Becoming

Sermon by Andrew Plocher
June 22, 2008, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill

Isaiah 65:17-25
Romans 12:1-21

“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.”

Paul begins the twelfth chapter of his letter saying, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters” and this morning, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters”… bear with me this morning. This morning’s message begins in theology...

Let us pray. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the mediations of our hearts and minds be acceptable in your sight, our Rock and our Redeemer.

For those of you that have been reading along in Paul’s letter to the Romans, you have been confronted with wonderful theological writing. It is challenging, but it is profound and is the beautiful foundation on which much of our church’s theology is today based. In the first eleven or so chapters of his letter, Paul is diligently trying to help the Jewish community understand what Christianity means. For Paul, this means the death and resurrection of Christ and our justification by faith. As a starting point Paul has to explain the law to them and use it a counter point to the good news of Jesus. According to the my handy-dandy Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms, “ the law means variously from the Old Testament in general, the Torah (especially the Pentateuch or first five books of the Bible), the Ten Commandments or the several codes of conduct that identified Israel as set apart and in a covenantal relationship with God. Jesus summarized the law with two commandments: to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself.” It goes on to say that, “Paul declares that the law is fulfilled in Jesus, who sets humans free from the law’s penalty of death.”

Like today, the law was about doing the right thing and being penalized if in the wrong. Justice was acted out as retribution, remuneration, and making equal the sin and the penance. Paul could not understand this in light of Christ. Paul saw that the law was intimately tied to sin and that as long as there was only law to measure our sin, sin would continue. Sin, for Paul, was the reason for law, to try to avoid the death that lies at the end of the road. Yet Christ destroyed death. Christ died for the ungodly and in his resurrection granted us all eternal life. Jesus eliminated our bondage to sin. For the first time, there was something greater than following the rules. There was faith in the God that granted us salvation from our unending path of sin. This gift, of which we did nothing to deserve, is what we call grace. As Presbyterians we profess justification by grace through faith. So what exactly is grace?

The scholars Dominic Crossan and Jonathon Reed describe it this way, and offer a beautiful image of understanding: “Grace as a gift. The Greek word charis, or “grace,” means free gift. You can see that juxtaposition of grace and free gift rather clearly when Paul speaks redundantly and emphatically about being “justified by his grace as a gift” (3:24), about “the free gift of the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ” (5:15), and, climactically, about “the free gift…the grace of God and the free gift…the free gift…the free gift…the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness” (5:15-17).

Think, for a moment, of a physical example such as the air itself. It is there for us all the time, equally available for everyone in every place at every time. We do not need to do anything to obtain it. We could not do anything to obtain it. It is not a question of whether we deserve it or not. It is absolutely transcendent in the sense that we depend on it totally. It is absolutely immanent in the sense that it is everywhere inside and outside us, al around us. And we hardly notice it unless something goes wrong with us or with it. But air does not demand a reaction of awareness, the reply of acceptance, and the response of cooperation. Or, better, it does not demand that we breathe so much as we need to breathe to avoid asphyxiation or hyperventilation. And, if you choose asphyxiation or hyperventilation, do not say that the air is punishing you. It is only and always a matter of collaboration. A grace gift is like a free upgrade but, of course, there too, you need to at least download it.

Paul’s good news is that God’s righteousness is, like earth’s air, a grace, a free gift offered us absolutely and unconditionally for our justification, for the making of a just world. But, then, like any gift, it is actuated by acceptance, and Paul imagines two possible modes of acceptance, only one of which is appropriate. The right way he calls faith, the wrong way works.

The Presbyterian theologian Shirley Guthrie described it this way, “According to scripture (and true Protestantism), neither our good works nor our faith justifies us. God alone does it by God’s free grace in Christ. It is not confidence in the goodness of our life or in the strength of our faith, but confidence in God that gives us the assurance that we are right with God. Robert McAfee Brown puts it this way: “The gospel does not say, ‘Trust God and he will love you,’ the gospel says, ‘God already loves you, so trust him.’ Faith is not a ‘work’ that saves us; it is our acknowledgement that we are saved.”

This does not mean that faith is unimportant. Although it is not the cause of God’s loving us, it is the indispensable means by which we accept and live from God’s love. Faith does not make us right with God, but no one is made right with God without faith.”

Crossan and Reed continue to say that, “Faith does not mean intellectual consent to a proposition, but vital commitment to a program.” This is what Paul is talking about in our reading today. He is not reiterating the laws that he sees so errant in outcome, no matter how noble or sacred there intent. Nor is he creating new rules to be followed. No, he is reiterating the words of Christ. He is trying, as best he can, to share what it means to be a disciple.

