“Again & Again: We are Reformed”
Preached Sunday, March 17, 2024
I am an amateur vegetable gardener who treats it as kind of a side hobby among my busy life as a pastor and a mom. So that usually means, come fall…I kind of let it go. I do one last harvest and then I don’t think about it again until it’s spring and I need to go pull up last year’s dead plants and weeds that have sprouted up and prep the beds for a new planting. But every year…as I’m cleaning out the beds, I am also surprised to find - and I shouldn’t be surprised cause I find it almost every year - and what I find are little shoots of tomato and peppers plants coming up - growing from the seeds of the plants that had fallen and died last year. We call these “volunteer” plants - because they weren’t planted on purpose but they volunteered to grow.
Volunteer plants, new sprouts growing from last year’s fallen seeds, reminds me of Jesus’s words in our Gospel reading today: “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit…” Jesus is hinting at his upcoming death and resurrection. The text even says, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth” aka - the grave - “will draw all people to myself. He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.”
And yet, for us Christians to look at this solely in the context of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we miss some of the challenge his words have for us. For the cycle of death and then new life is not just one God does, but it is one that we are called to embrace as Christians.
Part of this is about actual death - death is a reality for all of us and I don’t want to dismiss that. This season started with the reminder that from dust we came and to dust we shall return. Jesus actually died on the cross. And an actual death awaits us all. Let us keep physical death in our minds as we share in this sermon - and, today we will talk primarily about metaphysical death as it comes to us all.
What then does that mean when Jesus says that some things MUST die for there to be new and abundant life?
We can think as well about what in our own lives will change and will die: in our habits, our relationships, our communities. Sometimes we want so badly for things to stay just as they are, we hold on tight, and hope our lives never change. But that’s not the way life works. In order for life to move on, in order for life to continue, some things fall away, to make way for something new. I remember in the months leading up to the birth of my daughter, I had this strong sense that the life I had built, the life I loved and didn’t want to change… it was going to drastically change, it was going to die. I was going to die to the self that I was, so that a new self, a mother, could be born. Wherever there is uncertainty, fear, or unknowing in your life - look beyond it. What new life will come forth after the change?
Some things have to give, to be let go, to die - for new things to be born.
This is the imagery we use in baptism. That in baptism we die to our old selves, to our sin, and are born anew. For traditions that practice full immersion, the going under the water represents death, represents going into the grave, under the water, under the ground. And then coming back out of the water, represents rising from the grave, new life, and resurrection. This metaphor is present in all baptisms though, even today as we baptized a young child - it can be disconcerting to think of this image of death and life when we baptize one so young. It is often why I prefer to focus on the image of being adopted into God’s family - which is also a major aspect of what baptism is - baptism is many things at once. And, as we baptized this child today, we know that parents and loved ones and even this congregation who just made promises to this child, we want to shelter him. To protect him. From the fragility, change, impermanence of this world…and yet we know that in his life, he will experience all of it. And, today, in his baptism - we are claiming for him a life of, well, life. A life of abundant life. A life of new life - of resurrection. Of new beginnings. We are claiming for him, that we will raise him and love him in such a way, that no matter what happens in his life - that he knows that God will always be with him. That he knows that God will always be there, ushering him out of the things that bring death and into the things that bring life.
And the fact of life is - sometimes things WITHIN us have to die for new life to come. And the cycle of death and new life, this means change - and change is HARD. And the new life at the other end is worth it.
And we have a term for that: sanctification. A lot of Christian traditions stop at justification. You accept Jesus into your life and you’re all set. We believe, however, that when Jesus comes into your life: that’s when the real work begins, the work of the Holy Spirit sanctifying you. That is the Spirit working within us to lead us to better love of God and better love of neighbor as self. The work of making us more holy, more like Jesus.
And in order for God to work on me, change is necessary. If someone doesn’t want to change - then Jesus is not their guy. Jesus says “whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.” And he says this as he is talking about the wheat falling to the ground, about death, and then - about resurrection. Jesus is saying - you must die with me so that you can have new life with me.
As Christians, we are called to reform ourselves, die and resurrect, again and again, letting ourselves be clay in the potter’s hand, an image from Scripture, where God is working us, reshaping us, reforming us, making us into who God calls us to be. Another image from Scripture is the refiner’s fire.
I realize I am preaching in the rust belt so let me talk about steel.
In the finishing process in the steel mill, there is the Hot Dip Galvanizing line where there is a giant pot of molten zinc kept at 850 degrees Fahrenheit, the size of a swimming pool, and sharp sheets of metal continually slice through it at speeds that could cut a person in half. And as steel enters the pot of molten zinc, the impurities, the dross, are refined away. One of the jobs of steel workers is, every thirty minutes or so, to clear the pot of the floating dross, of the impurities, to keep them from going back on the steel and ruining it.
