It’s All in Your Mind

Philippians 2:5-11

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 exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, 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. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11 NRSV)

You have heard the expression: “It’s all in your head” or “It’s all in your mind.” Well it turns out that it is true. Not entirely true for all things. For example, a few weeks ago I went to my primary care physician complaining of daily headaches that have been going on for weeks – on the right side of my head. After examining me she did not find any physical cause, so she suggested it was likely due to stress. She told me to take a vacation. In other words, she was saying, “It’s all in your head.” Well it turned out that a couple of weeks later that the culprit was revealed. I had a molar that was cracked apparently, and the nerve was dying, but couldn’t identify it as the source of the pain. Eventually the tooth broke right in two. Then I knew exactly where the pain was coming from! The oral surgeon explained that the nerves on the side of the face transfer pain right up the head and that would account for the pain I had been having. A course of antibiotics, pain medication and a tooth extraction took care of it. Even though the pain really was all in my head, it was not all in my mind. But I am still taking the vacation after Easter!

When it comes to spirituality it is all in your mind. I am not saying that God is all in your head, or that God is just a mental hallucination or anything like that. Atheists joke that God is a Christian’s imaginary Friend. I am not saying that. But I am saying that the spiritual life involves a transformation of the mind. The apostle Paul says in our passage: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” The NRSV puts it “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” You could say he is talking about a mind transplant. Not a brain transplant, but a mind transplant. We are to have the mind of Christ Jesus in us.

Jesus had the mind of God. As Christians we say that Jesus was God incarnate, that he was the Son of God. That he knew the mind of God, as well as a human being could! It doesn’t mean that Jesus was omniscient – that he knew everything. His human brain had limitations. The scriptures clearly tell us that Jesus learned things and he grew in knowledge. Jesus admitted that God knew things he did not know. Concerning the end of the world he said, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” But still we say that he had the mind of God.

We are to have the mind of Christ. In fact the scriptures say that we already do have the mind of Christ. The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:16 “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.” Therefore it is accurate to say biblically that in some we already have the mind of Christ. When we read the context of that verse it is clear that Paul is talking about the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. The Holy Spirit is God, and the Holy Spirit is in us. That means that God is in us. The Holy Spirit is called elsewhere the Spirit of Christ. Therefore we can say that Christ is in us. And therefore we have the mind of Christ in us. This means that we have this tremendous spiritual resource in hand.

I heard a story from a couple of years ago about the Iowa state lottery. It turns out that somebody bought the winning ticket worth over $16 million dollars but never came forward to claim it. And as far as I know never has, and I suspect the time for claiming the prize has past. Some person unknowingly was a multi-millionaire. He or she had the winning ticket sitting on a dresser or in a desk drawer or a pocket or purse and didn’t know it. Probably they even threw it out thinking it was worthless, not knowing it was a valuable treasure. That is us spiritually speaking in regard to the living Christ within. We have the solution to all of our spiritual and emotional needs and questions and problems – within us and we don’t know it. We have the mind of Christ. The key to unlocking this treasure within is to “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”  It is a matter of allowing the mind of Christ to inform our minds.

What is this mind of Christ? Our passage tells us that it is a Mind of Humility. Verses 5-6 “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 exploited…” The NIV puts it this way: “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage…” It says in verse 8 that “he humbled himself.” To say and believe that we have the mind of Christ does not mean parading some type of spiritual superiority. That is what the Pharisees did. They thought they were spiritually or religiously superior. Some Christians have been known to feel, believe and act superior to others. That is not the mind of Christ; that is spiritual arrogance and self-righteousness and has nothing to do with Christ. The mind of Christ is a humble mind.

It says in the next verse that Christ “but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” Jesus was a servant. On Maundy Thursday Jesus went around the table at the Last Supper washing his disciples feet as if he were the lowest of household slaves. Then that scene says, “So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”

Jesus said elsewhere, “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.”  He said, “But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” When we are exhorted to have the mind of Christ, we are being urged to humbly serve. The Mind of Christ is a mind of Humility.

Paul says this means to empty oneself. Verse 7 is the most powerful verse in this entire passage in my opinion. It says that Jesus “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself….” We are to have this Christ-like mind that is willing to empty itself. It doesn’t mean we are to have empty minds. It is not about being brainwashed or willing to believe any nonsense some preacher or spiritual teacher says. It means that we are to empty ourselves of ourselves in order to be filled with the fullness of God.   We cannot receive anything from God as long as we are full of ourselves.

We are our own worse problem. We would be perfectly fine, content, happy and at peace, if it weren’t for ourselves. As the saying goes, we are out own worst enemies. We are the problem. We think the problems we face in life are out there somewhere in the outside world and we need to fix them. Other people are the problem. Our failing bodies are the problem. Money is the problem. The government is the problem. Big business is the problem. In our relationships it is the other person who is the problem. If only people would be reasonable and agree with me, everything would be alright. No, the problem is in our mind. We are too full of ourselves. We try to fix things and fix people so that the world conforms with the ideas in our minds. If we just emptied ourselves and allowed God to fill us with the mind of Christ, then things would look very different. It is all in our mind. Christ emptied himself. We don’t need more self-esteem; we need more self-emptying. We need the mind of Christ.