Paul asks that we present our bodies as a living sacrifice (12:1), that we not be conformed to this world but transform our minds so that we may discern the will of God (12:2). And if that weren’t enough, he continues to share how we are to work together, live in humility, and do good to those who are evil to us. He gives us an example of discipleship and it isn’t easy. It is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called, “costly grace.”

Yet I think that this, like our lists of things to do often overwhelms us. The laws of the Old Testament were rarely obeyed. There were to many of them and our sins got the better of us. So what makes grace and faith different? I believe that the difference lies in how we respond. We are not asked to do things first, we are asked to be. That’s a strange concept for all of us. I know that I try to keep my palm pilot, my pocket notebook, and all the random notes on my desk in order and get them done. It seems like there is always more to do. My guess is that whether you are a student, a lawyer, a mother, a father, a brother or sister, a landscaper or an artist, a teacher or a manager, you have more than enough work on your plate. We live by doing. But that isn’t what Paul thinks we should focus on. No, for Paul it is about transformation, about being who we are, and becoming who we are. It is about maturity.

The problem is that maturity, being, knowing ourselves, takes the time to stop and listen. It is how we understand our faith and grace. Imagine if we stopped to listen to the air. Maybe it’s the ceiling fan, the wind in the tree or over your ear, maybe the breath of your dog, or your own breath. As we draw our focus upon “being,” we become transformed. How can we offer goodness to our enemy if we do not offer it to ourselves? How do we truly rejoice with others, or weep with them, unless we pay attention long enough to know the feeling of their rejoicing and weeping? How do we know the gifts that God has given us unless we pause to see them and feel them? In Matthew Jesus says, “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (Mt. 7:3). How do we know that there is a log unless we know ourselves and seek to grow in faith?

I know that it’s uncomfortable, and yes, I’m younger than many of you, still learning and maturing, but I do know that when I get busy, the first thing to go is my prayer life. The first thing to go is my moments of pause in the busy day. I stop paying attention to the beauty of the sky and the flowers when I take my dog, Andre, for a walk. I glue myself to work or turn on the radio and listen to NPR. I avoid the silence and try to keep going. But, you know what? I find that I miss the prayer time. More and more I find myself turning off the radio and sitting in silence. Or I take a longer walk with Andre and leave my cell phone at home. I unplug and try to reconnect with the breath of life that invigorates me. I try to reconnect with myself, with my surroundings, and with my experience of God.

So where do you find this space? Is it at the lunch counter? On a treadmill or bicycle? Out in your garden? In your car during your commute? Where do you see the air move, where do you see the grace of God? Where do you find the strength to love your enemies? To embrace the calling that you hear to do your work, to be in relationships, to be yourself? When do you find time to just ‘be’?

The answer might be easy for you or it might take some time. Being a disciple is a lot harder than doing the things a disciple does. Costly grace is the notion that our lives are transformed and that we become aware of God in ourselves and in one another. Until we do so we walk through the motions, we do good works, but we do not connect the faith to our works.

As the danish theologian Soren Kierkegaard once wrote, “Imagine a violinist. If, without having learned the least bit of music, he were to take his seat in the orchestra and right away begin playing, he would not only be disturbed but would disturb others. No, for a long time he practices by himself, alone. As far as possible not a thing disturbs him there; he sits and beats time etc. But his aim is to play with the orchestra. He must be able to tolerate the profusion of the most varied instruments, this interweaving of sounds, and yet be able to attend to his violin and play along just as calmly and confidently as if he were home alone in his room. Oh, this again makes it necessary for him to be by himself to learn to be able to do this – but the aim is always to play in the orchestra. It is the same with faith and the task of living it out.” Faith takes practice.

And in practicing we can become the neighbor. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, when Christ asks the man, “who is the neighbor?” The answer is not, “the injured man” but that the one who helped. It is we who are the neighbor. We must see the neighbor in ourselves and reach out.

Among all the gifts that God has given us, in Kierkegaard’s words, “In being king, beggar, scholar, rich man, poor man, friend, enemy, we do not resemble each other – in these ways we are different. But in being a neighbor we are unconditionally alike.”

The grace of God is truly a gift, it is the beginning of a program, a commitment to sacrifice our bodies and transform our minds. It is the commitment to see the world in new ways, to open our hearts so that it hurts, to open our hands so that they might bleed. We bless out of our own blessings. Friends, may you find the space to hear the breath of the Spirit, your own breath, and the breath of those around you. May you grow in the knowledge of your body and mind, and of the world that surrounds you. And may the grace of God, strength in faith, and the call of discipleship be with you now and forever more. Amen.

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