Transforming Expectations (Romans 12: 1-8)

Many years ago, I heard about a church that was trying to define the expectations it had for its pastor.  Maybe you heard about it too.

This church expected its pastor to preach for exactly ten minutes; and in his sermons, the pastor was expected to condemn sin roundly, but never hurt anyone’s feelings.

The pastor was expected to work from 8am to midnight, and also be the church janitor.

The pastor was expected to live off of $40 a week, wear good clothes, drive a good car, buy good books, and donate $30 a week to the church.

Ideally, the pastor would be 29 years old, and have 40 years experience.

The pastor was expected to have a passion for youth ministry, and spend most of his time with the senior citizens. 

He was expected to make 15 home visits a day, be out in the community evangelizing the unchurched, and always be in his office so that church members could find him.

We ALL have expectations placed on us – pastors aren’t the only ones – and quite a few of these expectations are unrealistic.  And maybe this wouldn’t be such a problem, except that many of them, we’ve internalized to such a degree that we don’t even realize that they’re there, or that they are completely unrealistic.  We just go along with them, not even aware of how they are shaping our lives.

But if we stop and think about them, many of them will reveal themselves.  What expectations do you live with?  …expectations to live a certain way, to follow a certain lifestyle, to be a certain type of person…?

I wonder if expectations played a role in the apostle Paul’s life.  I mean, listen to what he said to the Philippians:

“I was circumcised on the eighth day.  I am from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin.  I am a Hebrew of the Hebrews.  With respect to observing the Law, I’m a Pharisee.”

The Pharisees placed high expectations on everyone else, but they also placed high expectations on themselves.  Paul was a Pharisee.  Even though he was from a Greek speaking region, he was fluent in Hebrew, the language of the Temple.  He was, in every way, a good and proper Jew.

And he’s proud of all that, except to the extent that it made him a persecutor of those who followed Jesus.  You see, the top-ranking Jewish officials, the highest priests and authorities, were appointed by the Roman government, the same Roman government that had Jesus executed.  Thus the expectation was that anyone who wanted to stay in Rome’s good favor would stand against Jesus and his followers.  And the high priests definitely wanted to stay in Rome’s good favor.  It came with so many perks!

As a Pharisee, Paul was expected to follow along.  And because Paul wanted to be the best Jew, the best Pharisee, he could be, he became a violent persecutor of Jesus’s followers.

Until one day, on that road to Damascus…

This is pure guessing on my part, but maybe Paul had already started to have doubts.  Maybe his heart was telling him something different, something contrary to all the expectations that were being placed on him.  Maybe his soul was already being tormented by thoughts that, maybe, all this wasn’t right, that what he was doing was wrong, that he was living a lie.  It’s so hard to live a life that is contrary to what one knows deep down to be true.

And maybe the reason Paul became so passionate about persecuting Christians is that he was trying desperately to silence the murmurings of his heart.  You see that a lot:  Someone lives in a world where the expectations placed on them are contrary to what their heart tells them, so they work extra hard to fulfill those expectations.  For example, a person who struggles with his own sexuality becomes the most outspoken preacher of anti-gay propoganda. 

But it doesn’t work.  Eventually it all comes crashing down.

Paul was throwing Christians in prison right and left, and was overseeing the stoning of many others.  The expectation was that he was anti-Christian, and by God he set out to prove that he could fulfill all those expectations.

But then, somewhere on that road to Damascus, it all came crashing down.  The Spirit of Christ spoke to Paul’s heart, and he was transformed.  He could no longer conform to the expectations that had been placed upon him.  It was tearing him apart; and he just couldn’t do it any longer.  He had to go in a new direction.

He had to come out as a follower of Jesus.

Years later, when he wrote his letter to the Romans, he gave them this advice:  “Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you can figure out what God’s will is.”

Paul knew how hard it was to conform to the patterns of this world, to work to fulfill every unreasonable, unrealistic expectation placed on you, every expectation that goes against what you believe and who you are.  Paul knew how liberating it was to allow the Spirit to transform you into the person that, deep down, you were all along, the person God created you to be, the authentic you.

There is a story about Jesus, in the gospels, that I almost talked about in last week’s sermon on immigration, but it fits here as well. 

It is a difficult story for me to hear.  It involves a woman who Matthew describes as a Canaanite – Mark, in his version, calls her a Syrophoenician – but either way, she is a Gentile, a non-Jew, an “other.”