The mind of Christ is also a Mind of Obedience. That is a word you don’t hear much these days – obedience. We have been studying Richard Foster’s book “The Celebration of Discipline’ during Lent, exploring twelve of the classic spiritual disciplines. It was fine talking about meditation, prayer, fasting and study of spiritual books, but then we came to the chapter on Submission. That is a dirty word today too, just like the word obedience. People don’t want to submit; they want to assert themselves. The apostle Paul talks a lot about obedience in ways that chaff the modern soul. Why? Because obedience means that we don’t get our way.

Even Jesus did not get to do it his way. He submitted himself to God. Jesus did not want to go to the Cross. He wanted to accomplish God’s plan for the Kingdom some other way. So he prayed and wrestled in prayer with God in Gethsemane, begging the Father for some way to let this cup of suffering pass from him. But in the end he obeyed, saying, “Not my will but thine be done.” The Book of Hebrews goes so far as to say of Jesus, “who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.” (Heb. 5:7-9) The mind of Christ is the mind of obedience. Christianity is not freelance work. It is submission to the will of God.

The Mind of Christ is the Mind of the Cross. Our passage says, “he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross.” The cross is the symbol of our Christian faith. It is unlike the symbol of any other religion. Buddhism has the figure of the serene Indian saint sitting in tranquility in Nirvana or the wheel of Dharma. Taoism has the Yin Yang symbol depicting light and dark, good and evil in cosmic harmony. Islam has the heavenly images of the crescent moon and star. Judaism has the menorah – symbol of light in the darkness. What do Christians have? A cross – the symbol of a torturous execution of the founder of our religion!  Yet we say that the Cross is the key to spiritual life and eternal life. We say that Christ’s death broke the hold of sin and death over our human lives when we embrace it by faith. But more than that. Christ invites us to embrace our own cross. The cross is not just something that happened to Jesus. The cross happens to us spiritually. He says that whoever would be his disciple must deny himself, take up his cross and follow him. Christ calls us to die before we die. The mind of Christ is the mind of the cross.

It is the mind that embraces the suffering and death of Christ as God’s way of redeeming us from the forces of death and evil and suffering. It is a mind that can embrace our own suffering and death. This is where the cross has practical everyday power and is not just a theological doctrine about Jesus and how to get to heaven. The cross is a deep spiritual truth that can be lived now. The mind of the Cross doesn’t fight death; it embraces death and find in it new life. The Mind of the Cross doesn’t fight suffering; it embraces suffering and finds in it a transcending of suffering. We find in the cross a dying to ourselves and living to Christ. We find in the cross a dying to the things of earth and a resurrection to the things of heaven. I am not just talking about an afterlife. I am talking about here and now. The Christian gospel proclaims the physical death and the physical resurrection of Christ. We don’t proclaim a gospel that says that Jesus died and then his spirit rose to heaven. We proclaim that Jesus died and his body rose from the grave. There is a huge difference. It means that we have eternal life now in the physical body as well as in the next world.

The death and resurrection of Jesus proclaims victory over suffering and death now. That is the meaning of the resurrection appearances of Christ. It is significant that in the Easter stories that Jesus goes out of his way to point to the scars on his hands and feet and side. This is not a Jesus who is healed of his wounds; this is a Christ who still bears his wounds. This means that with the mind of Christ we still bear our wounds. God doesn’t make the wounds of life magically go away. But he gives us the power of the resurrected Christ to live a new life with the wounds. It takes the emotional suffering out of the physical suffering. The mind of Christ is a mind of peace in the midst of the worst that this earthly life can throw at us.

Lastly the mind of Christ is the mind of Exaltation. Our scripture text ends not with Jesus’ death on the cross, or even his resurrection, but with his exaltation. “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” If we have the mind of Christ, then we will exalt Christ. Our knees will bow and our tongues confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And we ourselves, who are in Christ, are exalted with Christ. Paul talks elsewhere about us being seated with Christ in the heavenly places. Paul says in Ephesians, that God “made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Have this mind in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. The Mind of Christ, the Mind of humility, the mind of obedience to God, the mind of the Cross, and the Mind that exalts Christ and is exalted with Christ. I invite you to lose your mind in the Mind of Christ. 

One Man’s Trash

Philippians 3:4-14

Not everyone goes to church in Sandwich, but nearly everyone goes to the dump. Although we don’t call it the dump any longer. We call it the Transfer Station now or the Recycling Center. But the phrase “the Dump” has so much more character.  I used to go to the dump by myself, or when my kids were young I used to take them. But ever since my wife found out about the Swap Shop at the dump, she insists on going with me. Now I just hope to leave more at the dump than I bring home from the dump. I have to admit that Jude has found a few nice things at the Swap Shop, but in my opinion most of the stuff brought to the dump should stay at the dump. We have two different philosophies of life. I try to get rid of junk, and she tries to collect it. Unfortunately she is winning. You have heard the old expression “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” In our household it is one man’s trash is another woman’s treasure.

