Romans 12:1-3: Transformation
June 30, 2019 (edited 2023)
Joanna Harader

This is one of my long-time favorite passages of scripture—actually the scripture I chose to be read at my ordination: “ Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds . . .”

For those of us with a more intellectual or academic bent, it’s easy to read this verse to mean that we should educate ourselves. We should give our minds new information so that we can be transformed . . .

But study after study and reality after reality show us that more information does not necessarily lead to changed or renewed minds. Last weekend a few of us watched the mini-series “When They See Us.” It tells the true story of five young men of color accused of a brutal attack on a woman in Central Park back in the 1980’s. People within the police department became convinced that these five boys participated in the assault—or at least they were convinced that the boys presented a good opportunity to lay blame and close the case—so they used harsh and illegal interrogation tactics to get confessions from them. The boys were convicted despite the fact that their “confessions” were obtained under duress and that there was absolutely no physical evidence to support the accusations.

Years later, a different man—a serial rapist active at the time of the Central Park attack—admitted to the crime. DNA evidence from the scene confirmed his involvement. He insisted that he had done the crime alone—as he had done with his other crimes. Years after that, the boys—now men—who had been falsely accused won a multi-million dollar settlement because of the unjust way they had been treated throughout the process.

Yet still, despite all of this information, the police officers originally involved with the case continue to insist on their own innocence and on the guilt of the five boys.

Mere information alone will not renew our minds. We have to have hearts that are open. And I don’t mean that in a sweet, touchy-feely way. I mean that we actually need to have our hearts open to other people—to the belovedness of the people around us. An intense focus on our own self-interest, a deep concern with our own reputation—even an over-investment in our own self-identity—can close our hearts and thus keep our minds un-renewed. No matter how much information we have.

I love the show “Queer Eye”—where five gay men swoop into someone’s life and “transform” it. The guys improve the person’s living space, wardrobe, grooming, and cooking skills. But interestingly, there is also a focus on people’s personal issues and struggles. They talk about past hurts, process harmful attitudes, look at issues of self-esteem. Doing all the inner work needed to make the outer changes stick . . . hopefully. It’s not an overtly religious show—though it contains some really great theological discussions. Still, there is a focus not just on people’s bodies, but on their spirits. An understanding that transformation is not just something we do by adjusting our external realities, but something that happens within us.

What a show like that—and pretty much every self-help book and self-enhancement app out there—doesn’t generally acknowledge is that transformation is, ultimately, not our work to do. Paul doesn’t tell the Roman Christians to transform themselves by renewing their minds. He writes that they should “be transformed by the renewing of [their] minds.” We can place ourselves in a position where the transformation is more likely—more possible. We can come to worship and try to follow Jesus and practice peace and open our hearts . . . But we cannot transform ourselves.
Transformation is the work of the Holy Spirit. This is at once both comforting and terrifying. Comforting because it relieves the pressure we might feel to MAKE ourselves better people out of sheer force of will, by following a carefully appointed 48-step plan.

Terrifying because it means that we aren’t ultimately in control. We might be transformed in ways we wouldn’t choose—ways that are uncomfortable, that disrupt our lives.

This is the kind of transformation Martin Luther King talks about in his sermon on this passage from Romans. King says that, as Christians, we are called to be “transformed nonconformists.” This ethic of non-conformity is one of the major factors that drew me to the Mennonite church. While I make no claims of Mennonite perfection in this (or any other) area, at its best, Anabaptist theology encourages faithful nonconformity with the forces of empire in the world: we seek to live “more with less;” to counter oppression with beloved community; to respond to violence with love and peace.

As we consider the transformation God calls us to, we should take note that Paul was writing to the church in Rome. You’ll see different translations of verse 1, but what the Greek suggests is for the church members (plural) to be transformed by the renewing of their mind (singular).

As much as I do love “Queer Eye,” Paul is not proposing a “Queer Spirit” show where the Holy Spirit swoops in and changes individual lives for the better. I mean, that does happen—thanks be to God. But what Paul is talking about is the transformation of the church. It is our collective transformation that will allow us to “discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

In King’s sermon he said:

“The church has too often been an institution serving to crystalize and conserve the patterns of the crowd. The mere fact that slavery, segregation, war, and economic exploitation have been sanctioned by the church is a fit testimony to the fact that the church has too often conformed to the authority of the world rather than conforming to the authority of God.”

We could come up with our own list of worldly activities to which the church should not—but too often does–conform: supporting the prison-industrial complex, separating families at the border and detaining children in horrible conditions, an economic system that relegates some people to poverty while allowing others obscene amounts of wealth, any manifestation of racism or patriarchy or homophobia . . . I mean, that’s my modest list.

Overwhelming, to be sure. Overwhelming unless we truly believe in the power of the Spirit to transform. Unless we hear this call to transformed non-conformity as something we experience together, as Christian siblings open to the movement of the Holy Spirit.