Not unreasonable

Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable worship.

Nandor Glid was a Holocaust survivor. Most of his family was murdered at Auschwitz. After the war, he created a number of monuments memorializing Holocaust victims, including this memorial at the Dachau concentration camp.

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Romans 12.1

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable worship.

The issue is, what does “reasonable” mean? The NRSV has it’s preferred reading as “spiritual”. I don’t like that. “Spiritual”, in today’s church, allows people too much leeway. The verse comes right after Paul’s very blunt narrative on the fall of Israel, softened by his confidence that while these things are difficult to understand, and while God’s ways are inscrutable, he is always just and generous and wise in his dealings with us.

So when Paul says “therefore” his next statement must have something to do with the gloomy picture he has just left us with: Israel has lost its place as “the” people of God. The Church has been grated in as the new people of God... provided that we do not make the same mistakes, otherwise we too will be cut off. Therefore, Paul’s “therefore” has everything to do with how we avoid Israel’s fate and nothing to do with modern-day “spiritual” worship: thousands of raised arms and closed eyes in a sports-stadium-like arena with an orchestra setting the atmosphere and an immaculately dressed “worship leader” up front swaying to the music with closed eyes and upraised arms, and not one person in the whole of this considering that when Paul said, “this is your spiritual worship”, right after that he said “do not be conformed to this world”. If our megachurches are not an example of being “conformed to this world”, then nothing is.

Back to the point.

Dunn explains “reasonable” as the worship that is proper for “man the creature”. I like that. It fits well with Paul’s preceding statements (do not claim to be wiser than you are; O the depth of the riches and wis­dom and knowledge of God!; present your bodies as a living sacrifice) and carries us into what comes after (do not think of your­self more highly than you ought; make no pro­vision for the flesh, to gratify its de­sires). In this sense then, “spiritual” refers to the proper response of the creature to the Creator. Good. And the translation of “reasonable” would fit the same meaning as well: it is reasonable for the people of God to act like the people of God. It is reasonable for the followers of Christ to sacrifice their lives to God just as he did. It is not reasonable for them to not sacrifice their lives as he did. And that is the stunning part of this in Paul’s words: that Israel, after receiving all these benefits (to them belong the adoption, the glory, the cove­nants, the giving of the law, the wor­ship, and the prom­ises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, accord­ing to the flesh, comes the Christ, who is over all, God blessed for­ever) to respond with ingratitude, to not consider their benefits as requiring an appropriate response, and to instead be a disobedient and contrary people.

And so Paul tells us to not be like this. It is not reasonable to belittle the gifts of God. It is not reasonable to not take up our cross. It is not reasonable to take the grace of God and do nothing with it except to move our mouths in worship.

Safe, clean, easy, choreographed worship is not reasonable. Elevated, practiced, elegant prayers are not spiritual. Thousands of people swaying to the music inside a building costing enough to house and feed 100 orphaned children for 10 years isn’t reasonable. A worship leader standing up front in a suit that would put a roof on a house of a poor family isn’t reasonable. Given the fact that they are there to worship a Lord who told us to not do such things, it’s downright unreasonable.

And so that is my interpretation of Paul’s word here. Whatever “reasonable” or “spiritual” might mean, it cannot mean “unreasonable”. In our Christian walk, in our worship, whatever we think “reasonable” or “spiritual” might mean “unreasonable”. It cannot be anything that the One we worship told us not to do.

A Christian who does not follow Christ is unreasonable. A person who has received grace and then does not act with generosity is unreasonable. A person who has received eternal life and then lives in the world is unreasonable. A person who knows his place in relation to the God of the universe and then acts as anything but the lowliest of servants is unreasonable. A person who claims to live by faith and then pads his fears with insurance and pensions and savings is not reasonable.

It’s understandable, but it’s not reasonable.

At the very minimum, Paul is saying that you cannot look at his life and say there is anything unique or unusual about it, or that his existence is appropriate for an apostle but not for everyone. Paul’s life is completely reasonable. It is, in fact, the example of reasonableness. Given all that he knew and all that he was given, the only reasonable response was to do as he did.

What is unreasonable is knowing all these things and then not doing it.