Romans 12:1-8
1 I appeal to
you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your
bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual
worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is
good and acceptable and perfect. 3 For by the grace given to me I say to
everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to
think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith
that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and not all
the members have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in
Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6 We have gifts that
differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7
ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8 the exhorter, in
exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the
compassionate, in cheerfulness.
You woke up this morning and made
the decision to come to worship. That’s great. You got out of bed, maybe you
showered, picked out your clothes, ate a bit of breakfast, maybe a cup (or two)
of coffee. Those of you with children probably had to wake them up, make sure
they got ready, had a bit of breakfast themselves (maybe they skipped the
coffee). Then you jumped in the car and found your way here to the corner of
Nisbet Lake Road and Pleasant Valley Road for worship at ten o’clock, and most
of you got here on time. Some of you even came a whole hour earlier for Sunday
school, and still a few of you got here before that for deacons’ meeting or
just because you get here before everyone else in your Sunday school class.
However or whenever you got here is irrelevant at the moment because, well,
you’re here now, and that’s great.
Now, there are a number of folks who
aren’t here: some because they’re not really “church folks” who come regularly,
some because they’re on vacation, sick, or working, some because they’re
visiting other churches, and then there are some who aren’t here because so
much of their time is taken by the general rhythms and complexities of life
that to take an hour or so to come to worship would be sacrificing more than
they can truly bear. Because in our present culture where “money makes the
world go ‘round” and “time is money” the seconds, minutes, and hours we feel we
possess are extremely precious. So in many ways, some of you are to be
commended for being here today, sacrificing some of those precious minutes of
your life in order to worship the God and Savior of the universe.
But I’m not sure I’d put it like
that. Don’t get me wrong, being here for worship is extremely important, and I
know your time is valuable. The Church (and the local congregation) is
absolutely essential in the life of faith; the writer of Hebrews upholds the
practice of meeting together regularly in chapter ten of that epistle.[1] I
suppose, though, what I mean is that I wouldn’t necessarily call what we’re
doing here today a “sacrifice.” You see, that word once had a much different
meaning, a meaning that involved much more than showing up to sit on a padded pew
in an air-conditioned room for one hour a week. That word once carried with it
the image of a gilded temple and vested priests; that word once sounded with
the racket of a crowd gathered with all manner of animals and produce, of the
clanging metal of gongs and cymbals; that word once reeked with the smell of
fire, smoke, incense, and burnt animal flesh. That word “sacrifice”—especially
in the context of ancient, Judeo-Christian worship—once brought to mind the
long process of choosing the best of what one had in order to bring it to the
temple so that it could be offered on an altar of fire for God. That word
sacrifice was a whole lot grittier than it is today.
I suppose the change in that word
began to take place with those first Christians, those who understood Jesus’
death to signal the end of such bloody sacrifices. Those Christians realized
that God could not be kept in a temple-shaped box, and with the resurrection of
Christ, they realized that God could not be kept in a grave-shaped box either.
Death, so to speak, was no longer listed in the order of worship. However,
these early Christians knew that behind the very act of ritual sacrifice was a
much larger truth, for you see, God no longer required the blood of a goat or
the burning of wheat from those who sought to follow God. No, but God in Christ
was still calling forth from his followers the same sense of sacrifice in the
way they lived every moment of their lives—and Christ continues to call us to
do the very same thing today, with every
moment of our lives.
This is what the apostle Paul is
getting at in the text we’ve read here today. He’s spent the first eleven
chapters of this epistle to the Romans making his grand theological arguments,
and in verse one of our text today
he writes, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which
is your spiritual worship.” With that word “therefore” Paul is
saying that because of the deep, complex, theological description of God and
Christ he has laid out in the preceding words of this letter, those who call
themselves followers of Jesus are called—not to continue the bloody business of
animal sacrifice, but— “to present [their] bodies as a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is [their] spiritual worship.”[2]
In other words, the sacrifice of animal flesh and the first fruits of one’s
harvest may no longer be required upon an altar, but the sacrifice of one’s
life—a life lived in order to bring
the kingdom of God to its fullness on earth as it is in heaven—that is the
renewed definition of sacrifice.
What’s more, the phrase translated as “spiritual worship” can also be
understood as “reasonal worship,” implying that this is something of the mind,
as if it ought to be common practice, common sense to those transformed by the
Holy Spirit.[3] You
see, Paul is not calling for some kind of disconnected, over-simplified,
check-your-brain-at-the-door kind of worship. Far from it! In fact, just listen
to what he says in verse 2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the
will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” There are an
awful lot of words in that little verse that have to do with thinking, and it’s
because Paul understood that command that echoes through the ages and the pages
of Holy Scripture: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all
your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind [emphasis mine].”
