Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent -- April 13, 2011
John 8:31 – 42
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”
“Abraham is our father,” they answered.
“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me."
The word “transformation” carries a hefty meaning. It suggests change and alteration. It points to a shift that alters outlook, frameworks and ways of being.
I think most Christians who want to live an intentional, God-connected life anticipate that transformation will be a part of that life.
I also believe that most people believe the transformation will have to do with changes in their actions. We project religious faith as something like a moral house-cleaning, where destructive habits are cleaned up and where we attain a kind of moral holiness.
Many of us came into the Church or we responded to a God-experience because we felt like our lives were out of control. We needed help and we knew that we couldn’t do it on our own. We felt drawn to a conscious connection with God and we needed the caring support of others to make the changes that would open up life for us.
Some of us even believed that the pay-off for that kind of change would be a smoother, less-tenuous existence where all the wrinkles were ironed out, where the bumps would be removed and the way made level.
I want to say that transformation is inherent in spiritual formation. That is, transformation is about how we are formed, how God is shaping us.
If transformation is a spiritual act, though, it happens first of all within us. Our being is transformed first, not our doing. Transformation does not first of all clean up what we do and how we act in the world. The initial shift is within our being, in the shape of our inner life. Then transformation moves into our actions.
I think of it as a sure maxim in the spiritual life: Being precedes doing. Then doing proceeds from our being. Life is always lived from the inside out.
In the passage today Jesus talks about truth setting free. That freedom represents transformation, a change in structure, framework, orientation and life-paradigm.
To misunderstand freedom is to relegate it only to the outer realm of life (personally, socially or nationally), and when freedom is only about the outer world of action and productivity, it is borne of the ego self and leads to destructive, self-serving behavior. This is not the truth that sets free.
On the other hand, freedom that is experienced in the heart, freedom of soul and spirit, is the kind of freedom that can inspire acts of courage and strength.
Inner freedom appropriates peace when all signs of peace have dissipated.
Inner freedom has the capacity to love even when surrounded by hate.
Inner freedom does not live caged in the small prisons of expectation and obligation, the “shoulds,” “musts,” and “oughts” of life.
When Jesus said that the truth sets free, this inner freedom is what he had in mind. This is the real transformation that he came to bring.
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”
“Abraham is our father,” they answered.
“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me."
The word “transformation” carries a hefty meaning. It suggests change and alteration. It points to a shift that alters outlook, frameworks and ways of being.
I think most Christians who want to live an intentional, God-connected life anticipate that transformation will be a part of that life.
I also believe that most people believe the transformation will have to do with changes in their actions. We project religious faith as something like a moral house-cleaning, where destructive habits are cleaned up and where we attain a kind of moral holiness.
Many of us came into the Church or we responded to a God-experience because we felt like our lives were out of control. We needed help and we knew that we couldn’t do it on our own. We felt drawn to a conscious connection with God and we needed the caring support of others to make the changes that would open up life for us.
Some of us even believed that the pay-off for that kind of change would be a smoother, less-tenuous existence where all the wrinkles were ironed out, where the bumps would be removed and the way made level.
I want to say that transformation is inherent in spiritual formation. That is, transformation is about how we are formed, how God is shaping us.
If transformation is a spiritual act, though, it happens first of all within us. Our being is transformed first, not our doing. Transformation does not first of all clean up what we do and how we act in the world. The initial shift is within our being, in the shape of our inner life. Then transformation moves into our actions.
I think of it as a sure maxim in the spiritual life: Being precedes doing. Then doing proceeds from our being. Life is always lived from the inside out.
In the passage today Jesus talks about truth setting free. That freedom represents transformation, a change in structure, framework, orientation and life-paradigm.
To misunderstand freedom is to relegate it only to the outer realm of life (personally, socially or nationally), and when freedom is only about the outer world of action and productivity, it is borne of the ego self and leads to destructive, self-serving behavior. This is not the truth that sets free.
On the other hand, freedom that is experienced in the heart, freedom of soul and spirit, is the kind of freedom that can inspire acts of courage and strength.
Inner freedom appropriates peace when all signs of peace have dissipated.
Inner freedom has the capacity to love even when surrounded by hate.
Inner freedom does not live caged in the small prisons of expectation and obligation, the “shoulds,” “musts,” and “oughts” of life.
When Jesus said that the truth sets free, this inner freedom is what he had in mind. This is the real transformation that he came to bring.
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