Sermon: "What's going on and where do we fit in"

Remember sensitivity training. Every word and gesture had to be in the right now. Popular in the 70s

You couldn’t say, “What are you planning to do after supper?” or “Are you going home for Thanksgiving?” These were all forms of avoiding the moment in front of you. It was terrifying, because all the ways we’d each learned to manipulate interactions and take conversations onto our safe territory were stripped away, and we had to be honest and truthful not about our past but about what was going on right this minute, right now, not just in our own minds, but in the room.

Staring into some girl's eyes, someone near my age, and at the same time being totally honest in the moment isn’t going to happen. Probably in much the same way oil and water mix only under extreme situations. And what does totally honest mean.

But I did it. I think that’s why I’ve been somewhat shy in public ever since.

After a couple of hours I thought, “We’ve got 80 hours of this to get through. I’m…going…to…implode.” As the weekend went on, I came to realize that these 80 hours were like the 80-odd years of our lives. There were constraints and boundaries, but no rules. Like a human life, it would be easy to fill it with structured routine, fevered activity, chattering conversations, urgent radio, sprawling television, and messaging on phones.

But these would almost all be forms of avoidance. Our 80 years of life are like those 80 hours of the conference. How we fill them is up to us. At the end, if they’ve flown by in mindless distraction, there’s no one to blame but us. We work out what everyone seems to admire – a glittering career, a stylish home, or designer children – and we set about acquiring those things.

The quest takes most or all of our energy. But our culture has invented a remarkable thing. Just at the moment in life when a young person is emerging from their parents’ shadow, just at the moment when their parents are neither the most embarrassing people on the planet nor the superstars they once thought them to be, and just before that young person is let loose on the world of responsibility, of mortgages and children and health insurance and overdrafts that no one is going to pay off for you, our culture has invented a wonderful thing called “college.”.

It’s a time when you withdraw from other responsibilities and reflect honestly and truthfully on what’s really going on, in the room called "world."

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus withdrew into the desert to spend 40 days on what it meant to be human, what it meant to be God, and what it meant to be both.

Students leaving this week or next have it better, they're not going off to a desert, they’re not alone, and they have a lot more than 40 days to play with. It’s a lot easier than a generation ago, when college was a game of musical chairs and the two people who found themselves dating, when the music stopped come graduation day, knew they had to marry each other.

But the questions are still big ones, and the principle is the same: you’ve got an extended period of time to work out what’s going on and where you fit in. St Paul has some pretty extensive ideas about what’s going on and where you fit in.

The first 11 chapters of his Letter to the Romans are all about what’s going on. This is what Paul says. God made the world as a playground for humanity’s delight. But humanity rebelled. Paul’s word for that rebellion is “Adam.” But God created a new reality beyond rebellion. That new reality is called “Christ.” Christ undoes the damage of the past. The Holy Spirit makes a new reality in the present. And God is making a new future that includes the whole creation, uniting Jews and Gentiles.

In the story of Adam all die, but in the story of Christ God makes all alive, giving them a forgiven past, an inspirited present, and a redeemed future. That’s what the Letter to the Romans says is going on.

And Paul has a word for that whole story: he calls it “the mercies of God.” God has transformed history in the person of Jesus Christ, and that’s called “the mercies of God.”

And that brings us to the beginning of chapter 12, our reading today. Paul pleads with his brothers and sisters in Rome “by the mercies of God.” In other words, if you believe this story is true, this is what I want you to do. Or, to use the language of our 80 hour retreat, if this is what is going on, this is where you fit in. Paul asks two things.“Present your bodies as a living sacrifice;” and “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” This is the agenda.. “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice;” and “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” Let’s start with the second one.

“Don’t be conformed to this world,” says Paul, “but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” You’d think Paul would start with heart or feelings; after all do not these experiences shape us more than our thoughts. Well not really for thinking has to make sense out of experience. But if Paul’s got to choose the motto, this would be it: “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” Minds and transformation are the place and process for our becoming in the world.

Why do our minds need to be transformed? Because, Adam’s story is so mesmerizing for our minds.