In our epistle lesson for today the apostle Paul tells how he changed his mind about many of the things he valued in his life. Certain things about his life used to be his treasures. Now he considers them trash. He says in verses 7-8 “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.  Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” The word he uses for rubbish is very strong. In fact the old KJV uses the word “dung.” But modern translators are very aware that preachers are going to be reading this from the pulpit, so instead of using words like dung, sewage or solid waste (which would be more accurate translation) they use spiritually correct language like rubbish, garbage or refuse. But you get the point. No one is going to be bringing back from the Swap Shop what Paul is talking about here in this verse. Paul is saying that when we are in Christ then our values are completely transformed. What we once thought was treasure is now considered trash, and vice versa.

I. Let’s take a look at exactly what Paul used to consider treasure, but now has changed his mind about.  He lists some things in verse 4-8 “If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ….”

Look at what Paul considered of great value before he was in Christ. First it was his ethnic heritage. Verse 5: “circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews.”  He was very proud of his ethnic heritage as a Jew. In his own words he was “a Hebrew of the Hebrews.” Lots of people today are very proud of their ethnic heritage. After all this is Saint Patrick’s Day! Everyone searches their ancestry to see if they have any drop of Irish blood in them. Even Obama jokes that his name actually has an apostrophe after the O and is really an Irish name. Personally I don’t celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day. I celebrate Saint David’s Day on March 1 because of my Welsh heritage. David is the patron saint of Wales. We even had a few people over to our house this year to celebrate Saint David’s Day. Some people take their ethnic heritage too far. Extremism in this area has led to what we now call ethnic cleansing in recent decades in places like Bosnia and Rwanda. We know from WWII the horrors of Antisemitism. Racism is still with us. I was reading recently about Oberlin College in Ohio – one of the most politically correct liberal arts college you can think of – which is battling an outbreak of racist graffiti. Ethnic identity is fine when held in moderation, but can literally become deadly.

For Paul it became deadly. Paul speaks of his religious prejudice in verses 5-6 “concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” Ethnic and religious loyalties often go together, and too often they result in the persecution of other religious groups. America was founded by those who were seeking freedom from religious persecution in England and Europe. Often those who are doing the persecuting are those who are legalistic in their understanding of their religion. Paul describes himself in those days as “concerning the law, a Pharisee.” He was not just a Pharisee, he called himself in the Book of Acts “a Pharisee of Pharisees.” He says here “concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” He kept the law to a T and hated those who did not measure up to his standard of righteousness. We see the same type of religious legalism today in some religions. The most visible one these days is an extremist form of Islam which seeks to impose Sharia law on society. That is what happened in Afghanistan with the Taliban. Those are the folks who flew the airliners into the twin towers on September 11. That is why our troops are fighting in Afghanistan! 

The apostle Paul himself admits that he was an extremist -  a persecutor of Christians when he was younger: “concerning zeal, persecuting the church” he says. The persecution of the church continues today in Muslim lands and communist lands. The Arab Spring has only made things harder for Christians in Islamic lands. New studies have come out in the last few months that now Christians are the most persecuted religion in the world.

 “Christians are targeted more than any other body of believers,” wrote Rupert Shortt in a 54-page report for the London-based Civitas institute in December, which meticulously documented the persecution of Christians on a country-by-country basis. German Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly called Christianity “the most persecuted religion in the world” in November. As one commentator put it, Christians have become the new Jews. Open Doors, an organization which documents cases of persecution of Christians, confirms this, basing its report on official studies, news reports and field reports and questionnaires filled out by its staff workers around the world. They list the top 10 countries that persecute Christians ruthlessly. On the list - North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Maldives, Mali, Iran, Yemen and Eritrea. Eight of these top ten are majority Muslim states threatened by what Open Doors called "Islamic extremism". I am not going to talk any further about this here, but it shows that what the apostle Paul is talking about is not dead. Paul says that in his religious zeal he persecuted the church, and this type of thing continues today.

Paul looks back on his days of religious zeal and persecution of others and says that from his new position in Christ he considers it all that to be rubbish. We have to realize what a transformation this was. That was his whole life and identity. We obviously do not identify with the same things as Paul did before he became an apostle. But we have our own strong identities and things that we are zealous about. Many people are zealous about their political or ideological identity. I think the partisan divisiveness in Washington testifies to the fact that political party identity seems to have eclipsed a common national identity in many American’s minds. Religious identity is still very strong in this country. Every religion really thinks they have a monopoly on truth. That is true of liberals and conservatives and even atheists, who are becoming increasingly militant and fundamentalist in thinking they alone have the truth. We Christians are part of it too. Some Christians think they have got it down better than other Christians. Liberals look down on evangelicals and vice versa. Even people who don’t consider themselves religious – who call themselves “spiritual but not religious” think they are right and those religious people who go to church are wrong.

