2025-03-26
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
3/23/2025 Sermon Rev. Betsy Wooster Federated Church UCC
Romans 12: 1-2, 9-13:
Hear again the passage from Paul’s letter to the church in Rome:
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.[a]
9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal; be ardent in spirit; serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; pursue hospitality to strangers.”
Let us pray: O God, may your love and presence move among us that we might hear your Word as we seek to know and trust you more fully. And, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
SERMON
You can see the defining character of the apostle Paul’s life in one key passage of this letter to the Christians in Rome. ‘Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed.’ That is Paul’s life. He had been conformed to the age he lived in. All the voices around him as a religious leader and a Roman citizen confirmed that it was right to oppose the new religious faction of people who followed Jesus because, to him, it was a heresy. It was introducing division and conflict. It threatened the traditions that should be held dear.
For the greater good, he thought, Paul proudly joined the work of opposing the Christian movement. He helped to arrest its leaders, who were placed in prison and even executed. In fact, when Paul was on his famous journey on that road to Damascus, he was carrying letters that called for the arrest of Christian leaders.
And this all seemed very right to him. It conformed to accepted practice. But then, on that road to Damascus, his life changed. No longer would he conform, because he was transformed by the renewing of his mind by listening to God’s voice.
The book of Acts describes his transformation as a vision of blinding light, in which he heard a voice saying “why do you persecute me?” Paul asked who it was, and God gave the answer: Jesus.
In his own letters, Paul wrote that the risen Christ appeared to him at last. Conforming to the world around us can happen so easily without our even being aware of it. How do you notice that which just seems normal? For Paul, everything confirmed that it was right, good, moral, and faithful to deal firmly with this upstart Christian movement.
Today, we are living in a very polarized society. The divisions have grown more stark so that people disagree not only on opinions or priorities, but even on what is true and what is not. Recognizing the division and polarization may be the one thing that everyone still agrees about. But to each person (or each side), it feels as if what they are doing is right, good, moral, and faithful, and it is the other side that has moved away into opposition.
We also live in a society of increasing loneliness. I had the opportunity this week to attend a public conversation with Rabbi Sharon Brous, founder of a Jewish community in California, whose recent book The Amen Effect describes our increasing isolation. She said that around the years 2012 and 2013, she started to see a pattern of trouble in her community. One after the other, people came to her to share their worry and fear about their lives. In tears, they described how isolated they felt.
Before long, this pattern was confirmed by larger findings of an epidemic of loneliness across our nation, leading to the research in the book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, and even to a warning by the U.S. surgeon general about the epidemic of loneliness, which affects not only the mind and spirit but also the very physical health of our bodies. So, what happened just before 2012-2013? What issue might a surgeon general, a psychological researcher, and an astute rabbi pay attention to??? The invention of the smart phone. The tidal wave of social media and digital engagement.
These tools that can be so helpful, the internet and the smart phone, that seem designed to make it easier to connect with people and stay connected with them, can actually work to make us more isolated, more removed from genuine human interaction, more worried, more anxious, more alone. And it has become easier to connect to echo chambers that make people more polarized, divisive, and angry. It has been very hard to question this societal change, because it is everywhere. It is so easy to conform to it because it seems like just the way things are.
And isn’t it good to be able to connect? To be able to reach people wherever we are? To be in a networked community? That’s what we tell ourselves. And look, I’m not going to tell you I’ve solved this. My smart phone is in my pocket! I may have to recharge it partway through the day from using it so much. I’m not going to tell you to throw your phones in the trash as you leave worship today, or to delete all of your online profiles (although it might be a wonderful gift to do just that).
What I do want to look for is the transformation that God can bring to our minds, souls, and hearts. I am convinced that a transformation will happen, and that we will find it in communion with God and in communion with others. God calls us into places where we can be transformed by the renewing of our minds. That place might be worship, side by side with friends and strangers as we are now. It may be real in-person interactions with your neighbors, with co-workers, and with the people with whom you may not be immediately comfortable. It may be leaving technology behind and going for a walk in the parklands, or neighborhood streets, or anywhere to take a break from news alerts and notifications and the newest episode (you know, of The Pitt or Severance), and finally, find – the - space to listen to the divine voice within you.
Listen to the still small voice of God that calls you to do the good that is uniquely yours to do. I think one of the ways that we are transformed is to use the gifts that are already within us that we often question. We may question these gifts or think, dismissively, this isn’t that important.
Most often, what we must do is trust that our gifts matter. God placed these gifts within us from the moment we were born, if not sooner.
I recently read a phrase by a pastor that said: Not only is God aware of us, but far more highly aware us than we are of us. Trust that what God has given you isn’t random. The gifts within you are a gift – from God.
Listen to the divine voice within you, leading with your heart. Trust the gifts that you are aware of and drawn to, and trust that within those gifts is God. God is calling us through the gifts we have so that we might use those gifts to be transformed into more enlightened beings, to use the love of God that has saved us. The very act of trusting God and trusting ourselves is transformative. We become more fully aware of ourselves, of who we are called to be.
God is not only able, but willing to guide us into the fullest sense of joy and vitality that we can have as human beings. Let’s open ourselves to the reality that God is surrounding us all – the- time.
Paul says that this is God’s intent always: to prod us toward God’s will for us so that we grasp and hold onto the unique gifts within us, these gifts from God that have the power to transform our lives. We don’t have to search for these gifts to figure out who we are. We already are who we are.
Again, trust that your gifts matter, that who you are matters. The things we are naturally drawn to aren’t there by accident. They’ve been placed within us by the living, loving God who chose our gifts for us, who can see us living them out and can’t wait for us to start doing so!
Look deep within yourselves. Pay attention to what rises to the surface of your mind. These things will be the very gifts God has entrusted within you. Let your love be genuine, Paul says. Listen for your maker’s voice. Be transformed by discerning the voice of God that brings forth the gifts that God has placed within you.
Reach out to the lonely. Contribute to the needs of those who are struggling and pursue hospitality to strangers. Let your love reflect the love of God to others, whether you know them or not, whether you agree with them or not, whether you like them or not.
Do not be conformed to this age, this polarized, divisive age. Be transformed by the still, small voice of God, inviting you to discern what is good and what is holy, Amen.