"Resolve to Transform"
Matthew 1:18-25
Yonce Shelton, Westmoreland UCC
Dec. 21, 2025
In the Fall of 2024, when I was considering becoming your Transition Minister, the goal of “transforming” Westmoreland was mentioned. I found that to be a little daunting. I wasn’t sure that was part of this role. But I kept thinking about it. And I was reminded of a perspective on transformation that took me from being cautious, to being excited: Transformation is not something you can do. Transformation must be done to you.
You A+ students with good attendance may remember our focus on transformation. Remember also, from last week, that all life is transition. We are always in between in some way. The more we are aware of that, the more intentional we can be. The more meaningful life can be. The more we can participate in deep, significant ways. But transition is different than change. Transition is different than change. “Change is situational. Transition is psychological. Without a transition, change is just rearranging the furniture.” Transition happens only if you engage with change to understand how it affects your inner journey. Transition is not only psychological, but also spiritual and emotional. Transition and transformation go hand in hand.
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Last week, we talked about Mary being "deeply disturbed" when the angel of the Lord appeared and shared with her about her new role. We discussed how “disturbed” was probably an understatement. And we considered how God used others – namely John the Baptist, the wild man – to prepare us for miracle. These biblical characters help us to go deep with Advent. They help us embrace new language, new ways, and new experiences. That might just transform us.
We affirm the power of transformation by going beyond intellectual understanding. By wondering what new awareness the Advent has us this year; by welcoming emotional, psychological, and spiritual experience. We pay attention to those times when our knee jerk reaction is to say: “I can’t do that! It doesn’t make sense!” And we humbly ask if God wants more yes from us. Maybe God wants us to transition and transform more than we think.
NT Wright is a biblical scholar who reminds us that around this time in history people more easily accepted that heaven and earth were meant to overlap – that they were “made for each other.” In our modern world, many of us don’t really expect these worlds to interact. Is that because we don’t believe they do? Or because we know if it happens it might transform us radically? Could be scary.
I’ll be honest. I find ways – conscious and unconscious – to hide from God. I believe enough in the power of God to break through to me to avoid what that might lead to. I am not so sure I want to have my precious plans wrecked.
Wright uses the story of Paul’s conversion to claim that transformation required Paul to “rethink from the ground up everything he had ever believed in, from his own identity to his understanding of who God really was.” Paul was OK with transforming the world based on who he thought God was - but he couldn’t control who God really is. But before Paul was Joseph.
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In today’s reading, just as Joseph is ready to leave Mary, the angel of God appears to him in a dream and tells him not to be afraid of Mary, a virgin, giving birth to Jesus. “When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.”
By planning to leave Mary, Joseph was being practical and responsible and following social norms. He was trying to be “righteous” and protect Mary from “disgrace.” I find it interesting that after he “resolved” to divorce her is when the angel came to him. After Joseph makes this concrete decision grounded in conviction, then Joseph is transformed. Think about that.
Have you ever had a dream so strange that actually caused you to change your trajectory in a crazy, impulsive, irrational way? Ever acted in a way that confused your friends, made you a laughing stock, ostracized you, and changed your life forever? What does it take to say yes to something like that? Maybe some of you have done that. I’m not going to ask you to share now, but man oh man would I like to get coffee next week.
Regardless of what you think of dreams, take a few seconds to think of one that really challenged you – maybe the one that just popped into your mind is best. But I’ll give a few more seconds if you need to remember one.
Now, if it feels OK, close your eyes. Return to what happened in that dream. Try to remember how you felt in the dream - and when you woke up. If there was Even if your dreams don't make you consider major changes or affect you deeply, they can still be frequent gifts of self-awareness. It's widely accepted that about 99% of our dreams are not about the others who show up in them. Instead, people in our dreams represent and symbolize parts of ourselves and our personalities that want attention or need to be developed. They represent needs we have. Connections and exploration that can make us more whole. Dreams are where we talk to ourselves in ways we don’t know how to in our waking lives; where our unconscious invites us to deeper awareness of self. God may never ask you to change the course of humankind with a dream, but you can still foster deep, personal growth by honoring them.
But, I’m a spiritual type of person, so back to God. Morton Kelsey was an Episcopal priest who focused on dream work. He believed that God is more anxious to communicate with us than we are to listen, and that dreams can allow God to break through. Whether regarded as prophetic dreams (in which the Divine is communicating with us) or precognitive dreams (those that predict the future), one study claims that between 17 and 38% of people have had at least one precognitive or premonition dream. Even without these types of dreams, or if they go unrecognized, if we respect our dreams and see them as ways to grow, that might just further God’s plan for us to mature.
What is “real” and what is an invitation from God to transform based on God’s ways and not ours? What does it take for us to let go of petty operating procedures when God is in our faces inviting us to go deep? I believe all of us have glimpses of such opportunities. The trick is to be aware, open, and curious. And not to compare to others. That doesn’t always happen in our cerebral, schedule driven, goal oriented lives. At times we must be irrational.
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Over a decade ago, I was having a recurring dream about fish. An especially powerful dream contained a fish and a number. Recurring dreams mean really pay attention, and concrete things like numbers are gifts. I worked with the dream and the number. I tried to figure out how the number applied to my life. I had some ideas but wasn’t sure. Within a few months, I was on a silent retreat in a familiar place where I often spent hours sitting beside a creek.
On the first day of this retreat, as I assumed my same spot at the creek as years past, I saw a fish that was unusually big. It was different from all the others. When I returned to that spot over the next several days, the fish would be there.
At one point, I decided to see how long the fish was. I noted where its front tip and back tail rested in front of a stick. Then I got a measuring tape. Guess how long it was? Yep, same number as in my dream.
Just before I departed my retreat, I chatted with my friend whose property I had been on. I asked him how long that fish had been coming around. He said it showed up when I did; that he hadn’t seen it or any like it before I arrived. Over the following years I asked him if fish with that likeness were in the creek. Never again was one spotted.
Sometimes things happen to us and then we dream about them. That makes sense and may lack any deep invitation. This order was different. While I might have known some about what God wanted me to, I still work with that fish and that number. Not all dreams are instantly clear. Or maybe I’m not as trusting and open as Joseph.
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Resolve. Resolve can be good. Joseph’s resolve to respect Mary was admirable. But, sometimes God challenges our plans. God may reach you in ways that make you laugh, cry, run in fear, or realize all you can do is surrender. Transformation happens to us. We can’t do it. But we can adopt a posture of expectation. Can you be aware in new ways so that you recognize God? Hopefully. Will you be ready? I hope not. I hope not. Will you partner with God and others to transform, as Joseph did with Mary? You never know. It could happen to you.
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I initially questioned the role of transformation in this year of transition at Westmoreland. But church isn’t church – and relationship with God isn’t its best – if we aren’t always open to transformation. We can’t limit our expectations. And surely it's not for me to say when transformation will happen or not.
Transformation is not something you can do. Transformation must be done to you. May Advent – this season of transition for the Church Universal – be more than a countdown to what we know is coming. May it be, for you, an openness to that about which you have no clue. An openness to being shocked by God’s desire to reach and empower you.
Amen – and sweet dreams.
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