She comes to Jesus with a request that he heal her daughter. 

Jesus ignores her at first, according to Matthew. 

And then, in both versions, after she persists, Jesus insults her by saying, “I came for Israel; it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

This image of a Jesus who ignores a request and then hurls a derogatory insult at the one making the request bothers me. 

“Was Jesus just having a bad day?” as one commentator wrote…  “Did he get up on the wrong side of bed?”

That’s kind of what I’m wondering.  He insults this woman.  But she persists, and eventually she wins the argument.  It’s the only time in the Bible that Jesus ever lost an argument.

What to make of that?

Well, I know that what’s more important in scripture is not the literal meaning, but the deeper meaning.  This makes me wonder:  what purpose did Mark and Matthew have in telling this story?  How does this unflattering story of Jesus fit into the larger story that Mark and Matthew tell?

And I have several answers to that.

One:  being a non-Jew – and a woman – who, through persistence, is eventually ministered to by Jesus, this woman shows how the movement in scripture goes from being localized to globalized.  It goes from Jews to all nations.  It goes from men only to people of all genders.  This story fits in very nicely with this movement.

But if this is the movement of the Bible narrative, shouldn’t Jesus be ahead of that movement, leading it along, not trailing behind and catching up to it?

Yes… unless part of Matthew and Mark’s purpose is also to show how the tendency to conform to expectations plays a role.  Maybe what they are trying to say is:  Look – even Jesus had to overcome the expectations that were placed on him.  In this case, the expectation to treat all non-Jews like dirt.  In some cases, those expectations are so a part of you, so a part of the society in which you live, that you aren’t even aware of them.  They’re like the air you breathe.  They’re like the water in which a fish swims.  You don’t think about them.  You aren’t aware of them.  But they’re there.

This is how racism persists today, even though most people say they are against it and insist that they themselves are not racists.  Let’s say you are interviewing candidates for a job.  You’re not a racist, but in your mind you do have a picture of what the ideal candidate looks like.  And unless you’ve been really intentional about how that picture is created, it will likely be based upon the prejudices and expectations of society, even if you aren’t aware of it.  And typically, if this is a high-ranking position you are trying to fill, that picture of an ideal candidate is going to be white, male, not too old and not too young…it’s not that you are intentionally racist or sexist, but you live in a society in which the idea of what a successful leader in your company looks like is pre-determined. 

And you’re not going to question that, unless you have had some training in recognizing and overcoming racism, or have spent some intentional time in the wilderness,  questioning your own assumptions and expectations.  Only then can you be transformed.  Only then can your eyes be opened.

Even Jesus – this story suggests – had to deal with that.  With this woman’s help, he was able to overcome it.  He was able to see how society’s expectations had influenced him and prejudiced him, and was able to transform his way of thinking and move beyond it.

There is another story in Matthew in which Jesus is talking about various types of behavior.  “You need to love God,” he said; “it’s not enough just to believe in God.  Even the tax collectors and Gentiles do that.”

It’s a little more subtle, but here again is a derogatory comment directed (this time) toward tax collectors and Gentiles.  And yet, repeatedly, Jesus is shown in the gospels displaying great and unusual compassion toward tax collectors and Gentiles.

So either Matthew fabricated this response and attributed it to Jesus, or Jesus said it with a wink in his eye, knowing that he was voicing a common sentiment – knowing that he was playing in to society’s expectations of how one should regard tax collectors and Gentiles – even though it was clear, by his actions, that this was not his own opinion of tax collectors and Gentiles.

I don’t know.  I’m still wondering about these things, and I may not arrive at a definitive answer.  To what extent did society’s expectations influence what went on in the hearts of Jesus and Paul?  How exactly did they wrestle with those expectations?  I don’t know.

But I do know that those expectations were there.  I know that they were strong and powerful.  And I know that Paul and Jesus, somehow, at some point, were able to overcome those expectations and be the person who God created each of them to be. 

And I know that we are called to do the same.  We are called to allow the Spirit to so completely transform us, so that we can be who God created us to be. 

The expectations placed on us are many.  Expectations to live a certain lifestyle, to drive a certain car, buy the latest versions of our technological gadgets and electronic devices, and not go too crazy when it comes to living a life of faith.

I don’t know what expectations burden you.  Maybe you aren’t aware of them, either.  To escape from them, it helps to engage in spiritual practices: prayer, worship, Bible reading… practices that help open your mind to the Spirit – the Spirit that has the power to transform.