II. Paul says here that he gave all that up for Christ. He found his treasure in Jesus Christ. Listen to what Paul says in verse 7-8 “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” He says he counted all things loss! And he says it three times to make sure his readers get the point. Christ has become his new identity. Not Christianity. He did not exchange one religion for another. He did not exchange one set of religious rules or moral laws or theological doctrines for another set. He is talking about Christ. He counts them loss “for Christ” - “for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” He has lost everything and counts them as rubbish that he “may gain Christ.”

This is our treasure – knowing Christ. Much of the world thinks that what Christians have is trash, because all they see are the trappings of religion. But that is just the wrapping. And they throw Christ out with the wrapping. When we open a present you throw the wrapping in the trash where it belongs and keep the gift within. The gift within the Christianity gospel is Christ. The Christian’s treasure is knowing Christ. In Christ we something eternal value that is worth everything else we might have. I have to quote missionary Jim Elliot here: “"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." Jesus says, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?” “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Or as the NLT puts it: “If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.” When we give our lives to God, we give it all. And in return we gain it all. It is a no-brainer, as they say. Jesus said, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Paul says that he has given up his own righteousness and exchanged it for God’s righteousness. Verses 8-9: “I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.” I want to focus on righteousness for a moment. It is mentioned by Jesus and Paul. It is an important part of what it means to gain Christ. Righteousness is an important concept in the Bible and especially in Paul’s theology. It is a word we don’t use much in everyday life. And for that reason I think it is badly misunderstood. It seems to mean the same as self-righteousness in many people’s minds, but it is not.

Righteousness means the state of being in right relationship. Theologically it means being in right relationship with God, right relationship to ourselves – our own hearts and souls producing an inner peace,  producing right thoughts, intentions, and actions, and right relationships toward others. It is really that simple. It is rightness. Righteousness is the state of all things being and feeling right. Paul is saying that in his former life he tried to fix things to make them right – to fix his relationship with God, to fix himself and his own behavior and to fix relationships. And he couldn’t do it. He always fell short – which is the literal meaning of the word sin. But through faith in Christ things were set right. He was given righteousness as a gift. In Christ all is right. Christ is in perfect relationship with God, with himself and with others. When by faith we identity with Christ, become one with Christ, we share his right relationship. We die to unright self, die to our own separate identity apart from God and become united with Christ, and we inherit all that is Christ’s. This is what the Cross is all about. The Cross is Jesus dying to self and sin and separation from God – and then resurrecting – living to God. When we are in Christ we share everything that is Christ’s. In Christ you and I die, and in him we live. We share his righteousness – his right relationship with God, and himself, and actions and other people.

That is what he says in the next verses: 10-11 “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” It is about knowing him. It is about knowing his power – the power of the resurrection. It is knowing the fellowship of his sufferings and being conformed to his death. That is why the cross is the symbol of our faith. It sums it all up. That is not just Jesus on the cross. That is us on the cross. That is all of humanity on the cross. We die to self to live to God. We die to our separate selves to live in Christ. We die to death to live to life. Our bodies can die but who we really are in Christ cannot die. Our bodies can suffer, just like Jesus’ body suffered. But our spirits we commend to God and find peace. We may even feel forsaken by God as Jesus felt forsaken by God on the Cross. But in a deeper spiritual sense in Christ we are the Beloved and we are received by God into his kingdom.

Paul finishes the passage saying: 12-14 “ Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

In other words this is a process. We are not perfect and will never be perfect in this life. Christians are not perfect people. Preachers aren’t perfect. But we press on, that we may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus laid hold of us. We do not count ourselves to have already arrived. We cannot look down upon anyone or think ourselves superior to anyone. We just forge ahead. Forgetting those things which are behind – meaning our sins. Forgiveness of sins in Christ means leaving them in the past and not dragging them with us into the present like Marley’s chains in Dickens Christmas carol. Today has enough problems for itself, as Jesus said. Forget those things which are behind. Leave the past in the past. What happened in the past stays in the past; don’t drag the ghosts of the past into the present. 

And reach toward those things that are ahead – not your worries and fears about the future. But in Paul’s words: “reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Christ is what is ahead. He has gone ahead of us through the cross and through the suffering and through the grave and through the resurrection to eternal life in God. That is our future. Indeed that is our present in Christ. Let us press on, that we may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of us. 

Point of View

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:16-21 NRSV)

A lot depends on our point of view. A lot of things in life is a matter of perspective. Included in your worship bulletin this morning are some well-known optical illusions. They show how our mind can perceive one thing when the reality is actually something different. The four figures of men are all the same size, but they look like they are different sizes. The background tricks our mind into seeing things from an illusory perspective. The two table tops are exactly the same, but the placement of the legs makes us see them as three-dimensional and make them appear to be different. Is that a horse or a frog? It depends how you hold the paper. Is that a rabbit or a duck? A swan or squirrel? It is all how you look at it. It is all a matter of perspective.

