‘all together now…’
August 27, 2023
Scriptures: Romans 12:1-8, Matthew 16:13-20
I looked up the word in the Greek that is used in our scripture as transformed. And that word is metamorphoo (pronounced met-am-or-fo-o, accent on 4th syllable), which we also know as metamorphosis, a term most of us probably last encountered in middle or high school classes on geology. And it was used there in reference to how certain types of rock are changed into different rocks through a process involving tremendous heat and pressure…such as when limestone deposits originally formed from seafloor calcium deposits, are transformed into quartz crystal. One may also remember the term being used to characterize what happens when a tadpole becomes a frog, or an insect larva somehow almost magically transforms, emerging from the cocoon as an incredibly beautiful butterfly. In all these cases it should be pretty clear that something striking has occurred in terms of a change in character, and or appearance.
And that…that change, from something or someone, into something, or someone strikingly different in character or appearance than before, may be the best way to imagine just what Paul was asking of each one of us who professes to believe that Jesus is Lord, and was indeed the Son of God.
I must admit that my previous interactions with this passage from Paul have always tended to focus on how to be a better, or a more loving person. As sort of a personal call for me to seek to be more Christlike…which truthfully, is really kind of a difficult concept to grasp if you are honest with yourself. Now the word in the Greek for ‘sin’, is hamartia, which actually best translates as ‘missing the mark’. And so that is how I tended to engage with this passage in the past…looking within myself and at my life in order to find, and then try and correct whatever in me was ‘missing the mark’ in terms of what I thought would be pleasing to God.
And usually, I did not have to look too far. For surely there were instances when I had said, done, or thought something that could have been done so much more lovingly. But I realized that the problem with this approach to the passage, was that it was all about me…about my trying to measure up to some ideal thought-pattern or behavior, which truthfully only addressed a certain point or particular moment in my life, and therefore represented a line I was quite possibly going to cross again at some point in the future.
And that is a problem because part of the core message of Jesus’ teachings was that we each needed to let go of caring and being concerned only for ourselves, instead changing our focus over into a fully new direction, transformed if you will into caring and working on behalf of others…and in particular, others who were not as advantaged, or as privileged as ourselves.
In other words, as Gayle Irwin put it in his book, ‘The Jesus Style’, our faith is supposed to be an ‘others-centered faith’. Paul is not speaking here of how we must change and be made wholly new with the mind of Christ, just so that we are better people, or that we are more holy, or even, so that we are guaranteed a heavenly destination at some point later on’. No, he is saying that we must be made over into the likeness of our Lord, so that we might then be better and more fully equipped to do the work being asked of us in revealing the Kingdom of our Lord right here and right now!
Our faith, and the maturing or growth of it are always guided and directed by the Holy Spirit, in order that we might be of ever greater service in the purposes and desires of our Lord. Simply getting to the end of our life and standing there before God and saying, ‘Aren’t you glad I was such a good person during my life?’, is unfortunately not the way to make a good impression…and decidedly not what a Christian life is supposed to be all about!
As I read through this passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans again this week I heard it speaking a new and different, less personal and more community centered message. In these ‘strange new times’ we are all now in, times that so often seem anything but ‘normal’, I believe this passage offers a pathway towards a more lasting or stable understanding of our calling as Christians, as well as a way to more meaningfully engage with all of the noise we are so often surrounded by.
And in fact, the strangeness of these times, may in fact offer us an opportunity to invite the Holy Spirit anew to weigh in on just how it is we are supposed to follow Paul’s call…how it is that we are to actually be transformed into earthen vessels that are capable of holding and then pouring forth that life-giving and life-affirming new wine of the Spirit. For it is only as this ‘new wine of the Spirit’ that we can begin to search for and to dream of what ‘God’s normal’ is, both for the church, and for each one of us. Perhaps then, we might in Paul’s words, begin to ‘discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect’.
