ACTUAL TRANSFORMATION (ROM 12:1-2) Fr. Phil Eberhart

 Fr. Phil Eberhart 

13th Sunday of Pentecost

Aug 30, 2020

Actual Transformation 

I want to begin by reading our two key verses from a couple different translations.  First Romans 12:1-2 from the pen of JB Phillips...

With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.

And now from the pen of Eugene Peterson...

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

One of my chief joys in life right now is watching and bragging on my children.   It's not lost on me or Val how filled with God's grace and mercy our life together has been,  and we lay that at the feet of those who regularly pray for us and our girls.  We're not lucky,  as Oakley would have told us,  we're blessed! 

We're blessed by Him because we're being blessed by so many of you. 

I want to consider the subject of transformation this morning and it occurs to me from the two renderings of these verses that the end goal of transformation is maturity!  Simply put, God intends for us to grow up! 

That is probably captured best in Ephesians 4 by Paul. Listen...

until all of us come to ... maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 14 We must no longer be children, ...15 But ... we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ!

The measure of the full stature of Christ!!  

There is the standard for our transformation! Earlier in Ephesians Paul calls the Church "the Fullness of Him who fills all in all. (Eph 1:23)  Think of that - The Body of Christ is the physical manifestation of the God of the Universe, the FULLNESS OF HIM WHO FILLS ALL IN ALL.  And that is the goal of our transformation process here, maturity in the faith and in our knowledge of God.

So let's look at Ro 12:1-2 in that light, in light of the goal:

A few weeks ago Sharon gave me a prayer shawl and it was accompanied by a scripture that she felt exemplified my work here on this planet...  a very humbling scripture I might add:  I want to read it from the Amplified Bible: 2 Cor 3:18

 And we all, with unveiled face, continually seeing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are progressively being transformed into His image from [one degree of] glory to [even more] glory, which comes from the Lord, [who is] the Spirit.  

This rendering captures the continually "progressing" nature of the work of transformation.  Over the past years I've talked about the process of METAMORPHOSIS that a pupa caterpillar goes through on its way to being a butterfly!  That is the kind of work, the kind of miracle, that is in view here.  It's fraught with struggle; it's hard to grow up; and once you're beginning to be grown up, it hard to - what do the kids call it today - it's hard to "adult!"  Now it's a verb!!  ADULTING! Moving away from your parents covering and protection, risking failure, trying again and again - all the things that make for coming to a greater and greater maturity.  How do we say it?   YOU LIVE AND LEARN!!  Usually when we say that it means we've learned something from a bad thing that has happened to us!

Turn back to Romans 12

1.  It's "IN VIEW OF GOD'S MERCY"  - WITH OUR EYES WIDE OPEN TO HIS MERCIES

     What mercies?  Just a few verses ahead of this one...

Ro 11:30   Just as you once were disobedient and failed to listen to God, but have now obtained mercy because of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now become disobedient so that they too may one day receive mercy because of the mercy shown to you.  

We heard this last week!!

God's unsearchable wisdom has bound us in our disobedience together so that He may have mercy on us all together.  

So what is our response to this?

2.  Make your life a sacrificial offering to Him - every day - a "living" sacrifice.  I've joked before that the problem with Living Sacrifices is that they always crawl off the Altar!!  But it occurred to me as I wrote this that that is what God intends!  A LIVING Sacrifice is a sacrifice that comes off the Altar and lives sacrificially!  Remembering that you have been sacrificed already, and live your life in that reality!!

How does Gene Peterson put it ... Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.
 

Your life is to be lived as a sacrifice.  An offering to God -- your whole life.

3.  This is your "reasonable" worship.  It is the intelligent response to all that God has done!  It's just what any sane person would do!

4.  Don't let the world "press you into its mold."  Anyone here ever feel pressed into a mold lately?  Only every day~~

     We're peculiar if we don't conform.  We're seen to be defective of late.  Not quite clear thinkers!  We need to be told what to do and how to do it, like little children.  But it is our breaking out of the mold that is exactly what is called for here.  We have a different mold!!  the Imago Dei - the Image of God through Christ Jesus.  The world wants us to stay caterpillars, God designed us to be butterfly's!!

4.  TRANSFORMED ,  changed in nature and changed in form -  METAMORPHOSIS  - from the inside Out!

    The caterpillar enters into its chamber ~ its CHRYSALLIS.  

    How many have watched the movie WAR ROOM?   The prayer chamber, the prayer closet - the place of prayer and meditation

The Psalmist asks, "How shall a young person make His/Her way pure?"  The answer?  "By taking HEED THERETO ACCORDING TO THY WORD."  He goes on to say "Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee!"  [Ps 119:9,11]

5.     BY THE TRANSFORMATION OF YOUR MIND. 

our whole world is steady or shaken by what we allow into our minds!    GARBAGE IN --> GARBAGE OUT - the old programmer's addage.

In Romans 8, Paul compares and contrasts the MINDSET that we can display -  Kata Sarkos (according to the flesh) or Kata Pneumatos (according to the Spirit) - one set on death  - the other on life!  Our MIND SET is what makes the difference.  Focused attention - "Fixing our eyes on Jesus," the writer of Hebrews says, "the Author and Perfecter of our Faith."

