are all these things
cancelled out just because you can’t run as fast as him, or you have frizzier
hair than her? Do you let the trivial downsides of everyday life stop you from
appreciating God’s gifts to you?
I have a challenge for you.
Don’t worry, it’s very simple. But the smallest things can create the biggest
changes.
When you wake up in the
morning, as you take your first conscious breaths of the day, look at your
arms: and think of all the people they’ve allowed you to embrace, look at your
hands: think of all the lives you’ve touched with them, just by existing and
doing your part on God’s earth. Feel your mouth, and think of all the times
you’ll smile and even laugh, and the pure joy you feel in those small moments.
And when you settle into your
bed to sleep, flex your muscles: think of all the places they’ve taken you and
all the tasks they’ve helped you accomplish; feel your mouth again: think of
every time you smiled that day, and every opportunity that God has given you to
share in the joys of his Kingdom and fellowship; be grateful for your mind, it
has helped you solve the largest problems in your life, and even the smallest
problems of your day.
And before you close your
eyes: remember that God loves you so much that he gave you your body and your
life so that you could enjoy his creation.
We must learn this type of
love, because the first step in following Jesus’s command to love each other,
is to begin by loving ourselves, and the gifts God has given us.
The next step in loving each
other is having empathy for those that are different. One part of God’s gift to
us is that we are all unique, and our uniqueness causes us all to act
differently, have different cultures and morals. Have you ever had a moment
where something caused you to act very out-of-character, where someone may have
had to tell you to calm down, or even silently judged you for your actions,
when you may have felt justified or even weren’t doing anything wrong?
We’ve all committed offenses
against each other at one point or another; some being a bit worse than others,
but we don’t get to choose who deserves God’s love based on how we feel
regarding their actions, that is God’s decision. In today’s reading from Acts,
the circumcised believers witnessed the fact that God’s love had been given to
the uncircumcised Gentiles. According to the circumcised, the Gentiles were
wrong and unworthy of the Holy Spirit, but God believed that they were worthy.
It is in this passage that we learn that God’s love is not reserved for a
select few and kept hidden from outsiders, we learn that it is not our job to
determine who deserves love and who does not. We must remember that we are here
to follow God’s will, and God is the ultimate determiner of who should be
granted his love.
When you see someone that is
different, or someone that you think might not be worthy of God’s love, someone
that is outside of our religious code, remember that we are merely mortals, and
we can only see the surface of others, but God can see all of us, God can see
all of them, and we must trust in God’s will of faith and love.
Who have you encountered that
you view as someone on the outside, someone that is different, someone that, by
your code, you may not deem worthy of
God’s love? Then think, why might they be this way? What does God see in them?
What does God see in the guy screaming at teenagers in a Subway restaurant? And
for what reason are you going to choose to love them, just as God loves you?
Learn this, and love.
The last step is living a
life of faith, and understanding our purpose in God’s will. Unfortunately, this
last idea has been on a steady decline since many of our congregation first
became part of the Church. In the last 30 or 40 years, there has been a
decreased emphasis on the importance of active involvement in the church,
especially within our youth. You can see this even here at St. Andrew’s. Our
youth group used to be extremely active, with our meetings every Sunday having
at least ten or twelve kids present,
but now we don’t even have enough attending EYC to meet anymore. Of course,
this is because many of our youth have graduated and moved on to other
congregations but also the fact that we have such a significant decrease in the
number of children being raised in the Church today.
But why is this? Maintaining
a life of faith and being active in the church not only benefits youth
spiritually, but throughout their whole life as well. A 2018 Harvard study
actually found that children who grew up in the Church tend to be happier than
their non-religious peers, become more active and connected in their community,
and are more likely to avoid drinking, smoking, and drug use. But besides all
these things, faith helps children through their struggles. Faith provides a
purpose and understanding through many of life’s toughest challenges.
It also allows us to
appreciate God’s love for us, and walk beside him in the Holy Spirit. God’s
love guides us through our lives. His love gives us everything we need to enjoy
the life he has given us, and to understand the most confusing parts of that
life. And when we give that love to others, we show that we understand God’s
gift to us, and our relationship with God is strengthened, and we become closer
with Him. When we become close with God, we strengthen our prayer, we
strengthen our love, and we strengthen our understanding of life, and isn’t
that all we really want to do?
How strong is your
relationship with God? What have you done to strengthen this relationship? Have
you done anything that may have harmed this relationship? When we lead lives of
faith and devotion, we explore our relationship with God and come to understand
the great gift that he has given us. And once we see this amazing gift, we
don’t have as hard of a time sharing it with others, even if we cannot
completely agree with God’s choice. And when we spread this love, we can,
together, achieve the greatness that God wills for us and share in his
paradise.
And before I finish, since it
is Youth Sunday and Mother’s Day, I
would like to thank all the mothers of our youth for giving us the opportunity
to understand and share God’s love, and I thank all you other mothers for
sharing that love with your children.
And remember Jesus’s simple
command: love each other.
