Reflection of Pat Edmonds, August 23, 2020
Scripture Reading: Romans 12: 1-8
I don’t know how careful your family members are when putting dirty laundry in the clothes hamper. Or do they depend on the laundry lady to close buttons, zip zippers and check the pockets for stray items? It seems inevitable that at least a few times some money ends up going through the wash cycle. A friend of mine who had 3 sons and a husband which meant lots of men’s trousers in the laundry, finally gave up nagging them about checking their pockets before dumping trousers in the hamper. Instead she started going carefully through the pockets, removing all the coins and bills and donating all this “found money” to the Mission and Service Fund. Over the course of a year it was a tidy sum that went to a good cause. It does seem inevitable that sometimes coins or bills end up being washed. Coins I usually find in the bottom of the washer or dryer and other than added sparkle seem none the worse for wear. But bills often do not fare so well. The remains are found balled up in a pocket or worse still become a paper mulch that sticks to all the dark colors. Unwrapping the soggy mess from itself often results in several pieces of torn, almost unrecognizable paper. If you let the pieces dry, smooth them out, use reams of scotch tape you might have a bill recognizable enough that the bank will exchange it for a new one or you might try to spend it, imperfect though it is. Well, today’s scripture from Romans deals with imperfection.
Paul urges us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is very interesting especially as we look at our bodies and find them somewhat imperfect – our bodies have been through the wringer, or the washer, so to speak, and have been left somewhat wrinkled and torn, or filled with pain or disfigured in some way. Perhaps our bodies are not able to do what bodies in better shape are able to do.
Offering our bodies as living sacrifices is a spiritual act of worship. But what does this mean? In worship at the temple in Jerusalem animals that were brought to be sacrificed to God for thank offerings had to be unblemished. Does this mean we need to go on a diet to please God? – or enroll in a gym? –or have everything in perfect working order to be “holy” and pleasing to God? What about those of us who are a bit less, or quite a bit more, than the super models who grace the pages of fashion magazines? What about those of us who appear to have been soaked, agitated, rinsed, spun and wrung out by life’s experiences inside and out? Are we unacceptable in God’s presence? Clearly since we know our loving God does not judge people by outward appearances this not what Paul is suggesting. It is not some form of bodily perfection that matters to God. So offering our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God must mean something more. Something less physical, something more spiritual, must be in Paul’s mind when he speaks to the early Christians.
Let’s think for a minute about our spiritual bodies. What kind of shape are they in? Are they pure and unblemished – up to the tasks they are meant to perform? Or are they limping along, full of aches and pains, full of doubts and confusion, worries and hatred, even though they also contain faith and truth, trust and love?
I suspect the latter is true of many of us – not the former. I suspect that when we look at ourselves we don’t see ourselves as perfect in every way, or even in many ways. We may regard ourselves as having a good heart, as being loving and kind but we, especially as we grow in faith, are also aware of the arrhythmia, the little irregularities that occasionally come along, Sometimes it seems – even among the healthiest spirits there is a little shortness of breath, a little reluctance to go out and climb the highest mountains or even to go for a walk around the block. I think most of us will all agree that not all the parts of our spiritual body are fully presentable, at least not now, not yet. And if we are really honest about it all, it is really rather hard to see how they ever will be. There are so many others who have so much more to offer God than we do, so many others who are in much better shape – much more acceptable than we, both physically and spiritually. But the message today is that God doesn’t want the best of us, God wants all of us.
Just as the Government of Canada will take a crumpled and torn bill and value it as highly as one in perfect condition, so God will take us – when we offer to him whatever condition our condition is in – and value us as highly as the greatest saint in our midst. Indeed God values each one of us as highly as he values his own Son!
The world says that the way to feel good about yourself is by climbing the ladder of success; by making a lot of money; by having influential friends; by belonging to the right circles. Those are the things that we are told make you feel good about yourself.
But the Bible teaches that we should feel good about ourselves because God loves us. You are such a treasured person in God’s sight that He gave His only Begotten Son for you. That makes you valuable, and you can feel good about yourself.
That is what the Gospel is all about. Through Christ’s offering of his whole life in obedience and in love to God, even unto death, we are able to offer ourselves to God completely – body, heart, soul and mind. God will accept us and God will take that which is now imperfect – and make it perfect, that which is perishable and make it imperishable, – and that which is mortal and make it immortal.
That is what spiritual worship is all about: The offering of all we are, everything – good and bad, perfect and imperfect, to God so that God can take us and do what he wills with it. So that God can accept our lives and transform them into what they were meant to be. When we offer ourselves completely to God – body, heart, soul and mind – we too can be made whole again. Thanks be to God!
Let us pray,
O, Gracious God – we thank you for your mercy and your love. We thank you that you ask for all that we are and promise that when we give you ourselves that you will make us all that we were created to be – and all that you desire us to be – through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.