I think that it just might be that these times have broken open the possibility of seeing reality as through a completely new lens. With everything so broken, everything so ‘waiting to be reimagined’, perhaps it is God’s Spirit who is offering the chance for the emergence of wholly new and transformed understandings. Perhaps in our time, and in these circumstances, the Spirit is calling for a reset…a return to the original love as the underlying conditional of life that flowed all through the act of Creation…a reset back to the original balance and harmony that God truly celebrated at the end of the sixth day of Creation when the words, ‘Indeed, it is very good’ were uttered. Perhaps it may be time to reimagine the possibilities of what humanity might accomplish if we truly pulled together one for another, rather than simply pulling our own load all the way up the hill, and for the benefit of ourselves alone?
‘Do not be conformed to the old ways of the world’, Paul writes, but rather, be made over, be made wholly new…be transformed in all your ways of thinking, understanding, and perhaps most importantly, ‘acting’. For it is not enough to be changed within, to have a new mind, even the mind of Christ, if that does not translate into action on behalf of and in service to God. And further Paul writes, ‘offer yourselves as a living sacrifice’, meaning that in this new state of being transformed, the whole of your life must be active and alive…your life, given over in service to our Lord, must do something’!
And it is in that state, of living sacrificially for others, that we can then begin to hear and understand the rest of Paul’s words in our passage, where he issues the call for us to commit to work together in pursuit of God’s new reality. He calls us to work together almost as a team according to the measure of the faith we each have. For each of us to bring to this gathering of energy and commitment we call the church whatever our own particular gifts or talents may be.
For in the full assembly of all our gifts there is a completeness, and a sufficiency to address the challenges of the present moment. Absolutely everything we may need, is within what we all have already been blessed with. And quite interestingly, Paul does not rank the gifts he mentions in order of importance. They are all critical in the work of moving God’s emerging kingdom of love and grace forward. Ministering, teaching, and even prophecy are no more or less important than generosity and cheerfulness. Working together in pursuit of God’s purposes requires every gift we have each been given, even if we don’t always view them as highly as perhaps we should.
So, going back to the beginning…we are each called, and always have been called to offer our lives to Christ for the purpose of helping to change or transform the world back closer to the likeness of the unity and balance that was present at the end of the sixth day of Creation. By acknowledging that we are called to set aside our ‘old ways’ of thinking and living, and instead seeking through the Spirit, the way in which we each can be made wholly new, we will then be able to ‘re-present ourselves’ to our God, ready and willing to take on these challenges with new energy and commitment.
The multiple challenges of the past several years have in many ways ‘broken’ our normal ways of being…our ways of being individuals, of being family, even of being the church. But new and other ways are surely available if we covenant to listen and to pray together to the Spirit for guidance in these times for which we truly have had no training. For our God is not only capable of leading us through this wilderness, but on through and out the other side into a new day for all of humanity as well.
But it has to start with each one of us being willing to allow the Spirit of our God to transform us and to renew us as those alive and sacrificed over to love and service, willing and able to get to work as the Spirit leads. Paul’s call therefore, is for us to ‘be transformed’, to be changed into a place where…
Forgiveness is a way of life always…
Both hope and peace are possible…
Joy runs deep and has many faces…
Practicing the faith is not an option…
Personal security rests only in the Lord…
Your senses are more attuned to the needs of those around you…
Confession becomes a daily habit…
All you do, can be seen as serving, either the Lord directly, or others around you…
Your ‘bread’ may at times truly be ‘daily bread’, sufficient only for the moment…
As you grow in faith, Creation becomes more beautiful every day…
You come to realize just how much of a treasure good friends are…
You will often feel that the Lord’s belief in what you can do or deal with, seems far greater than your own…
You will learn that ‘transformation’ is a process, not a destination to be reached all at once…
You will learn that the bible really can speak into your own life and circumstance…
You will come to realize that the ‘ways of the world’ really only offer temporary and unsatisfactory solutions, and that a life of faith offers enduring assurance of God’s presence…
Prayer becomes as easy as breathing and as simple as ‘hello God’…
Relationships matter far more than things…
Love is love, and love is good, wherever it is found…
For by grace you will be refined, as many times and as often as needed, until, like ‘silver refined seven times’, the Lord can see his own image reflected back, as he looks upon you
Come let us move into the newness of life and holy purpose that awaits each one of us…and all of us together…amen
