Good News: We Are Transformed!

2 Cor 3: 18

Romans 12: 1 – 2

August 25, 2024

When I was a small boy growing up in Pacific Beach, an ocean front community just south of La Jolla and Bird Rock, before Pacific Beach became the crowded traffic ridden place that it is today, Pacific Beach was a wonderful, free-range beach community to grow up in. Canyons had not yet been filled in and paved over with housing developments. We were free to ride our bikes for miles to play, swim, play sports, or just get into general little kid mischief.

Across the street from us was a small, one or two acre farm – yes, I said farm in Pacific Beach – that grew corn, tomatoes, and such. The great attraction was the barn on the property where he kept his tractors, tools, and chickens. That farm didn’t survive development for long. By the time I went to junior high school it had been paved over and apartments resided there. But until that happened, that property – and especially the barn – was magic for us kids.

The owner allowed us to walk through his crops – as long as we picked and disposed of any weeds that we saw. He even let us go into the barn and play with his chickens – again, as long as we don’t try to start up either of his tractors. For me, the barn was a magical place. Because you see, outside the walls, under the eaves, we could often count on running into long lines of cocoons, hanging on the underside of the eaves. We could deoend on those cocoons to provide our block with beautiful, brightly colored butterflies every year.

I remember one year; I was particularly small – that’s my excuse – I came upon a cocoon that was beginning to open. That cocoon was shaking from where it was anchored to the woodwork, it looked to me like that butterfly was really struggling to get out of that cocoon. So I decided to help him.

I carefully detached the cocoon from the barn roof, carried my little friend out into the sunlight where I was going to set him free, and then with a magnifying glass commenced to very carefully peel that cocoon open. Ok, I know you are getting squirmy, my defense is that I was only 4 or 5 years old.

I was very, very careful. I was about detailed work, and I wasn’t in a hurry. Unbeknownst to me, the owner of the farm was down at the edge of the barn watching everything that I was doing.

He was very quiet. He didn’t yell, he didn’t tell me to stop. He simply watched me open up that cocoon.

Eventually I was done. The cocoon was open, the butterfly was free, and it was sitting kind of all wrapped up by his wings and sickly looking on the rock upon which I had placed him. The butterfly never opened his wings. He never flew, he never experienced the freedom that I had created for him. He actually died as I watched him.

At that point, the owner of the small farm, who in my mind was the ancient old man kind of like a Disney Geppetto figure, came over and sat down next to me. My memory is that he was actually very kind and gentle. He asked me why I had opened the cocoon. He asked me if I understood why my efforts to set the butterfly free were unsuccessful. I told him no.

You see, he explained, the butterflies actually need the struggle that comes with busting out of their cocoon. The fluid that fills the wings and makes those wings capable of flight only fills the veins in the wings as the butterfly struggles and it is the movement, the struggle, that forces the fluid out of its body and into their wings. The struggle brings development. The struggle brings life. The struggle is necessary if the caterpillar is ever going to fully transform into a strongly flying and free butterfly. That transformation can only occur after the struggle.

Struggle as a part of growth. Struggle as the necessary partner of transformation.

We have been talking the last few weeks about being a church known not for the latest fad, not for the latest marketing campaign, not for a slavish concentration on metrics and money; but instead as a church known for its love for God, for God’s people, and for its commitment to the building up of God’s kingdom.

But there are some assumptions that are behind those assertions. Loving God is not like loving sports, loving food, loving or spouses, or especially not loving ourselves. Implicit in our love for God is the recognition that God and God alone is the Lord of the Universe and that we love God, not as equals, but as his created Ones. God is sovereign, and most of us hear that and say, “Of Course!” But on a practical level we continue as though we are the center of our own moral universe. We are in charge and, if we are honest, we struggle with the idea of submission to the authority of God.

We go our own way. We make our own decisions. We make the same mistake as Adam and Eve in thinking that we can ultimately know and proclaim what is right and what is wrong. Self-centeredness, pride, and egos have us as lords of our own created universe. And we wonder why Creation is so broken?

Loving God and working in his kingdom means that we submit ourselves to his authority, his will, his teaching, his direction. And let’s be honest. That is hard! Sometimes we can’t get out of our own way! The idea of being in obedience to something greater than ourselves requires a faith, requires a humility, requires, a relationship, and – yes – requires a struggle that many of us do not want to endure. A struggle, or effort, to form a biblically informed world view.

Our texts for today speak of transformation. 2 Corinthians talks about transformation as we are growing into the likeness – the image – of Jesus. In Romans – Paul talks about transformation as our minds are renewed, as our minds break out of its self-centered, self-absorbed world and discovers all that we were meant to be in God.

And how that idea of transformation resonates with us. Once we were lost but now am found, we were blind but now we see. Yes, our eternal destiny can change in the blink of an eye as we say no to ourselves and yes to Jesus; that change can happen just that fast. But like that butterfly that needed a physical struggle to fully transform we need to be willing to engage in spiritual struggle if we are ever going to experience transformation.

Transformation is a lifelong process. Like that butterfly we need the struggle of challenge, we need the discomfort of work, we need the uneasiness that comes when we commit ourselves to becoming who we can be in Jesus if we are ever going to become who we could in Jesus.

Remember the old Wendy’s commercial? The little old lady would look at a number of competing fast food brands hamburgers and say, “Where’s the beef?” Of course, the teaching point was that only Wendy’s had fast food hamburgers patties that were of any real size or consequence. Their slogan became a catchphrase for anything that didn’t deliver what was promised.

Friends, the overwhelming number of Americans describe themselves as Christians. And yet, I have to ask, “Where’s the beef?” Where is the faith – a faith the results in obedience to God and love and service for God’s people? Where’s the beef? We have normalized so many self-serving, self-absorbed behaviors and then wonder why our faith seems irrelevant. Where’s the

beef? When we rely on our own wisdom and make no effort to see if it is in alignment with God’s perfect wisdom. Where’s the beef, the developed, transformed spiritual beef and why are we not living towards that reality?

Friends, are we allowing God to work in our lives no matter how uncomfortable that might be? Do we understand that it is only through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives that we can grow into the transformation we so desperately seek? Are we willing to see the crises that are occurring in our lives as an opportunity to demonstrate our growing spiritual maturity? Are we actively present and purposeful in the family of God – are we making those kinds of priority decisions that reflect our spiritual transformation? Are we pursuing a biblically informed view of the world?

The questions go on, but so does the offer. Our God is so very, very faithful and patient with us. Spiritual growth, spiritual transformation is a journey, a pilgrimage that takes us all over the map – transformation is not a straight-line process. Transformation is a journey of a thousand small successes and an equal number of challenges and mistakes.

Kingdom work takes discipleship and training. Loving God and God’s people takes a willingness for us to think about every area of our lives. We are all in this work of transformation together. We love and encourage each other. We will pick each other up when we stumble, we trek towards God’s higher goal as a family.

Transformation will come – it is the promised work of the Holy Spirit. So let us struggle and take flight together. Let us work and find comfort and solace in each other. Let us read, challenge, ask questions and discuss – together. Transformation happens as we step towards Jesus – individually and together. Let’s get to it. Amen.