“Transformation, Renewal”
By Rev. Dr. Jason Byassee
Sunday, May 31, 2026
Reading: Romans 12:1-21
I was at my favourite diner recently (Emma’s on St. Clair. Tell ‘em I sent you). The woman totaling up our tab asked me a question from her little daughter. So, what is a church for? Come again? My daughter knows you guys have live donkeys sometimes, and a castle all the time, but why’s it there? What’s its purpose? I noticed two other employees listening in. Do I get a discount if I answer correctly?
I said, ‘we join Christ in the repair of creation.’ Not incorrect, but maybe a little bloodless? Sort of an academic answer, one no ordinary person is going to live or die for. I’m curious what your answer would be?
Paul is answering a question like that in this passage from Romans. He’s spent 11 chapters saying God locks up everyone in disobedience so as to have mercy on everyone. God is saving the unlikely. All the “wrong” people, if you will. If you presume ‘oh of course God is saving me, I’m the best,’ you’re in a bit of a danger zone. If you rather think ‘no way God’s interested in me,’ perfect, God’s coming for you and will get you. Gentiles, not-chosen, not-God’s-people: Christ is after you with abandon, watch out, he’s very convincing. Jews who aren’t interested in Christ: okay, that’s surprising, but he wins us all over eventually.
Now we’re left with the only question that really matters in any of our lives: how shall we live? What does Paul say? What does God say?
A friend of mine was a theologian at Cambridge (not the one in Ontario—the fancier one). The British government was trying to integrate new immigrants into British society, not unlike us in Canada. The problem is, what is British society? We can agree on the monarchy, the soccer, the fish and chips, sure, but is there even a Great Britain without the church? Nope. We don’t tend to say that out loud in Canada either, but it’s true here too. So, my friend was at King’s College, one of the architectural and spiritual treasures of the world. And several hundred young, mostly Muslim schoolkids file in. They sit down. Look around. Nothing’s happening. One brave kid turns to him and asks, “what do we do?” I mean in Muslim-land we are given instructions: bow like this, pray like that. Where are the carpets even in here? What do you Christians have for us?
Paul’s answer: here, we are becoming like Jesus Christ. That’s not just what the church is for, it’s what humanity is for.
Now this is more profound than the little saying that was popular years ago, WWJD, “what would Jesus do?” That question imagines Jesus is absent and unavailable, so it’s like asking what Elvis or Samuel Champlain would do. God, right now, is transfiguring our community into Jesus, to show the world what God is like. Not with a set of rules. But with a common mind and way of life.
How?
First, Paul says, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” The language comes from the temple and the practice of sacrifice. It is hard to find a culture on earth that doesn’t have a system of sacrifice to get right with God and neighbour. In ancient Israel you’d offer an animal to be forgiven for your sins. Or you’d offer the first fruits of your harvest to give thanks for rain and soil and food. But the temptation with sacrifice is to offer not your best. But maybe the animal that’s sick or lame or already dying, so not a loss on the balance sheet. Scripture often warns, nuh-uh. Offer your best. A friend of mine illustrates this way. There’s a canned food drive at school. You go into your cupboard to find a food your mom insists on making that you hate. Lima beans. Perfect. I hate lima beans. The poor people should eat em. Wait, why? You just helped yourself get rid of a thing you don’t want, and you assume bad food is for poor people? You get my point? Sacrifice should be costly if it’s going to mean something.
Well for Paul, the ultimate sacrifice has been offered and accepted: Jesus’ self-offering on the cross. The best of us, who receives the worst. So, there’s no more sacrifice required anymore, we just reenact that offering in church and our lives. We are now living sacrifices. A dead man walking. A woman who shouldn’t be here but is surprised to find yourself among the living. Wise people often say to live today as if its your last. One day you’ll be right. What would you do if you had one week to live? That’d change how we engage the homeless person, wouldn’t it? The loved one we’re not reconciled with. We’d savour what’s good and linger over it. Not sweat the minor irritant. We would, I think, live Paul commands:
9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal; be ardent in spirit; serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; pursue hospitality to strangers.
