Love: The Power to Change Your Mind

Zephyr United Methodist Church

Early First United Methodist Church

March 12, 2005

Rev. Eddie Smart

Philipians 2:1-11 (NRSV)

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, ²make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. ⁴Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. ⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

⁶who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God

as something to be exploited,

⁷but emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

⁸he humbled himself

and became obedient to the point of death--

even death on a cross.

⁹Therefore God also highly exalted him

and gave him the name

that is above every name,

¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

¹¹and every tongue should confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

Hear this parable written by the noted preacher Dr. Fred Craddock. One evening a farmer named John was heading for home, and he was running late. He tried to take a shortcut across an unfamiliar field. But he fell into an old, abandoned cistern, a deep, deep hole. He was a proud and strong man, so he said, "I can get out of here." John was kneedeep in mud and sand, however. He reached to the sides of the cistern, mossy green and slick and wet; but he had no leverage. He could not get out. Finally he swallowed his pride and cried out, "Help, help!"

A neighbor walking by heard his cry and looked down in there and said, "John, is that you? I can't believe you are down there! Look at you down there in that ugly hole-an embarrassment to your family, an embarrassment to yourself. You are a disgrace!" The neighbor really told him off. Then the neighbor went on into town and told everybody about it and how he had told John off. The neighbor said, "I've been wanting to say that for years!" It was quite a speech, but John was still in the hole. John continued to cry out for help-more desperately now.

Next, a couple of politicians came by and saw John's plight; and they were upset. They said, "This is awful! This should have been taken care of years ago!" So they went into town; got the city council together; passed a law; and then came out and put up a sign that read, "Twenty-five-dollar fine to fall in this hole." And it was a good law, they said-"It needed to be passed."

John was still in the hole, however. John cried out louder, "Help, help, help!" Some people driving by heard his cries. They looked down into the hole and said, "This is a disgrace to our community. We can't have this." So they notified the beautification committee, and they came out and planted some azaleas and dogwoods and yellow roses. It was beautiful, but John was still down in the hole.

Now, with raspy voice and almost no hope left, John called out, "Please, somebody.. . help me! Help!" Just about then a man came by, and he looked down there and saw John in this awful fix. He had compassion in him; and he said, "Let me help you. I can get you out. Here. . . take 'hold of my hand." And in that moment, the only thing important in John's world was that hand.

Do you know whose hand that was? Of course you know whose hand. It was the hand of one whose mind was the same as Christ’s mind. It was the hand of Christ because the one who helped had the mind of Christ.

During this Lenten season we will spend our time together on Sunday mornings exploring the idea of “Living with the Mind of Christ.” Our guide for this journey will be a Lenten study written by James Harnish. The passage I read this morning will be the central theme.

Paul writes to the Philippians, “be of the same mind...Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus...” Harnish points out in the Introduction to his study that the Greek word that is translated here as mind actually “describes a way of thinking that determines action.” We can call it a mind-set. Paul says we are to think as Jesus would think so that we will act as Jesus would act.

We don’t have to look at the Christian faith long to realize that we are not born thinking and acting like Jesus. The Christian faith is not about making minor adjustments, it is about radical transformation. It is about a radical transformation in our thinking that leads to a radical transformation in our living–the way we act.

What can bring about such a radical change in us? The Apostle Paul was convinced that love has the power to change our minds so that they are like the mind of Christ. He believed that “being of the same mind” means we also “have the same love.” Remember, when Paul speaks of a transforming love he is referring to none other that “the self-giving love of God revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Last Sunday, I was not here because I was participating in a Walk to Emmaus at Glen Lake Camp. On those Emmaus weekends, we talk a lot about “grace.” We talk about “grace” as the unmerited love of God that comes to us. We think about God’s grace abounding, flowing all over and around us. When we think of God’s grace we get a warm, fussy feeling, because God’s grace is so amazing as it cleanses us.

I was reading an article this week that came out of an interview with Bishop Will Willimon. He says there is no word more abused and misunderstood as that word “grace.” He explains that in Wesleyan thought, “grace” is “the power of God at work in us [leading us] to live a different life than the one we’ve got.” Wesley recognized our sinful ways, but also God’s power to do something about it. Grace is God’s work in us overcoming our sinful nature. It is the reconciling work of God in us that does not all ways feel so warm and fuzzy.

We are so much like that lawyer Jesus speaks of in Luke’s gospel. He asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus said you know, you tell me.

The young lawyer says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus said, “Right on, get after it.”

But then the lawyer wanting to justify himself the scripture says asked, “Who is my neighbor?” The lawyer I suspect was thinking, “I want you to tell me I am already loving my neighbor, I am OK as I am, I don’t need to change.”

How often do we think God is through with us? How often do we think that we are living a life that is plenty good? How often do we say, “But Jesus they don’t live in Early/Zephyr they aren’t my neighbor are they?” Is it really necessary to change? I like me the way I am.

You remember the story that followed. The man was robbed and beaten, left for dead. The priest and the Levite passed on the other side of the road. It was the Samaritan that stopped, rendered aid, carried the man to the motel spending the night caring for him and left giving the innkeeper money for continued care.

Which of these had the mind of Christ? Which one had the mind-set of Christ? Which one thought like Christ and therefore loved like Christ? Which one?

She's gone to heaven, now, but hear the story of an eighty-something-year-old woman who had been raised on the white side of the segregated South. All of the changes of the 1960s had never changed her mind. She was a deeply committed Christian who attempted to relate to people in the love of Christ, but her basic mind-set about race was still stuck somewhere in the 1950s. One fall she signed up to participate in a DISCIPLE Bible study class. When she came to the first session, she was surprised to find an African American woman seated across the table. Over the next thirty-four weeks, as they wrestled together with the Scripture, that woman's mind-set about African American people was radically changed. When the older woman died, the African American woman was one of the persons who spoke as a witness to her life in the memorial service. She expressed her gratitude for the friendship they had shared and smiled with joy about the change that had come in the mind-set of her friend.

As Harnish put it, “Love–the love of God in Christ–is like that it has the power to change our minds.”