12 I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
My Brothers and Sister in Christ,
As I sit in my office on a cold, late January morning with the temperature being 3 degrees with a windchill of -8, I long for warmer days and sunshine. I noticed in my newsfeed that Spring Training begins in a few weeks, and I am hopeful that soon the Polar Plunge will be over and we can return to heat and humidity. No play in baseball gives more excitement to the fans and hope to those stuck in frigid temperatures than the squeeze play. The batter bunts the baseball, sacrificing an out, while the runner on third steals home. Will the runner score, will the batter connect with the ball and make it to first? I would much rather worry about these things than will the furnace keep working or what will the gas bill look like!
In baseball, the hitter can sacrifice themselves to move a runner over or even to score a run, but for the Church in Rome divided between Gentile and Jewish Christians, sacrificing themselves for the other group was a tremendous challenge. Paul writes many words and ideas to this Church in his letter and in the later parts of the letter he writes by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. For the Jewish Christians keeping the Jewish law, sacrificing their way of life for the Gentile Christians not keeping the Jewish law, this was a tremendous sacrifice they were struggling to make. Paul encourages them that what is important is not the Sabbaths and the Kosher meals but mutual faith working out in mutual love.
In our upcoming months, we at Unity will have to make many decisions on many things and some have the potential to create conflict and division among us, like the Churches in Rome and Corinth. But, we also have the Spirit of Jesus Christ which can create mutual faith and mutual love. But, it requires sacrifices. Will we sacrifice our preferences for sake of others? Will we bunt to move someone over or to be a blessing to another part of Christ’s body? Or will we be concerned only to get what “I” want and in the way and style that I want it? This is why Paul tells the church in Rome, and us that we need not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. The fallen world selfishly only wants what it feels entitled to have, while the renewed world only wants what is good for others, in other words, the renewed world makes the sacrifice, like Jesus sacrifices.
My friends, we find ourselves not only longing for physically warmer seasons, but also spiritually warmer seasons when the work of merging is over. But we can only be a warmer community of mutual faith and mutual love, when we realize that we need each other and others need us. That can only happen if we sacrifice and yield our wills to Christ, who sacrifices himself and yields to the will of God. But we all must sacrifice our preferences and desires over the next year to the preference and desire of Christ, which is that we love God and our Neighbor. That will take you (and me) sacrificing our wants to what God wants. We must learn to bunt so that others may be blessed and score. Amen.
In Christ, Rev. Mark