Expecting Transformation

A sermon on Luke 2:22-40 and Malachi 3:1-4.

[an audio recording of this sermon is accessible here. Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash.]

I came across an assessment of American Christianity this week that I cannot stop pondering.

The comment came in the context of a clergy discussion on reactions to Bishop Budde’s sermon on January 20th.

In processing why so many people seem unable to recognize that the Bishop’s sermon was, demonstrably, steeped in biblical concepts and direct quotations, a colleague shared an explanation based on his more than two decades of pastoral ministry.

He said: “I can confidently tell you that the vast majority of people who attend church do not attend to be transformed, and certainly not to hear a pastor (or bishop) offer challenging correction. The vast majority of people go to church to be assured they’re good people who are part of a mostly good system.”[1] 

Now, this is one pastor’s perspective that may or may not be a fair characterization of the “vast majority” of church-goers, but it does offer a coherent explanation for why a sermon centered in the Sermon on the Mount, and making a clearly biblical petition for mercy on behalf of the marginalized, would seem so unrecognizable as faithful preaching to so many Christians.

If a person’s experience of preaching has never been for the sermon to challenge them with a vision of how God wants them to be transformed… and if their expectation of their faith is that it will always make them feel good about themselves and the ways they are living… then of course a prophetic sermon, no matter how graciously delivered, will offend their sense of appropriateness.

And this insight has given me pause… because it obligates me to question whether my preaching could lead to those same kinds of expectations.

I don’t really worry about a failure on my part to lift up the needs of the vulnerable and marginalized. I know I do that.

But am I consistent in building an expectation that your faith should challenge you? Transform you? Sometimes even convict you?

In my tendency to go light on law and heavy on gospel have I cultivated enough appreciation for the importance of God’s reforming law?

In my efforts to communicate the unconditional and life-changing love of God, have I erred on the side of making you expect that church should exclusively make you feel good?

I don’t expect you to answer those questions right now (although feel free to come talk to me after worship if you wish), but I do hope that we will all seriously ask ourselves what we expect from church, and from the prophetic tradition of our faith.

Because that tradition is inescapable if we actually engage with God’s Word.

We heard it this morning in the lectionary reading from the prophet Malachi, who announced the coming of the Lord’s messenger to the temple, and immediately followed that announcement with a challenging question: But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

The prophet then goes on to compare God’s messenger to caustic soap and (at more length) to refining fire, intent on purifying the leaders of God’s people.

Clearly, the expectation is that the encounter with God’s prophet will result in dramatic change… that the coming of God’s message will strip away and burn off impurities.

Are you feeling content with your own goodness yet?  

We also get an insight into the prophetic edge of God’s word in the gospel reading.

This story is less directly confrontational, but it does not shy away from expressing demands and presenting unpalatable realities.

The whole context of the story is about fulfilling God’s law, specifically the religious purification requirements after childbirth.

And, speaking of law, this reading includes five separate references to the law… which is more than the entire 23 and a half chapters that make up the rest of the gospel of Luke![2]

Luke really seems to be focused on setting a foundation for his story that depends on understanding that even Jesus – the one whom Luke (above all other gospel writers) portrays as pushing boundaries, and violating expectations, and including the outsiders – even Luke’s Jesus begins by fulfilling God’s law.

Because our faith is not just about making us feel good. Sometimes God does make demands of us.

That’s the first uncomfortable truth in this gospel story.

The second is subtle: it’s the reminder – through a series of allusions to unpleasant human realities – that Jesus’s transformative appearance in history does not effortlessly erase those realities.

There’s the reference to the poverty of Jesus’ family, in the specification that their sacrifice was a pair of doves [which was an option provided for families that could not afford the normal sacrifice of a sheep (see Leviticus 12)].

Then we are reminded of human mortality, in the prophecy about Simeon’s lifespan being tied to the realization of God’s promise that he would see the Messiah.

And then we get the brief autobiography of the prophetess Anna, which centers the long years of her widowhood, a status associated with not only grief, and potential loneliness, but also with significant vulnerability in her society.

Interwoven with the joy and revelation of this story are these discordant details…they do not overwhelm the hope of the story, but they do exist alongside it.

And I think these details are there to remind us that we cannot expect the life of faith to be always about affirmation and pleasant circumstances. Faith happens within a messy, sometimes painful world… a world we cannot ignore if we wish to follow Jesus.

Because the most direct challenge in the gospel account comes from Simeon’s prophetic words to Mary about what Jesus has come to do.

After rejoicing at the coming of God’s promised one and the blessing he himself experiences in being able to see this sign of salvation, Simeon turns to the infant’s mother with deeply disturbing words:

“Your child will raise up some people, but bring others down.”

“(Unsurprisingly) this will bring him opposition.”

“That opposition will uncover things that people would rather keep hidden.”

“And because of that opposition, you will suffer heart break.”

That’s really the heart of the gospel isn’t it. It’s the message that Bishop Budde preached, and the challenge posed to every Christian who just wants our faith to make us comfortable.

Jesus came to CHANGE the world and that change has to be disruptive.

It lifts up those who are suffering and afraid, but to do that it has to take away the privilege of those who don’t want to share on equal terms with their neighbor.

It inevitably draws opposition from the status quo, and in doing so it exposes whatever is power-hungry, whatever is selfish, whatever is unmerciful and it tells the truth about those things: the truth that they are NOT of God.

And if we care about Jesus, if we commit to being close to him even when the powers that be get upset, then we cannot expect to stay safe from the consequences.

But Simeon and Anna have good news for us to accompany the warning.

Simeon calls Jesus our salvation, and that is a world-changing claim.

It means that he actually comes to FIX what is broken in the world, not by patting us on the back but by calling us into the disruptive work of transformation that actually makes a different for poverty, and grief, and loneliness, and vulnerability… and that we can do that work with him because he conquered our final enemy: death!

Simeon also calls Jesus the light of revelation not only to the Jews but also to the Gentiles.

And that means that Jesus’s work is expansive… that it cuts through the misunderstandings and suspicions that set groups against each other to include EVERYONE in this transformation.

And Anna has something to add as well. When she speaks her word of praise and hope to the people, Luke tells us that she spoke to those “awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem”.

Reminding us that there are always others who are waiting, and listening, and looking for signs of hope. We will not be alone in the work of transformation.

So, yes, the way of Jesus is challenging.

It will demand things of us.

And it will call us to face the pain and problems in our reality.

And when we commit to joining with Jesus in the work of transformation, we might suffer as a result… just like he did.

But, ultimately, the way of Jesus is SO MUCH BETTER than just being told we are good people in a mostly good system.

Because the way of Jesus engages us in actually making the world better, truthfully, and inclusively, and with unshakable hope.

Thanks be to God.

[1] Post by JR Madill Forasteros.

[2] “A Child of the Law” Commentary article by D. Mark Davis. https://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/search?q=Luke+2%3A22-40