Becoming Who We Are--October 13, 2017
"Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been
revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like
him, for we will see him as he is." [1 John 3:2]
The whole Christian life is about becoming who
and what God says we already are.
If that seems like a bit of a brain twister, it's probably a sign that we're onto something.
After all, most of the really important things we believe as Christians boggle our minds if we spend any time at thinking about them. (In his book, Everything Belongs, Richard Rohr quotes some of the great Eastern fathers as saying, "If you can explain it, it isn't true," meaning that ultimately we can't completely unravel the mystery of the faith, and that if we think we understand it all, it's a sign we have probably missed the boat somewhere.) So, back to the mystery du jour: the Christian life is a matter of becoming who we are.
If that seems like a bit of a brain twister, it's probably a sign that we're onto something.
After all, most of the really important things we believe as Christians boggle our minds if we spend any time at thinking about them. (In his book, Everything Belongs, Richard Rohr quotes some of the great Eastern fathers as saying, "If you can explain it, it isn't true," meaning that ultimately we can't completely unravel the mystery of the faith, and that if we think we understand it all, it's a sign we have probably missed the boat somewhere.) So, back to the mystery du jour: the Christian life is a matter of becoming who we are.
Again and again throughout the Bible, Christians find themselves bumping
up against the idea of things being already-and-not-yet with us and
God. Jesus is Lord of the entire universe,
and yet there is still coming a day when he will be
revealed fully to all as Lord. The Reign of God is among us, Jesus said
two thousand years ago, and yet the same Jesus also still taught us to pray for
that same very Reign to come, and for God's will to be done on earth the way
it is done already in heaven. Eternal life begins now, the New Testament
writers say, but it also yet to come beyond the bounds of death. There
are lots of places where we live in that already-but-not-yet tension as
believers in Jesus.
Well, here's one more for the pile: John tells us here we are
God's children now, and he says it plainly and assertively as something we can
take to the bank, But John also points us forward to something that is
yet in store for us, something that is to come, something we are not yet
experiencing fully. "We will be like him," John says, referring
to Jesus. We will be like Jesus, the One in whom we have met the face of
God. In other words, we are God's children already, but we will be made
to be fully like God's Son at the last.
That's really what this whole life is about--being
formed into the likeness of Jesus--the "Son of Man," which is really a way of saying, "the Truly Human One." It's all about being shaped more and more fully into the likeness of Christ. It always has been. Not beards and sandals of course, but
becoming like Jesus in the ways that matter.
This life--which also then includes this day--is part of how God is shaping us to be made like Jesus, so that, as John says, "when he is revealed, we will be like him." That is an important thing for us to remember, because it is very easy for us to slip into thinking that this life is just a matter of biding our time until we get to heaven, or that we just have to trudge through the days and keep our nose down as much as possible so that we can just skip ahead to the good part of life after death. But Jesus, it turns out, is just as much interested in life before death. And in fact, Jesus has gifted us with a community of people who are placed around us in this life-before-death to be used as instruments whom God uses to shape us to be like Christ. That community is called church. Sinners though we are, every last one of us, in God's great cosmic genius, the Spirit uses each of us to work on all of the rest of us. And together in community, we learn how to love like Jesus, how to be courageous truth-tellers in like Jesus, how to serve in humility like Jesus, how to embrace those deemed "unacceptable" and share a table with those on the margins like Jesus, and how to weep and rejoice like Jesus.
When we go out to serve others--whether on far-out mission trips or just down the road to the clothes closet or working side by side in our own church buildings--part of what is happening is that you and I are being changed, too. For whatever other good we are doing for others on our mission trips and with our clothing drives, God is using those moments to form the kind of people we are becoming--so that we will come to look like the kind of children God says we are already. When we hold hands together to pray in a circle, when we come to the Table to receive the bread and the cup, when we are gathered around the Word each Sunday, God is shaping us to make us to be like Jesus. God has already called us and claimed us as "children of God," but that is not the end of things--God continues to make us to be what God says we are already.
This life--which also then includes this day--is part of how God is shaping us to be made like Jesus, so that, as John says, "when he is revealed, we will be like him." That is an important thing for us to remember, because it is very easy for us to slip into thinking that this life is just a matter of biding our time until we get to heaven, or that we just have to trudge through the days and keep our nose down as much as possible so that we can just skip ahead to the good part of life after death. But Jesus, it turns out, is just as much interested in life before death. And in fact, Jesus has gifted us with a community of people who are placed around us in this life-before-death to be used as instruments whom God uses to shape us to be like Christ. That community is called church. Sinners though we are, every last one of us, in God's great cosmic genius, the Spirit uses each of us to work on all of the rest of us. And together in community, we learn how to love like Jesus, how to be courageous truth-tellers in like Jesus, how to serve in humility like Jesus, how to embrace those deemed "unacceptable" and share a table with those on the margins like Jesus, and how to weep and rejoice like Jesus.
