Do Not Be Conformed To Your World
Sermon for 8-24-08
Scripture: Romans 12:1-8
Let me start off this sermon with Eugene Petersen’s translation of the first few
verses of our Roman’s passage: “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” Our NRSV says “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God”. “…Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead fix your attention on God”.
In a wonderful book by Martin Luther King, Jr. called Strength to Love, there is a sermon based on Romans 12 where he talks about “Transformed nonconformity”. He acknowledges how strongly our culture pressures us to become like those around us, especially ‘respectable society’. He says instead Christians must find a way to live in the world but not of the world. He adds, “We must make history and not be shaped by history.” Another brilliant quote that further describes this first part of Romans 12: “Most people are thermometers that record or register the temperature of majority opinion, not thermostats that transform and regulate the temperature of society.” We all know examples of how the church went along with society instead of the teaching of Jesus—think about slavery in this country as well as most of the German church supporting Hitler. It’s still happening with many churches that build up wealth for the institution and do very little for the poor or do not welcome people of different sexual orientation, races, or nationalities. King said “There are some things in our world to which men of goodwill must be maladjusted. I confess that I never intend to become adjusted to the evils of segregation and the crippling effects of discrimination, to the moral degeneracy of religious bigotry and the corroding effects of narrow sectarianism, to economic conditions that deprive men of work and food, and to the insanities of militarism and the self-defeating effects of physical violence.”
What about each of you out there this morning? What do you conform to or are you a nonconformist? Sometimes nonconformity can just be a form exhibitionism and I’m not talking about just behaving weirdly or acting out for shock value. I came across a story about the French sociologist, Jacques Ellul; who worked with marginalized youth in Bordeaux in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s. He stated that his goal was not to make them “adjust” to the normal patterns of society but to move them from being ‘negatively maladjusted to society to becoming positively maladjusted’, to become non-conformists of a different kind, an example might be--going from crime and drugs to advocating for the homeless and organizing workers.
If we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, we have to go beyond our comfort zone. We have to do try to figure out what it is that God wants us to be and do to contribute to the common good of our society. A lot of this depends on what gifts we have been given. With our gift(s) comes a task, a way of contributing to the larger community. The “renewing of our minds” part is reflecting and very possibly changing our attitudes, our orientations to the world around us. As we are transformed, changed behavior results, including our relationship with God, therefore helping us discern what we are to believe and to do.
My friends, I read Paul’s metaphor of the body and gifts in Romans as applying both to individuals and to the church, but largely to the church. After telling individuals “not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned”, Paul brings up how we are all one body in Christ, members one of another—mutual dependency. Paul uses the human body as a metaphor to show how the church is to function. Just like our bodies have many parts that are responsible for different things: the eyes for seeing, the nose for smelling, the legs for walking, the church has many parts but all work together for the ministry of Jesus. Both in our bodies and in our churches to be healthy there has to be an awareness of the others, a relationship between diversity and unity. I see this example applying not only to the different parts of one local church but also to churches within the larger faith community.
Lets look at some specific examples to make this scripture more understandable. In our church here in Deering, we have some people whose gift it is to provide beautiful music; others have gifts of Bible reading; some have gifts of preparing the sanctuary for worship; others have gifts in cooking or cleaning up, making lovely flower arrangements and gardens, or crafting quilts or canning jams and pickles; others have gifts in reaching out to those in need, some have gifts of public speaking and organizing things such as Forums and Chicken Barbeques, some have gifts of generosity with time and finances. I could go on and on—this is a congregation of such an abundance of gifts.
When we look at the larger church community such as the conference, the denomination, and interfaith groups, we see some faith communities that are exceptional in worship, some in missions, some in education, some in peacemaking, some in radical hospitality. The important thing to remember, no matter what our gifts are, we are more alike than we are different and we can enrich each other as individuals and as faith communities as we come together to share our gifts. All of the churches and the individuals are equally loved and honored by God. We are all made in the image of God, and the churches in New Testament times are all called to live as one body in Christ. I believe that God wants us to go even further and reach out to non-Christians, both those of other faiths and those who profess no religion. I can’t imagine anything that would please God more than seeing all his children caring for each other and for the earth. There are so many ways we can cooperate to work for the common good for all. The more we de-emphasize tribal and national loyalties, the more we can make this a world of love and peace. I ask each of you to join with me in this task so that we will indeed bring about God’s kingdom of Isaiah 55:12-13: For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Amen and amen!
