Advent/218. Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6 Luke 3:5 Isaiah
10:3-5
In our second lesson for today, the Apostle Paul writes,
“My prayer is that that your love for each other may increase more and more and
never stop improving your knowledge and deepening your perception so that you
can always tell the difference between right and wrong and recognize the best. This will help you to become pure and
blameless, and prepare you for the day of Christ, when you will reach the
perfect goodness which Jesus Christ produces in us for the glory and praise of
God (Philippians 1:9-11). ” The key to the message is the phrase translated “that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge
and full insight 10to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day
of Christ you may be pure and blameless, 11having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes
through Jesus Christ.
This is the key teaching of the New Testament on
spiritual growth and it recurs three times at pivotal points in Paul’s
letters. It also suggests to me John the
Baptist’s command to make a straight path for God to come into our lives.
At the beginning of the letter to the Romans Paul says
that we have all lost the ability to tell the difference between right and
wrong and choose the best. This is
because instead of putting God first, we put ourselves first. Instead of having God’s desire, our desire
has been corrupted and our minds have failed.
In the second lesson for today it also talks about
straight thinking. This straight
thinking will result in right relationships with each other because they are
based on following Jesus Christ. The
love of Jesus can clear our failed minds.
The gift of grace is the gift of love for others, friends and enemies
alike, especially in the church. Jesus
always assumed that there would be enemies within the group of believers. He teaches in the Sermon on the Mount to love
not just our friends but our enemies too.
In the lesson from Paul, I hear the cry of the Voice
in the Wilderness, “Prepare a Way for the Lord, Make his Paths straight,” I hear
it as a summons to straight thinking and moral reformation. We have been morally deformed and need to be reformed;
we have become intellectually twisted and need to be straightened out. Intellectual twisting causes moral
twistedness. We need to get our thinking
straight so that we can straighten out our lives!
I cannot over emphasize the need to abandon our failed
minds and to allow Jesus to renew our minds.
Making our paths straight begins and ends with renewing our minds, and
that renewal can take several forms. One
form is seeing the big picture more than we usually do, when we enlarge our
horizons, when we appreciate the world from more than our own point of
view. This is sometimes called an open
mind, which is the opposite of the closed mind.
It is always open to the probability that it does not understand all
that it needs to understand. An open
mind produces good moral attitudes, namely humility and generosity, and if we
think correctly we are already half way to living a moral life, which is chiefly
shown in love for friends and enemies.
In other words our minds must be open to seeing in the light that shines
from our Lord.
I think that Paul’s use of the term failed mind is one
of the key concepts of the bible. I will
try to explain Paul’s concept of the failed mind. Let’s try to imagine it. A failed mind is marked first by prejudice,
defined as the refusal to think again, or to think for yourself. Prejudice is the mark of mental and moral
laziness that simply takes over existing thoughts and feelings, because it is too
lazy to think for itself. The failed
mind lives life at second hand, always wearing someone else’s used thoughts,
and occasionally wondering why life feels so empty and phony. “Make the way straight? Get in touch with the truth! Learn to think for yourself! Stop hiding in all that prejudice! Stop following the herd! A failed mind does not think for itself; it
barely thinks at all, preferring the safety of immersion in the crowd’s mind to
the risk and effort of thought.
Finally we need to look at John the Baptist as an
example of a renewed mind. John warned
people to repent, that is, start thinking for themselves
and thus break free of prejudice and change their minds. , Those who heard John said in reply to his
challenge, that they were “OK” just as they were because they were “children of
Abraham (Luke 3:7-14). ” To which John replied that that was worth about as
much as these stones in the desert. This
is the reply of the culturally smug, who are so comfortable within the cocoon
of their own cultural assumptions that they never question them and they persecute
or drive out anyone who does not think as they do.
When people asked John what concretely they should do
to be spiritually authentic he told them to be generous and to share their
goods with those who are in need. To the
tax collectors he said, “Don’t be dishonest and profit through extortion,” and
to the soldiers he said, “Don’t be violent to civilians and don’t take their
goods by force.” Such practical, down to
earth advice! Yet these are the signs of a spiritually clear mind that leads to
a loving heart, which is the presence of God in the lives of men and
women. So simple, so practical, so
profound! Just do good as you are given opportunity and you will become
authentic again! You will be in Paul’s
words pure and blameless. You will be able to claim the title of
righteous. You will be like Jesus.
So this year I ask you to hear the message of John as
a summons to take up the challenge of thought, serious thought about who you
are and what you do.
Why is it important to claim the titles of pure and
blameless?
Why is it so hard to think for yourself?
How does knowing Jesus change the way we think?