20 Pentecost 06 B Proper 24

Today I am beginning a series entitled, “The Transformed Life.”

In our second lesson today from Hebrews 4: 12-16 we read these words: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”

We often think that the phrase, “the word of God” is referring to the Bible. And while that phrase does sometimes mean the Bible, in this context it means Jesus. You might remember that John’s gospel describes Jesus in this way, “In the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the word was God…and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

If Jesus is the word here then he has the power to cut right to the heart of who we are. You might remember that we began our service with these words, “Almighty God, to whom all hearts be open, all desires know, and from whom no secrets are hid.” Jesus knows who we really are inside. We tend to put up masks and false fronts to hide our real nature, but Jesus knows who we really are. Bill Hybels wrote a book one time entitled, “Who are you when no one is looking?”

Jesus knows who we really are. He wants to change us, to transform us into people that are like him, who reflect his character and nature.

Hank had been a Christian for 50 years. By the time I came to pastor Hank's church, he was an old cranky guy. He had been a member there since he was a young cranky guy.

John Ortberg shares the following story from his life: “Hank complained about his family, he complained about his job, and one day, he began to complain about the church's music. He stopped people in the church lobby—visitors, strangers—and said, ‘Don't you think the music in this church is too loud?’ We sat him down and told him he had to stop that. I figured that was the end of it.

Several weeks later, I got a visit from a man from OSHA, the government agency that oversees safety in workplaces. I wondered, Why is someone from OSHA here to see me?

He began explaining dangerous decibel levels at airports and rock concerts. Then I realized what had happened. Hank couldn't get satisfaction anywhere else, so he called OSHA to report that the church's music was too loud!

I started laughing. I apologized to the OSHA agent for making light of the situation, but it just struck me as silly. The agent said, ‘You think you feel silly? Do you have any idea how much abuse I've taken at OSHA since everyone found out I was busting a church?’

Fifty years in the church hadn't brought a smile to Hank. He was just as grumpy as he had always been, maybe more.”

How can we help people like Hank grow to be more like Christ?

Hank's lack of joy wasn't only his fault. He hadn't changed, perhaps because we didn't expect him to. We expected him to attend, to tithe, to serve, and to stay away from certain scandalous things. But we didn't expect transformation, significant change on the inside and outside. Unfortunately, we hadn't helped him to change, either.

In our gospel lesson today we read of James and John showing their selfish sides when they told Jesus, “Lord, we want you to do for us anything we ask. We want to sit at your right hand and at your left.” They wanted to be Jesus’ right hand men in the places of power in his kingdom.

Here they had been with Jesus all this time and yet they didn’t seem to be acting any different from anybody else. They certainly weren’t modeling Jesus’ humility. They had not been transformed by the presence of Jesus.

St. Paul says in Romans 12:2, "Be transformed by the renewing of your minds," the word translated transformed is metamorphoo, from which we get metamorphosis. Paul uses a variant of that word in Galatians 4:19, "Until Christ is formed in you" (emphasis added). The transformation God desires for us is a process of morphing into Christlikeness.

Some of you may remember the television show, The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The teenagers on this show would yell, "It's morphing time," and then they would transform into a different appearance and receive power to do extraordinary things.

I kind of like that. Can you imagine starting our service by me saying, “The Lord be with you.” And you say, “And also with you.” I say, “Let us morph.” You would respond, “We shall morph, indeed,” or “It is meet and right so to morph.” I suppose if I did that you might suggest that I go back to Buffalo.

But for Christians, it is morphing time. When Jesus told us the kingdom of God was at hand, he wasn't referring to a someday promise beyond the pearly gates. The kingdom is supposed to be marked by changed lives and by the fruit of the spirit—love, joy, peace, and so on. But our churches and pulpits are filled with people who, under the surface, are just as anxious or driven or unsettled or angry or unhappy or ego-fed as anyone outside the church.

Why aren't the people of the kingdom morphing?

Some years ago, a Christian leader wrote, "One assumption in particular has haunted me throughout my Christian experience—the assumption of the changed life. I was taught that if I was a Christian, people would see a marked difference in my life. I was taught that the closer I was to God, the more spiritual I was, the greater and more visible the difference would be. I believed that Christianity would change you outside, not just inside.

"I don't believe that anymore."

He isn't the only one that's given up. Spiritual transformation is missing in many churches because failure in the pursuit of it has caused us to settle for less. At least two common counterfeits are passed off as transformation.

The first counterfeit is that we sometimes mistakenly think the Christian life is primarily about entrance to heaven. We're content with conversion when God is calling for transformation. Rather than expecting the kingdom of God to revolutionize lives today, we hope it will happen in heaven tomorrow.

Somewhere along the line we swapped out Jesus' gospel—through him we can be transformed into citizens of the kingdom of God, right now, today—for a gospel of heaven's minimum entrance requirement.

The difference is illustrated in a scene from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. As King Arthur and his knights seek the Holy Grail, they come to a bridge that spans an abyss "of eternal peril." A bridge keeper allows people to cross this bridge only if they can answer three questions. Get one wrong, and you're tossed into the pit.

