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?