Bethlehem Lutheran Church

Matthew 9:9-13,18-26

Gracious God, you have made us your children, you have created us to share your story of love.  Give us strength to choose the life you have called us to through your son Jesus Christ, Amen.  I just wanted to let you know that transformation is all the rage these days.  Haven't you heard?  Okay, so maybe all the rage is a little overstated but in some of the circles that I run in (and feel free to hear that as in some of the nerdy theology discussing pastor type circles that I run in) in those circles, transformation is one of the latest it words.  Preachers hope to deliver spirit inspired, life transforming sermons.  Teachers seek to engage material in their class that equips people to transform the way the live.  Individuals leading service/learning/mission trips seek to help people have transformational experiences.  If theological discourse were fashion, transformation would be the new black.  Transforming lives are what people in the church are all about these days.  I for one think it's a good thing.  Changing people's lives for the better, how can you argue with that?  Everyone climb aboard the transformation bandwagon.  Transformation, it's what's next.

The trouble is, for most of us, for most of the time, we aren't the slightest bit interested in being transformed.  We like things the way they are. Sure, there are things that we wish we could change here and there, but transforming, we're not so sure about that.  For transformation requires a dramatic shift, an upheaval, an Optimus Prime like change from a mild-mannered semi-truck to an evil fighting robot - sorry a Transformers joke was inevitable in this conversation, I'm a child of the 80's.  But seriously, transformation is a big thing, it's significant.  Think about how difficult it is for us to even deal with small change, switching from light roast to dark roast coffee or switching your Chipotle order from a carnitas burrito to chicken.  Now imagine reorienting your whole way of operating in life.  Yikes, it is no wonder that the church is in decline if this is what we are asking of people.  Who wants to sign up for this?  If transformation is the new it word in the church, excuse me while I go find a comfy spot on my couch and watch Project Runway and American Idol.  American Idol's Simon Cowell may be acerbic but at least he doesn't ask me to transform the way I live.

Trouble is, Simon Cowell's acerbic wit doesn't give life to those who tune in weekly.  Brilliant observation I know, I said I ran in nerdy circles not über-intelligent ones.  However, I state the obvious because our first lesson from the prophet Hosea operates under an assumption that I'm not sure all people today share, and that is God's covenant, the relationship God initiates with his people is all about life!   God's wants life for these people, God wants things to go well for these people.  And God says transformation - reorientation towards God's own ways of being present in this world - give life.  God so deeply desires this transformation within us that God is bereft when things go badly.  In verse fifteen of chapter five God says, "I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face. In their distress they will beg my favor."  Throughout the entire book of Hosea, God is deeply affected by the fractured nature of the covenant between God and Israel, by the fractured nature of the relationship between God and his people.  God is anguished over this state of affairs because this state of affairs is not what God intended. 

Let's rewind to Moses, you know the burning bush, let my people go.  In his final conversation with God's people before they enter the promised land in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses says to them.  "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curses.  Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors...[1]  All of God's commandments - the whole relationship that God established with these people was for their benefit, so that they may live and so that it may go well with them.  The covenant is not about God's ego, its about the people.  God wants people to transform their lives, to reorient their lives towards a relationship with God because life with God means life.

But left to our own devices, we choose to orient our lives around just about everything else besides God.  We choose money, power, prestige, and  material things around which we build our lives.  Rather than choosing the life God offers we, like the people to whom Hosea was sent to prophesy, we choose death, we choose the opposite of the life God intends.  And in choosing death, God is anguished.  God says, "What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah?"  Like a tortured parent uncertain of the proper course to take with a rebellious child, God is at his wit's end with the people with whom he so deeply longs to be in a mutual relationship.  Hosea enumerates many reasons for God's frustrations in the chapters and verses surrounding tonight's reading, but the simple reason is we choose death, we choose life apart from God.  It is described this way in verse four, "Your love is like the morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early." 

Compared with the poetic description of God's constant never wavering love in verse three, our love for God, our love for each other is fleeting.   Vanishing like the dew before the rising sun.  Our love for God is dried up by the burning heat of our self-interest.  Whereas, God's love is as sure as the dawn, it is as certain as the spring rains that nourish the earth.  God's love is ever present and characterized by benevolence and mercy.

There was a story in Wednesday's Star Tribune about a young woman named Cheree, who is about my age.  Cheree was born into a family destroyed by drugs, both her parents used and sold crystal meth.  At 12 she left home for the first time.  For the next four years she bounced around Minneapolis, using drugs, getting used by other people, living in shelters, living with other people in squalid conditions.  At 16 she returned home, pregnant.  One can imagine how this story might end very badly, but this teen pregnancy became the impetus for transformation in this young woman's life.  Chereee is quoted in the article saying, "Once I had a baby, I told myself that I wasn't bringing the baby into the life that I had gotten out of.  It motivated me and I got my crap together."

She enrolled in high school, got straight A's, earned a scholarship to St. Catherine's College in St. Paul.  During college she worked nights as a waitress at a Perkin's restaurant.  And in 2002, she graduated college with a nursing degree.  Her life is still not without difficulties, her upbringing, or quite literally her total absence of one, has an unhealthy influence on her relationships and she has found herself in difficult situations.  But she now works at HCMC and with The Bridge, a Center for Homeless Youth. 

She said, "I remember being homeless, I told myself that if I survived this, I would do things to help people in that situation."  She does street outreach. She goes anywhere homeless kids may congregate.  She is present with people, she nurtures relationships, she seeks to transform lives and she has been transformed.  She is a visible sign of God's love and God's mercy in communities that desperately need it.  She is a sign of hope in the midst of hopeless situations.  Cheree has dramatically reoriented her life.  Though she may not articulate it in this way, I see that she has been transformed for life and to bring God's life to others.

God says through the prophet Hosea and Jesus quotes this very passage in tonight's Gospel reading, "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings."  God has a story to tell through each one of us.  It is a story of steadfast love.  It is a story that invites us to reorient our lives.  It is a story that begs us to put down death and embrace the life given to us by a God who deeply desires a relationship of steadfast love and mercy.  It is a story that reaches it fulfillment in the cross of Jesus Christ.  The cross which had a long and storied past as an instrument of death and destruction, is transformed into a story of hope and restoration through Jesus' dying and rising to new life. 

The streets that once sucked the life and energy and hope out of Cheree are now the place where she finds fulfillment and purpose as her life tells a story of hope and promise for people in darkness.  Like the nourishing rain showers we've been experiencing these past few days, God's steadfast love brings the miraculous renewal of life.[2]  How can God tell that story through you?    How can your life be a vessel for God's life altering story of love?  Daily, through our baptism we are given a new opportunity to reorient, to be transformed.  Daily in those waters we are freed to put down death and choose a life of steadfast love and mercy through which God is already speaking.  Choose life, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you this day and always.  Amen.

[1] Deuteronomy 30:19-20

[2] James K. Mead - Preaching the Knowledge of God in Hosea - Word and World, Spring 2008,  p. 202