author:
- Dale Hathaway
date: 'Tue, 27 Jul 2021 16:32:21 -0400'
title: 'proper-13b'
---
Introduction: Conversion
When I was around 20 years old I made an important life decision. I was
prodded by the considerable range of directions that my colleagues in
college were taking with their own life choices. One of my friends in particular
I remember vividly. She stood up in the middle of the student center
announced for all to hear that she had decided to become an
existentialist.
I decided at the time that I had been raised in a Christian faith and
that I already understood that there was a deep spirituality in the
tradition of Christianity, even though the popular versions were for me
not very attractive. It was the mystical and contemplative traditions in
Christianity that interested me, and I decided I would try to mine them
for what I could get out of them before I moved on to other traditions
and philosophies. I suspected even then that it would take a lifetime to
sort all that out. And I wasn't wrong.
In my 20's, having pursued the decision to commit myself to the
Christian faith, I began to understand that there was at the heart of
the faith, an experience of conversion.
Metanoia
Metanoia is the Greek word used in the NT translated as
repentance. It is very closely related to the concept of conversion.
Repentance or conversion, seems to be all over the New
Testament. In Mark chapter 1 Jesus announces the kingdom of God and
calls for repentance. In classical Greek the word meant to change one's
mind about someone or something. I have had a number of experiences of
that sort when I have had first impressions of someone as being
unpleasant or obnoxious. Only later, after getting to know the person,
did I discover that we had deep and important connections, human
connections; and we became good friends.
I had something of that kind of experience with the very phrase
conversion and repentance. I associated the concept with a certain
kind of Christian, and even at that time I wasn't sure I liked them
very much. Now I was still finding my way around the Bible, but I was
well aware of Paul's conversion experience on the road to Damascus. I
thought at the time that if such an experience was required to be a
Christian, I guess I couldn't do it, because I hadn't experienced that
sort of visceral life changing experience.
Something happened somewhere on my journey. I'm not sure what it was.
It had something to do with my own experience of fallibility and
inadequacy. I experienced myself as falling short of what I expected of
myself, to say nothing of what God might've expected of me at the time.
It was hearing other people's stories of being lost and then found, of
being blind and then being able to see. It was feeling the
responsibility of being called as a healer, but knowing that at best
I was a wounded healer.
Variations in conversion
By my 30's I had become convinced that not all conversions had to look
or feel like Paul's. And I suspected that the obsessive interest in
conversion on the part of some Christians was too narrow an
understanding of what conversion was all about. I began to believe and
to share with others a conviction that in any encounter with the risen
Lord some kind of change had to happen. If it didn't then we had missed
it.
David's story
I am especially interested in the whole episode from David's life
involving Bathsheba, her husband Uriah, David's obscene responses to his
attraction to her, the prophet Nathan and his use of parable long before
Jesus perfected the practice. I love the episode because it is so vivid
and shows us a person, David, who experienced conversion. He makes
wretched choices and is confronted by someone he trusts, Nathan. Nathan
tells him a story and David responds with indignant
self-righteousness.Then Nathan tells him directly you are the man. David
respond with a "c'est moi?" Letting us know that he can't imagine
something so terrible about himself.
And then it hits him. He encounters the living God. And he is changed
forever.
Is it not the case that most of us need to be hit upside the head? In
order to really get it, that, "hey God is really talking to me."
In the years since I came to that conclusion about the centrality of
conversion for our faith I haven't changed my mind. I continue to
appreciate the tremendous variety of experiences of Metanoia.
Repentance and conversion can take infinitely different forms.
Ephesians: cosmic Metanoia
In the reading today from the letter to the Ephesians, Paul also
appreciates the cosmic significance of Metanoia. He has himself
experienced another transformation of his lifestyle and the contents of
his life trajectory. He has become a prisoner, a prisoner in the Lord.
Being such a prisoner makes demands on his life:
To lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one
another, and love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the
Spirit in the bond of peace.
Such a vision of a transformed life only comes when one has the courage
to face the living God and accept the transformation that is required.
Baptism
From the beginning of the Christian faith all of this is bound together
in the action of baptism. The opening words of the rite of baptism in
the prayer book reads: "One Lord, one Faith,one Baptism, one God and
Father of all who is above all and through all and in all."
The main thing that changed between the prayer book of 1928 -- or even
1662 -- and the one that came out in the 1970's, is precisely the
understanding of baptism. Many have argued that the most important
change in the church for centuries is in a new understanding of
baptism.
It drove our understanding of:
- prayer
- ministry
- church administration
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy
of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and
gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making
every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Paul says he's a prisoner ... how? Literally prisoner? Traditionally
taken that way. Prisoner because of the Lord I would have
anticipated, but here he is prisoner in Christ.
To be caught so you can't escape. To be so caught up in the calling
that it is perfectly natural that you would live in humility,
gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, maintaining the unity of
the Spirit, the bond of peace
That's a heck of a prison! But that's what Paul's talking about. And
he understands that to be a description of what Christians are called to
do and be. He understands that as a description of what it means to be
baptized.
Today's passage from the letter to the Ephesians, then, begins to flesh
out a fuller understanding of baptism that includes all of the
practicalities of one's life. The transformation of Metanoia bring
to bear a wide range of gifts, spiritual gifts, talent oriented gifts,
gifts intended for the building up of the body of Christ, gifts to equip
the Saints for the work of ministry. So it is that the readings we've
heard from scripture today point in the direction of a comprehensive
vision of what it means to be a Christian.
Gifts
"The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets,
some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for
the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of
us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of
God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ."
It turns out that this reading today from Ephesians is an absolutely
central text for understanding the new understanding of baptism. It
has to do with gifts, spiritual gifts, being given by God to the Body of
Christ for the purpose of building up the body.
Some of you are called to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists,
some pastors, and some teachers. Altar guild, warden, sexton, choir
member, -- all the things we think of the church doing. We should thik in terms of spiritual gifts, but we should also think in terms of practical gifts that are important for building up the body of Christ, things such as technology gurus, communication experts, healers and servants.
And it is all to be measured against a single over-riding purpose:
Building up the body.
12 steps
In John's Gospel, chapter 6, we've heard Jesus respond to those who seek
to follow him with the words, "this is the work of God, that you
believe in him whom he has sent."
What Jesus means here is that when we come face-to-face with the living
God, and our lives are turned around through repentance, we put our
whole trust in God to do the work.
I once heard a rephrasing of the 12 steps first articulated by
Alcoholics Anonymous. I came to believe in the 1980's, when I was a
substance abuse counselor, that the 12 steps of AA were in fact a fair
representation of the Christian faith. One teacher suggested that the 12
steps can be reduced to three:
- I can't
- God can
- I think I'll let him
That's really a perfect description of Metanoia, repentance,
conversion.
You'll notice that those three steps are a picture of turning one's life
around. Heading in one direction and finding that there is no way
forward.
Then a second step one encounters God in one way or another, through
some kind of witness, verbal or otherwise. It is a God who is able to do
far more than we can possibly imagine.
And then a third step that requires us to let go in order to let God do
the work.
It here, in this context, that the other basic Christian sacrament,Eucharist, fits in. Having turned our lives around in Metanoia, we are nourished along the way of the journey. In Jesus words, the nourishment that feeds us on our journey is Eucharistic.
I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and
whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
So it is that Baptism and Eucharist are the primary Christian sacraments.
Conversion and the exercise of gifts for the building up of the Body of
Christ. None of it possible except through the Grace of God. All of it
possible by the Grace of God. By the Grace of God we can do it. I think
I'll let him. Amen.
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