Rev. Kevin M. Pleas

Romans 12:1- 2

January 13, 2008

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, 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 by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God - what is good and acceptable and perfect.

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Today, and for the next two Sundays, we are returning to Diana Bass's book, Christianity for the Rest of Us. After giving us her list of ten "Signposts of Renewal," which we explored last fall, she wraps up her book by talking about the "transformation," of our own lives, our congregations, and the world. These three transformations will be the subject of my sermons through the end of January. And next week, in the last of our "Vital Conversations," we plan to gather together and make sense out of this journey we've all been on. If you're able, I very much hope you'll plan to join us.

What do you think about personal transformation? The first thing I think of is that change is something we've already got a whole lot of, and we don't necessarily come to church looking for more. As a minister, I've often heard people say that change is what goes on in the outside world, and part of what they like about church is that it's a place they can count on not to change all that much. Our lack of change is what makes this a "sanctuary" for some people; a place of stability and security that isn't so easy to find these days. I know how they feel. Sometimes I get to feeling that way myself. I'd just as soon curl up in here and let the rest of the world go on about its business.

Certainly, we're not interested in change simply for the sake of change. And neither are we interested in change simply for the sake of increasing our market share. As Bass puts it, "Too often, churches think that if they add guitars to worship, put DVDs in Sunday school rooms, or open a food court in the foyer, new people will join. This kind of change smacks of market tinkering - adjusting the product to improve sales." In my last church I worked with some people who were inclined to think this way. In one conversation, about how to get more people to come to church, the current president told me we had to improve the quality of our "content." I think the content he was talking about was my sermons. We were not amused.

Naturally, we need to be doing what we can to make coming to church as satisfying an experience as possible. As our culture evolves, there may very well come a time when we decide it makes sense to hang up a big video screen and hire a rock band. (You have my permission to wait until I retire.) We do sometimes need to make changes in the way we present our message so that people will continue to feel we are speaking in a language they can understand.

But… the mode of delivery we choose for our message, whether traditional or with all the bells and whistles of mega-churchdom, ultimately has very little to do with the kind of transformation we're talking about. Transformation, in a Christian sense, is what happens when we have a direct and personal encounter with God that changes our lives. Right from the beginning, the followers of Jesus have had this kind of experience at the heart of their understanding of church. We don't usually call it "transformation." The word we've used is conversion, "a change of heart that revolutionizes the whole of life," as Bass puts it. "The biblical word for this is metanoia, a radical encounter with God that turns life around."

Now, is that what we came looking for here this morning? Well, maybe. But I don't think I'd bank on it. Our ideas of encountering God tend to be more warm and fuzzy than that. We like Wesley's notion that our hearts might be strangely warmed. But directly encountering the God of the Bible is usually a bit more upsetting than that. It has a distinct tendency to throw our plans, our theories and assumptions up for grabs. We work hard getting our lives under control as it is. Intentionally setting out to upset the apple cart isn't something we do very often or very willingly. Usually, we much prefer our encounters with God to come in relatively small and manageable doses. Real conversion, metanoia, isn't something we often go looking for.

But somewhere along the line, in most of our lives, it comes looking for us. Like the old line from Hide and Seek, God finishes counting, opens his eyes and shouts out, "Ready or not, here I come." It all started with Jesus. God came into his life like a dove settling on his shoulder, and look how that ended up. St. Thomas started with "I won't believe until I touch him myself," and finished on his knees crying "my lord and my God." St. Paul, after being knocked to the ground, went from persecutor of the church to its leading evangelist. St. Augustine changed from a pagan playboy to an orthodox theologian. Martin Luther turned into the leader of the Protestant Reformation. John Newton gave up his life as a slave trader and wrote the song, "Amazing Grace." These are just a few of the more familiar examples among the literally millions of people whose lives have been transformed by the gospel. Virtually everyone who has converted to Christianity throughout the long years since Jesus, has done so because of some major shift, some light dawning, some new birth. My own story is not so dramatic as some, but as I've shared with you, there was a time when becoming a Christian minister was about the last thing I expected, or wanted.

Mostly, as a church, we content ourselves with trying to be good people, trying to do what we understand to be the work of Christ. We feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, knit prayer shawls and write letters of encouragement to our troops. All of this is very good and important work, and we do it with generous and joyful hearts. But - and this is really important - the church is not just about what we do, even if what we do is on God's behalf. The church is about giving our hearts to God. It is about allowing God to come into our lives and take them over; so that when we do what we do for God, it rises from hearts that have been transformed by God's love. Metanoia is the name, for the change that makes this possible. That's what we're here for; to be "transformed by the renewing of [our] minds, so that [we] may discern what is the will of God," as Paul so well put it.

This can certainly happen gradually, over a period of years. It can also happen suddenly as the result of some unexpected life experience. There's a wonderful movie that came out about five years ago called "Life, or Something Like It." It's partly a delightful, romantic comedy, but it's also a story of how dramatic changes can come without warning. In the movie, Lanie Kerrigan, played by Angelina Jolie, is a reporter for a Seattle TV station with dreams of becoming a national celebrity. As the story opens, she's been assigned to interview a self-proclaimed street prophet named Jack, who seems to be able to predict football scores. Prophet Jack tells Lanie not only who will win the next day's game, and that there will be an unseasonable hailstorm, but also (sadly) that Lanie herself will die in seven days. When Jack's first two predictions come true, Lanie is seized by panic, and is forced into reevaluating her entire life. Coming face to face with her own mortality becomes a moment of transformation. It throws everything she believes up for grabs, but ultimately, this traumatic experience makes it possible for her to enjoy a much richer, more deeply meaningful life. It's just a movie of course, but if you've ever had your life thrown up for grabs, it hits pretty close to home.

Transformation, honestly, is often something we would rather not do, given a choice. One of the first lessons we learn in counseling is that change is something we tend to avoid unless and until we become profoundly uncomfortable. That makes perfect sense, actually. Why would we go to all the trouble of introducing change into our lives if we're comfortable where we are? Transformation, if we are otherwise comfortable, can come as an unwelcome visitor. But Diana Bass says something in her book that I think is really interesting. She says, "Transformation is the promise at the heart of Christianity."

Somehow we need to go from understanding transformation as something to avoid, to an understanding that transformation is what God has promised us. If that is true, though we might prefer not to go through it, it can only, ultimately, be a good thing. Bass talks about a number of people she met in her study, and some of those who were the most enthusiastic about their involvement in their churches were those who had experienced personal transformation as a result. She includes a list of some of the comments these folks made to her. Let me read a few of them to you…

I have become more intentional in my prayer life…

I am more attuned to my spiritual life…

I think material possessions are becoming less important to me…

I'm developing inner tranquility and peace…

I am able to see God in others…

I am able to feel God within me…

I am continually learning to trust God…

My choices have changed…

I am much more focused on the needs of others…

These may not sound like huge transformations to you, but they are. They are gradual perhaps, subtle even, but they do represent a shift in understanding of what's important in life. We don't necessarily have to be knocked to the ground to know God is trying to get our attention. We should know though, that church is not just about us trying to be good people. Ultimately being good people and doing good things rises from a prior transformation; one that that takes us from wherever we have been previously, to a growing dedication to living faithfully in and through the spirit of Christ.

Amen.