Reformation / Confirmation Day John B. Valentine
Galatians 2:16-21 October 27, 2024

"OF WORTH AND WORTHINESS"

Alex and Austin ... what shall we say about all of this??

• I guess we should probably start by saying .... “It’s about time!”

You see ... you are ... no doubt ... the longest-tenured confirmands I’ve ever been involved with ... by a long shot!

If I’m not mistaken ... you ... Alex ... started coming to FaithBuilders classes in the Fall of 2019 ... back in the days before the pandemic shut us all down for the better part of a year!

And you were joined by your little brother ... who has become your bigger brother ... maybe not taller but bigger for sure ... back in the Spring of 2021 ... right after we started back with in-person worship at the end of the COVID-19 scare.

Now ... to be clear ... it wasn’t all my fault that our course schedule was so sporadic ...

No ... between Scouts and baseball ... and skiing and baseball ... and baseball and baseball ... you two marshaled lots of excuses why this that or the other Sunday couldn’t work for you ...

But ... according to my somewhat-sketchy math skills ... I’m thinking that you guys have been FaithBuilders students ... and put up with me as your teacher! ... for roughly round-about a quarter of your lives!

It’s about time!

• Then again ... we should probably all together say to you ... “Well done!”

Given the craziness of your schedules ... and our schedule ... over the past four years ... it took quite a bit of effort ... and no small amount of your dear Momma’s assistance and insistence ... to actually run this educational marathon.

In fact ... I went back through all of our old lesson plans ... and believe that Austin ... you made it to FaithBuilders on 37 different occasions ... and that you ... Sir Alex ... made it 49 different times!

Yeah ...

• There were a few times when you wandered into class a bit disheveled ... and

• Sometimes the only thing that got you here was the hope that there might be deviled eggs and donuts at Coffee Fellowship ...

But still ... persistence and diligence are virtues ... and ol’ Saint Paul did say “Let us run with perseverance the race that was set before us” and all.

So .... Well done!

• And finally ... I be remiss were I not to say “Now get to work!”

You see ... for the longest time ... there have been a whole lot of people who seem to have harbored the idea that “Confirmation” is like “graduation” from church.

That you’ve completed your coursework ... that you’ve paid your dues ... that you’ve put up with grumpy ol’ PJ for long enough ... and now it’s over.

But that’s a really ... REALLY ... bad idea!

Because ... you see ... if anything ... you haven’t made it to the end ... but ... rather ... you’ve made it to the beginning!

In a certain way ... what we’re doing is handing you the ball ..and asking you to head out to the mound ... and stop learning about pitching and just pitch!

I mean ... what is it that we say when we close our worship services around here?

“So now go ... in peace ... to love God by serving your neighbor!”

It’s here ... at church ... that we’re reminded of who we are and what it is that we’re called to do ...

But it’s out there ... out in the real world ... that we actually live out those callings.

• Loving the Lord our God with all our hearts and souls and strength and minds ... and
• Loving our neighbors as we love ourselves.

It’s out there ... out in the real world ... that we strive to actually be about those acts of service ... to actually DO wheat it is that we are called and created to do.

+ + + + +

But now ... before you stand up here and say “Yes, by the help of God” ... before we say “Go .. In peace ... to love God by serving your neighbor!” ...

I’ve got one last lesson for you ... one last thing that I’d like to drill into your sometimes-too-thick skulls.

And it has to do with this:

WORTH and WORTHINESS.

You see ... as part of your Final Project ... I asked you to make two word clouds:

One was about God ... and who it was and is you experience God to be. “How You see God” ... as it were.

And you came up with a whole bunch of great words ... like:

• “Ally” ... and
• “Mentor” ... and
• “Counselor” ... and
• “Role Model” ... and
• “Savior” ... and
• “Friend”.

And I also asked you to make a word cloud about you ... “How it is that God sees you.”

And you each came up with a bunch of words that related to you.

And I’ve got to admit ... I think your projects turned out pretty cool.

But in the first of the Bible lessons we heard read a little bit ago ...

We heard Saint Paul rattling on about who he is and who we are ... and how God saw Paul ... and how God sees all of us ...

And there is a way that you can look at that text that is all about worthiness and worth.

+ + + + +

Did either of the two of you ever get sucked up in the Pokémon craze?

• Charizard and Chancy ...
• Clafairy and Clefable ...
• Dratini, Dragonaire and Dragonite ...
• "Gotta catch 'em all"???

How many different ways have you experienced the “pocket monster” / Pokémon craze over the course of your lifetimes?

There’s been ... what?

