Over the past few weeks, at our church we’ve set as a vision, as an intention for the year to come: Wider Embrace & Deeper Love. 

Wider Embrace & Deeper Love: This invitation and challenge can draw us into greater growth by the grace of God in our individual lives as people of faith, as well as in our collective lives as a community of faith. 

In the sermons I’ve been offering recently, I’ve been exploring this theme in various ways, which I hope are helpful. In the course of that there have been sermons on Church as a School of Love, and on Church as a School of Grace. 

This morning, let me invite us to explore Church as a School of Transformation.

Church as a school where we all learn not a body of knowledge or a skill, but rather the practice of the heart of Christ, the practice of the mind of Christ, which means a school of changed lives, a school of transformation. 

Just look, in the United Church of Christ (the larger body we belong to), this is how folks have distilled the Purpose of what we’re doing with church:

To love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to our neighbor as ourselves.

And this is how folks have distilled the Vision that guides us:

United in Christ’s love, a just world for all.

And this is how folks have distilled the Mission that drives us:

United in Spirit and inspired by God’s grace, we welcome all, love all, and seek justice for all.

How can we be animated by that purpose, and guided by the vision, and driven by that mission without our lives being changed, being transformed, and without our society and our world becoming changed, becoming transformed?

What Jesus called for explicitly was a radical change of heart – metanoia is the Greek word in the Gospels, which means a metamorphosis of consciousness. The Aramaic or Hebrew word that Jesus would have used is toubo, which means to turn and return home, a radical reorientation back towards what is true and good and just and holy. 

If our purpose is To love God with our whole being and to love others as ourselves, what does this mean, what does this require? One common misconceptions: this is not saying to love other as much as we love ourselves, but it’s saying something something more radical: to love others as ourselves, to love others as being ourselves – if that is our purpose, what does transformation mean for you and for us? What does metamorphosis of consciousness mean for you and for us? What does turning and returning home mean for you and for us? And how do we help each other with that? How do we learn from each other and learn with each other in ways that helps this transformation? 

If our mission is that United in Spirit and inspired by God’s grace, we welcome all, love all, and seek justice for all, what does transformation mean for you and for us? What does metamorphosis of consciousness mean for you and for us? What does turning and returning home mean for you and for us? How must we reorient our lives and our lives together? And how do we help each other with that? How do we learn from each other and learn with each other in ways that helps this transformation?

Now, Church as School of Transformation is just another dimension of Church as School of Love and Church as School of Grace. What we’re getting schooled in, is the unconditional love and grace of God. In the same breath as Jesus called for metanoia, change of heart, metamorphosis of consciousness, reorientation, return home, Jesus declared God’s forgiveness, out of love. That’s what’s known as grace. Transformation and Grace are of the same fabric with Divine Love.

This is what transforms us. This is important to remember, because transformation by love and grace is not about achieving anything or measuring up or proving ourselves to be worthy or avoiding being proven to be unworthy. It’s about simply encountering that love and that grace of God, receiving that love and that grace of God, abiding in that that love and that grace of God, sharing that love and that grace of God. It is this encountering and receiving and abiding and sharing that reorients our lives and changes our hearts and catalyzes a metamorphosis of our very consciousness.  

But we have to be willing – willing to encounter, willing to receive, willing to abide, willing to share … and willing to be changed. 

As the story goes, Jesus’ disciples wanted him to tell them who is the greatest in the realm of heaven (Matthew 18:1-5). Jesus’ response just completely deflates the egoism and judgmentalism of the disciples’ question. He schools them in love and grace and transformation. To even enter the realm of heaven you must be changed to become like a child. What does this mean? Children are open and humble enough to be willing to encounter, willing to receive, willing to abide love and grace.

And what Jesus says after that really helps to make it clear what he’s trying to get across. This not only about becoming humble like a child, but also humble enough to encounter and receive and abide and share with those who, like children, are of humble station.

So, what does this all mean for us as people of faith, as a community of faith, being schooled together in love, grace, and transformation?

How may we be transformed to live into this incredible mission of welcoming all, loving all, seeking justice for all, united in Christ’s love, united in the Spirit, inspired by God’s grace?

One spiritual practice for this openness and humility, is the practice of genuine listening to one another. One of the gifts of a church like ours, also a challenge, is our diversity of beliefs. This comes because we are not strictly a creedal church movement, and we have a spirit and value of tolerance for difference among what folks believe about ultimate questions. This is one dimension of how we seek to live out our mission. Now this is a gift, it’s a challenge, and it’s an opportunity 

It’s an opportunity to practice the spiritual practice of genuine listening: Not just staying on the surface level, but really seeking to hear and to encounter and embrace who someone else is at whatever deeper level they are wanting to share of themselves. The practice of deep listening is a practice of openness and humility and grace that does transform us. To listen to someone else we have to get out of the way. We have to let go of the chatter in our own heads. We have to let go of our own desire to jump in and assert ourselves. We have to let go of our own assumptions about this other person – good, bad, or neutral. We have to be willing to be curious and to be surprised. 

David Bohm, who was a very inspired scientist and thinker, was really into conversation and dialogue as a transformative practice. Bohm was famous for helping to develop Quantum Physics. And he became very interested in the practice of dialogue between people and he taught that authentic encounter with another person was a way of participating in a transformative way with very universal fabric of the universe. Mind blowing stuff. 

Whether or not we understand the sentence that just came out of my mouth, Bohm has some really helpful teachings about dialogue. The key is suspending our judgments and activating our curiosity and humility. 

He said that you know that an encounter with another person has become real when you realize that you have misunderstood them, or when you realize that they have misunderstood you. And you respond with curiosity and grace so that you come to better understand and be understood. This is about knowing more truly our differences and knowing more truly our unity. 

I offer this because the more are willing to encounter one another, the more we are willing to receive one another, the more we are willing to abide one another, willing we are willing to share with one another, all in the Spirit of God’s Love and Grace, the more we can be transformed into who we truly are, children of the living God. 

Thanks be to God. 

(You may watch a recording of the service that includes this sermon here. Delivered November 21, 2021 at First Congregational Church of Walla Walla, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg)

(Image: “Metamorphosis” by gorbould is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)