by Jeanette Banko
Editor's note: Bishop Gohl is on vacation this week, so he has handed over the blog to our LYO Overall Leader Among Leaders, Jeanette Banko, a member of Grace, Easton. Jeanette preached at our Transformers middle school leadership retreat earlier this month, and is sharing her sermon on the blog today. You can also see a livestreamed video of Jeanette preaching on our Facebook page.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, Oh Lord, My Strength, and my redeemer. Amen.
My name, for those of you who don’t know, is Jeanette Banko. I’ve been in the LYO since my freshman year of high school, and I’ve been attending youth retreats since sixth grade. I’m currently the Leader Among Leader Among Leaders for the LYO, and clearly, I’m a huge church nerd.
My name, for those of you who don’t know, is Jeanette Banko. I’ve been in the LYO since my freshman year of high school, and I’ve been attending youth retreats since sixth grade. I’m currently the Leader Among Leader Among Leaders for the LYO, and clearly, I’m a huge church nerd.
When I was initially asked to preach, I was very excited and I am still incredibly excited! This is my first time giving a sermon, but it's something I've been interested in for a while. I've been listening and learning for so long, and coming to all these youth retreats, and meeting all these wonderful people and hearing how they see God in their everyday lives - and now someone trusts me to speak to a group and trusts that I have answers! But don’t get excited, because the truth is, I don’t have answers.
I feel like that's kind of the expectation, that with a certainty of one's faith comes a sense of certainty about what that means. I don't even know if my thoughts and feelings about faith are considered "coherent" - I've always felt very self-conscious about my place in the church and what it means to me. This anxiety about how I fit into God's kingdom started when I was in middle school, probably around sixth grade. I didn’t feel as connected to my faith as the people around me seemed to, and while it didn’t affect how I believed in God, it affected where I saw myself in Her kingdom. If there's this all-loving creator out there that everyone else is feeling and experiencing through worship and service, why wasn’t I feeling that? And if I’m not feeling that, then where do I fit in? I started questioning myself as a person. And I know that for all of you going through middle school, this is a big time of change. You guys are realizing things about yourself and your various identities - your gender, your race, your sexuality. All of these are things that we become increasingly aware of as we grow older, and dealing with all of that can be incredibly hard. Especially when you're trying to figure out what that means about how you might fit into God's kingdom. So I was concerned with what about me was wrong enough that not even God, who I was taught loved everyone, didn’t seem to love me?
It seemed like all I had was questions and it seemed like once I answered them, more questions appeared. These endless questions increased my doubt. And honestly, they never stopped - I'm still constantly questioning. That's something I've come to embrace as part of my faith journey, and it's something you should all embrace as a part of yours. This isn't about getting answers. It's about growing in certainty in your questions and the presence of something that causes you to question.
Think about the reading today. "God has given us different gifts to use." These aren't just set skills - it isn't like any one of you have one gift to offer and that’s all you can offer, and it isn't like your gifts and skills can never change. All these things don't focus on worship. They focus on the necessity of care and love in the world, and on being a source to put that care and love into the world. Our gifts aren't just a thing that exists in a church.
I once played an ice breaker where we all had to go around the circle and say what we're the best at. Not what we're just good at - what we're the best at, out of anyone. Think about that for a minute. How would you answer that question? What are you the best at? I answered it with something lame - at the time I didn't fully think about the question. But the person next to me, the facilitator who asked the question initially, said he was the best at finding the silver lining and bringing groups of people together. And then I got it. For him, that is what he is the best at. And we all have traits like that. Not all of our individual gifts are easy to identify, like "I can sing, or I can draw, or I rock at math." God leaves us all with little hidden gifts that we may have to grow into, or may not even realize we have - but everybody else can see the gift we offer. Think about what that might be for you. Think about all you have to give. But how much of what you have to offer should you put into the world until you simply have nothing else to give? According to the reading, it should be all of it. You should be giving your 110% all the time, and anything less is unacceptable. But that's incredibly stressful to even think about, let alone do. We simply don’t have that ability. That's where grace enters.
Lutheran sermons always come down to grace. I noticed that back in confirmation, and I asked my pastor about it, and she said I was right - and that was that. For as much as there is to unpack about theology and history and God, we focus on grace all the time. This speaks to just how miraculous it as, and how it's the beginning and the end of all questions we have. Even think about the prayer at the beginning of the sermon - "the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart" - this is the beginning and end of everything, and we're just trying to appeal to God, and She's proud of us for all we've done. Maybe what I'm saying is not the truth. Maybe it's not the truth for you. But it's just what I've been thinking and it's what I've been feeling, and that's good enough for God. This is love that we may not feel we deserve, but are given anyway. It's hard to see grace per se, especially as it affects us day to day. But it is seen in positive, beneficial change.