Now, the truth is, too many folks don’t want to engage their minds in
worship (or in any other arena of faith for that matter). In this age of
technology it’s far too easy to type our spiritual inquiries into unfathomable
depths of Google and be satisfied with the most popular answer or the answer
that best suits our immediate circumstance. I think in many ways Paul’s words
about non-conformity and discernment have just as much to do with those things
we witness within the modern sub-cultures of Christianity as they do with those
things that bombard us from the so-called “secular world.” This redefined,
“living sacrifice” form of worship to which we are being called is one that
requires more form us than a simple appearance when the role is called; it
compels us to be fully engaged with our whole selves, and that most assuredly
means our minds!
However, lest we be too quick to use our minds to reflect on our own
grand deeds and our singular accomplishments, the apostle says in verse 3: “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think
of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober
judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”
Paul writes these words through the grace given to him, yet I have a feeling
they weren’t received with a whole lot of grace, especially from those who were
guilty of thinking more highly of themselves that they ought to think! One of
the recurring issues in many of Paul’s letters in the New Testament is the
division within congregations caused by those who view themselves in one way or
another as being better than others in the congregation: sometimes this is
manifested as racism (divisions between Jews and Gentiles), classism (divisions
between the rich and the poor), or even as differences over giftedness as some
saw their gifts as better or more important than the gifts of others. The truth
is these sorts of divisions only began with the congregations of the first
century, for they still plague congregations today!
That is why it is so important to hear Paul’s words, not only in verse 3, but in the rest of the text
before us this morning, for Paul goes on the say in verses 4 through 8: “For as in one body we have many members, and
not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body
in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that
differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith;
ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in
exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the
compassionate, in cheerfulness.” Paul pulls out his favorite metaphor
for the Church: the body, and he does this in a brilliantly connective way in
his whole redefinition of sacrifice as presenting one’s entire body as a living
sacrifice. I don’t believe this is coincidental at all. In fact, I think Paul
means to make that connection in order for us to understand worship as both an
individual and communal act.
In verses 4 and 5, Paul
describes the unity of the body of Christ, that we are all one body, but each
of us within the body serve a different purpose, and he goes on to list some of
those purposes and gifts in verses 6, 7,
and 8. What is so important to note here, however, is that Paul never once
says, “this gift is the most important,” or “this gift is better than that
gift.” Not once does Paul ever even so much as hint at the notion that there
are some people in the body of Christ who are in any way, shape, form, or
fashion better than anyone else. I’m not better than you. You’re not better
than me. That person over there isn’t better than that person over here. The
lifelong church member who’s given thousands of dollars to the ministries of
the church isn’t any better than the newcomer who hasn’t even so much as placed
a penny in the plate on Sunday, nor is the person with perfect attendance in
Sunday school any better than the person who’s never seen what nine o’clock
looks like on a Sunday morning in this building. Those of you who’ve gathered
in this room this morning are not better than those who aren’t here, and those
who show up to other things you don’t aren’t better than you either!
Paul warns about this created sense of self-importance because it can
sour worship—true, spiritual, reasonable worship, the kind of worship that
looks like a living sacrifice. He warns about this holy haughtiness because it
can divide the church and fool us into thinking that we don’t have to think,
that we don’t have to bring our whole selves into the sacred space of worship,
that we can leave our hearts and minds in the parking lot but parade on in with
our egos. Each one of us is given the amazing gift of God’s free grace, yet so
many of us refuse it because we see it’s reflection warped by the way others
who call themselves believers speak about one another, the way they treat each
other.
May we begin to correct this misrepresentation of God’s grace today by
offering ourselves as a living sacrifice. May we be living sacrifices, each of
us, as we give the whole of who we are (our heart, our soul, our strength, and
our minds) to God for the work of God’s kingdom. May we be people who are
non-conformist, not allowing the world or even others in the popularized
“church” to influence us without the discernment that comes from the Holy
Spirit. May we be people who do not think highly of ourselves, believing that
we are better than anyone else. Above all, may we be a united body which
celebrates its diversity in giftedness, ideas, and perspectives so that we may
offer this body we call First Baptist Church of Williams as a living sacrifice
to God, not only when we meet in this room for the hour we mark as “worship,”
but in everything we do and say in all the places we may find ourselves. May we
strive to be holy and acceptable to the God we love, serve, and worship.
Amen.
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