United Church of Pittsford

Good morning.

It took me a long time to settle on what I was going to write for my sermon today. Trying to sum up my UCP experience in less than an hour seemed like a daunting task. I kept trying to come up with an underlying theme for my entire church life, a thesis that would define and underscore everything you've all given me over these many years, and here it is: your greatest gift to me is your TRUTH. I know it seems a little odd, but greater men than I have spent their entire lives searching for just a glimpse of truth to put the world in perspective. Let me explain.

I've grown up in what I'm going to refer to as the Age of Untruth. In the Age of Untruth, nothing is real and nothing is sacred. There are no values in the Age of Untruth, only façades that are maintained to preserve a deception. In the Age of Untruth, there is no personal accountability or responsibility, because in the Age of Untruth, everything is someone else's fault. In the Age of Untruth, athletes are good because they take steroids. Actors are measured in how many plastic surgeries they have and not by their talent. Politicians lie to millions of people about catastrophic events and sleep soundly at night. Captains of industry destroy countless lives and entire continents of wildlife without second thought. Behind the curtain of the camera all these people are miscreants and scoundrels, sex maniacs and villains. The Average Joe is not immune to the Age of Untruth, either. In the Age of Untruth, the Average Joe is too afraid to have real interaction with other people, so he makes social contact as impersonal as possible, he uses Facebook, and text messages so that he never has to take responsibility for what he says. The Average Joe does not lead a fulfilling life, instead he lives a simulated, hollow life. He does not take that trip to Egypt because he hears that Egypt is too dangerous. Instead he rents a two-hour Discovery channel special about Egypt on Netflix and watches it alone on his couch. The Average Joe doesn't have the courage to talk to the pretty girl in the apartment across from him, so instead he pays $29.95 a month to an online dating service where he puts up pictures of himself from eight years ago because he doesn't think he looks as good as the men in the Abercrombie ads. The description of the Age of Untruth could go on and on, but it is a hazy and uncertain place, a limbo between being totally good or totally evil where people are constantly becoming trapped by their apathy.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

My whole life I've been protected from the Age of Untruth, in this little bubble right here on 123 South Main street, because no matter how bad it got out there, I always knew I could come back here every Sunday and I would be safe; safe from an unforgiving world that will rub you raw until you conform to it's every last demand. I was safe because the people here were different. The people here were authentic, and decent, and wholehearted individuals. You proved to me that there was an alternative to what I saw in the "real world" that not everyone bought in to the same paradigm of selfishness and lethargy that I was seeing all around me. You proved to me that my parents weren't just blowing smoke with all the things they tried to pound into my head, but that their virtues were righteous ones that I should start listening to. Every one of you showed me what I really could make of myself if I stuck with it and followed this path of truth. You all were my role models, not any athlete or actor or politician. Those people might have well not existed to me. You were honest. You were genuine. You were real.

Every week you taught me how to be more like you, and even better, taught me from your own mistakes. Of course, when I was a child I had no idea what was going on, I just came with my parents and colored in the children's bulletin and tried to be quiet until creative time. Even after I started realizing the importance of the words that were passing right over my head during sermons and Sunday school, I didn't have an inkling of comprehension to analyze them with. I really began to get it with discipleship and AGAPE, and everything seemed a little clearer, made a little more sense. At AGAPE I found even more support for following a life of truth, kids my own age, who could identify with all my own problems, and were also trying to follow a life of truth. We leaned on each other when things were hard and we continued to learn from our mistakes, together. We knew that as one we could get through anything, because none of us was as strong as all of us. The whole time you were there, grounding me in my faith and my ethics. You armed me with knowledge and truth and reality so that I could take on this crazy backwards world, so that I could enter the Age of Untruth time and time again, and come back unscathed.

And God was there too. I am more certain of it now than I ever was before that he was there every step of the way, working through all of you and in all of his other mysterious and unfathomable ways to bring me here to this day as the man that I am. Every year he has continued to guide me and remind me to come back here when I strayed. Every year he has given me the words to come up here and speak to you all about things that I could never have otherwise understood without his help. Every year he forgives me of all the stupid things I manage to do and always welcomes me back with open arms. For all of this I am forever thankful to him and to you all, I couldn't have made it this far without you.

So what is this then, graduation, commencement, this gargantuan change hanging in the air? It's not goodbye, UCP will always be my original church family, and my safe haven. But it‘s not just another change either. It‘s an evolution. You see when I first came to you and told you my philosophies on religion, I described my idea of what it takes to become a disciple. I said there were three steps. You had to become knowledgeable about God's word. You had to understand and relish in it's meaning. And then you had to go out into the world and act upon the words themselves. Learn it, love it, and live it. Now, you've taught me everything I need to know. Worship services here and AGAPE meetings have cultivated a passion for God's word in me. Now it's my turn. Here I am, on the cusp of a new age, an age of my own creation. This is my opportunity to make good on my own words I said all those years ago. This is my opportunity to live it, to live the truth of God's word in my own life, not just on a small scale, but in a BIG way, to every new person I meet!. This is my opportunity to be a real and genuine agent in an unreal world. This is my opportunity to be the truth in someone else's life just like all of you have been the truth in mine. With your help, I've planted my roots solidly in Christ.

Now it's time to see what I can grow.