Where Is Your Mind?

“Where is your mind?” she would say as we lay on our backs on our yoga mats at the end of an hour session of yoga. Sally Rich would repeat the question every few minutes as we were silent, still, and focusing on what we had learned about ourselves and life through our bodies. How often I hear her voice repeating over and over again, “Where is your mind?”

There is so much competition for our minds. We live in a narcissistic environment in which everyone, every product, every politician, every news service, every entertainment option, compete for our minds every minute of the day. Estimates are that we see 300 to 3,000 commercial messages a day besides all the other stuff. We allow ourselves to be walking billboards with every item of logoed clothing we wear so people can see that my shorts are made by Lee, my sandals are Teva’s, my shirt is Ralph Lauren, and the list goes on and on and on.

We ought to be thankful that while he was in prison in Rome the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus, a community of early Christians with whom he had spent time. “I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” [Ephesians 4:1] Paul gives us an awful lot to think about. Where is your mind, he seems to say? On your calling?

One can imagine a modern-day Nathan the prophet, who confronted King David on his adultery with Bathsheba and arranging for her husband to be killed in battle, addressing the modern-day Church, the Body of Christ in all its multitude of divisions into denominations, non-denominations and every imaginable variation in practice, let alone non-practice of the very things Jesus orders us to do, like, say, love our enemies. Nathan might as well say to us, as he did to David, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.” [2 Samuel 12:1-4]

Let us suppose Jesus, who had no place to lay his head as home, who had little to sustain himself and his companions and depended on the generosity of others, is the poor man in this story, and the solitary ewe lamb is his Body, the Church, sometimes called “the bride of Christ,” and that ewe lamb has been snatched up, slaughtered, divided into pieces and scattered to the far ends of the earth with each part in violent disagreement with the next part through centuries of argument and even warfare against one another. Who among us would not agree with David’s response, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” To which Nathan replies, “You are the man!” Most likely among the most important four words in all of scripture. They are meant for us. We are the man! Have we read, marked and inwardly digested Paul’s word to the Ephesians? Where is our humility? Where is our unity? Where is our patience with one another? Have we made every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace? Not some efforts, not a lot of efforts, but every effort? Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called. Don’t act like David! Or else, you too are the man!

Where is your mind, she says? What efforts are we making? “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and untried. Even watered down, Christianity is still hot enough to boil the modern world to rags.”  [GK Chesterton]

Then there is Jesus in the sixth chapter of John. After feeding 5,000 people, off he and the boys row across to the other side to get some peace and quiet. But still the crowds chase after him and badger him with questions, because, we are told, they want to “take him by force and make him king.” [John 6:15] Jesus, of course knows the history of his people and knows that kings are not what they need and not what God wants for them. Just ask David as Nathan confronts him.

When did you get here, they say? What must we do? What sign will you give? What work will you perform? What work must we do? They talk about bread. They talk about the manna in the wilderness. Manna, which literally means, “what is it?” Jesus talks about them needing to “be faithful into the one whom God sent,” not the bread. That that is him is obvious to us. The literal sense of the text means to “be faithful into him,” which is different from the translation, “believe in him.” The Bible is not interested in belief, it is interested in faithfulness to God and God’s ways. And Jesus seems to say, to live in God’s ways we need to “live into” him. That he is the bread. “For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”  Not just the church, but the world. They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

The sense of it seems to be that he is doing what he does and saying what he says all as a way of asking, “Where is your mind?” Is it on bread? Is it on spectacular miraculous feats? Do you want some kind of party tricks?  Where is our mind? To which Jesus says forget about the bread; forget about the 5,000; forget about kings; forget about Rome; forget about Herod; just focus on me; I am the manna; I am the bread. Be faithful into me. Lead a life worthy of your calling.

According to Richard Swanson in his book, Provoking the Gospel of John (p 225), when the rabbis “burrow into the significance and implications of the bread that was given to faithful Israel in the wilderness, they note that the manna is described as having many flavors: it tastes like honey, it tastes like bread, it tastes like cakes baked with oil. The rabbis argue that these different tastes are possible because the bread is miraculous bread, created by God in the heavens to meet the particular needs of anyone who eats it…in keeping with each [person’s] particular need – to young men it tasted like bread, to the elderly it tasted like wafers made with honey, to sucklings it tasted like milk from their mother’s breast, to the sick it tasted like flour mingled with honey…From the crowd’s reaction to the miraculous feeding in John’s story, it would appear that they found the sustenance suited to their own needs in the bread Jesus gave them, which makes them to be Israel (he who struggles with God) in the wilderness, fed by God upon whom they rely.” I am the bread. Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

“Where is your mind,” she says to me over and over again when I find myself distracted by all the other competing voices trying to drown out the knowledge that this bread is given; this bread is eternal; and this bread gives life to the world. Something all other voices and bread cannnot do. We must live into this bread if we are to bear one another with humility, gentleness, and maintain a unity of Spirit in a bond of peace and shalom – justice and peace for all persons. Sir, give us this bread always! It is ours for the taking. If only we might stop listening to the cacophony around us, be still, and listen to the one voice that asks, “Where is your mind?”