When I first looked at the texts for today, I immediately thought of the difference between change and transformation. I realized that I’m probably looking too closely at words again, looking more deeply at them than anyone cares about. But in the context of this congregation, it seems to me that change is inevitable and transformation is coming. I’ve felt it for a while.
People fear change and even resist it, but the fact is that as long as we are alive, we are changing. That means that when we proclaim that Christ is alive, we are claiming that Christ is changing and even that Christ is the agent of change. And yet, scripture also says that Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, so which is it? It seems to me that Christ is unchanging because the grace God offers us through Christ is always available to us and is always precisely what we need to be whole, complete, and accepted by God. The love we know in Christ Jesus is constant. But the shape of that love, the ways it is revealed to us, the ways that we are able to recognize, articulate, and share that love with others is changing with the circumstances, contexts and situations we find ourselves in. As Christians we say, “God is love.” As Presbyterians we say, “God is free.” Free to exceed the limits we impose on God, free to love us relentlessly, and even to love relentlessly those whom we have deemed unlovable, free to shape us and shape history however God chooses. When God called Moses out of the fire of the burning bush, Moses asked what to call God, by knowing God’s name he’d have some power over God. The name God gave himself was “I am who I am.” Exodus 3:14 (NRSV). There is an ancient Jewish tradition that renders that name, “I will be everything tomorrow demands.” Even God’s name tells us that God is free — and the freedom is one that exceeds what we can conceive about God.
Change is inevitable in all things that are living. Today, for example, you are the oldest you have ever been, and you’ll never be this young again. Our church community is different, diminished because of the people who have recently died or moved away. Even if we tried to seal the way things are in this congregation and fight change with everything we’ve got, we will change. We are changing whether we accept or deny that fact.
Transformation is also inevitable, but transformation is a more radical altering than mere change. Transformation is a change that, in my opinion, requires divine assistance. We can seek to change ourselves, but to be transformed we have to let God work through us. In fact, after thinking about these two words for a few weeks I looked them up. One synonym for “transform” is “convert.” I should point out at this point that one definition of change is “absence of monotony.” That definition took me by surprise and I think it should take churches like ours by surprise, because the mainline Protestant churches have been in decline for more than a generation in this country. Not only is the national percentage of Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and United Churches of Christ dropping — and although we certainly have less influence on the culture at large than we did fifty years ago, our absolute numbers of members are also dropping. In fact, every year of my life has seen a decrease in the number of Presbyterians in the United States. One reason for this is that our worship services are boring — for thirty years I’ve heard of us referred to as “God’s frozen people.” It seems to me that there is a third option — we are not forced to choose between changing and being transformed. We could choose to stay in the rut we have been in as individuals, as congregations, and denominations, and change would come as we dwindle rapidly into irrelevance or navel- gazing.
We could coast or cruise control or auto-pilot as some have accused us of over the years, but first, let’s look at what God can do to bring new life.
“In those days there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” Judges 17:6 (NRSV). That’s the description of Israelite society as the book of Judges described it. For some time the Israelites had clambered for a king; all the cool countries had kings, they wanted one too. At this point in the story we are introduced to Hannah, a woman with a lot of problems. In our Old Testament lesson today she is described as “deeply distressed,” “severely provoked,” “barren.” She “wept bitterly,” and was mistaken for a “drunken spectacle,” although she explained that she was “deeply troubled,” and in “great anxiety and vexation.” She “poured out her soul in prayer.”
I don’t watch TV shows that bring people before live studio audiences to hear how awful their lives are, but I’m pretty sure Hannah would have been a good candidate for a show like that. She was the favored wife of Elkanah, but Elkanah’s other wife, Peninnah, although she was not well-loved, had given Elkanah sons and daughters. Peninnah was mean to Hannah. For his part, Elkanah was a little dense. He asked Hannah, “Why do you weep?” and “Am I not more to you than ten sons?” 1 Samuel 1:8 (NRSV). Well, no, Elkanah, the fact was you were not worth more than ten sons to Hannah. She was in misery. Today we might say that she had “hit rock bottom.” Hannah turned to God in prayer at Shiloh where she and Elkanah and Peninnah and all of Peninnah’s children went once a year to offer sacrifices. The priest spotted Hannah while she was standing at the temple, weeping, moving her lips but not saying anything.
