The beginning of June will see our next group of Confirmation students confirmed. This is always a day of mixed emotions for me. The pride in, and love for, the kids I've spent the last two years with mixes with the sadness of not meeting with them every other Sunday--at least not in this way--once the service is complete. Most of them do hang around in one way or another, coming to worship or youth group events or helping out when we need them. But it's not quite the same.
Each time a new class is confirmed I hear the stories from past confirmands about the way their Confirmation went. I love to hear those tales. It's good for the kids to hear them too, so they can understand their bond to past generations as well as the differences that define them and their faith. When the old-timers recall their Confirmation ceremony, one refrain echoes over and over. People look back with pride and horror on pastors grilling them in front of the congregation on the commandments form the Small Catechism and select Bible verses. This is inevitably followed by the question, "Do you still have them memorize?"
This is actually something I've thought about a fair bit. Rote memorization has its advantages. Even if the students don't understand the full meaning of the words they're saying, they can recall and re-examine them later. Public recounting of the words they've memorized also lends a sense of gravity to the proceedings, if nothing else from the stress involved!
Memorization also has disadvantages...some of which I've become acquainted with intimately over the years as they've been demonstrated by those same past confirmands. There's no guarantee that the student understands a word of what he or she is saying. Deeper meaning tends to get drown by the perspiration that comes with being quizzed in front of the congregation. Once completed, the exercise tends to evoke feelings of pride in the self and completion. Those are the exact opposite of what we're trying to teach in confirmation. We want to encourage humbleness, service to others, and life-long exploration of your relationship with God. Once you've spouted your required lines you have now "passed the test" and may "graduate", joining the ranks of the congregation who already know the words and now listen to other, younger people repeat them. The implication is that "grown up" faith people don't speak, they make other people prove their faith to them by speaking. Grown up faith people don't have to memorize or do work anymore, they've already done it. Grown up faith people don't ever let themselves feel uncomfortable or let themselves be asked questions, they have the not-yet-grown-up people handle that.
It's a weird system that teaches you that in order to learn you have to exit the grown up world and put yourself right back there sweating and being judged by others. Obviously nobody in their right mind would do that. Can you imagine a 55-year-old volunteering to get up in front of the congregation to repeat memorized phrases while everybody else watched?
I guess I've just run into too many long-confirmed people who could still repeat their memorized phrases but who also felt that there was nothing else they had to do, that their learning was done, that they were in the place of power now because of those words they memorized long ago. So they don't bother coming to Bible Study and they're uncomfortable with any change or exploration which would unseat them from their status as "the ones who have already done it and shouldn't be bothered anymore".
I'm not saying all people who went through the memorization process are like this, but I've met more than a few. And when you add that to the people who hated, hated, HATED Confirmation because they just perceived it as memory drills followed by a morning of abject fear about "getting it right" in front of everybody...well, this just didn't seem like the best idea.
We haven't abandoned the idea entirely, mind you. We don't require memorization anymore but we do have a two-year confirmation program here. During those two years we hit themes that repeat throughout scripture and church life. We don't rush. We don't force. We bathe in things until they sink in. By the time they get out of Confirmation these students, through a couple years of repetition and tackling the same ideas from different angles, have a fair idea of God's salvation, Jesus' sacrifice for them, grace, mercy, sin, death, resurrection, morality, and our responsibility to God, each other, and the world. They might not be able to put it into textbook-perfect phrases, but if you ask them to speak from their hearts about God they will probably give you a pretty close approximation of what the Bible says about him.
And asking them to speak about God is exactly what we do at their Confirmation service. We haven't gotten rid of the public proclamation. Witness is an intrinsic part of our faith! If they can never speak about God then they'll never really know him or be able to make the world better through his power. We still have them speak before the congregation. But instead of having them repeat the words WE find most important through memorization, we ask them to give THEIR witness of God, his actions, and what difference that makes to their lives. Instead of setting them up to be students who graduate to being not-students-anymore, we give them their first chance to be teachers, sharers, witnesses to the Word, entering upon a lifelong journey of discovering and talking about God. That's why we ask them to write and read statements about their faith on the day they are confirmed.
We don't want our pews to be filled with former Confirmation students who have "done it". We want our pews to be filled with current witnesses and explorers of faith who are still doing it! And we want these students to be able to speak to their classmates and friends, eventually their children and grandchildren, to be able to make statements of faith (and to hear other people's statements of faith) throughout their lives.
They still have to know about God. We don't tell them to get up there and say the first thing that comes to mind about any old subject. We're also concerned if they get up there and say that God doesn't matter or that he's a three-toed tree sloth. (Neither of those has happened yet.) But the God we have them share is THEIR God. Hearing their words makes our understanding of God that much bigger. We're turned into fellow explorers, thinkers, and theologians along with them instead of just paper correction experts with red pens in hand in case they make a mistake on their pre-memorized words. When they speak, even as newly-minted students taking their first intentional steps into faith, it transforms them and us.
The memorized words will always be available to them. They can find them in the Bible and the catechism. But if we don't teach them that their perceptions are inspired and their voice important really early in their faith life they'll probably never learn it. If we don't teach them that learning about, discovering, and sharing God is embedded in their very being they'll likely not try it again once they've completed their coursework.
So no, we don't have them memorize and repeat anymore. Some things may be lost there, but I'd argue that much more is gained. I'd also argue that the things we lose are easily picked up...indeed, that curiosity along the journey we set them on mandates that they will pick up those memorized words at some point. That doesn't happen when we do it the other way around. If we don't teach them that they have a soul and how to bare it for the sake of God, they'll trade in that realization for the much easier coinage of having succeeded at the small and temporary task we put before them before we pat them on the head and dub them confirmed. Once they think they've made it they'll have little use for the experience of learning again...or indeed for us. That would be a sad end to what's supposed to be a wonderful Confirmation experience.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
No comments:
Post a Comment