Lancelot is the first to test the bridge keeper. The keeper asks him, "What is your name?" Lancelot answers.

"What is your quest?"

Lancelot answers, "To seek the Holy Grail."

"What is your favorite color?"

"Blue."

"Right," says the bridge keeper, "off you go." Lancelot crosses the bridge, amazed this was so easy.

The second knight similarly states his name and quest. But the third question is now, "What is the capital of Assyria?"

"I don't know that."

Suddenly the knight is hurled, screaming, into the abyss.

The third knight, Sir Galahad, is nervous as he's asked his name and quest, but he answers correctly.

"What is your favorite color?"

Sir Galahad panics. "Blue … no, yellow. Aaaaahhhh," he screams as he is hurled into the pit.

Finally, the king steps up. "What is your name?"

"Arthur, king of the Britains."

"What is your quest?"

"To seek the Holy Grail."

"What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?" (Don't ask. It's a goofy theme that runs throughout the movie.)

"What do you mean," asks Arthur, "an African or European swallow?"

"What? I don't know that," answers the bridge keeper, who immediately is launched into the abyss. Arthur and his followers thereafter cross the bridge unhindered.

Many people's idea of the gospel is that some day we'll get to the bridge to paradise and be asked, "Why should you be allowed to cross?" As long as we answer correctly, we make it across. Answer wrongly, and we're cast into the abyss. The gospel is redefined to be the announcement of the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven.

In Hank's church, this is all that was asked of him. He knew the words. He knew what his standing before God was based on. But we didn't know how to transform his life.

Jesus never said, "Now I'm going to tell you what you need to say to get into heaven when you die." The gospel writers make it clear that Jesus' good news was that we no longer have to live in the guilt, failure, and impotence of our own strength. The transforming presence and power of God is available through Christ, right here, right now. To live in that power, you must become his disciple, or as Dallas Willard captures it, or as Donald Trump might put it, his apprentice.

Unfortunately, too many apprentices are burning out because they're seeking spiritual transformation the wrong way.

A second counterfeit form of spiritual maturity is outward appearance.

In his commentary on Romans, James Dunne noted that first-century rabbinic writing focused on dietary law, circumcision, and Sabbath keeping. Why would the rabbis spend so much time on these secondary aspects of the faith?

Because all groups want to define who is in the group and who is out. Groups tend to establish "boundary markers" to make this distinction. Sociologists define these markers as highly visible, relatively superficial practices—like dietary laws and Sabbath customs.

Conforming to boundary markers too often substitutes for authentic transformation.

Again, John Ortberg said, T”he church I grew up in had its boundary markers. A prideful or resentful pastor could have kept his job, but if ever the pastor was caught smoking a cigarette, he would've been fired. Not because anyone in the church actually thought smoking a worse sin than pride or resentment, but because smoking defined who was in our subculture and who wasn't—it was a boundary marker.

“As I was growing up,” he said, “having a ‘quiet time’ became a boundary marker, a measure of spiritual growth. If someone had asked me about my spiritual life, I would immediately think, have I been having regular and lengthy quiet time? My initial thought was not, am I growing more loving toward God and toward people?”

We often think “am I going to church enough, doing enough Bible study, praying enough,” rather than, “Am I growing closer toward God and his people?”

Doctrine can also be a boundary marker. Dallas Willard said, "One of the hardest things in the world is to be right and not to hurt anybody with it. Yet Jesus was always right, and he never hurt anybody with it."

Boundary markers change from culture to culture, but the dynamic remains the same. If people do not experience authentic transformation, then their faith will deteriorate into a search for the boundary markers that masquerade as evidence of a changed life.

A pastor once asked another pastor, "Isn't your church worldly?"

"What do you mean by worldly?" I asked him.

He answered, "People in the world listen to contemporary music, and you use contemporary music in your church. People in the world use drama, and you use drama. Everybody knows that Christians should be different from non-Christians by being more loving and joyful and all that stuff, but everybody knows we're not. So shouldn't we do something to make ourselves different?"

He felt like saying, "In other words, if we can't be holy, then we should at least be weird?"

Where people are not growing more loving and joyful and truthful and compassionate, Christians have often tried to look different in other areas—weird boundaries disguised as holy differences.

Doctrine, behavioral standards, and even sanctified peculiarities may identify who's in the club, but they also present a façade of pseudo-transformation, masking an unchanged life within. Authentic transformation happens a different way.

So how can we be authentically transformed? I’ll talk about that next week. But in preparation for that I would encourage everyone to begin to pray about this transformation.

To be sure, if you have never turned your life over to the Word of God, Jesus Christ, the only one that can truly transform your life, you would want to start there. You would want to confess the wrong things you have done, turn away from them, and ask Jesus Christ to come live in your life.

We just returned from the Alpha Weekend these last two days. On the weekend we heard about the importance of living the transformed life. We also heard that the only way one can truly do that is for them to receive the Holy Spirit’s transforming power.

When Christ comes into your life he sends his Holy Spirit to begin the transformation process. That is why it is so important to invite Jesus Christ to come into your life and to be the ruler of your life. Won’t you do that right now?