Weekly Sermon

"An Extreme Makeover Done Right" - September 26, 2004

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Isaiah 65:17-25; II Corinthians 5:16-20

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know Him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation: everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making His appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Prayer: Loving God, we pray that you would transform us. Through this scripture open our ears that we might hear your call; open our eyes that we might see as you see; and strengthen our resolve that we might lend our hearts, our hands, and our feet to your work. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. Why is it that when you mix water and flour together you get glue…and then you add eggs and sugar…and you get cake? Where did the glue go? You know very well where it went! That's what makes the cake stick to your hips! I think that this year there have been about a dozen "reality" makeover shows on television. It seems there isn't anything about our lives that can't be fixed with a tweeze here, a cut there, or a new coat of paint. I was in the doctor's office this week for an annual physical and there was a People Magazine all about "The Swan" controversy. Inside were pictures of these young women who had been "transformed." It was depressing. They looked fine, but a little plastic. I wondered what they looked like before, so I went online and found their before pictures. I'm convinced that a good haircut and makeup would have done the trick, but the message of the show is that you need surgery. On the spread in People, they listed the surgery for each girl. It is amazing-frightening. At first, I thought I wouldn't change anything about my appearance…then I got honest with myself and realized that there were things I would change. The mirror is seldom our friend. Among other things, mirrors focus our attention on what we look like on the outside. The problem is that an external makeover doesn't last forever. Eventually, the hair has to be dyed again; the taunt skin sags; the stylish clothes go out of fashion; in time just about everybody needs glasses for reading. Outside makeovers are not eternal. The only kind of makeover that really lasts is a spiritual makeover, but a spiritual makeover doesn't take a few hours of surgery or a helpful shopping partner who knows what's fashionable and what will look good on you. A spiritual makeover, takes time-sometimes it takes a lifetime to become a new creation in Christ. A true makeover begins on the inside. That's what Kent Amos says. You may have heard of him, he is the founder of Kids House and Community Academy Public Charter School, one of the leading charter schools in Washington, D.C. He puts the changes in his life this way: How do you know if it's time for a major life makeover? You have to read the signs. But that idea means different things to different people. For me, the signs became crystal clear about 10 years ago: A series of tragedies made me wake up and realize that I had to do something to improve the lives of children. At the time, I was an executive at Xerox. My wife and I had already been taking kids into our home for many years. We had a simple policy in our house: Any child could bring home any other child at any time for any reason. We'd feed those children, clothe them, house them - give them whatever they needed. And children kept coming through our door, the numbers growing every year. Dozens and dozens of our kids went on to college, and several of them earned master's degrees. But some of them didn't fare so well. Some went to jail. Some were killed. Some killed themselves. I had to recognize that, no matter how much we invested in those kids, we were not immune to feeling the pain of violence; we still buried children. That was a turning point for me. I was forced to see that there were bigger issues in the world than what my wife and I could fix - that our society's routine neglect of children, on all levels, wreaks enormous damage. There I was a learned, successful adult. I thought, if not me, then who? So, in 1988, I quit my job at Xerox and, about three years later, started the Urban Family Institute in my basement, as a nonprofit organization aimed at changing the lives of children. [Kent Amos, "U1: Relaunch!" Fast Company, July 2000, 128] That makeover started in the heart. It is a spiritual makeover. Some spiritual makeovers start with the ears. Fred Craddock tells a story about one of his students. She saw a friend of hers sitting reading something. She said, "I was busy getting some money out of my purse to get a pop out of the machine. I just said to my friend over there, 'Well how are you doing?'" She continued, "I found out later her response was, 'I just got a letter from my mother. She has a malignancy, and I think I'm going to have to go home to help her.'" In tears, the student said to Reverend Craddock, "I didn't hear. I just went on and got my drink, came back out, and said, 'Well, what have you got planned for the weekend?' Did not hear a thing." What would it be like if we really did hear everything? [Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories, (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), 26-27] If we really did hear as God hears us, we would be transformed. We would hear the pain, confusion, and fear of the people around us. Our presence would be the fulfillment of prayer for all who long to be heard. You know that I get to visit hospitals a fair amount. One of the most confusing things that happens is the