• Movies ... at least twenty of them ...
• TV shows ... at least a thousand of them ...
• Video games ... for every platform Nintendo has ever created ...
• And countless stuffies and stickers and everything else.

But it all started ... pretty much ... with trading cards ... back in the 1990's ...

And our boys coerced us into buying more of those stinking Pokémon cards than I would care to admit.

Anyhow ... the subject of old Pokémon cards came up at our house the other day ... and we got to talking about the relationship between the value of certain old Pokémon cards and their physical condition ... and I was reminded of something pretty important.

Do you see this card?

This is a mint-condition Charizard that our boys absolutely cherished back in the day!

And ... believe it or not ... this Charizard card ... in today's market ... in the condition that this card is in ... is apparently worth right around a hundred bucks.

But if ... in the off chance ... I were to take this card out of the case that it’s in ... and put a little crease in one of its corners ... it would cut the value of that card by half.

And if I were to smudge a greasy finger on it because I’d been eating before I touched it ... it wouldn’t be worth more than ten bucks.

A hundred bucks to fifty bucks to ten bucks .. Just like that.

+ + + + +

Now ... let’s put Mister Charizard down here for just a moment ... and let me get out my wallet.

This ... right here ... is a brand-new ... never-been used ... mint condition hundred dollar bill.

With a picture of Mister Franklin off to the side and the micro-printing and the holographic tape and all.

A mint condition one-hundred-dollar bill.

How much is this worth?

It’s worth one hundred bucks ... isn't it?

Now ... how much would it be worth if I took this one corner here and folded it down and creased it?

It would still be worth a hundred bucks.

And how much would it be worth if I smudged my greasy fingers all over it ... or smeared a bit of ink on it?

It would still be worth a hundred bucks.

And what if I wadded it up in a little ball and then jumped up and down on it a few times for good measure. What would its worth be THEN?

It would still be worth a hundred bucks.

In fact ... according to the folks at the United States Treasury office ... as long as the two serial numbers are still there ... you could do just about anything to it and it would still be worth a hundred bucks!

+ + + + +

Now then ... what's the difference between this Charizard card and this hundred dollar bill?

After all ... right now ... they're both worth a hundred bucks.

• But the value of this Charizard card is utterly dependent upon its condition ... and once it is made to be less valuable ... it can NEVER be made to be MORE valuable again.

Its WORTH is directly tied to its WORTHINESS. It has what is called CONDITIONAL value.

• On the other hand ... the value of this hundred dollar bill is almost entirely independent of its condition. It is worth a hundred bucks ... no matter what.

Its WORTH is independent of its WORTHINESS. It has ... INTRINSIC value.

So now here’s my question for you ... since this is the last of your FaithBuilders lessons.

Which way does God see you?

• Does God look at you like this Pokemón card? Is your value to God "conditional"?

• Or does God look at you more like this hundred dollar bill? Is your value to God “intrinsic”?

It’s the “intrinsic” one ... isn’t it?

After all ... the Bible is pretty clear about saying that Jesus came to save the last, the lost, the little, the least and the dead ... not those who'd kept themselves pure and pristine and unsoiled by the world.

And that’s what Saint Paul meant when he said that we are “justified by the faith of Christ and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law”.

And that’s what Martin Luther meant when he said “I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or become acceptable to him.”

+ + + + +

You see ... guys ...

Your value to the world might be “conditional” ...

Based on how much you can get your curveball to break ... or how far you can leap in the triple jump ... or what you can score on the SAT test or the current state of your complexion.

But your value to God is “intrinsic” ...

Regardless of whether or not you can clear the high-jump bar at six-feet-three-inches ...

Regardless of whether or not you can get your fastball up past ninety-four ...

Regardless of what some college admissions advisor or scout or anybody else might say.

Your WORTH ... in God’s eyes ... is not based on your WORTHINESS.

For NOTHING ... in ALL creation ...

• not even our own messed up senses of self-worth and self-understanding ...
• not even our own bad theologizing ...
• not even the attitudes of our classmates or co-workers ...

Can separate us from the love that is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord.

For the fact of the matter is that ... in the worst of times ... and in the best of times ... we are never ever "worthy" ... but we are still "worth something" to God.

+ + + + +

At the end of this Confirmation journey ... THIS is my prayer for the two of you.

And ... honestly ... its might prayer for everybody else in this room and everyone who is taking it in online as well ....

That you might know ... in the depth of your being ... that human "worthiness" and human "worth" are not the same thing ....

That YOUR worth and YOUR worthiness are not the same thing.

That ... no matter what shape you find yourselves in ... you are still worth something to God ... simply because Jesus says so.

And that ... knowing that truly good news ... you might share it ... in thought and word and deed ... with others.