When I was in kindergarten one day, I had a bright idea.
We were coloring in apples, four to a sheet.
We were going to cut them out and mount them on a paper apple tree on the wall
So I thought to myself, why fuss with coloring inside the lines?
I can do this a lot faster if I just color the whole paper red.
The other kids at my table saw what I was doing, thought it was a good idea, and did it, too.
But then Mrs. H, the teacher, came over and looked at my paper.
She did not see an ingenious solution to a problem; she saw a mess.
“Take that to the trash can, and start again!” she said.
“And this time, stay inside the lines!”
Stay inside the lines.
It is a message we have all received at one time or another.
Follow the rules, keep your head down, do the tried and true.
Above all, don’t make trouble.
But this is not the advice that St. Paul gives in our second lesson for today.
“By the mercies of God, I appeal to you,
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
He goes on to give examples about living in a counter cultural way:
looking honestly at yourself, instead of promoting yourself
using your gifts, not for your own gain, but to build up others.
If you read on in the passage, you’ll see that Paul also expects that Christians to do other unexpected things:
to make peace with others, rather than protecting your territory
to care for the poor rather than looking the other way,
to welcome the stranger instead of being wary of them.
Don’t be conformed to the world’s habits, St Paul says—
Color outside the lines, and it will transform you.
St Paul was indeed a person who lived outside the lines.
He was raised as a Pharisee—a sect of Judaism which focused on living out the law.
517 laws of scripture governed everything from when to wash your hands
to how to treat mold in your home to who you could eat with-- Paul was taught to keep them all.
But when he became a Christian he began to see how God’s good law could be twisted
into slavish rule-following rather than loving devotion.
And so Paul stepped outside the lines and began to preach to non-Jews
and told them they didn’t have to keep the law in order to become Christians.
It caused a lot of conflict, but the Spirit’s work in Paul and others like him
transformed the church from a Jewish faith to a universal one.
The truth is, sometimes you have to outside the accepted boundaries
Because the established boundaries are wrong.
Martin Luther is an example of this:
Upon realizing the foundation of medieval theology was based on the notion
That you could buy your way into heaven through the sale of indulgences,
He went outside the lines and returned to scripture,
proclaiming salvation by grace alone, through faith.
The civil rights movement in our country is another example-
Luminaries like Martin Luther King and Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis
Stirred up what Lewis called “good trouble,” and went outside the lines
To challenge laws the kept Black people from voting, public amenities, and equal opportunity.
In each of these cases, new possibilities were created because people were willing to explore
The in-between spaces
in-between what was commonly accepted as right and wrong
to look closely at the effects of current practice and policy
and listen to the lived experience of neighbors.
But let’s be fair: Coloring inside the lines has its place.
As an adult, I can identify with Mrs. H –
She had 25 kids in the classroom, and was probably trying to help us work on our fine motor skills.
Instead of following the lesson plan, I caused a whole table of kids to miss the goal of the lesson
And finish a full 10 minutes ahead of schedule.
Not helpful.
But if Mrs. H just asked me why I did it, I am convinced she would have acted differently.
I wasn’t trying to cause trouble, I just saw the lesson had wider possibilities.
Similarly, St Paul didn’t say ‘be not conformed to this world,’ to be an iconoclast
He wasn’t encouraging anarchy or the wholesale abandonment of the civil order.
He was telling the Christians in Rome to measure their actions by God’s standards, not the world’s.
He was telling them that, like Jesus, there would be things they have to stand up for.
Things that other people won’t like, will misjudge, and will call you out for.
If you do good to your enemies like St Paul writes later in this chapter,
People will criticize you for it.
But it is how Jesus lives his life, and that is our measure
Not what our next-door neighbors are doing
Or even what laws are on the books.
We live in challenging times, where loud voices claim to right and the other side wrong.
It seems there is little middle ground these days, and little understanding.
It is therefore incumbent upon us as people of faith to remind ourselves where our ethics come from:
They come from Jesus and his life.
They come from the knowledge that we all stand in need of forgiveness and grace.
They come from the belief that no matter the death dealing forces in the world,
That God intends life, and nothing will stop that resurrection power.
I invite you to let St Paul’s words today inspire you to think about how you are coloring.
What lines have you been staying inside of?
Are there lines that are unjust? That keep people out? That punish rather than help?
Maybe those boundaries need to be crossed.
Take to heart St Paul’s words, as if they were written for you:
“I appeal to you, by the mercies of God,
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Be willing to color outside the lines
And let the Holy Spirit shape the outcome.
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