That is true in the spiritual life as well.  There is a shift in perspective that happens when one orients one’s life around Christ as the center. From the perspective of Christ we see everything from a different point of view. We see things from a spiritual perspective rather than a worldly perspective. The apostle Paul sums it up in our passage. He writes: “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” The NKJV uses the phrase “according to the flesh,” instead of “from a human point of view.” That is a more accurate word-for-word translation, but it is harder to understand. In Paul’s theology flesh is not the same as body. That is why I like the NRSV translation “from a human point of view.” The apostle says, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.”  Paul talks about viewing Christ and others from a human point of view and from a spiritual point of view.

Let’s talk about Christ first. Viewing Christ from a human point of view means to see him as no different from any other human who has ever lived. The human point of view is to see Jesus simply as a human being who lived 2000 years ago. Some people would not even go that far. A very few historians question if there ever really was a man named Jesus. They say that the person of Jesus was made up by the early church. That he is really just a mythological figure created using the motifs found in other myths. But that radical view is rejected by the vast majority of serious historians. There is just too much evidence that is too early to think that the figure of Jesus is pure fiction.

99% of historians acknowledge that Jesus of Nazareth really lived, and that he died by crucifixion at the hands of the Roman authorities in Jerusalem somewhere around the year 30 AD. Furthermore they acknowledge that the gospels contain his words. But that is about as far as historians can go. The discipline of historical science rules out the supernatural, the theological or the metaphysical. So it can say nothing about whether Jesus was the Son of God. It cannot talk about the virgin birth or the resurrection of Jesus or the miracles of Jesus or anything like that. It cannot say anything about any spiritual meaning of his crucifixion. The parameters of the academic discipline of historical science rule out any discussion of such things. It sees Jesus purely from a human point of view.

That is the way many people view Christ today – from a purely materialistic and humanistic perspective.  Consequently people will see Jesus as just one of many religious teachers in history. Every culture has religions and religious founders. China had Confucius. India had Buddha. Arabia had Muhammad. Ancient Israel had Moses. And later Roman Palestine had Jesus. The human point of view says they are all the same type of historical phenomenon. They are all religious teachers. Their teachings might be different but they are also much the same in some respects; they involve worship, ethics and rituals. That is the human point of view. That is the secular materialistic perspective. It is the dominant point of view in Western Europe and in much of America. We even see this influencing people who would consider themselves spiritual. They say that all religious teachers of world history are basically the same - just with some minor cultural differences. They say that their message is the same and their gods are the same. That is the human point of view of Jesus – that he is just one of many religious teachers around which a religion developed. That is the human point of view.

The apostle Paul says “even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.” As Christians we view Christ from a different point of view. What is different? What has changed? Christ has not changed. History has not changed. The facts have not changed. What has changed? We have changed! “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see,  everything has become new!” The difference is being “in Christ.” I like the KJV language here:, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.”  When we are in Christ, we are different and everything else is different. “Everything has become new.” We change and our perspective on the world changes. We look at the optical illusion, and suddenly we see what we never saw before.  At first we just see the tiger, but then suddenly we see the hidden tiger. (Do you see it?) At first we see just Jesus the man, but then we have a new perspective and we see him as the Son of God!

We see things not just humanly but spiritually and theologically. Paul deals with both the spiritual and theological aspects in our passage. Let me deal with the spiritual first – because it is more experiential. I have found that people are much more interested in spirituality than theology, even though both are important. When we see ourselves as only human, then we see Christ as only human. When the Holy Spirit awakens us to the spiritual dimension of the universe, what Jesus called being born of the Spirit or born from above, then we see everything - including ourselves and Christ - from a spiritual perspective. We are a new creation, a new creature - not just homo sapiens but homo spiritus – a spiritual creature. And we see Christ not just as a man but as divine – as the spiritual Son of God.

I am not just talking about a change of mind here, even though thinking is part of it. This is where the optical illusion metaphor breaks down. Those are fun little tricks, but they don’t change our lives. I am talking about a change of heart and a change of soul. We are no longer simply human animals. We are still animals. That is clearly a big part of what humans are; there is no doubt about that. It is obvious that our bodies bear a great resemblance to our mammal relatives on this earth. But we are more than animals. We know intuitively that we are more than animals. We are aware of a bigger cosmic dimension of our lives. I have quoted Pierre Teilhard de Chardin before from this pulpit from his book the Phenomenon of Man. He writes: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” This is the source of the religious impulse in human beings. That is what gives rise to the spiritual search and to religion.

When by the grace of God, we look at Jesus of Nazareth and see him not just from a human perspective as another human, but from a spiritual perspective as a divine human, then that is the beginning of the transformation Paul describes. This insight into Christ is experienced as a revelation. All of a sudden we see it, whereas we did not see it before. It is a gift from God. But when we receive this insight, then we have a choice to make. We have to respond to this spiritual insight or not. To throw in our lot with Christ or not. That is faith in Christ. Faith is not believing something about Jesus. Faith is not believing something; faith is trusting someone. Faith is not about teachings; faith is about commitment. By grace we are granted a glimpse of Christ’s true nature. By faith we act upon that revelation. Many people experience God in nature; we can also experience God in Christ. But faith is more than experience; it takes a step beyond experience. Spiritual experiences and insights are great. Religious experiences are wonderful, but that is not faith. Faith is deciding to act on that new spiritual information.