You might think people assured of salvation would do nothing, put their feet up and be lazy. That’s simply not the case. The busiest people working for the good of the world are the ones sure God is saving it. To illustrate:
Brian Stewart is an icon of Canadian media, reported from war zones for decades. His father was a minister, so he has some ideas on faith, though he’s not so much a church person himself. He said this once.
For many years I've been struck by the rather blithe notion, spread in many circles including the media, and taken up by a rather large section of our younger population, that organized, mainstream Christianity has been reduced to a musty, dimly lit backwater of contemporary life, a fading force. Well, I'm here to tell you . . . that there is nothing that is further from the truth. . .
Now this is something the media and government officials rarely acknowledge, because religion confuses people. . . Let me repeat, I've never reached a war zone, or famine group or crisis anywhere where some Church organization was not there long before me. sturdy, remarkable souls usually too kind to ask, "what took you so long?"
When you’re a living sacrifice, you find where others are hurting, and you bring healing. You become, as a community, like Jesus, and the world will notice that. People long for holiness.
And this does not happen as solo individuals, heroes fixing the world. It happens as a community, a church. Paul’s words:
For as in one body we have many members and not all the members have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6 We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7 ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8 the encourager, in encouragement; the giver, in sincerity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
You’re a body. You belong to one another, like an ear to a knee, a pancreas to a metatarsal. No one of you without the other. Imagine a boat with a hole in it. You can’t say whew, I’m glad the hole is over there where you’re sitting. I’ve got an old back injury that messed up the nerve down my leg, if you notice my limp that’s it. I feel bad for my leg, it didn’t do anything wrong. My back got hurt and my leg suffers. Well, that’s what a body is, all in this together.
Today is Trinity Sunday. I’ll spare you a whole Trinity sermon, but just to say this. Modernity celebrates the individual. I am who I say I am. That’s not true actually. We are who is determined in community through time. The doctrine of the Trinity says not even God is a self-determining individual. The Father is not God alone. The Son is not God alone. The Spirit is not God alone. Each is altogether God, and no one can be without the others. Likewise, who we are is our relationships.
Another example. This one among us humans. I met a pastor of a struggling urban church once. She told me about her antagonist, the person making her life hard. Everything she offered as a leader, this woman opposed. Every time the doors were open, there she was. Taxing her pastor’s powers of forgiveness and restoration. She finally said this: that durn woman is going to make a Christian out of me. Someone wise said community is the place where the person you can’t stand is always there. Well Christ put them there. For a reason: to make a Christian out of you both. To dull over our hard edges and make us nothing but mercy.
Several of you young parents have asked me recently, what do I teach my kid about faith? You’re glad beyond words to have this little one entirely dependent on you, delighting you and yours. But the real test of what you believe is what you saddle your kids with. Do you pray together at night? How? What do you say when they ask what a church is for? Another long quote. Forgive me, I seem full of them today. It’s a poem actually, called “At the Smithville Methodist Church.” Enjoy.
It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week,
but when she came home
with the "Jesus Saves" button, we knew what art
was up, what ancient craft.
She liked her little friends. She liked the songs
they sang when they weren't
twisting and folding paper into dolls.
What could be so bad? . . .
OK, we said, One week. But when she came home
singing "Jesus loves me,
the Bible tells me so," it was time to talk.
Could we say Jesus
doesn't love you? Could I tell her the Bible
is a great book certain people use
to make you feel bad? We sent her back
without a word.
It had been so long since we believed, so long
since we needed Jesus
as our nemesis and friend, that we thought he was
sufficiently dead,
that our children would think of him like Lincoln
or Thomas Jefferson.
Soon it became clear to us: you can't teach disbelief
to a child,
only wonderful stories, and we hadn't a story
nearly as good. . .
Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes.
You can't say to your child
"Evolution loves you." The story stinks
of extinction and nothing
exciting happens for centuries. I didn't have
a wonderful story for my child
and she was beaming. All the way home in the car
she sang the songs,
occasionally standing up for Jesus.
There was nothing to do
but drive, ride it out, sing along
in silence.
