Pilgrimage Confirmation Service

This is my Son, my Beloved.

God said these words about Jesus once before. At baptism. I believe with all my heart that God said those words about each of us at our baptism. And that God says it again to us to remind us who we are and whose we are. God is saying these words today about Rhys and Jess. You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter. This day is all about love, love which changes everything.

A song from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Aspects of Love, puts it this way, with only slight rewording:

Love, love changes everything

Hands and faces, earth and sky

Love, love changes everything

How we live and how we die

Love, can make the summer fly

Or a night seem like a lifetime

Yes love, love changes everything

When God calls us each by name

Nothing in the world will ever be the same.

The transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain, began with God's love, love intended by God to give Jesus the strength and courage he needed to go to Jerusalem. The transforming of the world begins with love. God loves us - and all creation. Then we love God in return by obeying God's commandments. We love God in thanksgiving. We love God not because we're afraid of God, but because we honor God and because we want to honor God's people and whole of Gods creation.

A study of how children grow shows something about this. Little children in healthy families obey their parents at first because they don't want to be punished. Soon they grow to obey because they want to be good boys or good girls. In late childhood, they grow toward deeper, mutual relationship - choosing to obey as a gift to their parents, as a way to honor them and give back some of the love they have been given. Of course this arc of growth isn't perfect. Even adults fall back into childish patterns from time to time. We love selfishly and imperfectly much of the time. But being loved and loving in return deepens love. For

Love, love changes everything

Days are longer, words mean more

Love, love changes everything

Pain is deeper than before

Love will turn your life around

And that life will last forever

Yes love, love changes everything

In the name of Christ who came

Nothing in the world will ever be the same.

Nothing in the world is the same because of Jesus' love. The love of God, vibrant within him, took him to places where people were aching to learn and grow and live life more fully - the city gates, the temple porch, the well at the center of town.

Love took Jesus to places where people were suffering - the pool at Siloam, the home of Peter's mother in law, the home of Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus.

Love took Jesus to Jerusalem, even though he clearly read the signs and knew he was likely to die there. He could have said no. He could have slipped away and lived a life of quiet obscurity in some deserted place. But he followed Love's lead all the way to death.

And even then, Love kept changing everything. It took Jesus to "the spirits in prison," to those who had already died, so that he could invite them to to the fullness of new life in God's heaven.

Love took Jesus into the world, to places of suffering, to death, and then right through death to life on the other side.

In Jesus' name, love takes us on amazing, terrifying and wonderful journeys as well. Just look where love has brought you, Rhys and Jess. Look where it has brought all of you - into deep relationships with each other across dioceses, across the ocean, across race and prejudice as you've gone deep into the terrible legacy of the slave trade that united us in the past. Love took you to the slavery museum in Liverpool and the slave trail in Richmond. Love is taking you to pray and think and act on what you have learned for the reconciliation of broken relationships, for the sake of healing the great divides between peoples on this earth.

Off into the world we go, planning futures, shaping years.

Love bursts in and suddenly all division disappears.

Love will bridge the widest rift,

all our human pride is broken.

Yes, love, love changes everything:

It's the good news we proclaim.

Love will never ever let you be the same.

Love has brought us here. In deep love for God and for each other, we worship and we celebrate Rhys and Jess as they confirm the faith first claimed for them at their baptism. Love is changing them. Love is changing you. Don't be afraid to be changed. Hold on tight to what you are learning, what you are noticing about yourselves, how you are interacting with each other. Let love change everything as God shapes you in new ways. Even when this pilgrimage is over and you go home - let love keep changing you more and more into everything God created you to be. That is God's will for you. Because

Love will never ever let you be the same

God will never ever let you be the same.