Eli, the priest, assumed that she was drunk. In a nice word play, Hannah said, “I’m not drunk, I’m pouring out my soul before the Lord.” 1 Samuel 1:15 (NRSV). And Eli waved his hand and said, “Go in peace, the God of Israel grant the petition you made him.” This breaks me up because Eli didn’t know what Hannah was praying for! I can picture Eli wanting to lock up after a busy day saying, “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” And yet, Hannah went away and she wasn’t sad anymore. Maybe that’s because Eli said she would have her petition granted, but it seems to me it was just as likely that it was because Eli actually recognized that Hannah was deeply distressed — he didn’t find out what the problem was, but at least he understood that there was a problem. That’s more than her husband, her husband’s other wife, or any of the other wife’s bratty kids did.
Hannah made a vow. She had a son and named him Samuel, which means, “I have asked him of the Lord.” And then she lent the son that she had longed for to God. Samuel became sort of a priestly intern. Later, he replaced Eli himself as priest. And it was Samuel who anointed Israel’s first king, Saul, and its second and greatest king, David. See, it wasn’t only Hannah’s life that was transformed, though her life certainly was transformed. After Samuel, Hannah had other children whom she did not lend to the Lord’s service, children whom she did not vow to make Nazirites. The history of the world was changed by Hannah’s prayer.
Our gospel lesson gives a radically different look at change. Jesus was preparing his disciples for what they would face after he died. False messiahs, people who claimed to be the Savior come back, wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines… and we could think, well, obviously he was talking about current times. I wonder about the news coverage that was around in Jesus’ day. I mean today we have round- the-clock news and the internet. When there’s an earth tremor in Japan, we know about it. And we know about what our nation’s drones are doing in distant lands. Famines in Ethiopia and sub-Saharan Africa are so frequent that folks in the first world have developed “compassion fatigue.” I doubt that wars and famines are more common today than in Jesus’ time, but we certainly hear about them more readily.
Jesus said, “These are the birth pangs,” to which his disciples must have asked, “Well, Jesus, when is the baby coming?” And we’re still waiting. We are still waiting. Some of us have forgotten that. Most of us, probably. But the fact is we are waiting for the biggest change or transformation ever. We are waiting for Christ’s return. And no one knows exactly when that will happen. In fact, Jesus said, “About the day and hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven nor the son, but only the Father.” This gives us an interesting loophole, I think. If no one knows the hour of Christ’s return, then the one moment we can be certain that Christ will not return is when someone claims he will! We live on this side of history, and God is alive and present in this moment, but God is also above and outside of history, working in ways that we cannot begin to conceive.
The lesson from Hebrews this morning gives us another look at transformation. It shows us the radical change that Christ’s death on the cross brought to the world. This passage offers a stark contrast to the way things had been before Christ — when priests offered sacrifices every day. The author of Hebrews pointed out that the very fact that they had to stand day after day offering the same sacrifices to please God showed that this simply didn’t — and could never — work. We believe that Christ offered a single sacrifice for all time that took away our sin. That’s why we have a table to gather around to remember Christ’s death on the cross and not an altar where sacrifices are presented again and again. That’s why we have pastors, shepherds that is, who lead and protect their flocks, not priests who conduct sacrifices.
Christ’s death on the cross for our sin is the greatest possible change — the most radical transformation ever. In, fact, I would say that Christ’s death on the cross changed God. On the cross, God felt the physical pain and the horror of abandonment and the power of God’s love for humanity, for all of creation, was clearly revealed and more tenderly offered. God changed at the crucifixion.
That profound change is still effective. In fact, one sign of the completion of that change is that while the priests were described as standing, Christ was seated at God’s right hand, not needing to rush into service.
Perhaps you’re wondering what all this means — lessons of profound change from long ago, the observation that change is inevitable and transformation is possible. What does that mean for us? Just this: We need to open ourselves to how God is present with us and be ready to follow where God leads. Most of all I’m convinced we need to pray for this congregation, for the work that awaits us, for opportunities we do not yet recognize. Opportunities to be an example and a bearer of Christ’s love in this community. We like to plan, control, and word our motions precisely, but we need to be ready, eager even, to look away from what’s familiar and comfortable and find a risk worth taking for the gospel of Christ to be proclaimed here and now. We need to be attentive to something new, because the God we love and serve makes us, and all things, new.
Amen.