Text: Romans 12:1-8, Isaiah 51:1-6
Arlington Presbyterian Church
August 27, 2017
This was an interactive sermon where the congregation members actually answered the questions as they were posed in the sermon.
This
Romans 12 passage is probably my favorite passage in the Bible. But my journey
to appreciate Romans was a bit rocky.
After my first year of seminary,
I began to go through the usual 2nd year existential crisis. I was
certain that this whole Christianity thing was too small, that it wasn’t real,
and that I was done with it.
The problem was that I was in the
middle of a Master of Divinity at a Christian seminary. I had signed up for
this ministry gig, even started the ordination process with the Presbytery.
So my advisor, a very smart
Catholic woman, suggested that I take a class on the Romans since it was so
central to Presbyterian theology. Which I did.
And while
the book didn’t get me fully back into the fold as I was slowly but surely
cutting out all of my Presbyterian commitments,
Finishing my term as elder at
Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, finishing my term on the Advocacy Committee
for Women’s Concerns for the denomination, I was stuck in field education for
just another year...
But it was like the white stones
that Hansel and Gretel left on their path to find their way home. And this
passage in particular helped illumine a path to figure out how to come closer
to God.
Because
this text is so meaningful to me, and it is so dense with strange turns of
phrase that don’t mean much in English, I want to invite you into the sermon
this morning,
to let some of these phrases roll
around in your head and to share what they mean to you along the way.
It is helpful to examine some of
these phrases like, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice” or “spiritual
worship” or “renewing of the mind.”
And then to put them all together
to see what them mean together.
Living
sacrifice is the first of these phrases.
It’s kind of a paradox. In the
context of Romans, a sacrifice is a living creature, slaughtered and offered up
to the God. In fact, we use sacrifice language in reference to Jesus’ death on
a cross.
But a living sacrifice? Let your
mind wander a bit. What do you imagine when you hear living sacrifice?
I think of offering one’s whole life,
one’s whole being, one’s whole self.
Another
odd turn of phrase is spiritual worship.
What’s interesting is that the
word for spiritual comes from the greek word, logikos, which according to Strong’s
is reasonable, rational, or metaphorical, but it’s more like “what is logical
to God.”[i]
The second word here, worship, is
translated as service or service to God, which in short might be worship.[ii]
So the translation might be
service to God that is logical to God.
Let your mind wander again. What
comes to mind when you think of these words: service to God that is logical to
God?
Then put them together and you
have this idea of giving of your whole self and your whole life which is what
makes sense of from our particular lives for God.
This
other strange turn of phrase is renewing your mind. It comes after these
instructions not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the
renewing of the mind.
When I looked up the word for
mind, Strong’s said, it “is the organ of receiving
God’s thoughts, through faith.”[iii]
Put this together with not being
formed or shaped or made by the age or culture and with the words that follow
it, “so that you can discern the will of God.”
Let your mind
wander again. What does this mean to you?
For me, renewing of the mind is
deeply tied to meditation. It’s probably heavily influenced by the fact that I
was also taking a Zen meditation at the same time I was taking the Romans
class.
But it is through meditation that
we are able to slow down our thoughts, to examine them and to examine what is
driving our thinking and our actions.
It is through this process of
discernment that we can renew our minds so that they can be channels of God’s
will for our lives.
It’s not that we cloister
ourselves in the church and refuse to participate in the world. It’s that we follow
God’s will as we navigate the world.
But what
is so beautiful about this passage is that while it gives us this way of
understanding how to surrender our lives to God, how to give ourselves over to
something bigger, it reinforces this one part of reasonable or logical service.
God is not expecting something
unreasonable or impossible from any of us. What is logical or reasonable for
one of us is not necessarily logical or reasonable for someone else. (Although,
I can guarantee that we will be stretched beyond our comfort zones.)
Paul drives that point home when
he says that we are part of one body and that the body has many parts.
We are each given gifts or
charisms that are appropriate or reasonable based on our faith or our abilities
and limitations. And yet each part of the body is important.
None of us can truly discern the
will of God in a vacuum. We aren’t ordained as ministers or elders or deacons
independently. It is the discernment of the body that moves us along the
journey.
None of us is successful in our
careers without the advice and counsel and guidance of mentors and friends and
family members an co-workers to reflect back to us where our talents lie, to
give us opportunities to stretch and grow.
In
keeping with our unusual sermon, instead of an affirmation of faith this
morning, we have a time to Settle into our Faith.
Nancy Robinette and others will
read the Romans passage in a Lectio Divina style. Lectio Divina is a way of
praying scriptures. So we will pray together this text so that we can let all
of these thoughts and ideas can sink fully into our bodies.
Let
us pray together…
Settling in with Our Faith
From Romans 12: 1-8
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters,
by the mercies of God,
by the
mercies of God,
by the
mercies of God
to present your bodies as
a living sacrifice,
a living
sacrifice,
a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual worship
spiritual
worship
spiritual
worship.
Do not be conformed
Do not be
conformed
Do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed by
the renewing of your minds,
the
renewing of your minds,
be
transformed the renewing of your minds,
so that you may discern what is the will of God—
what is good and acceptable and perfect.
For by the grace given to me
Grace
given to me
Grace
given
grace
I say to everyone among you
not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think,
but to think with sober judgment,
with
sober judgment,
sober
judgment,
each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
For as in one body
One body
One body we have
many members,
Many
Many
Many
members
and not all the members have the same function,
so we, who are many,
who are many
many
are one body in Christ,
one body
one
one body
in Christ, and individually we are
members one of another
members
one of another
one of
another
one.
We have gifts that differ according to the
grace given to us
grace
given
grace
given to
us:
prophecy, in proportion to faith;
ministry, in ministering;
the teacher, in teaching;
the exhorter, in exhortation;
the giver, in generosity;
the leader, in diligence;
the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
We have gifts that differ according to the
Grace given to us.
Many
members, one body
One body
One.
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