“Your Name is Christian"
Festival of All Saints … November 6, 2011
Rev. Phillip Fenton
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. Hebrews 12:1-2
His name was Christian John Bergseid, a young man in my Minnesota parish. A beautiful name, I thought – “Christian John”. Everyone called him “Chris-John”, but when I found that “Chris” was short for “Christian”, I couldn’t wait to acknowledge this to him. So, the next Sunday morning, when the Bergseid family entered a crowded narthex, I called out in a loud voice, “Good morning, CHRISTIAN JOHN BERGSEID!”
His face flushed bright red. He shot a dark look at his mother, as if to say, “You had to tell him, didn’t you?” And then to me he said, “Please don’t call me that.” “But it’s a beautiful name,” I said – “the way it sounds; the way it says something about your faith, your tradition – right up front. Your name is Christian.”
“Sounds like something a pastor would say,” he said. “But let me tell you, it’s no fun to have people pick on you all the time: ‘Hey Christian, can you walk on water? Hey Christian, can you turn my Dr. Pepper into wine?’ Look, I didn’t ask for the name. I was saddled with it. I’m asking you, please don’t call me Christian.”
How many of you chose to be a Christian? Raise your hand. It’s not easy to answer, is it? Choice plays an important role in the Christian’s life. Every day we are faced situations where there is a clear choice between acting in a way consistent with our Christian confession or acting as if we have no part in Christ. We can face each morning unthinking and aimless and, thus, more at the mercy of the day’s challenges, or we can each morning commit our way to Christ. This is about choice.
But how many of you chose to be Christian? How many of you chose to have the water of baptism poured over your head? How many of you chose to be in Sunday School since you were a toddler, to place yourself regularly before the Word and Sacrament? How many of you chose that one day your story would collide with God’s story?
Or rather is it not the case that you too were “saddled” with the name “Christian”, and saddled with the story? Are not most of us Christian because of the decision of parents? Are we not Christian, many of us, because of the influence grandparents or a spouse, or a whole congregation of people?
And does it bother you, your involuntary placement in the family of Christ? It may. We Americans, after all, so exalt the freedom of choice and self-definition that no one is going to make us do anything against our will. We like to think of ourselves as self-made. A life without choice is no life at all.
And what odd inconsistencies this brings out in our lives. A majority of American parents still say that they want their children to know about God, to live in a close relationship with Christ and his Church. But when you look at declining Sunday School attendance and worship attendance by over-stressed and over-programmed families, you see that the choices being made by many parents aren’t consistent with that conviction. And in most cases I really think it’s just a cop-out when parents say, “We don’t want to overly influence their children. We want them to make up their own minds – it’s their choice, after all.” I think what is really being said is, “We’re too busy, too exhausted, have too many other activities competing for our time - to make the commitment for our family and stick to it.” We are losing whole generations of kids because of the ambiguity of parents. “We want our kids to know God and have a close relationship with Christ and his Church, BUT….”
The Christian tradition is unambiguous. Faith, wisdom, salvation’s message are intergenerational – passed on from one generation to the next. Faith is not judged on the basis of my experiences, feelings, wants and needs, but on the basis of its object, i.e. the God who is the Beginning and the Ending of all things – the One who is larger than our experiences, feelings, wants, and needs, and still reaches to us to correct and challenge and forgive, still chooses us to do His loving will in this world. In Baptism you were defined by God – named, claimed, chosen to love others as He has loved you.
Your name is Christian. You answer to that name today, it is mainly because someone else told you the story, lived the Gospel before you in places like St. Paul’s, or Rehburg, or Zionsville, or Greenvine, (you can fill in the names of the churches in your past.) Someone lived the Gospel before you in ways that made you know that this was your story, that “Christian” was your name, and that Christ was your salvation.
A few months before we left Minnesota, Carol and I attended a wedding dance. Well into the evening there was a commotion over to one side that brought the festivities to a halt. At the middle of it was Christian John Bergseid, drunk, cursing, fighting with another boy who had danced with his girlfriend. I walked over to him. “Christian John!” I said firmly. “I told you not to call me that!” he said. “Your name is Christian,” I continued, “and I’m taking your home.” “You’re not my father.” “Oh yes I am,” I said, “when I became a member of your church, you got me as your parent whether you understood that or not, and I am whether you like it or not.”
The next day he called me, apologetic. “I’m sorry for how I spoke to you, Pastor. I’m pretty out of control right now. My grades are down. I’m not getting along with my parents. I don’t like my life very much. Pastor, I think I’ve lost my faith.”
“Your name is Christian,” I said. “How could you, all by yourself, loose centuries of faith and witness and tradition? How could you lose a whole church of people who have been seeing to your spiritual upbringing for 17 years, a church where Bergseids have been losing and finding their faith for over a hundred years? Your name is Christian. You hang in there. You may think you have lost your faith, but I am certain Christ and his Church have not lost you.”
We did not choose the past of this congregation, but, make no mistake, we are here today, and some of you have faith today, because of people who were St. Paul’s before you, people who built a future for this congregation they would never see. You’ve been “saddled” with the Gospel of Jesus Christ because of them. You see, they did not want to leave you to the tyranny of having to make up a faith all by ourselves. They didn’t want to leave you without tradition, without attachments, without categories by which to raise your children in the faith. Likewise, the ministry we do today, the decisions we make today, are building a future for those who will be St. Paul’s 20-60-80 years from now, a future most of us will not see. Others gave to us and we give to future generations of believers a foundation to fall back on when experience does not fit anything seen or dealt with before.
A week before we left Minnesota for Texas, Christian John’s best friend, Larry, was killed in a farm accident. Larry’s parents had gone into town, and Larry was alone, running the auger – that giant screw which transports grain from a pile on the ground to the top of the storage bin. Larry got too close, and the auger caught his pant leg and pulled him into its relentless motion. With no one to hear his screams, Larry bled to death.
Only minutes after Larry was found, I got the news, and headed for the Bergseid farm to find Christian John. I knew he was fragile and I wanted to be with him when he received the news. But before I got there, I saw his truck approaching. We stopped in the road, side-by-side. Looking at him, I knew he had already heard about Larry. Tears had made trails through the grain dust on his face. “I was coming to see you,” he said. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve never had a friend die before.” (What 17 year old has categories for this?) And so he said the only honest thing he could: “I don’t know what to do.”
Who at any age would want to stand alone, apart from story and tradition and congregation and make up their own mind about what such a thing means? We went to the church. We stood for a moment at the baptismal font, then at the altar. We walked to each stained glass window and looked up into the sunny glow of saints – Peter, Paul, Matthew. We stopped at the congregation’s wall of pictures - all the previous pastors, a 100 years of confirmation classes. We talked of Sunday School teachers and Luther League sponsors and camp counselors. We remembered.
And, surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses, I said with absolute confidence, “Your name is Christian, and the God who named you, will hold you, and will be your strength until your heart is healed.”
Amen.