Molten zinc. 850 degrees. Razor sharp steel. This is a terrifying work environment and imagery - but sometimes the changes in our lives, the changes that would reform us, that would refine us, that would put our dross, our impurities to death...it can be just as daunting at the Hot Galvanizing Dip in the Steel Mill.
God does want to burn off our dross, to reshape us, to put to death that within us which is not life-giving: our sins, our pride, our hate, our judgment, our prejudices - there are things within us, that need to be removed, that need to die - so that, newer, fuller life can be resurrected. There are things within us that need to die so that love of God and love of neighbor, that which makes us more holy, more like Christ, can take their place, take root and grow in our lives.
This isn’t easy. And it isn’t all at once. This is our whole life’s journey. And it’s a hard one. Change is hard and change is painful - even when it’s for the good. But God loves us and gives us sanctifying grace, so that we can be reformed throughout our lives, to be more like Christ.
I realize I am preaching in the rust belt so let me talk about steel.
In the finishing process in the steel mill, there is the Hot Dip Galvanizing line where there is a giant pot of molten zinc kept at 850 degrees Fahrenheit, the size of a swimming pool, and sharp sheets of metal continually slice through it at speeds that could cut a person in half. And as steel enters the pot of molten zinc, the impurities, the dross, are refined away. One of the jobs of steel workers is, every thirty minutes or so, to clear the pot of the floating dross, of the impurities, to keep them from going back on the steel and ruining it.
Molten zinc. 850 degrees. Razor sharp steel. This is a terrifying work environment and imagery - but sometimes the changes in our lives, the changes that would reform us, that would refine us, that would put our dross, our impurities to death...it can be just as daunting at the Hot Galvanizing Dip in the Steel Mill.
God does want to burn off our dross, to reshape us, to put to death that within us which is not life-giving: our sins, our pride, our hate, our judgment, our prejudices - there are things within us, that need to be removed, that need to die - so that, newer, fuller life can be resurrected. There are things within us that need to die so that love of God and love of neighbor, that which makes us more holy, more like Christ, can take their place, take root and grow in our lives.
This isn’t easy. And it isn’t all at once. This is our whole life’s journey. And it’s a hard one. Change is hard and change is painful - even when it’s for the good. But God loves us and gives us sanctifying grace, so that we can be reformed throughout our lives, to be more like Christ.
It can sound all good. It can sound simple. It can sound like “Well, of course I’d be on board with that!” But the lived reality of it is harder. Being changed, being shaped by God - embracing change, embracing the cycle of death and resurrection within us...it’s hard.
But hear the Good News:
There is one thing that will never ever ever change.
And that is the covenant of God to God’s people, of which we are adopted through Christ in to, and we heard today from Jeremiah:
“I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
In a world of impermanence, in a world of change, in our lives that God calls us to sanctification, to ongoing change, to becoming more like Christ - this is our solid foundation, this is our core identity, that no matter what gives way in our lives and in our world, that no matter what storms may come, that no matter what it feels like to go through being clay in the potter’s hand or in the refiner’s fire - it is written in our hearts: God is our God. We are God’s people. We are God’s children. We are loved by the God who is love, who will never let us go, and will always offer us grace, grace to grow, grace to change, grace to love, grace to die and be born again, changed and more like Christ.
.Being centered as God’s people, we don’t need to fear being clay in the potter’s hands or steel in the refiner’s fire or wheat that falls to the ground...for God is our God and we are God’s.
Being centered firmly in that knowledge, you can ask yourself: What do I need to let go of, to let die, to change, so that God can make room for new life within me?
But hear the Good News:
There is one thing that will never ever ever change.
And that is the covenant of God to God’s people, of which we are adopted through Christ in to, and we heard today from Jeremiah:
“I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
In a world of impermanence, in a world of change, in our lives that God calls us to sanctification, to ongoing change, to becoming more like Christ - this is our solid foundation, this is our core identity, that no matter what gives way in our lives and in our world, that no matter what storms may come, that no matter what it feels like to go through being clay in the potter’s hand or in the refiner’s fire - it is written in our hearts: God is our God. We are God’s people. We are God’s children. We are loved by the God who is love, who will never let us go, and will always offer us grace, grace to grow, grace to change, grace to love, grace to die and be born again, changed and more like Christ.
.Being centered as God’s people, we don’t need to fear being clay in the potter’s hands or steel in the refiner’s fire or wheat that falls to the ground...for God is our God and we are God’s.
Being centered firmly in that knowledge, you can ask yourself: What do I need to let go of, to let die, to change, so that God can make room for new life within me?
May it be so.
Amen.
Amen.
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