10th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 16A

10th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 16A
August 21, 2011

The week before last, I spent three days at Gray Center fulfilling some of my diocesan responsibilities in doing the work of the Commission on Ministry, of which I’ve been a part these last several years. The COM is established by Canon law, and functions in every Episcopal diocese with one purpose: to give the Bishop advice and recommendations about the leadership in the church –the raising up and training of priests and deacons, and everything related to their selection, training and continued well-being.
An essential part of our ministry is for us to remain in close contact with people in the ordination process—both people who are currently in seminary being trained and formed as priests, and people who are attending our diocesan Deacon’s school and being trained and formed to be deacons (while still facing all the demands of their day to day lives). It is rewarding work for me, as we ask questions of those being formed for ministry, and we listen carefully to their responses, often inviting them to go a little deeper. There is the highest level of trust among committee members, and I always come away from these meetings reminded of why I began my own journey into the ordained ministry, and it helps me to continue to reflect upon my own vocation as a priest (which has been my part these past 6 and 1/2 years) and how God continues to call me to grow into that.
Last week, we spent our time with 4 people (and their respective spouses) who are currently at seminary and 1 person who is about to enter the Deacon’s school, and we met with them to see how they are progressing on this spiritual journey and to learn from them how they are being formed for the priesthood and deaconate.
As you might imagine, spiritual formation is a rather tricky thing to assess in an individual, but we have found that is actually a fruitful endeavor to look at a person’s spiritual formation when that person has been open to being formed, when he or she has been doing the difficult work of self-reflection and prayer and sorting through external experiences and the internal working of God through the Holy Spirit.
But there are a handful of others whom we encounter from time to time who might win the “rock of ages” awardi that is awarded by a certain seminary professor every year to the member of his class who remains the most unmoved, most unchanged, most resistant to the process of spiritual formation. And those are the ones who are difficult to converse with about their spiritual formation because they refuse to admit it is happening, even though we know that they are being formed in some way, either for good or for ill.
We are changed and shaped and affected—for good and for ill—by what we encounter in this life. Paul writes to the Romans, “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.”
Very few people can truly be “the rock of ages;” we are either conformed to this world or transformed more and more into the image and likeness of Christ.
I like to think of this process of formation—whether it be priestly formation at seminary or Christian formation of all baptized into the image and likeness of Christ--like being a rock in a rock tumbler.ii How many of you have had any experience with rock tumblers?

One of my brothers had a rock tumbler, and we set it up in the formal living room (where no one ever went) just off my bedroom. Into this machine, my brother would put all these regular old rocks with some water and several different steps of abrasive and polishing agents. And he turned it on and just let it run for what seemed to me to be forever! as I could hear it just running and running—this motor sound and rocks tumbling around and around-- every night when I went to bed. And these rocks tumbled around and around in this machine and knocked up against each other over and over again, and when we finally opened it up, we discovered that some rocks had all their rough edges knocked off, worn down, smoothed out; but others had been broken to bits under the force of the tumbling or left with sharp pieces that had not been smoothed.
In our Gospel lesson today, we see Jesus asking his disciples a series of questions. Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am? And Peter, in a moment of God’s pure revelation, answers Jesus—“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus, in his delight at Peter’s answer, bestows upon Peter, a new name—the Rock—and he bestows upon Peter a blessing. We see in this story which is the middle of three Peter stories that our lectionary gives us in a four week span (starting with two weeks ago when Peter tried to walk on water and failed miserable and ending next week, when Jesus rebukes Peter and says, “get behind me Satan!”), that in Peter’s journey with Jesus, he is still very much a rock in the rock tumbler, as opposed to an unchangeable “rock of ages”. He’s still getting his rough edges knocked off and will continue to do so well after Jesus’s resurrection and ascension. And yet in this one moment, Jesus sees the strength of Peter’s character, his ability to be open to revelation, and his willingness to be formed by that. And it is those gifts that Jesus celebrates and blesses.
So what about us? What does this story have to teach us about our lives? We are all of us rocks tumbling around in this rock tumbler that is life, where the sharp jagged rocks of events and people have the very real potential to damage others and also the potential to shape and form us for the better. How do you name these sharp jagged rocks in the rock tumbler of your life? Is it failing health? Is it financial woes? Is it a weighty decision you must soon make? Is it a difficult person whom you keep bumping up against? Is it relationship problems? Is it doubt? Is it the loss of someone you love? Is the jagged rock in your rock tumbler your own self-loathing?
And then what do with this? What do we do when life or others keeps bumping up against us and wearing us down? We can be formed for good or for ill. So how do we keep from being ill-formed? We give ourselves over to the transformation that comes from God—“to the renewing of our minds so that we may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect”. And once we discern that, we hold fast to what is good.
If we are not being formed in the will of God, then we are being conformed to this world. And to be formed in the will of God, we must remain steadfast in striving toward transformation, giving our hearts fully to God’s will and not our own. We do this through regular corporate worship, through a willingness to grow and develop through Christian formation, in the reading and study of the scriptures, and in regular prayer; we do this through silence, through breaking bread together, through the regular giving of ourselves and our resources—our time, our attention, our money. We give our hearts to the way of Christ—practicing mercy, forgiveness, kindness, and an unflinching and steadfast stance in the face of injustice and evil and persecution.
How will you be formed this day? Will you be conformed to the way of the world, giving your heart to the pursuit of your own will, no matter what the cost? Or will you open yourself to transformation and give your heart to discerning the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect in your life—allowing yourself to be shaped and formed, polished and smoothed through the life of faith into the image and likeness of Christ?