Some people say that they are spiritual but not religious. By that phrase they normally mean they feel spiritual, but don’t go to church. They acknowledge a spiritual dimension, impulse, insight or experiences that are meaningful. This is often in connection with the beauty of nature, art, or music, or some other experience. That is wonderful, and it is true. I have that experience too. But that is just the vestibule to the spiritual life.  That is the lobby.  To put it in NH terms –  that is the mud room. You don’t live in the mud room. That is where we take off our boots and hang up our coats. It is meant only as an entryway to the living space of the house. Faith is stepping beyond the mud room into the spaciousness of God’s mansion. Jesus says “in my Father’s house are many rooms.” (the old language says “many mansions.”) Explore them all. Don’t be content with mud room. Unfortunately many people are.

This now brings me to the theological dimension. Theology is one of the inner rooms of God’s mansion. It is a wonderful room; it is the library with walls of bookshelves. That is where we sit down by the fire with our Heavenly Father and learn some things about the spiritual life and about how Jesus fits into it. Paul talks about this in our passage as well. He says in verse 18-21. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

There is a lot of theology in these few verses. Much more theology than I can adequately expound in the remaining minutes of this sermon. The main point that Paul makes here is reconciliation. He uses the word five times in these four verses. In Christ we have reconciliation with God. This is crucial to understanding Christ and the spiritual life. First, we have to understand the need for reconciliation. This is a big step for people. Many people in our society don’t see any need for reconciliation with God. You may have heard the old joke. A evangelist asked the man, “Have you found Christ?” The man replies, “I didn’t know he was lost!” In the same manner, if we asked the average person on the street if they were reconciled to God, they might respond, “I didn’t know we were arguing!” A lot of people don’t know there is a problem, and so they are not looking for a solution.

This is why the Christian gospel does not make much sense to a lot of people these days. It solves a problem that most people don’t think they have. But I see it this way. It is like a person with cancer or heart disease not thinking they have a problem because they don’t feel sick. They don’t see any symptoms, and so they don’t think they need a doctor because they don’t think there is a problem. But they might have very high blood pressure or very high cholesterol or have a tumor growing somewhere. Then one day they are rushed to the emergency room with pain or a heart attack or stroke or cancer. Then it may be too late. That is why it is good to have regular medical checkups – to monitor those invisible things like blood pressure or cholesterol levels or mammograms or other cancer screenings.

This is the way it is with spiritual health. Just because we aren’t in immediate crisis doesn’t mean everything is alright.  But when we examine our lives in light of the Word of God, we might be surprised by the test results. Scripture is like an x-ray, MRI or CT scan. It looks deep inside us. Scripture reveals to us what we could never see with human sight – that there is a problem at the heart of human existence. Once we understand scripture then our human condition becomes clear to us, and we wonder why we never saw it before. Like the optical illusions in the bulletin. Once we see the hidden tiger we wonder how we ever missed it.

Once we hear the voice of God analyze our condition, we notice symptoms everywhere. The symptom is the restlessness of the human heart. There is a search for security. There is a pursuit of happiness. We are always looking for something more. We are never satisfied. There is something that doesn’t feel quite right in our lives, and we can’t quite put our finger on it. It manifests in many types of dissatisfaction with life. People are dissatisfied with family or marriage relationships, with jobs, or our financial situation. We never quite have enough money to feel secure. Or it is our dissatisfaction with government and politicians; with hope the new candidate will be different, but he/she never is. We are dissatisfied with religion, religious leaders and churches. We are not quite as healthy as we want, and even when we are, we wonder what will happen in the future. Nothing is ever exactly right. And even when it is – when we get exactly what we think we want and need – after a while we are looking for something more.  

All these are symptoms of a deeper spiritual issue. Sometimes these symptoms can be quite acute and develop into mental illness or even suicide. I have been reading about gun violence in America and noticed a very interesting statistic. Everyone is all concerned about homicides and mass killings. But the statistics tell us that almost twice as many deaths from guns are from suicide rather than homicide. 19,000 gun-related deaths are suicides compared to 11,000 homicides. Why are we not talking about that? What does that tell us? It tells me there is a deeper issue here than background checks and gun shows. It shows that there is something deep in the human heart that needs to be addressed. The ancient Christian theologian Augustine put it this way: "God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.” The problems of the human heart are signs of our need for peace with God and peace in God.

That is what God did in Christ. Christ opened up the way for us to find rest in God. “God … reconciled us to himself through Christ.” “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” That is what the Cross is all about. I could get into the theological details of how the cross accomplished this. This is interesting and important. I plan to explore that in a couple of weeks on Passion Sunday, Palm Sunday. But right now in this message it is not so important that we understand the theology. Just like it is not so important that we understand the scientific details of a type of cancer we might have; what is important is that we find a physician who can cure of us that cancer. That is what is important spiritually. Christ is the Great Physician who has the cure for this spiritual disease that is called sin. Christ is the Physician and he is the cure. Thanks be to God for the healing that he grants to us through Jesus Christ.

