The senior sermon of Rich Frontjes, Class of 2006 from the Diocese of Eastern Michigan, presented on February 8, 2006 in Christ Chapel

Reading: Romans 12:1-8

Preaching Text: Romans 12:2

Today's reading from Paul's Letter to the Romans contains a full measure of Paul's characteristic density and intensity. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." What struck me when I read this passage in preparation for today was that the process that Paul is describing is the same process that we are engaged in as a seminary community. Paul is inviting his fellow Christians into a journey of personal transformation aimed toward a fuller discernment of the will of God. He is also inviting them to join him in the process of changing the world.

"Be transformed by the renewing of your minds" -- this phrase captures the essence of education. It is clear that Paul is talking about exercising the mind in some significant way. What he's talking about is active information, knowledge that gets inside and does something to us, changes us.

Paul is showing us that there is a path to a new life in this process of renewing the mind. It is not simply academic or factual information, although these emphatically are part of the process as our tradition has understood it. Rather this renewal refers to the entire process we are about here at ETSS and LSPS.

The active knowledge we seek enters into our lives through many channels -- verbal, musical, liturgical, artistic, loud, quiet, from the strikingly profound to the merely interesting…and there may be some other categories that don't bear mention…but little by little active knowledge accumulates. We do things here that challenge us -- this renews our minds as we discover capacities for tasks and relationships that we had not previously had the opportunity to experience or to explore.

We also do things here that reinforce habits of piety, attentiveness toward God and neighbor, and diligence in the face of numerous tasks -- this renews our minds -- even if we think of habits as "old" things, the right habits prepare us to meet God in startling new ways.

None of this, of course, is instantaneous. Transformation is a process that we are committing ourselves to again in this first week of classes and worship and community life.

What does a person look like after transformation? How will we know when we get there? Is there any "after", or is it all "in progress?" Since we are all in the process of being transformed by the renewing of our minds, and no human but Christ has achieved perfection, we can't say with absolute precision where all this transformation is headed. What kinds of things does the renewed mind dare to do, say, believe, perceive, differently from the mind conformed to this age?

The signs and symptoms of transformation can be many and will differ according to the starting place of each person. It may be that we can only generalize about where transformation will lead. Or at best we may with the help of our Commissions on Ministry be able to make lists of specific characteristics that constitute the desired output of the process. Where, in short, is all this transformation headed?

In Paul's figure, this transformation does tend in a particular direction -- "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that -- SO THAT you may discern what is the will of God-what is good and acceptable and perfect." This process tends toward an increase in our ability to discern the will of God. The transformation Paul envisions here is powerful. It amounts to the practiced ability to study the life of Christ and to search the Scriptures for some idea of how God's claim on each of our lives and our collective life must be expressed. Be not conformed to this world, but practice studying the things of God, and learn to see God's world-and learn to conform yourself to that world! Paul asks his readers to conform to a world that is not easy to discern -- it is not automatic -- it takes practice, it takes training, it takes transformation through renewing -- but Paul and countless Christian thinkers and writers since have believed that it is possible at least to get some sense of what God's will might be. Paul and countless Christian thinkers since Paul have believed that we can to some extent train ourselves into conformity with that will.

The work of conforming ourselves to God's will depends on our practiced ability as individuals and collectively to discern. Discernment is not a fuzzy feeling or a holy way of validating goals that we have already chosen or have had chosen for us -- it is a skill, and like any skill it requires training and practice. And as we are all discovering in one way or another, its practice can lead us into some powerful and even scary places.

Powerful, because discernment seeks to know God. Scary, because this discernment can lead us in at least two directions. We might, for example, discover that we can for the most part conform our lives to this world while at the same time remaining faithful to God and our communities of faith. In the reality of Christendom, this model is common. Not all things in this world need reform with equal urgency, and some things are fine if we simply let them be. Harmonizing with our surroundings does not necessarily mean that we are avoiding our vocation. This is one legitimate possible outcome of discernment.

On the other hand, we might discern that in our particular moment in time and space it is impossible both to conform to this world and to do to the discerned will of God. Every civil rights advocate, every reformer, every missionary in the best sense of the word, every person who devotes his or her life to intercessory prayer has discerned this incongruity in their own time and place and has been obedient to the One who has called them to change things. Right here and now, in our own context, we might go through something like seminary education and be transformed by the renewing of our minds and discern that God has called us to engage something in this world that doesn't want to be engaged, that doesn't want to go away. When the two worlds don't match, we have a choice. We can live out the status quo, or we can push against the evils that we find or the evils that find us.

When we refuse to conform ourselves to this world, when we decide to work and pray for change, it does not mean that we reject this world. A decision for non-conformity is not a decision to abandon this world but rather represents a more thorough embrace of this world and its inhabitants. One does difficult things when one cares enough and is obedient to a vision of creation as it is intended to be. We are called to be stewards of creation and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

As leaders in the Christian community very often we will be called to lead change. Leading change is not easy. Leading change requires that our sense of success be linked to our sense of faithfulness. Leading change requires a mind and heart that can persevere in the face of resistance, ambiguity, or hostility -- a mind that has been transformed through renewing, a mind that knows its creator and final judge is God alone.

Non-conformity of this sort finds its strength in the knowledge that this world matters and is precious to God, but that it is not the last word. Non-conformity requires courage. In fact, Non-conformity can be deadly. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King were transformed through the renewing of their minds, discerned the will of God for their particular time and place, and refused to be conformed to the evils of their age. Their discernment was their practiced ability to see the difference between this world and God's world -- a world they called the Promised Land.

As we go about this process, we may find that discerning evil is the easy part. Finding the courage to take on the unjust structures of our time is decidedly not easy. In fact, it's terrifying. And while it is a dangerous thing to believe beyond a doubt that we know the will of God, it is more dangerous still to have caught a glimpse of God's will and then to ignore it. Once glimpsed, it gets inside us and grows and will not leave us alone. It is active, powerful knowledge, something that will change us and transform us. It takes a certain kind of courage to seek this knowledge intentionally, to go looking for it, to take it into a quiet corner and study it, knowing in advance that things will never be the same.

Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the ability to act in spite of being afraid. It takes courage to enter into a process that promises to be transformative. And as this semester begins and as our celebration of Black History and Culture Month flourishes around us, my hope is that the courage that brought us to this community will only increase. We are seeking transformation through the renewing of our minds so that we may better discern the will of God. It may be that we will discern through our studies and common life here that we -- collectively or individually -- are called to lead change. If this is the case, and I can hardly imagine a scenario in which it will not be the case, we are going to need these words from Paul's letter to the Romans. We are going to need to repeat them to ourselves and to each other: 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. If we discern that we are called to lead change, the courage we need will only come from God, to whom be all honor and glory, now and forever, Amen.