Living the Sacrifice

Text: Romans 12:1-11
March 7, 2004
Aldersgate UMC

One of the comments that struck me the most from this week’s video that many of us saw in our small groups was from Rick Warren. He was talking about worship and how God has called us to present ourselves as a living sacrifice. He said, "The problem with a living sacrifice is that it can crawl off the altar." God wants us to offer our selves to be in relationship with him, yet it is an offering that we have to make over and over again. Fellowship is the way in which we make this offering of our selves to God.

Now were not talking about getting together for coffee and casual chitchat. God is calling us to be in community, one that supports and cares for the other as much as we care for ourselves. Warren tells us that in real fellowship we experience authenticity, mutuality, sympathy and mercy. Our epistle lesson from Romans teaches about this type of radical fellowship. I say radical, not meaning to send you back to the turbulent sixties, but in the sense of the true meaning of this word. Radical means to return to the roots of the concept, to get to the basics. So what are the basics of fellowship?

Let me suggest that in a nutshell, the letter to the Romans suggests that fellowship means acknowledging one’s dependence on the other for well-being, loving one another, and using one’s gifts for the betterment of the community. Paul’s use of the body as an image for the community "… is intended to convey organic unity, mutual dependence, and the indispensability of each individual to the whole, on the one hand, and, on the other, to point to the invaluable worth of each individual to Christ, …".  ( www.Homileticsonline, 8/25/2002, downloaded on 3/3/04)

Some scholars suggest that chapter 12 of Romans marks a turning point in Paul’s address to the community. They point out that Paul has been writing about all that God has done for us in the first 11 chapters and that he shifts gears with the "therefore" of verse one, and moves into our ethical response to God that is necessitated as a result of what God has done for us. We must be careful however not to separate the book into two pieces for one cannot stand without the other. Neither section has meaning without the other. If there is no ethical response to all that God has done for us, then where is the meaning of the sacrifice? If there is no sacrifice connected to the ethical behavior, then our ethics ring hollow.

Jesus has indeed made a tremendous sacrifice on our behalf so that we might learn the true meaning of love. He has freely offered his life. To believe that God has demanded this sacrifice weakens the freedom of the offering that Jesus has made. Jesus offers freely and the only corresponding gift is that we offer our lives as living sacrifices. Fellowship is the living of the sacrifice. God is not asking us to die, only to love.

Yet that "only" may be the most difficult thing that we do. We’re not called to just love our family and friends. We’re not just called to love our neighbor, even though that may be harder given that in this day of automatic garage doors one has to make a concerted effort to get to know one’s neighbor. No, we’re not just called to love our neighbor, God is asking us to love those who disagree with us! We’re called to love our opponent, our adversary, and build community with them.

In fact, I think that God may be calling the church to model for the world what it means to be in community. I believe that God invites us to model for our country a way of building diverse community, one that includes people of different persuasions. In an authentic community of this type we would not be avoiding controversial topics, we would be modeling how to talk about them with love and trust.

Unfortunately, we live in a very fractured country and as the presidential campaign moves into full gear it will likely become even more fractured. Building fellowship with those who agree with us is relatively easy. How do we build fellowship with those who disagree with us?

About 12 years ago when our daughters were teenagers, my husband and I were living in a house with three bedrooms. We had two daughters who had never shared a bedroom, a piano and one computer for the family. The living room was small so we had to keep the computer in our bedroom and the piano in Michelle’s room.

After a few months with this arrangement, and a whole lot of discussion, we realized that it was not working, so we decided to try having our two daughters share a bedroom and create an office/music room. We ventured into this new arrangement with some trepidation because like many siblings our daughters were not the best of friends. Richard and I were really surprised when the girls seemed to get along better when they shared a room than when they did not.

