“Transformation: The Radical Love of Christ” Luke 18: 18-29

On Wednesday we entered the season of Lent - the 40 days, excluding Sundays that lead up the glorious celebration of Easter. Lent is a time when we prepare ourselves for the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. through spiritual practices. We gather together to pray, fast, serve others, and confess our sins. 

This time of deep spiritual practice is also one that can lead to transformation. For the next six weeks we will be exploring how the season of Lent transforms us from the inside out, as we seek to grow closer to our Lord and Savior. 

The Apostle Paul writes in his second letter to the church in Corinth that, “But we all, with unveiled face seeing the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.” Brothers and sisters, we are constantly in the process of being transformed and renewed in the image of our Lord and Savior. When we encounter the word ‘Christian' in the books of Acts it was used as an insult, but evolved into meaning Little Christs. If we claim to be Christians our lives should be mirrors of the hearts and priorities of Jesus - we should be Little Christs. 

But what does it look like, everyday, to be transformed by Christ? What does it look like, in word and action to mirror the love of Christ? In other words what does it look like to be an everyday Christian disciple?

Even those who lived during the time of Jesus and saw him in the flesh struggled with these questions. In this morning’s scripture lesson we find an unnamed ruler asking Jesus what he has to do to inherit eternal life. It is as if the ruler is living into the struggle that all of us feel in our own walk with Christ. On one hand we realize that eternity in heaven is a gift - it is a gift we inherit because of the goodness and mercy of God. It cannot be earned. But on the other hand we have been given such a wonderful treasure in this gift that our lives should reflect it.

Jesus enters into the struggle of the ruler’s question and starts off by not quite answering the expected way. He doesn’t even address the question at first, instead he focuses with laser precision on the words that proceeded the question, “Good teacher”. Jesus wants to know why the man would call him good, when only God is good. I have to wonder if he is testing the ruler - seeing if he truly recognizes that Jesus carries the heart of God inside of him because he is God in the flesh. Jesus then goes on to answer the question by saying that the ruler is to follow the law that he is already aware of - the commandments, which the ruler replies that he has followed.

The ruler must have been feeling pretty good at that moment. His changes of inheriting eternal life are in his favor. Jesus just told him that he had to follow the commandments, which he has obeyed from his youth. Giant check mark. Now he can breathe easy and not worry about eternity. But then…then Jesus rocked his world by telling him that he lacked one thing - he was to sell all that he had and give everything, yes everything away to the poor. The ruler must have started to run through all of the scripture he memorized in head. Where was that located? What had he done? He asked Jesus this question and now the answer was something he was unable, unwilling to do!

It was as if Jesus saw deep into the man’s heart and noticed the one thing that was blocking him from being able to fully follow God, fully be a disciple. Yes, the ruler followed the commandments, but just following the rules doesn’t transform people. Leaving baggage behind and following Jesus as a disciple changes people. 

The man was unable to do what Jesus asked of him. Unable to journey with Jesus. We too are on a journey, brothers and sisters, specifically now the journey of Lent. Yet, how many of us, even during this time to focus on spiritual disciples and growing closer to our Lord, make excuses? How many of us have things that block our hearts? 

Maybe today on of the biggest barriers in our hearts isn’t material possessions, per say, but the commodity of time and the commitments we make. We don’t have time to pray. Or we don’t want to give up anything during a fast by rearranging our schedules to pay more attention to God. We don’t have time to come to another service during the week. We don’t have time to just sit in the presence of God and ask God to revel to us any unconfessed sin so we can have clean hearts. We live in a culture of hurry, and since spiritual disciplines cannot be rushed, they must not be for us. 

In ancient times people may not have had the hurry that comes with modern convinces (ironically), but they still had to choose what commitments to make. When people wanted to join the church, they would have to commit to going through almost a year worth of reading scriptures and learning about the faith that culminated on being baptized Easter morning. This is how they learned about the faith. This is how they became primed to engage in spiritual disciplines. There was an expectation that if they made this commitment and truly engaged this time set apart to grow, they would be transformed.

We learn about the faith differently today. There are still some churches that take long periods of time for folks to learn about the scriptures and traditions before joining the church. There are others that do so over months or weeks. But the underlying tenant should still be the same - that when we learn about Christ - through scripture and beliefs, we are changed. But do we truly believe that? Do we truly live as if when we soak in the word of God and connect with God through prayer and worship, we are to live our lives in a way that shows these truths to others?

Brothers and sisters, we don’t engage spiritual disciplines or come to worship or bible study for the sheer sake of learning. We engage them in order to be transformed - to be reshaped and renewed as we mature in the faith. The problem that the ruler had was two fold. First, his heart was so cultured by other things that he couldn’t see the radical gift of love that is being offered to him by God. In 1 John we are told to “see how great a love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God!” We have been given the greatest gift ever told - to live into the reality of the gracious, merciful love of God! To be invited into a new life where Jesus is our Lord and Savior! To be welcomed into the family of God! Second, the ruler was comfortable with the way things were. He simply wanted Jesus to bless what he was already doing, instead of changing. Changing his values, his priorities. Changing his very identity where he would no longer be identified as the rich ruler if he chose to be give everything away, but instead as a disciple, a follower, of Christ. 

Brothers and sisters, we are on his Lenten journey together. We have been given the gift of this time to intentionally seek out spiritual practices that will transform us from the inside out and change our very identity to that of a follower of Christ. Let us set aside those things which block our hearts and seek to grow deeper in love with our Savior. Amen.