Where Is Your Mind Proper 21A

Where Is Your Mind?

“Close your eyes. Take a few, deep, cleansing breaths…. Where is your mind?” At the end of each class, this is what my first official Yoga instructor, Sallie Rich, would ask us. “Where is your mind?” Are we thinking ahead to the next item on our to-do list? Are we thinking about a return to a past which, because so much has changed, is literally impossible to resurrect? Where is your mind? And, perhaps as importantly, where is our mind?

 

Paul, writing to the Church in Philippi, urges us to, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” The “you” in the text of his letter, is plural. As Christians, we are those people who belong to one another in Christ Jesus. Paul urges us to work out our salvation together as a community of Christ. Following Christ is not primarily about being an individual in Christ. Rather, through baptism we are made the Body of Christ in this age, in this world, and it is God who will make us who we are to become in the age to come. [Philippians 2:1-13]

 

So it is that Paul urges us, together as the community of Christ, to: “be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. Where is your mind? Where is our mind?

 

To illustrate this, Paul offers one of the most ancient and beautiful hymns of the Church: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus:

who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God

as something to be grasped,

but emptied himself,

taking the form of a servant,

being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to the point of death--

even death on a cross.

 

Paul appeals to unity within the community. That unity cannot be achieved or maintained if individuals think only of their own interests or care only for their own pride. Unity requires

that all share a concern for the common good. Where is your mind?

 

Jesus is asked by some chief priests and elder where his authority comes from. Like every good rabbi, he asks them a question in return about John the Baptizer. [Matthew 21:23-32] “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” The chief priests and elders immediately identify the question as a trick. And they are correct. “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” So, they say, “We don’t know.” “Then neither will I tell you by what authority I do the things I do.” It’s as if he knows that they are incapable of experiencing the mind and will of God, which is the mind of Christ.

 

Then he tells a story about a father and two sons. The father asks his first son to come work in the vineyard with him, but the son says no. But later, he goes out to work with his father. He asks his second son to come work with him, and the boy say “Sure thing!” but does not go out to help. “Which one,” asks Jesus, “does the will of the father?” This one is a gimme. “The first,” they say! “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.” Sometimes it is utterly surprising when we discover who really gets it, and who does not. Where is your mind? Where is our mind?”

 

The Greek of the second son’s reply, “I go, sir,” is really, “I go, kyrie,” or, “I go, Lord.” Which no doubt recalls a saying of Jesus earlier in Matthew, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord [kyrie, kyrie],’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” This second son is to remind us of those who profess loyalty to Christ Jesus, but whose lives, whose actions, do not exhibit the kind of love, humility, selflessness, and concern for the needs of others more than for oneself that Paul lists as what it means to have “the mind of Christ;” we are to look not to our own interests, but to the interests and needs of others, so as to be of “one mind – the mind of Christ.” Where is your mind?

 

It would help us to read aloud each morning and evening these words of Psalm 25:1-8:

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; my God, I put my trust in you;

let me not be humiliated, nor let my enemies triumph over me.

Let none who look to you be put to shame; let the treacherous be disappointed

in their schemes.

Show me your ways, O Lord, and teach me your paths.

Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation;

in you have I trusted all the day long. Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love,

for they are from everlasting.

Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions; remember me according to your love and for the sake of your goodness, O Lord.

Gracious and upright is the Lord; therefore, he teaches sinners in his way.

He guides the humble in doing right and teaches his way to the lowly.

 

This is the mind of Christ. This is the reversal to which John calls us all. This is the repentance to which Jesus calls us every day. To turn back to the ways and the paths of God: the ways of compassion, humility, love, selflessness, to look out for the needs and interests of others, not our own – not to consider being made in the image of God as something to be grasped and exploited, but to empty ourselves; to take the form of a servant in Christ; to give selflessly, and to be of one mind; to be committed to the common good: to have the mind of Christ.

 

Close your eyes. Take a few, deep, cleansing breaths. Where is your mind?