Transformation — Kissed or Flung at the Wall

Stephanie Crumley-Effinger
ESR Baccalaureate — May 5, 2006

We who gather here tonight are part of the great cloud of witnesses in the faith of which the New Testament book of Hebrews tells. Thus as I stand before you I represent many other people. As Isaac Newton said, I am "standing on the shoulders of giants." I want to name as one important pair of such shoulders those of my Grandma F., Stephanie Freivogel, with whom I kept watch two weeks ago as she passed from this world to the next.

One doesn't want to take this giant image too literally—any of you who met Grandma, like Andrea who was an intern at Grandma's retirement community, are probably having to suppress a snicker at the idea of her small shoulders being described as "giant," or bearing the weight of her much physically larger granddaughter! But Grandma F., who became a Quaker in the 1930's, and saved up to enable my mother to attend Earlham College in the 1950's, used to note with a great sense of satisfaction when I would talk about my work in campus ministry or here at ESR, "I got you into all this!" So she is very much part of the great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us all, and, as she lives on in me, more especially a witness who affects the students in my classes, so it feels only fitting to name Stephanie Freivogel explicitly as I speak tonight.

In the passage that Andrea read a few minutes ago, the apostle Paul affirmed to the congregation at Philippi his gratitude for them. He went on to say, "I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ." And I will add to this part of the next verse, "It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart and I hold you in my heart, for all of you share in God's grace with me . . ."

One of the best, and most difficult, aspects of working in education is graduation—both its incremental approach throughout spring semester and the actual "day of." I traditionally spend the last weeks of the semester, and especially the days leading up to commencement, having moments of fighting back tears—or giving in to them. Except for the years when I engage in denial that these gifted, blessed students with whom we have journeyed for three or four years—or perhaps six or seven—are finished with their studies here and are moving out from our life together in seminary to places and forms of ministry some of which are known and some yet to be discovered. To be a teacher, administrator, or support staff member at ESR is, as the apostle Paul said, to "hold you in our heart and be held in your hearts," and this weekend is the occasion when the joy and the pain of doing so are more fully realized than at any other time.

The seniors planning this service asked me to reflect on the former ESR motto, "invitation to transformation." As a seminary, this means transformation for leadership in the nurture of truth and faith and service. One of the things I have been reminded of is the bumper sticker that reads "You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince." Likely written by a woman who had one too many loser dates, this refers back to the fairy tale of a princess who kissed a frog, breaking its enchantment and turning it back into the proverbial handsome prince. A kiss leading to transformation —a sort of gentle, peace church kind of story. However, that is the popularized version; the earlier form of the narrative, like many fairy tales, is more complex and shaded with meaning—not a gentle peace church kind of story! In this version, the frog, whom the princess in a weak moment had promised to marry, was asserting his right to eat with her at the dinner table and sleep next to her on the pillow, and threatening to tell her father the king if she did not keep the bargain. The princess lost her temper, and, picking up the frog, flung him into the wall. At this point the spell was broken and he was transformed into the handsome prince. Transformation didn't come easily to the frog, nor does it come easily to those who seek to be faithful followers of the Living God.

Each of the thirteen of you who are graduating has probably hit a wall at some point or other in your years at ESR, and can likely identify with that frog. Some of those collisions have been transformational, while others have just plain hurt. The process of transformation is not for the faint-hearted—it can cause pain and disorientation, leaving you shaking your head, nursing your wounds, and reaching for the ibuprofen.

But, difficulties notwithstanding, transformation is foundational to the prophet's words of God promise in Isaiah that were read earlier: "I will do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" a new thing as God had done for the Hebrew people in the Exodus. Transformation is at the heart of the gospel narratives, wherein Jesus changed the lives of the people he met. Some of this Jesus did through acts of immediate healing and some incrementally over a long period of time,—like Peter, who kept making mistakes and to whom Jesus offered both confrontation for his fallibility and affirmation for his potential. Writing in the days of the early church, the apostle Paul in Romans 12:2 challenged Christians to be available for the transforming work of God. He wrote, "Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect."

Paul himself had a transforming experience, of the "thrown against the wall" kind, when his life was radically changed through an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. Writing later to the church in Rome, Paul recognized that many people do not have such dramatic experiences and need to make themselves available for God's more incremental transforming work. The context for Paul's words was his celebration in Romans chapter 11of God's mercy and beyondness, as Paul wrote in verse 33: "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are God's judgments and how inscrutable are God's ways!"

Early Quakers wrote of the processes of transformation—becoming convinced of the truth, converted in their hearts, and drawn more fully into faithful living, as in Isaac Pennington's words in the bulletin—"wait for and daily follow the sensible leadings of the measure of life, which God hath placed in you . . .that it may run into you and fill you."

Such transformation is not a negation of everything about one, but more of a refining of one into the potential that God sees, like the sculptor who carves out of the block of marble the statue of the elephant that the artist sees hidden within it.

As you continue in ministry, and find new ways in which you are called to live and serve, be faithful to make yourselves available for Christ's ongoing transforming and renewing work in your lives. Sometimes this may come as a kiss, sometimes it may come through a collision with a wall. And at times you may need to fling against the wall something, such as a diminished view of God, or of yourself or another person, so that the real one can emerge.

There are a lot of other issues that I would like to explore about transformation, but I have been asked to keep this message short. So to begin closing, I would like first to note my gratitude for the privilege of working with each of you. It has been a great and lively journey, and I look forward to our relating as colleagues in ministry in the years to come. And second, I offer some of the questions that you in the graduating class have voiced or indicated as being part of God's ongoing transforming work in you:

How might I integrate writing, research and Spirit-centered advocacy for social justice? Can my various gifts and sense of calling be integrated with work in pastoral ministry or must they be relegated to other parts of my life? How do I stay spiritually centered while ministering to the multidimensional needs of people who are on the margins of society due to mental and physical illness, ageism and dementia, poverty and addiction? What will it mean for me to make my heart and my ministry as a writer available to address deep places of brokenness in American culture? How might my calling to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ in East Africa take into account the ways that AIDS is ravaging these nations? How do I stay true to the complexity of ethical and spiritual issues while responding to the developmental differences among teens in a youth group? Will there be support for my calling to nurture the voices of others into speech or written words?

As we enter into the time of open worship, I leave you with Paul's words of blessing from Philippians, "I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion . . . And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you . . . produce the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the praise and glory of God. "

* Isaac Newton—"If I had seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants," letter, 1676; cf. Robert Burton (before 1640, explorer?)—"A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than the giant himself."