You, Ella Fitzgerald, St. Paul, and Me

Classic lines from an old Ella Fitzgerald song —

You like potato and I like potahto
You like tomato and I like tomahto
Potato, potahto, Tomato, tomahto.
Let’s call the whole thing off

Had a conversation with someone from a different Christian tradition who spoke of what God does in our hearts, minds and lives as “regeneration.”

My tribe’s heritage uses the word “sanctification.”   We understand it as the process of God filling Christians with the Holy Spirit and transforming us.  We also call that “growing in God’s grace.”

Call it “regeneration” or call it “sanctification,” it’s still God at work in us in the midst of everything.  And no matter what “everything” looks like in our lives, God is still at work, changing us in and through it all.

Our old friend St. Paul wrote about a lifelong process of God making us more and more like Christ.  Romans 8:28, 29 says,  We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him…to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.  (Yes, I know I left out a favorite Third Rail of many, namely predestination vs. free will; that’s not the topic here.)

Having had the opportunity to study at Baptist, Roman Catholic, and Presbyterian seminaries, and having had a German Lutheran professor at my United Methodist seminary, it increasingly seems to me that we have so much more in common than we have differences.

More about this tomorrow, but for now, let’s listen again to Ella.  The last verse of that song included these two lines —