Why Bad Things Happen

Luke 13:1-9

Why do bad things happen? Why do horrible things happen to some people and not to others? Why do tragic things happen to innocent children? The school shooting in Newtown, CT, that killed 20 children and six staff members, is a recent example that has captured America’s attention. Another example is the teenage girl who performed at the President’s inauguration and a few days later was gunned down in a driveby shooting in Chicago. Why did these things happen? I am not talking about gun control and mental illness now. People can get into all sorts of political arguments about the cause and solution to gun violence in America. But that is not what I am talking about. I am talking theologically. Why did God allow it to happen? I am raising the theological issue of theodicy.

If God is all good and all-powerful, then God could have stopped this shooter. Why didn’t he? If any one of us would have had prior knowledge that this crime was going to occur, we would have done whatever we could to stop this young man from entering that school and pulling that trigger. If I had been at the school with a firearm, I would have shot the shooter and had no regrets. If you and I would do this, why didn’t God do something? Politicians are arguing about what human measures we can take to stop future shootings. Why didn’t God stop this shooting using his divine measures? What is the divine purpose in such senseless killing?

As Christians we say that God is omniscient – that he has foreknowledge of all events - and that he is omnipotent - that he has the power to do anything. Then why didn’t God act in these cases? The standard answer is that there must be some greater good in God’s plan to justify allowing such great evil to happen. To be very honest, I have a hard time imagining what type of greater good would justify these deaths. This question of theodicy is the greatest philosophical challenge to the Christian worldview. I have never heard a satisfying explanation to this problem, and I have heard them all. Many people end up saying something like, “We can’t understand God’s ways. We just have to trust.” Maybe that is the only answer. If it is, it is disappointing. It feels like giving up to me. It smells like a cop out. I have to believe that in spite of our limited human understanding, if there is an answer, we can at least get a tiny glimpse of it. I want a better answer than “I don’t know. Stop asking the question, Marshall.” I want to know. That is why I am preaching on this text today.

One day Jesus asked the question. I love him for this – as well as for everything else! He did not wait for someone to ask him the hard question. He raised the issue! 13:1-2 “There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things?” And then in verse 4 he mentions another incident. “Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem?” Jesus asked these questions because he knew they were on people’s minds. And he knew that people were suggesting that the reason these people were killed was because they were worse sinners than others. He wanted to stop that line of thinking completely, so he answers the question. To understand this passage of scripture it helps to know something about the events the people were talking about.

There had been an incident in Jerusalem not too long before. It is kind of reminiscent of some of the things happening in Syria and Egypt these days. The Roman governor in Palestine, Pontius Pilate, was planning to build a water conduit in Jerusalem to replace the old water system that was no longer adequate. Because it was going to serve the needs of the Jerusalem temple, which used a lot of water, Pilate thought it only right that the temple share the expenses. So he was demanding that the temple pay its fair share. But the temple money was considered sacred and to be used only for temple sacrifices. So a struggle between temple and state developed. The Jewish temple authorities organized a massive demonstration against the Roman demands to use temple money. Pilate, always afraid that it might turn into a rebellion, infiltrated the crowd that gathered in Jerusalem with some of his soldiers dressed as Jews. When the crowd began to get unwieldy, the Roman soldiers began to attack the civilians with swords. The soldiers followed the demonstrators right into the temple courts, which was forbidden by the Torah. The soldiers even killed some Galileans who were offering their sacrifices at the altar, mingling their blood with the blood of their sacrifices.  This massacre of these Galilean worshippers is what is referred to in this story. Shortly after this, during the construction of the water system, a tower near the pool of Siloam, fell on some workers and bystanders. This was the other incident referred to in the passage.

People were wondering why these people died. The Galileans were innocent pilgrims who were worshipping God with their sacrifices in the temple courts. If a Jew was not safe in the house of God at the altar during the act of worship, then where is he safe? If God does not protect him at that time and place, then when and where is he safe? That is what people were asking. And they were theorizing that these Galileans must have been harboring some terrible secret sins for this to happen to them. The same with the eighteen people who died when the tower of Siloam collapsed on them. Maybe they were killed because they were helping the hated Romans. We hear arguments like this today. A November 7, 2012 article in the Economist magazine reported all sorts of people saying that the devastation of Hurricane Sandy was divine punishment upon America. I will quote a few sentences from that article:

John McTernan, a born-again American blogger, pointed the finger at gay marriage, noting that the storm struck just six days after the New York State court of appeals dismissed a challenge to the state’s legalization of gay marriage. Rabbi Noson Leiter, who runs a group called Torah Jews for Decency, agreed, explaining on the radio that God had targeted the southern end of Manhattan because it was “one of the national centres of homosexuality.” …A Saudi blogger reports that the Friday sermon at his local mosque took a more general approach, describing the heavenly anger as simply intended to smite “the capital of the infidels.” Other sermons in the kingdom suggested that the Americans’ failure to convert en masse to Islam was a probable cause. But Wagdi Ghoneim, a perpetually angry Egyptian tele-Salafist, tweeted to his followers a more specific reason. The storm, he declared, was intended as payback for the recent release on YouTube of a scandalous film produced in the United States that insulted the Prophet Muhammad.

