God’s Transformative Work
Rev. Debbie Blane
Woodland Park Presbyterian Church
August 30, 2009
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9
James 1:17-27
In the Book of James we hear today:
“Every good gift and every perfect present comes from heaven; it comes down from God, the Creator of the heavenly lights, who does not change or cause darkness by turning. By his own will he brought us into being through the word of truth, so that we should have first place among all his creatures.”
In the Songbook of the Bible, the Psalm we heard today tells us that the kingdom of God is ruled with justice and we are to love what is right and hate what is evil.
And in the Song of Songs, the love book of the Bible, we encounter the language of love between a man and a woman. We “hear” that love is to be beautiful, caring, and life changing.
It is God’s work to transform us into the things that our Scriptures speak to us of today; good gifts, perfect presents, loving what is right and hating what is evil, beautiful, caring and living changed lives. Martin Luther, the patriarch of the Reformation that created Protestantism, disliked the Book of James. He believed that this book advocated a theology of works. He believed that the book told us we had to earn our salvation. I believe that this book tells us about the work that God will do in us, not the work that we will do. And I believe that the portion of the Psalm today and the portion of the Song of Songs, the Song of Solomon, shares with us some of the beauty that has been experienced by people who have known God and have been changed by God’s transforming work.
Many of you know that I have returned this summer from two years of teaching English in China. And some of you may know that in another month or so I will be leaving to teach Theology at the Nile Theological College in Khartoum, Sudan.
In the sermon this morning I will be sharing with you one of my experiences of China. I need to state clearly that this is MY experience of China, other people have had different experiences and would share different things with you. This is known as a caveat: I take responsibility for what I am sharing with you, this is my perspective and may not be shared by other people.
I have framed that sharing by talking of God’s transforming work in us. This is work that we cannot do; it is the work that is done in us by the Holy Spirit, work that is a gift from God.
I am going to talk about my experiences through the picture of a Chinese friend of mine in Nanjing. I will share with you about the life of my friend who I will call M. M is our picture, our snapshot, framed in the Scriptures you have heard this morning. I will speak to you of my friend M as I experience her through the frame of God’s transforming work in us.
My good friend M is a twenty-something woman. She is beautiful, talented and blessed with an amazing ability to understand herself and others. She is a Christian. And she is trapped. She is trapped in a job that does not use her many talents and gifts. Because of the economic system in China she is trapped living with a father who takes advantage of her and blocks her every attempt to change her situation in order to be able to grow into the woman who God created her to be.
M. Is fluent in Chinese, French and English. She has the equivalent of an AA degree in Environmental Sciences. Her dream is to become a psychologist. M does not make enough money in her dead-end job to move out on her own, thus she lives with her father. There are no shelters in China. There is no place for a verbally, spiritually, mentally or physically abused woman to flee. There is no place of transition where a woman can stay for long enough to get her life on track and moving in a new direction.
In China College is paid for by either savings of the family, or by loans from family or friends. M’s father refuses to help her financially in order for her to be able to return to school to earn a Bachelor’s degree. A Bachelor’s degree would give her a much better chance of being able to leave China in order to earn a Master’s degree in her field of dreams. Psychology appears to be an undeveloped field at this point in China’s history.
M has made some very deliberate decisions in her life. She has chosen not to marry a Chinese man because she knows that in doing so she would be further, and irrevocably, backed into the corner in which she finds herself. She is intelligent and it is unlikely that she will find any husband, Chinese or foreigner, in China who will appreciate her intelligence.
I had female students in China who knew that they would have to choose between a Ph.D. and marriage because men in China do not want to marry highly educated women. I heard of only one case in which a married woman went back to school after having her one child and earned a doctorate. She had a husband who supported her financially and emotionally and who was very proud of her. This is very much an exception to the rule.
In spite of how difficult M’s situation is in China she is even more fearful of the idea of leaving China. She believes that she has no way to earn an income outside of China, despite her fluency in three languages. M grew up being told that she was ugly and dumb. She told me that this is the Chinese way.
