15th Sunday after Pentecost

Sunday August 24th

Romans 12:1-8
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ²Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. ³For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

This week I'm diverting from my normal practice of blogging about the Gospel. I have been intentional in blogging regularly about the Gospel text because there are some that are just so difficult, it'd be easier to find a happier text (like last Sunday's for example). So, in some ways, it's an accountability piece for myself to not just pick the easier piece of scripture.

This week, I am changing, for a few reasons. First, because this Romans reading is one of my favorite. Secondly, The Gospel this week would not be too much of a challenge - Jesus asks "who do you say that I am?" and Peter responds, "You are the messiah, the Son of the living God" and Jesus calls Peter the rock. Full text here. Also, I have been thinking that at some point I should switch and intentionally blog about the 2nd reading. That has yet to be determined.

In this selection, as Paul writes, "do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds..." I think about the practices that I have (such as not letting myself off the hook when it comes to difficult scripture), that keep me accountable to God and not the world. I fail many times in these practices, and often pay much more attention to the world, however, with grace, I seek to be transformed over and over again.

One of these practices is regular conversation about given scripture passages; another is to meet with a spiritual director to look at what God is doing with and in my life; another is attempting to be quiet in prayer. I'm not actually doing the transformation - God is. But, I am putting myself in the place to be transformed. It's not easy all the time - there are many many times when I do not see this transformation at all. But I trust that God is present, at work, bringing about renewal and transformation.

Do you have practices that you do to be renewed and transformed by God?
What do you think? Continue with Gospel texts? Move on to Epistles (generally the 2nd reading)?
**Trivia this week - who can name what the title of this post is in reference to? Hint: it's from the early 90s.