Romans 12:1-8

Romans 12:1-8 (NRSV)

 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. ² Do 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.

³ For 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. ⁴ For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵ so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶ We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸ the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. 

In 12:1-2, we find the theme of finding and doing the will of God. Paul establishes the theme for this section, in that the life of the reconstituted people of God is a matter of the reasonable worship of God, a matter of finding and doing the will of God. He will begin by making an appeal or encouragement to his readers, a typical form of address in constructing a moral discourse in which he will advise his readers to pursue or abstain from certain ways of life (paranetic). He will make such appeals in I Corinthians 1:10, II Corinthians 10:1-2, Ephesians 4:1, I Thessalonians 4:1, II Thessalonians 2:1, and Philemon 8. In using the word “therefore,” Paul is referring to arguments he has made through the first eleven chapters. His appeal is to the Christian family, to the “brothers and sisters” in Rome. The “mercies of God” summarizes the theme of these chapters. The action he is exhorting them toward is to present themselves, which suggests a purposive action, a moment. This moment is decisive because it involves our bodies, which is anthropological language for the whole person, physical, emotional, and intellectual. In Chapters 7-8, the body is the place where the battle between sin, Law, and flesh takes place. Here, it refers to the whole self. He becomes explicit in the biblical analogy he is making. He refers to making of the whole self a “living sacrifice” (Philippians 2:17 refers to his life, and 4:18 refers their financial offering) that is “holy and acceptable to God,” (Colossians 1:21-22 Christ makes them such an offering, missionaries in I Thessalonians 2:10) which he further identifies as the appropriate act of worship. Such language derives from Leviticus and the sacrificial system as practiced in the temple. Such an offering is the appropriate response to what God has offered the world in Christ. The Christian family is to avoid allowing this age, this spirit of the times, which is passing away, to shape them. Such language is part of the apocalyptic background of the message of Paul. Galatians 1:4 refers to the present evil age. In apocalyptic, the contrast is between the present corrupt age and the coming glorious age. For Paul, of course, Christ is the appearance of the coming glorious age in our present evil age, and the Spirit is the agent of that coming glorious age who is at work now to move this age toward its redemption. The glorious age that has already begun will find its maturity in the return of Christ. The temptation is to fit in with those surrounding us at work and at home. The spiritual battle for the Christian family is in the ongoing battle between the present evil age and the coming glorious age that is already present through Christ and the Spirit. What Paul is encouraging the Christian family to pursue is the transformation of the mind. We find the term in Mark 9:2 to refer to the body of Jesus, and to the believer forming into the likeness of God in II Corinthians 3:18. Such transformation will mean re-centering of the self. Such a transformation of the mind will focus on discerning the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Paul is encouraging us to ponder who we are, where we stand, and what we do in every moment of decision. In the moment of decision, we become part of the eschatological battle that takes place in this age.[1] Considering the argument in Chapters 5-8 and 9-11, the eschatological battle plays out in our lives and in the constitution of the people of God (church and Israel). He is now showing how that eschatological battle will play itself out in our moral decisions, which will involve what we pursue and what we avoid. He will give some content to our moral decisions in the rest of the letter.

In 12:3-8, he draws out the lesson of humility within the church. The lesson is an important one. The “Covenant Prayer” of John Wesley is appropriate as we begin.

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on Earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.  

Remember, Paul has already said that his fellow Jews have had overconfidence in the Law, he has shown that the prophets warned of the danger of such overconfidence, and that faith in the saving work of God in Christ gives no one reason to boast. Paul wants us to avoid thinking highly of the self. The Christian family is to pursue a sober or prudent judgment of self rather than giving into the normal human pattern of this present corrupt age to think highly of the self. He invites the Christian family to consider the basic equality of each member. This will require modesty. He wants his readers to avoid arrogance and excess. Such a view of the self is unfitting and overly ambitious in the context of Christian family life. The underlying point is that if the family is to have unity, it must begin here, in a proper estimation of the self. Paul will then invite us to consider the metaphor of the human body. The image is vivid enough that it remains powerful all these centuries later. The body is a unity that has diversity of parts. Each part relates to the other part and the sum as one body. Such an attitude is part of our reasonable act of worship. Here is a specific way we can pursue the transformation of the mind and do battle with the present evil age. He calls upon the family to recognize that variety can exist within unity. Such diversity is part of the continued health of the whole. Each part of the body must make full use of what God has given to that member. Grace unites the variety of gifts, temperaments, and passions of individual members.[2] He is stressing that the fellowship of Christians with God and each other rests on their participation in the Christ to whom each of them has a relationship by faith and baptism. If we take what Paul says about the church as the Body of Christ just as it stands, we must understand the new resurrected life, the life of the risen Christ, as a removal of the individual autonomy and separation that are still part of earthly life while still involving respect for individuality.[3] Grace and faith determine the position one has in the body rather than our ambition or merit. Paul will offer a list of gifts that one can expand by going to I Corinthians 12:4-31 and Ephesians 4:11-16. Yet, connecting the variety of the gifts with the body, the point is that all gifts are equally important for the health of the body. We often do not appreciate our own uniqueness.  Two cells, each containing 23 chromosomes and within each chromosome hundreds of genes that would govern our essential characteristics.  Each one of us is indeed special.  The individual member of the body has a responsibility to discover the gift that he or she can use to glorify God through the mission and ministry of the Body of Christ in this world. Proper worship involves everyday life and the communal life of humility and love. One offers unselfishly the gifts and talents one has. We must not think of such gifts in a literal way, as if the Christian waits for a package marked “special delivery.” They do not come from a distant place. Part of our transformation of the mind is that we will see the gifts already at hand in our lives. We can share such gifts with family, friends, and community every day. Such gifts find constant renewal and transformation. We properly understand them better as surprise packages. In fact, the Spirit may nurture a profound spiritual gift within the reader right now, one about which the reader does not even know right now. Most of us are too fearful to unwrap the gift.

Many pastors can identify with the following story. There was a kingdom in which everyone lived by the habit of letting anyone else do the things that someone should do.   Finally, frustration got the best of the king. He decided to teach his subjects a lesson.  Late one night the king went out to a narrow spot on the road leading into town and right in the middle of it dug a small hole.  Then, glancing around, he took from the depths of his cloak a small bag, placed it into the hole, went up the hillside and finding a large stone, pried it loose and let it roll down into the road where he placed it on top of the hole with the bag.  A farmer came by and complained about why the road commissioner had not removed the stone.  He went around it, though he almost lost his wagonload.  The king's guards marched down the road, and they broke ranks in order to get around it.  Merchants with packhorses weighed down with items for sale almost lost their goods going around the stone.  Finally, three weeks later, the king could stand it no longer.  He gathered the people around him at the stone, and said, "I put this stone here; and for three weeks everyone who came by blamed someone else for not moving it."  He drew out the bag from beneath the stone, which had a sign on it, "For whoever lifts the stone."  When he untied it, a stream of gold coins poured out.

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[1] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1 [60.3] 497.

[2] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.2 [38.3].

[3] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 15, 628.