Scripture: Romans 12:1-8
Let me start off this sermon with Eugene Petersen’s translation of the first few
verses of our Roman’s passage: “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” Our NRSV says “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God”. “…Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead fix your attention on God”.
In a wonderful book by Martin Luther King, Jr. called Strength to Love, there is a sermon based on Romans 12 where he talks about “Transformed nonconformity”. He acknowledges how strongly our culture pressures us to become like those around us, especially ‘respectable society’. He says instead Christians must find a way to live in the world but not of the world. He adds, “We must make history and not be shaped by history.” Another brilliant quote that further describes this first part of Romans 12: “Most people are thermometers that record or register the temperature of majority opinion, not thermostats that transform and regulate the temperature of society.” We all know examples of how the church went along with society instead of the teaching of Jesus—think about slavery in this country as well as most of the German church supporting Hitler. It’s still happening with many churches that build up wealth for the institution and do very little for the poor or do not welcome people of different sexual orientation, races, or nationalities. King said “There are some things in our world to which men of goodwill must be maladjusted. I confess that I never intend to become adjusted to the evils of segregation and the crippling effects of discrimination, to the moral degeneracy of religious bigotry and the corroding effects of narrow sectarianism, to economic conditions that deprive men of work and food, and to the insanities of militarism and the self-defeating effects of physical violence.”
What about each of you out there this morning? What do you conform to or are you a nonconformist? Sometimes nonconformity can just be a form exhibitionism and I’m not talking about just behaving weirdly or acting out for shock value. I came across a story about the French sociologist, Jacques Ellul; who worked with marginalized youth in Bordeaux in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s. He stated that his goal was not to make them “adjust” to the normal patterns of society but to move them from being ‘negatively maladjusted to society to becoming positively maladjusted’, to become non-conformists of a different kind, an example might be--going from crime and drugs to advocating for the homeless and organizing workers.
If we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, we have to go beyond our comfort zone. We have to do try to figure out what it is that God wants us to be and do to contribute to the common good of our society. A lot of this depends on what gifts we have been given. With our gift(s) comes a task, a way of contributing to the larger community. The “renewing of our minds” part is reflecting and very possibly changing our attitudes, our orientations to the world around us. As we are transformed, changed behavior results, including our relationship with God, therefore helping us discern what we are to believe and to do.
My friends, I read Paul’s metaphor of the body and gifts in Romans as applying both to individuals and to the church, but largely to the church. After telling individuals “not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned”, Paul brings up how we are all one body in Christ, members one of another—mutual dependency. Paul uses the human body as a metaphor to show how the church is to function. Just like our bodies have many parts that are responsible for different things: the eyes for seeing, the nose for smelling, the legs for walking, the church has many parts but all work together for the ministry of Jesus. Both in our bodies and in our churches to be healthy there has to be an awareness of the others, a relationship between diversity and unity. I see this example applying not only to the different parts of one local church but also to churches within the larger faith community.
Lets look at some specific examples to make this scripture more understandable. In our church here in Deering, we have some people whose gift it is to provide beautiful music; others have gifts of Bible reading; some have gifts of preparing the sanctuary for worship; others have gifts in cooking or cleaning up, making lovely flower arrangements and gardens, or crafting quilts or canning jams and pickles; others have gifts in reaching out to those in need, some have gifts of public speaking and organizing things such as Forums and Chicken Barbeques, some have gifts of generosity with time and finances. I could go on and on—this is a congregation of such an abundance of gifts.
When we look at the larger church community such as the conference, the denomination, and interfaith groups, we see some faith communities that are exceptional in worship, some in missions, some in education, some in peacemaking, some in radical hospitality. The important thing to remember, no matter what our gifts are, we are more alike than we are different and we can enrich each other as individuals and as faith communities as we come together to share our gifts. All of the churches and the individuals are equally loved and honored by God. We are all made in the image of God, and the churches in New Testament times are all called to live as one body in Christ. I believe that God wants us to go even further and reach out to non-Christians, both those of other faiths and those who profess no religion. I can’t imagine anything that would please God more than seeing all his children caring for each other and for the earth. There are so many ways we can cooperate to work for the common good for all. The more we de-emphasize tribal and national loyalties, the more we can make this a world of love and peace. I ask each of you to join with me in this task so that we will indeed bring about God’s kingdom of Isaiah 55:12-13: For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Amen and amen!
posted by Sermons given at Deering Community Church @ 10:00 AM
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