Waking from the Nightmare

A sermon from the Rt. Rev. Frank S. Logue for the reaffirmation of ordination vows
Trinity Episcopal Church in Statesboro, Georgia on March 25, 2024
St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Tifton, Georgia on March 26, 2024

Waking from the Nightmare
A Homily for the Reaffirmation of Ordination Vows
Philippians 2:3–11

Saul lies in the dust on the road to Damascus. Stopped in his angry tracks by a light from heaven that flashes around him, he hears a voice saying, 

“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

“Who are you, Lord?”

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

Saul now knows that everything he once knew with certainty was an illusion. He thought he was fighting the heretics on behalf of a vengeful God. His self-righteous quest was designed to both appease an angry God and propel him into the religious elite. His rigid religiosity left him blinded to the grace of God found in Jesus.

Then God speaks to Ananias in a vision to send him to Saul. When Ananias lays hands on him, Saul has something like scales fall from his eyes. Saul awakens from the nightmare to see the world anew.

In a carefully crafted passage in his Letter to the Philippians, the one-time persecutor of those on The Way writes, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

Paul is writing about metanoia, which literally means to have an “after mind” or your mind after being reconfigured in a metamorphosis like the one he experienced on the road to Damascus. We describe this type of transformation as a change of heart and mind. Translators like to opt for the most economical way of conveying a concept with a single word standing in for another single word. So that the word “repent” stood in for a change in how someone sees the world and their place in it. Jesus began his public ministry with the brief proclamation: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” 

The word repent is metanoia in the Greek, which encompasses repentance, but means so much more. The aftermind or converted or transformed mind refers to seeing everything in a completely new way. This is more like waking from a nightmare to see the world rightly. This change of heart was perhaps best captured in a Neil Diamond song made into a hit by The Monkeys. It became a hit again thanks to the greatest movie credits of all time at the end of Shrek. You know the words:

I thought love was only true in fairy tales
Meant for someone else, but not for me
Love was out to get me
That’s the way it seemed
Disappointment haunted all my dreams

This is a description of the Before Mind. Our thinking pattern before the metamorphosis. Then a moment in time causes the singer to have their perceptions of the world changed forever. This After Mind is described in this unforgettable chorus:

 Then I saw her face, now I’m a believer
Not a trace of doubt in my mind
I’m in love
I’m a believer, I couldn’t leave her if I tried

This same transformation happens to Saul when he encounters Jesus, comes to know him for who he is, and falls in love. This change of heart and mind is what happens to Andrew, Simon Peter, James, and John that has them walk away from their nets. This moment of recognition of the truth of the Good News of Jesus changes the heart of Mary Magdalene, who becomes the apostle to the apostles after Jesus’ resurrection. This change in seeing the world causes the first followers of Jesus to face persecution and even death for the love of God they had found in their savior. Down through the centuries, we see saints in every age in whose lives we find a metanoia, a revolution, that takes over their hearts and minds after which life is never, ever the same.

This right view of the world is not the dominant perspective. We serve communities where people made in the image and likeness of God are trapped in a nightmare. The evidence is there with addictions of every kind, not just to alcohol and drugs both legal and illegal, but in people whose justifying stories are found in work, romance, exercise, parenting, and more. In his book Seculosity, David Zahl details how with organized religion declining, people fill the void in their lives by making other everyday pursuits into a form of worship. As everyone is entranced by the same illusion of self-sufficiency and a need to control, this can be difficult to see, but through our Gospel lenses, we know the truth that we don’t have to earn or deserve the love of God we have found in Jesus. We don’t have to prove ourselves to be enough, as Jesus is enough.

This is where Saul, the promising young man who wanted to be successful as a religious leader, can lend a hand. In the chapter after our reading, Paul would tell the church in Philippi, “Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

Compared to knowing Jesus, Paul came to see that everything he had achieved was “rubbish.” That’s the cleanest word the NRSV translators could come up with. The venerable King James Version didn’t mince words as Paul tells it like it is, “I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but dung.” 

This is Paul with the after-mind that followed his conversion seeing that he was addicted to the esteem of others. The reality is that if we decide that what matters is to be successful, then we jump on a never-ending treadmill. Someone always has more and has it better. Life, even life in the church, becomes a contest, and we find ourselves never measuring up. Paul describes that way of life with a poop emoji. Compared to the surpassing grace of God, striving for success is a load of crap.

We know that love is not only true in fairy tales. It is not just for someone else, but for you. The surpassing knowledge of the love of God found in the face of Jesus is yours now. 

The grace is that others coming to experience this same conversion of heart and mind does not depend on dazzling homiletical prowess or stunning liturgies that make the Gospel real. There is, of course, nothing wrong with good preaching and beautiful liturgies as long as we know that everything that needs to be done has already been done by Jesus. The metamorphosis we long for people to experience is Holy Spirit work. You can’t earn it. You can’t deserve it. But you can share this love of God with others. They need to awaken from the nightmare of the endless treadmill of deserving. They need to awaken to experience the reality of God’s love.

Our common call is not to achieve great things for God. Our common call is to faithfully follow Jesus. This call we are gathered today to renew is a call to fall in love over and over and over again. For we have seen the love of God in the face of Jesus and we couldn’t leave that love if we tried.

Amen.