After considerable thought, prayer and study, I felt led to talk about transformation. Now about anyone who has spent more than five minutes in a church has heard about transformation. Judging from the amount of transformation that is going on, we either don’t understand what that means, don’t want to be transformed or don’t know how. I decided to try the two on the ends. At some point, I concluded, folks have to at least have to be willing to be changed.
The dilemma, how to do this?
Here is where the inspired idea came. I decided to go to the toy section in Wal-Mart and get one of those toys that can be made into a robot or a car. Yes, they are called transformers. I understand there is a movie out with the same name. This would be prefect. Perfection is but an illusion, I soon discovered.
The afternoon before the service was one I had set apart to get my mind right, plan the sermon and practice on my awesome illustration. I planned on talking to the congregation as I turned the toy into a robot and then back to a car. Another contemporary illustration was the cash for clunkers. Get it! New Car, Transformation. Old clunker traded in? All of this while right in front of the congregation transformation was taking place. Brilliant.
I was sure I could do this. The package for the toy read ages 5 and up. They lied. After many attempts to figure out the instructions, which were all pictures, no words, since 5-year-old children cannot read, I passed it on to my wife June. After several minutes, she said, “Maybe there will be a child present who can put it together.” Visions of a half-assembled easy bake oven on Christmas Eve began to fill my mind. This is not going to be pretty. I suggest they change the instructions to read ages 5-15 and not 5 and up. I am up and we need words.
With my new plan in place I began looking for a young person as soon as I arrived. I asked a teenager. Nope, too old. Obviously he could read. However, later in the service he was not singing one of the hymns. Hummm!
Then I found someone willing to give it a try. I would not guess his age but he looked young. I gave him the instructions, such as they were, the toy and my blessings. I told him to hold up the toy when he had changed it from a car to a robot. Imagine my relief when from the back row a young arm that hoisted the robot.
I brought it before the congregation to show the robot. We were halfway there. I gave it back to my new sidekick and asked him to turn it back into a car. Maybe this would work out after all. Maybe not.
From my vantage point I could see the toy being passed to the adults. Now I am a back row kind of guy and I know not to trust the back row to follow instructions. Remember, I had already failed. However, my reservations turned to amazement when one of the adults held up the car. I went to retrieve it while talking about transformation. This was going to work out. I could see the car assembled. However as I got closer I saw she was holding something in her other hand as she said, “We broke it.” Interesting, since she not we was holding the broken part. One side of the car looked perfect, the other part looked broken.
Well. I must tell you, most, if not all, had a good laugh at the experience. I also think the illustration worked out better than I had planned. It would have been great if we could have gotten the transformation complete that night. We did not. The back row and every other row in the place left with some unfinished business.
I gave the toy to the boy with the reminder that the broken part could be put back and the transformation could continue. I am sure he has completed it by now. However, the rest of us are still works in progress. The broken pieces are being put back on as we are in the skilled hands of the One who can turn robots, like you and me, into new things of beauty. Maybe the illustration worked after all.
(Rob Rollins lives in Wadesboro)
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