We've been spending the weekend learning about how the church as a whole has changed and how there have been amazing individuals who have changed it. We're all part of the larger body of Christ, and we are each a necessary part of the body, and the change and torment that we each might feel pushes the change of the whole body. That's the part of grace that I feel I can define with certainty - it's love given to us to account for this healthy and necessary growth and change. I believe that God loved the Catholic church before the reformation even happened, despite their sins of greed and corruption. I believe that God loved Luther despite his antisemitism and questioning of faith. I believe that God has loved the world through every moment of its growth. Even with the sins of racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of intolerance ingrained in our society, God gives us grace - She loves us despite our sins because She sees our potential for love. That's the grace I see every day. It's the gift of growing room that allows us to continue to change through our imperfections as people, as a church, and as a world. And now, I'm asking you now to think about changing and grace and gifts - not of or for a whole group of people - but for one individual. You.
Maybe you feel guilt. Maybe you've made some larger mistakes, or some smaller ones. Maybe you're like me, and you sometimes doubt your role and welcome in God's kingdom. Or maybe you doubt the kingdom altogether. And that's okay. If we just listen to the reading we might hear that we need to give our best and nothing but our best and our most genuine all the time. But that's impossible. And that's where I think grace really plays a big role - it isn't that God's given us a free pass or ignores our mistakes. It's that She loves us in spite of them. She accounts for them and just sees us as the wonderful, patchwork human beings that we all are. The beauty of our faith is that God's grace gives us room to grow and to make mistakes and to embrace our mistakes. The body of Christ is always growing, and so we're always growing to allow our gifts to shine as needed. Just because your faith isn't involved in your life the way it was five years ago or the way it will be five years in the future, you aren't any less of a child of God. The body of Christ is all of us, and no matter where you are in your faith journey and what role you feel you serve, we are all a necessary part of God's earth.
So I ask you to forgive yourself and to embrace forgiveness from others and from God - use grace to grow and change and learn from the mistakes we inevitably make. Extend the love God has given you to yourself and allow yourself that level of complete self-acceptance and welcoming as God has asked you to give other people. And I'm sure you do give it to other people - none of us consider ourselves "bad" human beings, we act out of the goodness of our hearts. And I'm saying these things to you because I genuinely believe them, and I genuinely want you all to believe them about yourselves. And while I was writing this sermon, it occurred to me that these aren't things I necessarily think about for me. These are things we all think about for other people, but we don’t think about what it means for us. That's the beauty of being part of this world under this God - as members of the larger body of Christ, we all have the power to constantly change the perspectives of others as well as ourselves. You're allowed to question, and you're allowed to transform, and you're allowed to decide which of your gifts to utilize. We are given the freedom to choose how we want to serve Christ's body, and this isn't expected to stay the same for your entire life. And this is the beauty of grace - it allows us to constantly grow. Amen.
I feel like that's kind of the expectation, that with a certainty of one's faith comes a sense of certainty about what that means. I don't even know if my thoughts and feelings about faith are considered "coherent" - I've always felt very self-conscious about my place in the church and what it means to me. This anxiety about how I fit into God's kingdom started when I was in middle school, probably around sixth grade. I didn’t feel as connected to my faith as the people around me seemed to, and while it didn’t affect how I believed in God, it affected where I saw myself in Her kingdom. If there's this all-loving creator out there that everyone else is feeling and experiencing through worship and service, why wasn’t I feeling that? And if I’m not feeling that, then where do I fit in? I started questioning myself as a person. And I know that for all of you going through middle school, this is a big time of change. You guys are realizing things about yourself and your various identities - your gender, your race, your sexuality. All of these are things that we become increasingly aware of as we grow older, and dealing with all of that can be incredibly hard. Especially when you're trying to figure out what that means about how you might fit into God's kingdom. So I was concerned with what about me was wrong enough that not even God, who I was taught loved everyone, didn’t seem to love me?
It seemed like all I had was questions and it seemed like once I answered them, more questions appeared. These endless questions increased my doubt. And honestly, they never stopped - I'm still constantly questioning. That's something I've come to embrace as part of my faith journey, and it's something you should all embrace as a part of yours. This isn't about getting answers. It's about growing in certainty in your questions and the presence of something that causes you to question.
Think about the reading today. "God has given us different gifts to use." These aren't just set skills - it isn't like any one of you have one gift to offer and that’s all you can offer, and it isn't like your gifts and skills can never change. All these things don't focus on worship. They focus on the necessity of care and love in the world, and on being a source to put that care and love into the world. Our gifts aren't just a thing that exists in a church.
