God seeks out our whole self

Reflection at Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 8th Juky 2025

In that reading (Romans 12:1-8), St Paul appeals to brothers and sisters in Christ to offer their whole selves to God. The old Greek word translated here as ‘appeal’ – ‘parakalo’ – is still used in modern Greek to mean ‘I beg you’, or simply ‘please’, as those of us who have enjoyed holidays in Greece will know.

Paul is speaking directly to those in Rome in his time, but also I believe to Christ’s disciples in our time, and in all times. His appeal to them - and to us - is twofold:

1.     ‘Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God’. Most people today cringe at that word sacrifice, I think. It reeks of the blood and guts of animal sacrifice, which we rightly reject as barbarous, though in Paul’s day it was just a normal part of life. Don’t let the word sacrifice put you off, because Paul makes clear that what he is talking is a spiritual sacrifice. It is worshipping God, the source of our being who gives us life, which is just what we are doing today.

2.     ‘Be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good acceptable and perfect’. It is our whole self that God wants of us, both body and mind. Being holy, turning up to church and worshiping God, is not enough. We must also do our very best to understand what God’s will is for us, and act on it, in order to be acceptable to God.

It is when our whole self, body and mind, is accepted by God our loving father, that we will truly flourish as his beloved children.

Paul then goes on to warn his readers, and you and me, against individual pride. We must not think too highly of ourselves - none of us is any better than any other. Paul uses the metaphor of the human body, as he often does.

Just as a human body is made up of different organs, with different functions, ‘so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another’. We are not all the same, we are individuals. God has graced us with different gifts, and God needs each of our gifts if Christ’s body, those of all traditions who confess his name, is to function as it should. Paul gives several examples of things needed by Christ’s body: prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, compassion. And there are so many more, aren’t there, from cleaning and flower arranging, through music and art, to buildings maintenance and financial management. All these tasks need specific gifts, not all given to any single person, but distributed among us.

Discernment is the word we use for perceiving God’s will. Discernment is a corporate, not a private thing, because God has made us to be social beings. When we seek to discern what God’s will is for ourself as an individual, it is not just about any sense of calling we might feel personally. We need to recognise and respect the gifts of other people, as well as our own. And we need the God-given wisdom of others around us to understand the nature of God’s call to us as individuals.