noise made by the alarms of monitoring machines. The beeper alarms ring all the time. The sound is supposed to bring a nurse or aid to the room, but the alarms go off so regularly that the staff stops hearing them. One night Chuck Baker had an alarm that beeped for 40 minutes. Fortunately, Chuck knew that the alarm was caused by a continually malfunctioning in the machine. Still, Chuck said he would hear alarms going off all around his unit and no one responded. God's ears are on and working perfectly 24/7. To open ourselves to a spiritual makeover, let's open our ears to God 24/7. One caveat…God usually speaks through people, so if we want to hear God, we have to hear each other! Our spiritual makeover can begin with our eyes, too. Did you see the movie "Shallow Hal"? It is a movie about an unattractive, shallow middle-aged man named Hal Larsen who judges women strictly on their appearance. But one day, Hal gets stuck on a stalled elevator with a motivational guru who helps him overcome his shallowness by hypnotizing him so that he sees only the inner beauty of people. Leaving the elevator, Hal sees large, unattractive women as supermodels. When a 330-pound blonde named Rosemary shows up, to Hal she looks like Gwyneth Paltrow. He is overcome by her kindness and humor, and she becomes the most beautiful girl in the world to him. Somehow, I think that is the way God sees us. God doesn't even notice our weight, our shape or our nose, or if He does, we still look very beautiful to Him. When God comes into our lives, God gives us an extreme makeover. God sees the person we are inside. God sees the person we can be. God is attracted to us because God sees the image of His Son in us. God sees the Holy Spirit living in us. God sees us growing into the likeness of His Son. Another way to open ourselves to a spiritual makeover is to get walking. We need to get ourselves where we can be a part of God's work. Our hands are needed to reach out in the name of Christ. Our feet are needed to visit hospitals, nursing homes, and homeless shelters. I remember hearing a phrase years ago that has stayed with me. A friend, Jim Morgan, had just spent several months in Mexico building homes for low-income people. He had recommended a book about Mexico which I struggled to read, but couldn't finish. I told Jim I was sorry that I hadn't been able to get through the book, and asked if he could give me a short description of the main points. "Of course. I can summarize the whole book in one sentence: 'People vote with their feet.'" I asked what he meant and he explained that things were failing in Mexico. The proof was the huge illegal migration of Mexican people into the United States. The people are voting with their feet. We vote with our feet, too. I'm not so much talking about casting our votes in elections. I'm talking about voting for faith. We vote for God with our feet. To open ourselves to a spiritual makeover, we need to get directly involved in God's work. There are a lot of opportunities right now. If you will turn to your bulletin, you will find that the annual Fannie Mae Walk for the Homeless will be held on November 20. You can help by walking. You will also see that today is the first day that Geneva will serve meals for the Community Based Shelter. We'll be taking and serving dinner for 35 or so guests of the Shelter all week. You might note that Jennifer Dickson is collecting school supplies for children in Nicaragua. You need to walk into a store to buy those supplies. The opportunities for us to vote with are feet are endless. Just think you can get in shape without joining a health club-that's spiritual shape, mind you. For most people, a spiritual makeover takes a long time, but once in a while, someone's spiritual makeover comes fast. Pastor Chris Talton tells about a classmate of his in Bible college. The friend was named Shannon. What made him interesting was his looks. His hair was a different color each week, his ears were loaded with earrings, and he wore the big loose grunge style clothing. But the most interesting point of style was his shorts, and he always wore shorts regardless of the weather. What made his shorts so odd was the way he wore them. He always wore his shorts backwards. As you can imagine anyone who dressed like that at a Bible college stuck out like a sore thumb. One day Chris Talton made a sarcastic remark about the shorts. Shannon turned to him and said, "I'll tell you just like I tell anyone else who asks me why I wear my shorts backwards. I tell them that God turned my life around so fast that my shorts couldn't keep up." [Chris Talton, "More Than a Makeover," SermonCentral.com, retrieved 9/23/04] God will turn our lives around, taking what we have and making it perfect! One of the most interesting commercials on television never said a word about the product it was advertising. It panned several people who have just one thing in common - a nasty injury or scar. There was a cowboy with a huge scar around his eye, and you could tell his eye was damaged as well. Another fellow had a huge cauliflower ear. Still another had badly callused feet. Throughout the ad there was no explanation, except at the end when the Nike swoosh appears along with the words "Just Do It." The commercial was surprisingly moving because the whole time Joe Cocker was singing in the background, "You are so beautiful…to me." Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. God is our beholder. God is also the one who makes us beautiful, and we are beautiful to Him. Our beauty comes from God and God sings to us, "You are so beautiful…to me."