Years ago one of our children, convenient amnesia prevents me from remembering which child, declared to Tammy one Sunday morning, “I don’t want to go to church today.  Can’t we just stay home?”

Tammy’s response was quick and direct, as if well rehearsed, “What is your last name?”

The child responded, “Gilts.”

“Well, then we have to go to church, because that’s what Giltses do on Sunday.”  Case closed and I don’t believe it has been opened again.

Every family has a set of those established practices, rules, and values.  So do church families.  In the church we refer to them as Core Values.

What are the Core Values for A&M United Methodist Church?  I believe they are Compassion, Conviction, Conversion, and Community.  Compassion is the call for us as a church to care for anyone who has a need that we can meet.  Conviction is the awareness that God has a plan for our lives and for our church.  These are the Divine expectations by which we live. Conversion is the belief that God can transform our lives in such a way that we become new in God’s eyes.  Community is the living out of our faith with one another, recognizing that God does not call people to be Lone Rangers in the faith.  Compassion, Conviction, Conversion and Community – these are the core values of A&M United Methodist Church.

Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to talk about compassion – wherever, whenever, and whoever.  Last week Laurinda spoke about the conviction that Christ expects us to love one another – and he means it. This week we address the third of our four Core Values – conversion.  The very sound of that word let’s us know that something changes when a person becomes a follower of Christ – the person does.  Conversion requires change.  Paul pleaded for this change after he had explained in detail the grace of God to his Roman readers.  You will find this exhortation in Romans 12:1-2 on page 161 of the New Testament in the Pew Bibles.  Hear now the Word of the Lord:

¹I 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.

The Word of God for the people of God.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.  In this passage Paul pleaded with his Roman readers to change some things in their lives, because of their relationship with Christ.  Let us pray.

Conversion requires change.  I’m not sure where I heard it first, but I have never forgotten the saying that goes, “Jesus meets us right where we are, but loves us too much to leave us there.”  That’s what this passage proclaims.  Conversion requires change. It changes the way you smell, the way you look, and the way you think.

Conversion changes the way you smell. 

This past week in Christian Believer we were examining the doctrine of worship: why we worship, how we worship, the focus of worship, and other aspects.  We came across the lost sense of smell in worship.  In the days before Christ, I imagine worship smelled like a barbecue cook-off at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo – meat grilling all over the place.  The scriptures tell us that when the sacrifices were offered with a pure heart, the aroma pleased God.  When they were offered as simply going through the motions or people offered the worst and the rest instead of the first and the best, then the sacrifices were a stench to God.  Paul encouraged his readers to walk around as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.

I read that Mother Teresa offered a prayer composed by Cardinal Newman every day.  The prayer began, “Dear Jesus, help me to spread Thy fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Thy spirit and love. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of Thine.”  Isn’t that a beautiful image, “let me spread thy fragrance everywhere I go”?

During Spring Break, Tammy and I had the chance to go to Italy and visit our daughter, Chelsea, who is studying in Rome this semester.  We took 239 photos, but not one of them captured what will be for me the most vivid part of Italy, the smell.  For those of you who have never been to Rome or Venice, the only places we had time to visit, let me describe what Italy smells like in one word – pizza.  I’m not talking about Dominoes or Pizza Hut.  I’m not even talking about Café Eccell down the street or Jac and Do’s in Findlay, Ohio.  I’m talking about pizza, the recipe of which must have come from St. Peter’s mother herself.  In fact, when we went to Venice, Tammy found us a place to stay right on the Grand Canal (one of only 1,398 places on the Grand Canal).  It was a great place with a waterfront view.  However, the real perk was that it was right above a pizzeria.  All evening long the aroma of pizza cooking in a wood-burning oven was wafting through our room.  Tammy and Chelsea found it a little overwhelming, but I reflected on all the Bed and Breakfast places over the years that I have endured with their flowery and nauseating potpourri and said, “Now this is what I call a great smelling Bed and Breakfast!”