6.  THEN...  God's will becomes plain to us.  GOOD, PLEASING AND PERFECT WILL.  Wow!  What a place to live!!  Sounds like Heaven...

Hmmm.   Heaven... ON Earth ~   ON EARTH AS IN HEAVEN.  

This is ACTUAL TRANSFORMATION - WHAT JESUS TAUGHT US TO PRAY FOR DAILY!  "THY KINGDOM COME, THY WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN."  

This is the work that we are called to - this is the means to reach the end goal of maturity in Him - ACTUAL TRANSFORMATION happens as we, day by day, live lives of sacrifice, letting our worship of God infuse every moment of every day - our attention captured by His Word and His Spirit, the means of Grace and the Hope of Glory.  Thy Kingdom come (in me) and Thy will be done (in me) as it is in Heaven!

Let's close by saying that a few time together again.  Just that line from the Lord's Prayer:

 

 "THY KINGDOM COME, THY WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN."   

"THY KINGDOM COME, THY WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN."   

"THY KINGDOM COME, THY WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN."   

Let it be so, both inside us and among us, Lord Jesus, for the fame of Your Name and the Glory of Your kingdom.

Amen   

Jesus, a Racist? On Identity & Call

Aug 16, 2020

Pentecost 11th Sunday

Fr.  Phil Eberhart 

The Racist Jesus & Our  Identity

Have you ever been completely misunderstood because you used a certain word or phrase in a sentence?   People or an individual just couldn't get past that word to a different interpretation of what you said?  I think that happens a lot actually.   It's endemic to the nature of communication itself,  and so we constantly have to go beyond the words to context and intention before we judge one another for what we say. 

Jesus gets into that pickle here in our gospel this morning.  It's one of the "sticky wickets" among the sayings of Jesus in all the gospels.   On the face of it,  calling another human a "dog" is racist.  Right? 

That's most people's conclusions here. What a horrible thing to say,  we judge!  And we completely miss the potential of this encounter to teach us about the nature of identity and of calling.

IDENTITY

Identity is made of many different things:  physical characteristics of your person,  your sex,  your skin color,  your... race.  Basics.  To that we add your place in a cultural hierarchy, your belief or faith,  your wealth or lack,  your education, jobs and work,  e.t.c.   The list is long and distinguished! 

To say that these factors were at play in our gospel reading is to state the obvious,  but what we're missing is the fact that while the disciples wanted to chase the woman off, Jesus engages her need and her person,  speaking with her at all - which was outside the boundaries.  She knew it! 

Her importunity, her persistence turns immediately to humility when Jesus engages her in conversation! 

Much to her surprise and, I would add the disciples... again... Jesus turns and has a conversation with a Gentile... ANATHEMA... and a woman to boot. GASP!!

Jesus's reason given to her is his own life call and identity!   "To the children of the house of Israel!"  Jesus and His calling is crystal clear.  BUT...

God is moved by prevailing prayer and persistent, overcoming faith!

Jesus is actually amazed at the faith of the woman and her prayer is answered.   It may be time for us to take note of the persistence and desperation of a Gentile woman and come and do likewise! 

ONE LAST WORD... OUR IDENTITY

Just as Jesus was clear on his personhood,  his identity and his calling from God,  it's of paramount importance that we also understand who we are and Whose we are! 

I just want to read a verse from our Psalm this morning...

7 these I will bring to my holy mountain,
and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

Just as surely as Jesus had an identity,  we have an identity and a calling!   We've heard for years about the effect of our devotion to God's Word,  to a Shared life,  to our Eucharistic Hospitality and to Prayer, but this is even more basic,  more core IDENTITY FOR US TODAY AT REZ! 

1.  This is A Holy Place... a Holy Hill. We've felt it and its been affirmed by almost all who come to this spot to worship , to read or to pray and intercede! 

2.   God's presence... his Joy is here.  We need to let his joy become a hallmark of our life together. 

3.  We are to offer acceptable sacrifices and offerings in this place.   It is the re-establishment of an Altar in the city.  As we worship in Spirit and in Truth, in both Word and Sacrament here on this Altar... we're releasing more and more of the Kingdom of heaven into the kingdoms of this world... of this present darkness. 

4.  God Himself is bringing this verse to full fruition among us in this place.  It is our IDENTITY!  A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL NATIONS.  More and more I pray for this to become a living reality in our midst and in this place,  for the glory of the Lamb and the furthering of the Kingdom of God to flow from this hilltop. 

Won't you pray with me? 

11.  for  the  local  congregation 

O God the Holy Spirit,  Sanctifier of the faithful:  Sanctify this  Congregation  by your abiding presence.  Bless those who minister in holy things.  Enlighten the minds of your people more and more with the light of the everlasting Gospel.  Bring erring souls to the knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ;  and those who are walking in the way of life,  keep steadfast to the end.  Give patience to the sick and afflicted,  and renew them in body and soul.  Guard those who are strong and prosperous from forgetting you.  Increase in us your many gifts of grace,  and make us all fruitful in good works. This we ask,  O blessed Spirit, whom with the Father and the Son we worship and glorify,  one God, world without end.    Amen.