PROPER 18C – Jeremiah 18:1-11; Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17; Philemon 1-21; Luke 14:25-33 – 5 September 2010 – A sermon preached by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado
Open to Transformation
INTRODUCTION – Zach off to PLU
I had a quick 54-hour trip this week to take our son, Zach, out to Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. He decided to transfer there after a year at the University of Colorado here in Boulder. There is a certain amount of excitement and apprehension when a young person moves away from home, both for the student and the parents. But if one is going off to college for the right reasons, it’s pretty straightforward what the goals are: to learn, to continue to grow into adulthood, to lay the foundation for a career path. And if you can have make some wonderful friends and have some fun while going through this time of transition, even better! There is a lot one can learn in the classroom at a university. And I’m guessing most of us who’ve been through that experience would agree that what you learn outside the classroom – through living and interacting with other people – is equally important. If we can arrive on a college campus with an attitude of being hungry to learn – from every single class and from every single experience – then a tremendous amount of transformation and maturation can happen in four years.
When I got back to the Seattle-Tacoma airport on Friday to fly home, there was a young man with a t-shirt emblazoned with the words: “Sorry: Mind Closed Until Further Notice.” I didn’t strike up a conversation with this fellow to find out if the joke was on us or if he was really that ready to be set in his ways before he reached the age of 30, but I suppose that t-shirt represents the other end of the openness to learning scale.
OPENNESS TO TRANSFORMATION
I said last week that one of the most important traits to have for being a follower of Christ and a member of a church community is the trait of faithfulness. And a second is like unto it: being open to transformation. The two traits are sort of like matching gloves. It’s really hard to be faithful if you’re not open to being transformed. For when we stick our necks out for God in ways where we’re not sure what is going to happen, God changes us. And it’s hard to be transformed if you aren’t willing to take risks of faith. God doesn’t tend to wave a magic wand and change us. God tends to say, “Come with me and try on this new way of thinking and new way of being. If you want to change, you need to trust me and step into new territory.”
A friend of Paul’s named Philemon evidently owned a slave named Onesimus. We don’t know all the details from Paul’s letter to Philemon, but it looks like Onesimus might have run away from Philemon, and possibly took something that belonged to his master, too. Onesimus ended up with Paul. He ended up serving Paul while Paul was in prison. And you get the sense that Onesimus did some growing up while he was with Paul.
It appears he became a convert to Christianity while with Paul. Paul is now sending Onesimus back to Philemon. Given the situation, you would expect Philemon to be angry and to exact some sort of punishment upon Onesimus. But Paul suggests to his fellow Christian that there are other possibilities for this situation. “Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother – especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.” (verses 15-16)
Paul is basically saying, “Keep an open mind, Philemon. I see God at work in this situation, even though it began with Onesimus taking your property and running away. Onesimus is on a new road. There is an opportunity here for you to learn. There is an opportunity here for your own ongoing transformation. He is still your slave. But consider this a new day and a new opportunity.”
Of course, Paul also adds: “I say nothing about your owing me even your own self.” (verse 19b) Ha! He just had to remind Philemon that he came to Christ through Paul’s teaching, too.
GOD AS THE POTTER, JESUS AS LORD
God explains it this way to the prophet Jeremiah, after Jeremiah went down to the potter’s house and saw him working (and reworking) vessels. “Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done, says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.” (Jeremiah 18:6)
We are “marvelously made” by God in the womb, as the Psalmist writes (Psalm 139:14). But that is not the end of the story. We are called to ongoing transformation by the same God.
Jesus comes along and says, “Follow me.” But he says more than that. He says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:16) There’s obviously some hyperbole here, for Jesus loved hyperbole. But he’s saying that a disciple is willing to put all that is most dear behind you for the sake of your relationship with Christ. Even the life that you’ve carved out for yourself that is comfortable… even the ways that you see the world and your way of being in the world… you must be willing to let go of all of that. It’s a call to ongoing transformation.
WHY BE OPEN TO TRANSFORMATION?
There are two very reasonable questions that arise at this point. Am I open to ongoing transformation? And… Why would I be? It gets right to the issue that Jesus was addressing – the cost of discipleship. If you calculate the cost of building a house (likely) or going to war (sometimes less likely), you should also count the cost of following me, he says.
There is a cost that goes along with being transformed. You have to move… move out of your comfort place. You’re going to learn how to be more honest with people than you’ve ever been. You’re going to be challenged to love and pray for and forgive and even live with some people that you may not feel like loving or praying for or forgiving or living with. Just when you learn how to move through your fears in one area of your life, God will invite you to do that all over again by giving you a new challenge that at first glance seems way too big and overwhelming. And just when you get really good at doing something, God may very well ask you to take on something that you’re not nearly so good at.
So why be open to transformation?
I can think of two reasons, and they are very much related.
First of all, God can lead us places where we would never go, if it were just up to our own wills. God has in mind the very best contributions we can make as we live our one wild and precious life on this earth. Left to our own devices, we tend to settle and get self-satisfied. God, the Potter, says, “Okay, enough of that! You’ve mastered that as a vessel. Now – as long as you remain open – I can use you for something else.” And he fashions us some more.
And second, when we are open to transformation, we really live. As Bruno Bettelheim has said, “If we do not want to change and develop, then we might as well remain in a deathlike sleep.” That is what happens when we are not open to transformation. We become almost-dead sleepwalkers, going through the motions of life, but not really living.
There is a whole different thing that happens to us when we are constantly asking questions, questions like:
I wonder… Why is this happening in my life right now?
What do you want me to learn from this, Lord?
Who are you, Lord?
Where are you calling me (us) to go now, Lord?
Lord, to whom can we go [besides you]? You have the words of eternal life. (John 6:68)
CONCLUSION
Just like any college student who is eager – and a little nervous – to spread his/her wings and learn and grow, so are we called to be by our Lord. Not just once in a while, but as a way of life. “Come to me,” he says. “Come learn, come be transformed, come grow into all you were meant to be. Come live a life that you never imagined. Let go of yourself. Let go of life as you know it, and come with me.”
That is the invitation. It is an invitation to new life. It is the call to transformation. And if we want to be Jesus’ disciples, we will open up ourselves to it, no matter the cost.