I once played an ice breaker where we all had to go around the circle and say what we're the best at. Not what we're just good at - what we're the best at, out of anyone. Think about that for a minute. How would you answer that question? What are you the best at? I answered it with something lame - at the time I didn't fully think about the question. But the person next to me, the facilitator who asked the question initially, said he was the best at finding the silver lining and bringing groups of people together. And then I got it. For him, that is what he is the best at. And we all have traits like that. Not all of our individual gifts are easy to identify, like "I can sing, or I can draw, or I rock at math." God leaves us all with little hidden gifts that we may have to grow into, or may not even realize we have - but everybody else can see the gift we offer. Think about what that might be for you. Think about all you have to give. But how much of what you have to offer should you put into the world until you simply have nothing else to give? According to the reading, it should be all of it. You should be giving your 110% all the time, and anything less is unacceptable. But that's incredibly stressful to even think about, let alone do. We simply don’t have that ability. That's where grace enters.
Lutheran sermons always come down to grace. I noticed that back in confirmation, and I asked my pastor about it, and she said I was right - and that was that. For as much as there is to unpack about theology and history and God, we focus on grace all the time. This speaks to just how miraculous it as, and how it's the beginning and the end of all questions we have. Even think about the prayer at the beginning of the sermon - "the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart" - this is the beginning and end of everything, and we're just trying to appeal to God, and She's proud of us for all we've done. Maybe what I'm saying is not the truth. Maybe it's not the truth for you. But it's just what I've been thinking and it's what I've been feeling, and that's good enough for God. This is love that we may not feel we deserve, but are given anyway. It's hard to see grace per se, especially as it affects us day to day. But it is seen in positive, beneficial change.
We've been spending the weekend learning about how the church as a whole has changed and how there have been amazing individuals who have changed it. We're all part of the larger body of Christ, and we are each a necessary part of the body, and the change and torment that we each might feel pushes the change of the whole body. That's the part of grace that I feel I can define with certainty - it's love given to us to account for this healthy and necessary growth and change. I believe that God loved the Catholic church before the reformation even happened, despite their sins of greed and corruption. I believe that God loved Luther despite his antisemitism and questioning of faith. I believe that God has loved the world through every moment of its growth. Even with the sins of racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of intolerance ingrained in our society, God gives us grace - She loves us despite our sins because She sees our potential for love. That's the grace I see every day. It's the gift of growing room that allows us to continue to change through our imperfections as people, as a church, and as a world. And now, I'm asking you now to think about changing and grace and gifts - not of or for a whole group of people - but for one individual. You.
Maybe you feel guilt. Maybe you've made some larger mistakes, or some smaller ones. Maybe you're like me, and you sometimes doubt your role and welcome in God's kingdom. Or maybe you doubt the kingdom altogether. And that's okay. If we just listen to the reading we might hear that we need to give our best and nothing but our best and our most genuine all the time. But that's impossible. And that's where I think grace really plays a big role - it isn't that God's given us a free pass or ignores our mistakes. It's that She loves us in spite of them. She accounts for them and just sees us as the wonderful, patchwork human beings that we all are. The beauty of our faith is that God's grace gives us room to grow and to make mistakes and to embrace our mistakes. The body of Christ is always growing, and so we're always growing to allow our gifts to shine as needed. Just because your faith isn't involved in your life the way it was five years ago or the way it will be five years in the future, you aren't any less of a child of God. The body of Christ is all of us, and no matter where you are in your faith journey and what role you feel you serve, we are all a necessary part of God's earth.
So I ask you to forgive yourself and to embrace forgiveness from others and from God - use grace to grow and change and learn from the mistakes we inevitably make. Extend the love God has given you to yourself and allow yourself that level of complete self-acceptance and welcoming as God has asked you to give other people. And I'm sure you do give it to other people - none of us consider ourselves "bad" human beings, we act out of the goodness of our hearts. And I'm saying these things to you because I genuinely believe them, and I genuinely want you all to believe them about yourselves. And while I was writing this sermon, it occurred to me that these aren't things I necessarily think about for me. These are things we all think about for other people, but we don’t think about what it means for us. That's the beauty of being part of this world under this God - as members of the larger body of Christ, we all have the power to constantly change the perspectives of others as well as ourselves. You're allowed to question, and you're allowed to transform, and you're allowed to decide which of your gifts to utilize. We are given the freedom to choose how we want to serve Christ's body, and this isn't expected to stay the same for your entire life. And this is the beauty of grace - it allows us to constantly grow. Amen.