Actually, Time Magazine reported in October of 2000 "Teens who share a bedroom with a sibling learn better negotiating skills than a teen with his (or her) own room who spends a lot of time there alone. Sharing a bedroom could result in relationships that last longer and marriages that are more stable."  ( www.Homileticsonline, 8/25/2002, downloaded on 3/3/04)  So, let’s take an informal poll this morning. How many shared or share bedrooms with a sibling? How are your negotiating skills?

Building community with people of diverse opinions requires negotiating skills and these negotiating skills include first and foremost the ability to listen and understand the other. A great philosopher (actually my husband who got it from somewhere he can’t remember) once said, "Seek first to understand, then seek to be understood. We have to be willing to take the time to dialogue rather than debate; before making a decision, listen. Dialogue is about conversation, listening and hearing the other. Debate, on the other hand values logical thought and devalues feeling. The debater is more focused on convincing the audience rather than listening to the opponent.

This past week, I was totally surprised by a conversation I had at a meeting of a woman’s group that I belong to. I talked with two other women about the three taboos that we are supposed to avoid in public conversation. We talked about sex, religion and politics. What would happen if we were to do that in church?

Part of this discussion came about because one of the members of my women’s group, Louise, is also reading Purpose Driven Life. I found myself in the unusual position of defending Rick Warren. Louise commented about Rick’s use of scripture verses and how he sometimes takes them out of context. I agreed, yet told her that I did not believe that disagreeing with some of his statements invalidated all that he had to say.

Rick Warren often quotes from Philippians, Romans, Galatians and other letters of the apostle Paul. He, like Paul, wants to energize the church and spread the Christian message. Paul was writing to small Christian communities, house churches that were trying to survive in a very pluralistic culture. He was hoping to encourage them and grow them into larger communities. We would do well to pay head to Paul’s messages as well if our goal is to share the good news with others in our community.

Yet, when we use a scripture verse in today’s situation, we need to be aware of its context, especially when we are listening to the epistles, the letters that are included in the Bible after the book of Acts and before the Revelation of John. These letters were often written to communities in relation to specific circumstances. For example, the context of Galatians is quite different from the context today. Galatians was written to a Gentile community whose members were new converts to the good news. Paul is writing in response to a very specific problem that was common in the early church. Gentile or Greek Christians were being told that they had to convert to Judaism before becoming followers of Jesus Christ. In Galatians Paul says no; the only thing necessary was a belief in Jesus Christ. He does not suggest however that all people of Jewish faith need to convert to Christianity.

Remember, these letters are actually conversations and conversations can be drastically altered depending on context. Several years ago, Richard and I were involved in a conflict about my desire for separate checking accounts. It wasn’t until I understood the context for him, his parents almost divorced because of his mother’s set up of a separate checking account that the two of us could move past this conflict. Seek first to understand, then seek to be understood.

Church is the place that transforms our lives. Paul writes of this transformation here in Romans as a renewing of our minds so that we might learn what is acceptable, good and perfect before God. How shall we do this without talking with each other about the most controversial topics? Avoiding these topics because they might cause conflict dilutes the meaning of our fellowship together.

In March of 2001, I visited the monastic community of Taize, which was founded as an ecumenical community for peace just after World War II. I had the honor of meeting Brother Roger, the founder, and was impressed with his response to a question about conflict within the community of Taize. When asked how he handled conflict between two or more of the brothers, he responded that he asks them pray together with the rest of the community three times a day until they resolve the conflict. He said that it is hard for them too remain angry at each other when they come together in prayer so often.

How many of us remember the memory verse from last week? Say it with me please: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." Listen now to the next part of that verse, "and your neighbor as yourself." That’s what this week’s purpose is all about – learning to love others. We don’t do that by hating ourselves or by staying away from certain subjects. We do that by sharing with each other our abilities, caring for each other, getting to know each other in small groups, respecting what the other brings to the community, loving one another, and acknowledging one’s dependence on the other for well-being. We learn to love our neighbor when we recognize the organic unity and mutual dependence of community and the invaluable worth of each individual to Christ. Amen.