Romans 12:1-8 Matthew 16:13-20
Those of you with children between the ages of 5 and
18 are probably quite familiar with the Transformers. What with 4 (I think) summer blockbusters
coming to movie theaters over the past five or six years, backpacks and other
school supplies plastered with the pictures of warrior robots, and the
ubiquitous Bumblebee costumes that have walked the streets on the last couple of
Hallowe’ens, the Transformers have become a cultural icon.
This isn’t the first time, of course. The 80s were the original decade of
transformers. We (at least some of us
who were just the right age back then) were obsessed with the Autobots and the Decepticons. There were no movies about them back then
(and how could you have made one with computer-produced graphics) …. No movies,
but there were daily cartoons that ran for years. And it wasn’t just the robot saviors of
humanity that were part of it. There
were also the Thundercats and Voltron.
They weren’t quite the same thing, but they had courageous warriors
(human or otherwise) who piloted battle machines that transformed into a huge
mechanized cat or a gigantic robot on demand.
Those friends of my childhood and their action-packed
adventures made for some pretty highly-charged Saturdays in our household. Then, throughout the week, we would imagine
new adventures and crash our toys together, and as we protected the weak from
the depredations of the enemy, we got to express, in graphic detail, our desire
violence and destructions without actually hurting each other.
Since then, I have graduated from adolescence into
college and on to adulthood with all the rights and responsibilities that come
along with that. I got married and
changed my name – a huge change that has affected who I am more than I thought
it would. (And I don’t just getting
married. Changing my name began a
transformation in me that I never even considered.) I went back to being a student again, and
then I became a father and a pastor at just about the same time. Talk about a change of perspective! As I look back over my journey through those
25 years, I realize that it has been one long process of transformation that
began, really, even before I became aware of myself in the 80s. And I’m sure that any number of you could tell
me all about how it will only keep on and on for the rest of my life.
Those kinds of changes are much deeper and more
personal than the antics of Optimus Prime or the Thundercats, of course. Their transformations only have to do with
form or functionality, and while some of my own changes had to do with my own
form, most of them went on below the surface.
Yet, even those deeper changes were only on the level of my own
self-image, or my perspective, or my approach to living. The transformation that Paul is talking about
in this letter to the Romans reaches, I think, even farther down inside
us. He used the words “be transformed by
the renewing of your mind,” but I think he was speaking of something more
spiritual than it sounds like to us.
Among the Greeks, Romans, and Jews of Paul’s time
there was a different biology of thinking, feeling, and being. For them, emotions, intuition, and passion
lived in the gut (an understanding that we preserve when we talk about our “gut
feelings” about a situation). All the
things that make of intelligence – logic and reason, knowledge and
understanding – were a function of the brain much as they do for us. But the mind – the sense of self and will,
the home of our true identity and the ground of our being – the mind dwelled in
the heart.
So, when Paul speaks of a transformation, he isn’t
just talking about changing our mind. He
means something much more serious, much more fundamental. He means a change at the deepest level of our
natures. He is talking about a change of
heart – a transformation of our very selves.
And for Paul that means three very specific things.
First and foremost, it is a move from being a
non-believer to a believer, and by that I mean believing in Jesus as the
Christ, as the Son of God come to set us free, as God himself made human to
share in our lives and redeem our living.
Most of the people that Paul knew were believers in something else. Almost everybody in the ancient world was a
follower of one God or another. Some few
claimed to follow philosophy alone, but most worshiped the Roman Pantheon, the
Greek Gods, or YHWH.
The members of the community in Rome had been mostly
Jewish to begin with, but there were a smattering of gentiles mixed into the
group. And while they had all come to
believe in Jesus and had been baptized into the church, the pressures of the
culture around them and the habits they had formed in their past tempted them
back into practices like sacrifice.
Paul’s words to them called them away from conformity with those around
them and reminded them to return to the Christian teachings that freed them
from the need for those rituals.
Which leads us to Paul’s second favorite theme, and
one which is especially prevalent in Romans: the change from being a people doomed by the law to failure and
judgment to being a people redeemed from
the law by grace. Over and over again in
this letter, Paul tries to help the people understand the gift they have
received through Christ. Where they had
been liable to judgment under to the law of Moses according to which they would
certainly be found wanting and in need of punishment, within Jesus’ embrace
their sins were forgiven and their souls redeemed from damnation.
All they needed to do was cling to their faith and
try their best to follow the will of God, but in order to succeed in that they
were in constant need of the Spirit’s guidance, and that guidance could only be
discerned if their hearts were renewed.
If at the root of their being they had become open and ready to receive
understanding beyond the selfish and limited truth that reason could provide.
If you find yourself a little confused or feeling
lost in the tumble of words searching some clarity, you are NOT alone. People have been struggling with Paul for
centuries, and I’m not at all certain that the members of the community that he
was writing to really understood what he was saying. I’m not even sure that I do.
It seems like a lot to hold onto. So, I’ll sum those us as two bullet
points. Be transformed from non-believer
to believer and be transformed from legalistic people of the law to the committed
people of grace. Believe and be
redeemed.
And now we come to the last of the three great
transformations Paul wants us to understand.
When we are renewed through the grace of Christ, we become part of a
greater whole. We become part of the body
of Christ. That may seem minor compared
with the other two changes, but I think holding onto that identity might be our
greatest challenge, because it is a transformation that reaches to the core of
our being. And in this society, the idea
of being anything other than an individual is a big change indeed.
I’m sure there was a lot of individualism in Paul’s
day even with the greater stress on being part of the clan, but there is even
more now. From the time we are born, we
are taught to become self-sufficient (which isn’t a bad thing) and to look out
for #1 (which is not so good). We are
taught that our needs come before the wellbeing of the rest of humanity. We think in terms of me verses everyone else
most of the time, and our lives reflect that reality.
We are isolated in our homes more and more. We don’t know or care to know many of the
people who live near us let alone the hundreds of people we pass by without a
thought each day. We find ourselves
stressing out when we face difficult challenges that have to do with money or
childcare or any of a number of other things because we assume that we have to
deal with them ourselves.
It shifts our way of thinking about each other and
makes it possible to take Jesus’ command to love our neighbors as ourselves
seriously. In fact, Paul thinks that it
can take one step farther so that we put the wellbeing of others ahead of our
own which he certainly did. It changes
our approach to the world because we begin to see all of God’s children as part
of our family – as long lost members, perhaps, of the body that we are a part
of creating. And it makes the struggle
to hold onto our new identity a group effort instead of a personal trial.
Big changes … changes of the heart … change at the
deepest level … transformation that comes to us a gift of grace and the
Spirit’s work … transformation that began for all of us sometime in the past
and will continue throughout the rest of our lives.
So, sisters and brothers, as we sit here in the
beauty of a creation that we are not separate from by intimately connected
with, I invite you to consider Paul’s words as if they were addressed to you….
“I appeal to you,
therefore, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed [not just in body but in spirit] … be transformed by the renewing
of your minds, so that you may [become the children of God] who discern what is
the good and the acceptable and the perfect will of God.”
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