May 13 , 2007
Based on John 14:23-29

People were transformed last week ... how do I know?  Your comments, e-mails, suggestions, your joy and excitement … that’s transformation people!  This could be Part 2 of last week’s sermon.  For the word Transformation by definition is the process of changing.  It is Jesus’ words:  “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.”  If we are obeying Jesus’ teachings, then we must be changing….going on to perfection.  So unless we are already perfect, we have some changing to do.

Nancy Topolewski shares this from an article entitled “Discipleship by Plums or Pecans”:  “Sometimes, to our immense surprise, actions taken by governments can offer unintended interpretive possibilities.  One such instance is the Homestead Act of 1862 and the lens it provides for viewing factors of growth and change within the church.

The Homestead Act was one of the most important pieces of legislation of the 19th century.  It beckoned many hardy individuals to settle in the vast expanses of the great prairie of the American Midwest, promising the possibility of land ownership.  If they could prove they were over 21 and were head of household, these pioneers could claim 160 acres from the United States government.  Over a five-year period, the homesteaders were expected to build a house, make improvements, and farm the land of their tract.  At the end of the five years, if they could prove they had met all the government criteria, the homesteaders paid a filing fee of $18 and were able to claim the land, free and clear.  In this way, immigrants from overseas, former slaves, and many who otherwise would never have owned land, were able to establish homes and farms.

The psychology of homesteading is very interesting.  For the first 20 years or so, homesteaders were focused on the need to make the land suitable for plowing, hence for producing crops, and turn it from the seemingly endless stands of tall, waving prairie grass.  Only when those  essential tasks were completed did the settlers begin to think about how they might beautify and further domesticate the prairie by planting trees. 

Native trees were few and far between on the prairie.  Because of the expense involved, homesteaders had to choose their trees very carefully.  For many, the choice came down to plums verses pecans.

Those who chose to plant plum trees achieved a relatively quick return on their investment.  Because they grow fairly quickly, plum trees soon bring a shield against weather.  Homesteaders could expect to harvest plums after a few short years.  The drawback is that plum trees turn to brush and bramble as they get older and must eventually be cut down, burned, and replaced.

Those who chose to plant pecan trees did not receive immediate gratification.  Because pecan trees grow and mature slowly, they could not be expected to provide either shelter or fruit until long after the plum trees did.  The advantage of the pecan trees is that they endure, providing benefits and beauty for many years to come.

When questioned about the choice between plums and pecans, one homesteader (whose response I remember reading in a United States history text in junior high) observed, ‘If you’re planting for yourself, plant plums.  If you’re planting for your children, plant pecans.’

One of the most difficult tasks we face, as thoughtful Christian disciples, is finding some balance between new insight and ancient truth --- between what is relevant now and what was honored in the past.  The choice is, in short, between plums and pecans.”

How do we know what is the right thing, the thoughtful thing, the transforming thing, the visionary thing to do?  “I have said these things to you while I am still with you.  But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (John 14:25-26)

Jesus was around to teach the disciples the new things, the new covenant, the new way.  When he left, to go to the Father, we weren’t left without guidance and direction to the future … the Holy Spirit came to guide us through to our future.  This same Spirit guided the apostles, and Martin Luther, and John Wesley, and Pope John the 23rd and Mother Teresa.  That same Spirit is guiding us to our new future.

I really like plum trees, and in terms of our life together in faith, I would not discourage planting a few.  But for the sake of the church’s mission and ministry, its ongoing programs, as well as our personal faith and its development and growth, I look back to the sage advice of the old homesteader:  “if you’re planting for yourself, then plant plums.  If you’re planting for your children, plant pecans.”  This is our faith … we are not just planting for our children, but for those children, any children that need Jesus Christ.  Those children might be 3, 4 or 5 years old or they may be 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 years old.

We all have our habits of our faith and our religion.  The habits that have been ingrained in us since birth…our physical birth and its faith experience and/or our spiritual life and its faith experience.

The Greeks recognized early that there is an element of “moral Luck”; if you were born into a family that trained you poorly (morally or otherwise), you have habits to break and new habits to be formed.  The Greeks claimed that certain things were nearly impossible to overcome entirely.  This, combined with the claim of  modern psychology that most of our habits are formed by the time we are three years old, paints a dim picture for the person who truly wants to change.

The Bible offers a different understanding of how things look.  Granted, we often seem to be formed in a way that makes it difficult to “do the right thing” in given situations.  Yet the Bible proclaims that, through encounters with the one and living God, conversion to a new form of life is possible.  It is the Son who lived out this alternative form of life in the flesh, and it is the Son who assures us that the Holy Spirit will always be there to empower us to live as Jesus lived.

Whatever one believes about conversion and the power of the Holy Spirit, history tells us that change is difficult.  Again, the Greeks understood this well.  Persons can’t typically turn their desires on and off like a light.  Moreover, it isn’t easy to redirect the desires one finds already present.  Add this to the fact that desires often become habits, and we see the importance of the formation of desire.  Why?  Habits are, by definition, easy to form and hard to change.  Take the bulletin and our order of worship … it is habit.  When we seek to change things up to make worship more meaningful, we get all out of order, we forget things.

What if there was no bulletin at all … would we not be able to worship?  We are creatures of habit.  One’s habits determine one’s character; they determine how one acts characteristically.

Adopting these well-established truths into Christian tradition, Saint Thomas Aquinas called well-directed habits “virtues” and misdirected habits “vices.”  For Aquinas, habits are either good or bad, and we all have them, so they are crucial.  The goal is to align desire and action.  Being “moral,” then, is not overcoming our desires, but changing them so that when we act characteristically, we act well, in a way that is faithful.

Good habits, bad habits, wants, needs, desires, change or not …. Transformation or not, plums or pecans?  Change isn’t just for the sake of change … like fashion is … change For a Christian is for growth and transformation.
Your Will, Your Way … It’s all About Transformation.

If any among us is afraid of change, transformation, or what might be coming our way ……..

Here is our assurance: from “The Message” Romans 8: 28-35

“God knew what he was doing from the very beginning.  He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son.  The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored.  We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.   After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling them by name.  After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself.  And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

So, what do you think?  With God on our side like this, how can we lose?  If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us?  And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen?  Who would even dare to point a finger?  The one who died for us --- who was raised to life for us! ---is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us.  Do you think anyone is going to be able to wedge between us and Christ’s love for us?  There is no way!  Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture.”  Your Will, Your Way …It’s all about us getting Transformed and doing it immediately!!  Amen.