Adam’s story dominates what’s going on in our heads, in our colleges, in our world. Adam’s story says life is a fundamental struggle of everyone against everyone else, so all that matters is to get to the top or come out first in the class. Adam’s story says we’re no more than material beings, so we have to cram our rooms, our bodies and our résumés with more and more stuff.

Adam’s story says we’re constantly about to be condemned, so we become terrified that anyone might ever find out who we really are. Adam’s story says life’s too short and you only get one go, so we keep frantically busy out of anxiety that we’ll miss out and regret it. Adam’s story is all around us. We’re drowning in it.

But Adam’s story is not the real story. The real story is a very different story. The real story is that however much we churn out hate, God responds with love. The more we deal out death, God responds with resurrection. The more we cause hurt and pain and cruelty, God responds with forgiveness and reconciliation and healing.

The more we despair and distrust and destroy, God brings us faith and hope and love. The more we sulk in the shadows and assume there’s no place for us, the more God the shepherd comes and finds us and wraps us around his shoulders and brings us home. The more we feel lost and alone and forgotten, the more God the housekeeper finds us and shakes us together with the other nine coins in her bag.

And lest we for a moment think this is a sentimental story of apple pie and cup cakes and crumbly candy bars, Paul reminds us that this is Christ’s story, and this story cost God everything. But it’s so hard, so hard to recall every morning, every moment that we’re living in Christ’s story and not Adam’s story. Paul knows it’s hard. So he says “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds.”

Loss and struggle and guilt and anxiety are part of the story, they’re not what the story is fundamentally about. You and I have these days to discover how to remain generous, to remain gentle, to remain joyful, to remain gracious, to remain hopeful, to remain patient, and so to embody Christ’s story. You have more than enough time in this fabulous setting to be transformed by the renewing of your minds. That’s what we’re here for.

And then, more briefly, let’s look at Paul’s first request. “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” Paul says to sacrifice means to make holy. Think of what happens at an infant baptism. And will have two of those to witness at 10.00 am. The parents hand the child over to be baptized. They present the child as a gift to God and the church. In the same way we allow our bodies every day to be handed over as a gift to God and the church, and allow God and the church to give our lives as a present to others.

Why would you want to present your body as a daily gift to God and the church and allowing God and the church in turn to give your life as a present to others? Because this is how to make you and me available to bring life and joy and glory not principally to ourselves but to the whole room, the whole church, the whole world.

This is literally how to become holy, to hand your life over to God and the church, and two, because, getting as close as that, to God’s heart and the world’s needs, takes you to purpose and meaning as a human being. Paul is saying, don’t try to make yourself perfect by your own or the world’s definition, but allow God to make you beautiful by his definition. And Paul points us to Jesus, because Jesus’ body is the living sacrifice that is our present to God, and God’s to us, and because Jesus’ mind is the transformed mind that always responds with grace.

Jesus is the embodiment of the mercies of God. He wants your body to be an embodiment of the mercies of God, a body whose every movement is a hymn of praise to God’s grace, a body whose skin and muscles and smile and laughter give God pleasure, a body whose yawn shows God works even while we sleep, a body whose touch says God never leaves us alone.

So that’s how to spend this year in these four walls..To find out what’s going on and where you fit in. What’s going on is that, in spite of clamoring stories to the contrary, God is opening out glorious, gracious, generous life at infinite cost to him and no cost to you. That’s Christ’s story, and it’s not just a tale of wandering dreamer in a faraway country many centuries ago – it’s a daily intellectual discovery, a daily practical challenge, and a daily social revolution – every single day.

Is it difficult? Yes - but it is exciting and wonderful. God is opening out glorious, gracious, generous life at infinite cost to himself and no cost to you. That’s what’s going on. And where you fit in is about your mind and your body.

First, allow your imagination to be stretched and exercised and transformed so you can take in this amazing reality in all its subtlety and complexity and mystery; and second, allow your body to be handed over every day as a gift to and from God and the church, to be a present that may bring hope and consolation and blessing to others.

Being made holy and being transformed. That’s what you’re here for.