My students told me that they were never encouraged to think about, talk about, or develop their gifts and interests. What they were good at had nothing to do with the ability to pass the tests that would decide if they would or would not receive education. Education was critical because it made the difference between doing hard labor for a living, or not.
I don’t mean to paint a totally bleak picture of China. Many of my students, and certainly my friend M, were wonderful, loving, and talented young people. I did discover though that China is not a land of opportunity. The gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow and I was told that someday it might lead to social unrest. The government is trying to shrink that gap but is not succeeding. I realized that my students, as M, had very limited opportunities and futures. By the end of my time I had discerned that China is a land of dead ends and I could no longer tolerate encouraging my students and seeing so much potential and intelligence in many of them knowing that there was absolutely no hope for them to live into their potential.
At the same time I could literally feel the lack of faith in anything beyond the Communist party and the capitalist system that is now exploding in China. China is a country that is a combination of capitalism and authoritarianism. The Communist party rules with an iron glove and anything or anyone that threatens its power and privilege is subject to re-education in labor camps (two elderly women who appealed the decision to remove their homes for the Beijing Olympics) to disappearance, jail or death. Parents who demanded an investigation into the substandard school buildings that collapsed last year in the huge Sichuan Province earthquake were silenced.
Looking back at my time in China I think that I can feel/hear/experience Jesus’ tears for Jerusalem and know that those tears are also for China. Just as with Palestine, China is, in many ways, an open-air prison for many people. Surely this is not what God intended for God’s creation.
M. was baptized while I was in Nanjing. She “gets” Jesus, which is an exciting thing! Sometimes I got confused between what was my North American perspective and what is the Bible speaking to us? But what I told M, and what I will tell all of you today, is this:
When we become Christians then God begins to do a work in us. While God is already at work everywhere in the world and with everyone, for Christians the work of the Holy Spirit is something that we cooperate with as we slowly begin to let go of the tight, tight control of our own lives. The technical term for this process is sanctification.
Every good gift and perfect present comes from heaven. WE are the good gifts and perfect presents! As God shapes us into Christ’s image, we become the bride and bridegroom in the Song of Songs. As we come to see ourselves through God’s eyes we become the beautiful and beloved of the Psalm.
God’s love helps us to see our worth and also what we have to offer in the world. As we are loved we become beautiful. This is a beauty that nothing can take away – not old age and not death. Not concentration camps and not communism. Not abusive, narrow and limited parents.
I pray for the beauty of China. I pray for the beauty of my friend M. There were Buddhists and Muslims in China. They too were beautiful, along with the Christians. How God works in religion is a mystery, but I did see with my own two eyes that those who had something beyond themselves to believe in had something that everyone else did not. Those who had faith had morality. They were not out only for themselves; they cared about the welfare of others as well as for their own.
My particular concern was for my friend M. My prayer is that M. will come to know the love of God so thoroughly within herself that God’s love will wipe away the sin of other people that has hurt her so deeply. I pray that God’s love will wipe away the sin of other people that has robbed her of her knowledge of herself as blessed, important, a beloved daughter of God and sister of Christ.
M is not the only Chinese woman who desperately needs God’s transforming work in her life. And friends, it isn’t just the women. The men are robbed of their personhoods too.
Our frame is God’s transforming work. Our picture is M, or every man and every woman. We can’t do the work. God’s love for us is not based on what we do or how we do it. God’s love for us is expressed through what God does for us. Redemption is an answer for the cry for help!
While all people and all countries need God’s presence, light, good gifts and perfect presents – I am especially aware now in my own life of the need that China has for God. How much does each of in this room today also have that need for God’s love?
All of creation is need of God’s redemptive love. ALL of creation is in need of God’s transforming work. Thank God that love IS work based. God’s work means that we are not left to our own devices!
Alleluia!
Amen!
Hello.
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