This shows us that the divine punishment explanation for disasters is still alive and well today. Even the murder of the children at the Newtown school has been put in this light. The notorious Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, best known for picketing at military funerals, announced their plan to picket at the funerals of the children with these words: “Westboro will picket Sandy Hook Elementary School to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment.” In their minds the Christian God was punishing America by killing its children. Jesus addresses this type of mentality in this passage “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no.” And the phrase and word he uses for NO is as emphatic as you can get. ”Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no.”

Therefore as Christians we can dismiss the idea of humanly-caused tragedies or natural catastrophes as God’s punishment. When bad things happen to you or those you love or those you know, it is not God punishing them or you. So just get that idea out of your mind. But Jesus does not end his comments on the topic with just the word “No.” In both cases Jesus adds the words, “but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” What does Jesus mean by these words? Some commentators think that Jesus is referring to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70AD. But that explanation doesn’t make sense to me. That would mean he is bringing back the idea of divine punishment that he just rejected. That can’t be it because he was emphatic in saying No to that idea. So what does Jesus mean?

It seems to me that Jesus is talking about the need for universal repentance in the face of universal mortality. When tragedy strikes and someone dies, especially when a group of people die suddenly for no good reason, and especially when they are innocent people who have done nothing worse than anything we have ever done – in the case of children, who have done nothing deserving death – then it should cause us to ponder our own mortality. It makes us realize that we are going to die. That causes us to look at our lives. And it should cause us to repent. The word repent mean “re-think” and it also means to “change course.” It means to turn around and go in a different direction. The direction that we need to head in is the direction of eternal life. When bad things happen it should cause us to ponder our own lives deeply and change the course of our lives. We need to stop going our own way and start going God’s way.

That is why Jesus follows his teaching on the two tragedies with his parable of the fig tree. He says in verses 6-9 “6 He also spoke this parable: “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. 7 Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, ‘Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down; why does it use up the ground?’ 8 But he answered and said to him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. 9 And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, after that you can cut it down.’” Jesus is calling us to examine our lives for fruitfulness. The fig tree is sometimes used as a symbol for Israel in the OT, so Jesus is likely calling all Israel as the people of God to examine themselves for fruitfulness. As the Church, the new covenant people of God, we likewise are to examine our lives for fruitfulness.

In the parable the fig tree is not a wild fig tree. It is a fig tree that the farmer planted in his vineyard. So it is his tree, and he has presumably been taking care of it, but it has not produced any fruit in three years. It is just taking up valuable space and precious water in that arid climate. So he is going to uproot it and plant better stock. But the keeper of the vineyard is not willing to give up on it yet. He intercedes on behalf of the fig tree. The keeper asks the owner to give him one more year. In that year he will give it special care. He will dig around the roots and fertilize it well. If it still doesn’t produce fruit after all that special care, then he will cut it down.

Applied to our lives, it means that we do not have an endless amount of time to get our lives in order. Tragedies that strike family members and friends remind us of that. Tragedies we read or hear about in the news that strike people we don’t even know remind us of that. Life is short. It might be much shorter than we think. We do not have time to waste. The longer we live and the older we get, the more we are aware of this truth. We have only a limited amount of time. We better make good use of the time we have.

We make use of it by being fruitful. Fruitful can mean lots of things. But I immediately think of what the apostle Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit. He lists nine of them. It is not an exhaustive list but it is a good place to start. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. To sum it up, the fruit that God looks for in a Christian’s life is a certain quality of life. It is a spiritual quality of life. It is God working in and through our lives accomplishing his purpose. In the Gospel of John Jesus develops this metaphor of fruitfulness using the image of a vine.

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. … Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. … By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.”

We become fruitful by abiding in Christ, dwelling in Christ, living in Christ. Christ is the one who produces the fruit. Our responsibility is to be available to him. As Richard Foster says concerning the spiritual disciplines in the book we are studying on Thursdays, the disciplines do accomplish anything for God. They simply place us in a position for God to accomplish something in our lives. We just need to live in the spacious presence of God, opening ourselves to his Son and his Spirit, and he will do the rest.

This message started off with the problem of evil and suffering in this world. As you can see, I still have no explanation for why bad things happen. But by grappling with the issue and not letting it go, like Jacob not letting go of the angel until he receives a blessing, we can receive a blessing by struggling with God over this issue. And we find that after the struggle the answer is to rest in God, abide in God, and see how God can work through us to address the senseless evil and the suffering in the world with the fruit of his Spirit. God is indeed doing something – in us. I want to end with the famous prayer known as the prayer of Saint Francis. It is the best answer I know to hate, evil and suffering in the world.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. Amen.