When we go out to serve others--whether on far-out mission trips or just down the road to the clothes closet or working side by side in our own church buildings--part of what is happening is that you and I are being changed, too. For whatever other good we are doing for others on our mission trips and with our clothing drives, God is using those moments to form the kind of people we are becoming--so that we will come to look like the kind of children God says we are already. When we hold hands together to pray in a circle, when we come to the Table to receive the bread and the cup, when we are gathered around the Word each Sunday, God is shaping us to make us to be like Jesus. God has already called us and claimed us as "children of God," but that is not the end of things--God continues to make us to be what God says we are already.
So for today, we look out on the hours in front of us before we go to
bed again, and we can see the open possibility that God will be at work on
us today--and through us at the same time, too--to make us all more fully
to become like Jesus. The question, then, to ask, over any given moment, any given action, any given word, any given choice in the day, is, "Does this make me more like Christ... or less?" Does this reflect who Jesus is faithfully, or distort his face with my own self-interest? Does this bring out what is of Mercy in me, or push his presence down under layers of apathy and indifference?
We rarely get around to asking questions like that in our day. We have a way of asking less and less these days, and shouting or declaring more and more--talking (yelling, really) past each other, rather than asking ourselves the difficult probing questions, like, "What will this choice do to me? How will it shape me?" Instead, we have a way of shouting instead, "I have a right to...!" or "People who don't see things the way I do must be godless heathens and disrespectful ingrates!" rather than asking, honestly and vulnerably, whether our own attitudes, words, and choices are really aligned with Christ or not. We like to imagine that I am already a fully perfected, spittin'-image-of-Jesus full-baked saint, and anybody different is clearly out of step with The Truth, rather than allowing the possibility that God has put other people in my life--people who may think through their faith differently from the way I do and arrive at some conclusions different from mine, no less!--deliberately, in order to shape me. We have a hard time imagining that God might have put people in my life, with whom I disagree sometimes, in order to shape me into the likeness of Christ in ways I may not be ready yet to see that I need. But that is part of the infinite genius of the living God--God reserves the right, and has the cleverness, to work through people I am not prepared to see that I can learn from... much less to learn the ways of Jesus from. (Of course, Jesus himself has a way of calling attention to the way the religious so-and-sos of his day needed to learn a thing or two from the tax collectors and prostitutes...)
The challenge in this day is allowing the possibility that the living God is not only working through you--like you are already a fully formed, perfect vessel for channeling Jesus--but also that this same God is working on you at the same time, always both at the same time, like a riverbed channels water along and is shaped by that water at the same time.
We, children of God already, are being made to be more fully like the Son of God. And it will be happening, if perhaps in small ways that we will have to be vigilant to notice and recognize, even today.
We rarely get around to asking questions like that in our day. We have a way of asking less and less these days, and shouting or declaring more and more--talking (yelling, really) past each other, rather than asking ourselves the difficult probing questions, like, "What will this choice do to me? How will it shape me?" Instead, we have a way of shouting instead, "I have a right to...!" or "People who don't see things the way I do must be godless heathens and disrespectful ingrates!" rather than asking, honestly and vulnerably, whether our own attitudes, words, and choices are really aligned with Christ or not. We like to imagine that I am already a fully perfected, spittin'-image-of-Jesus full-baked saint, and anybody different is clearly out of step with The Truth, rather than allowing the possibility that God has put other people in my life--people who may think through their faith differently from the way I do and arrive at some conclusions different from mine, no less!--deliberately, in order to shape me. We have a hard time imagining that God might have put people in my life, with whom I disagree sometimes, in order to shape me into the likeness of Christ in ways I may not be ready yet to see that I need. But that is part of the infinite genius of the living God--God reserves the right, and has the cleverness, to work through people I am not prepared to see that I can learn from... much less to learn the ways of Jesus from. (Of course, Jesus himself has a way of calling attention to the way the religious so-and-sos of his day needed to learn a thing or two from the tax collectors and prostitutes...)
The challenge in this day is allowing the possibility that the living God is not only working through you--like you are already a fully formed, perfect vessel for channeling Jesus--but also that this same God is working on you at the same time, always both at the same time, like a riverbed channels water along and is shaped by that water at the same time.
We, children of God already, are being made to be more fully like the Son of God. And it will be happening, if perhaps in small ways that we will have to be vigilant to notice and recognize, even today.
O Great and Gracious God, we pray for your presence and blessing today
on us, to make us more fully to become who and what you say we are. Let
us be your children, and let us live as your children as you keep shaping us in
the image of Jesus today.
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