What does your life smell like - to God?  Our image is that God’s dwelling place is right above you.  Do you seek to spread the fragrance of Christ everywhere you go or are you content with kind of doing your own thing and people having to guess if you are a follower of Christ?  I know that before I truly experienced God’s grace, I smelled like a pretty self-centered person.  I want that to change.  That is no longer a scent that I want to exude.  I want to spread the fragrance of Christ everywhere I go.  Conversion requires change.  Conversion changes the way you smell.

Conversion changes the way you look. 

Paul’s instruction to the Romans was clear, “Do not be conformed to this world.” Perhaps it is better translated, “no longer be conformed to this world”.  The Greek word for “be conformed” really brings this alive for me.  It is the word, suschematizesthe, which is where we get our English word schematics.  Paul is telling the Roman readers to quit living their lives according to the schematics or blueprints of the current age.  These were not lives that are built for eternity.

While Tammy and I were eating pizza and tiramisu in Italy, our 16-year-old son was in Mexico with the Youth Group on a mission trip.  They went to Juarez, Mexico to build a house for a family that had 15 people living in cramped quarters and an unfamiliar poverty to our church members.  I was excited to hear about how his trip went.  After sharing with him highlights of our trip: the Coliseum, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Vatican City, Piazza Navona on the Ides of March, listening to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in Venice where the composer lived, and other great moments, I asked, “How about you? What did you do?”

He said in his deep voice, “It was good.  We went to Mexico, built a house, came home.”  There was no danger of running the phone bill up, even from Italy.  But as I got home, I heard more about this house.  It was especially interesting to hear about it, because I knew the house.  I helped build one two years ago, just like that: 11 feet x 22 feet, hand mixed concrete foundation, fire blocks, bird blocks, stucco, tar paper, plywood.  I know this construction.  I have seen the schematics and it works for now, but I doubt that these homes will last for generations.  They are temporary structures built to replace even more temporary structures.

I fear we do that all too often in our Christian walk.  We build one temporary structure to replace another, but we still follow the same basic schematics.  Here in Romans 12, we are reminded to stop that.  We are following the wrong blueprints when we base our values on this world that all too often teaches us to look out for number one, claw our way to the top, accumulate the most toys, get revenge, and so many other misguided messages.  “Do not be conformed to this world, quit following those schematics.” Conversion requires change.  Conversion changes the way you smell, changes the way you look and…

Conversion changes the way you think. 

Instead of continuing to conform to this world, Paul suggested, no expected, an entirely different approach to life, “be transformed by the renewing of your minds.”  Again the Greek word brings this phrase to life for me. The Greek word for “be transformed” is metamorphousthe, which is where we get our English word, metamorphosis.  According to Webster a metamorphosis is, “a typically marked and more or less abrupt developmental change in the form or structure of an animal (as a butterfly or a frog) occurring subsequent to birth or hatching.”  I remember learning about this in Biology – just this past week as I was collecting insects for my project.  Actually, I was just the helper on this expedition, but I am still amazed at how a fat, hungry caterpillar can become a beautiful, radiant butterfly.  It seems as though their very minds are transformed from consuming to preserving.  The plants they once devoured, they now sustain through cross-pollination.  Was this the image that Paul had in mind?  That instead of destroying relationships and individuals, we build them up?  Whatever image he was promoting he was certain that it would reflect the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. 

As I was putting this sermon together I received a text message from Zachary.  It was only a few words, “All I need is 1 butterfly.”  I doubt that he had any idea that the Holy Spirit was sending me a message at the same time.  I’ve got to believe that God is grieved by the number of caterpillars that continue to devour God’s plan for this world:  Greed, lust, excessive busyness, anxiety over things of such little eternal significance, violence, hatred, celebrity worship that wears even me out – I don’t have to keep listing, you know what the caterpillars in your life devour.  The other day it was if the Holy Spirit whispered in my ear as I read that text message, “All I need is 1 butterfly.  All I need is for you to be transformed, changed, converted.”

“Jesus meets us right where we are, but loves us too much to leave us there.” Conversion requires change. 

·         Conversion changes the way you smell – spread the fragrance of Christ everywhere you go.

·         Conversion changes the way you look – be careful which schematic, which blueprint, you are following.  Make sure it’s the one of eternity.

·         Conversion changes the way you think – become the butterfly you are meant to be, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Conversion requires change.  Amen.