One of you told me your little one calls this building the “hallelujah castle.” Another said your child is obsessed with angels. Why? At our Christmas pageant she saw two angels up here fighting, and ever since, sees angels fighting everywhere. That was, shall we say, an unplanned part of the pageant, not meant to inspire anyone, but it happened, and kids are watching (Andrew, should we script that in?). Back to my diner owner: church is there so your kids will notice stuff and ask you awkward questions. Ones you don’t have an answer for. That you need a community to ponder together. Notice the poet is not saying evolution has no truth in it. But science doesn’t love you. The Truth in person is in Mary’s womb, the one the angels exist to praise. We tell a story where the God who made everything knows you by name. Where do you get a better story than that?
Paul concludes that we’re to love enemies. This has been called Paul’s version of the sermon on the mount. Jesus teaches it with such beauty and simplicity: love your enemy, turn the other cheek, pray for those who mean you harm. Paul teaches it in a sort of mafia mode.
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.’ 20 Instead, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Love your enemies, gangsta style: they hate that. It twists the knife. Paul is scripture too, but he’s not ever as graceful as Jesus is.
I think here of someone who’s made my life materially worse. Actually, several someones. I bet you’ve got a list too. And I find myself daydreaming about something worse that could happen to them. This is not healthy. I’m not proud of it. It happens without me trying. So, God still has work to do to transform my imagination. And it just shows I don’t really believe that there’s a judge who will balance accounts one day. A judge of all the universe. And you know who else he’ll judge? Me. Now that’s a frightful thought.
Paul says this: the judge has already been judged in our place. The ruler of the universe takes the punishment meant for us and we’re judged innocent. Righteous. Without penalty. Free. Okay. Now how do we live? Not as those seeking revenge. But as those who plot good for our enemies.
Good luck with that. One of you in Bible study outright objected. This is not the real world. Brave, honest. And you may be right. Turn the other cheek in this world and you may end up with two bruised cheeks and hanging on a cross. Yeah, and that’s how God is saving the world.
Last Sunday was Pentecost, we celebrated with a hurricane of languages. It was also another lesser-known feast: Aldersgate Sunday. John Wesley was a longtime Christian, a priest, a missionary, and a failure, felt like his life was for nothing. Anybody ever felt that? Anybody not felt it? He happened into a Methodist society meeting—the very society he had invented years before. He heard Romans read, our book the last two months. And he said he felt his heart strangely warmed. A glow in his chest with other-worldly provenance. “I felt Christ died for my sins, even mine.” That’s the birth of the evangelical revival that abolished slavery in the British empire, changed the face of the world. A warm heart. But it’s not enough. Wesley went on to add that we must grow to be more like Christ. We are each of us daily being transfigured more into the image of Jesus. It’ll take all of time and eternity to get there. And we’re not really the ones doing the work. God’s Holy Spirit is the one making us all like Jesus.
It seems to me the church doesn’t reinsert rules for how to be religious. Other faiths do that. But our main thing is our only thing—Jesus Christ crucified and raised. So how do we live? Like him, his raised body. Instead of rules we Christians have saints. Models for how to live. Not just famous ones, but ones known only to God. Let me tell you of one recent saint you may not know: Christian de Cherge, abbot of a monastery in Algeria in the 1990s. Monks at Our Lady of Tibhirine had been warned by Islamic extremists to leave. But the local village of Muslims asked the monks to stay. So, they did. The monks were eventually kidnapped and murdered. Afterwards these words were found on Father Christian’s desk. Listen especially as he addresses his eventual murderer:
Obviously, my death will justify the opinion of all those who dismissed me as naïve or idealistic: "Let him tell us what he thinks now." But such people should know my death will satisfy my most burning curiosity. At last, I will be able—if God pleases—to see the children of Islam as he sees them, illuminated in the glory of Christ, sharing in the gift of God's Passion and of the Spirit, whose secret joy will always be to bring forth our common humanity amidst our differences.
And to you, too, my friend of the last moment, who will not know what you are doing. Yes, for you, too, I wish this thank-you, this "A-Dieu", whose image is in you also, that we may meet in heaven, like happy thieves in paradise, if it pleases God, our common Father. Amen! Insha Allah!
That’s what church is for. Preparing us to die like Jesus. God is transforming all people into Christ’s image. Starting with us. And those we’d rather not be reconciled with. Lord, help us. Amen.