{"id":1151,"date":"2020-09-27T08:59:59","date_gmt":"2020-09-27T12:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/?p=1151"},"modified":"2020-09-27T09:00:04","modified_gmt":"2020-09-27T13:00:04","slug":"whats-on-your-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/2020\/09\/27\/whats-on-your-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s On Your Mind?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor \u2022 \u00a9 2020 All Rights Reserved<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost\/A \u2022 September 27, 2020<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Philippians 2:1-13<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s on your mind? Without being able to go around and ask each person, I have to guess and my guess this morning is that health is on the mind of many. This week our country passed the 200,000 deaths mark from the pandemic. The upcoming election is on the mind of many, I\u2019m sure, and so this the sadness of the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg whose life lightened and liberated so many. Maybe individual things are on your mind: something hurts or you\u2019re worried about catching Covid-19 or there\u2019s a nagging problem in your life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asking, \u201cWhat\u2019s on your mind?\u201d, is a little like going up to the attic isn\u2019t it? At least at our house, the attic is full of stuff we didn\u2019t know what to do with, so we stuck it up there. Go up to the attic and you quickly get overwhelmed by different things; I usually just end up going back downstairs. Come downstairs with me and let\u2019s ask another question: what\u2019s on the Apostle Paul\u2019s mind and how can it help us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s on Paul\u2019s mind, when he writes to the Philippian Christians, is the future of the church  They\u2019re going through a tough time. The local authorities have been persecuting them; Paul himself has been beaten by the police and jailed. So have some of the others. What makes it even worse is that their church is divided between two groups. What\u2019s on Paul\u2019s mind is division and conflict; doesn\u2019t that sound familiar? That\u2019s on the minds of a lot of us as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He starts out with one of the longest sentences in the whole New Testament and it\u2019s hard to get it all when it\u2019s read once. He asks four questions: if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any incentive of love, if there is any participation in the Spirit, if there is any affection and sympathy. Notice how these link love and spiritual life: encouragement in Christ is connected to love, participation in the Spirit is linked to affection and sympathy. Love is the mission. Sometimes we get so involved with what we are doing that we forget what we are trying to do. When I go out, I have to find my keys, find my wallet, find my glasses, find my mask. It\u2019s easy in all that to forget I was going out on an errand. In church life, we sometimes get so involved with the details, we forget the mission is God\u2019s love expressed through us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul doesn\u2019t want anyone to forget what they are trying to do, the mission they\u2019re on. Spiritual life is a rhythm of feeling and acting. He goes on to make this point by embodying these things with a ringing call to action: \u201cDo nothing from selfishness or conceit but in humility count others better than yourself.\u201d [Philippians 2:3] Spiritual life for a Christian always has a \u201cDo\u201d attached to it, it\u2019s always a motivation that leads to action.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we can only act from what\u2019s on our mind. So he comes back to that explicitly: \u201cHave this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus\u201d [Philippians 2:5] What Paul is saying is that we are meant to live from the mind of Christ. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s on your mind? What\u2019s on the mind of Christ? What\u2019s on your mind when you think with the mind of Christ? He\u2019s already given us a suggestion about this and now he makes it explicit by quoting what many believe was a Christian hymn:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christ Jesus, Though he was in the form of God,
Did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped
But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant
Being born in the likeness of humanity
And being found in human form
He humbled himself
And became obedient unto death
Even death on a cross<\/p>Philippians 2:5-8<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is the mind of Christ: instead of grasping for greatness, helping with humility, healing with humility. To think with the mind of Christ means to live in a hopeful humility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is hard, isn\u2019t it? Because what\u2019s on our mind is often little details. Fred Craddock, one of the most widely known preachers of my lifetime, was baptized in a Baptist church, where you don\u2019t just get a couple drops of water, you get completely dunked. He says,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was baptized, I was fourteen years old. I know the minister was saying a lot of wonderful things about being buried with Christ and all \u2014I\u2019m sure he was; he was a good minister. But I was just thinking, Do I hold the handkerchief? Does he hold the handkerchief? Uh, I wonder if it\u2019s cold\u2026and I bet it\u2019s deep too. <\/p>Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories, p. 30<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So here we are, hearing about the mind of Christ\u2014but wondering if it\u2019s going to be cold or deep or what they have to eat at coffee hour and when the preacher will be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChrist Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.\u201d That\u2019s the mind of Christ, that\u2019s not how we think. We grasp for more. We think if we just had the resources, which is to say enough power, we could do a lot of good. A friend of mine, one of the most genuinely loving and Christian men I\u2019ve ever known, used to be in charge of helping churches and ministers find each other. He\u2019s a bedrock Congregationalist. He really believes the best way to be a church is by having all the members involved and voting on important things. One day he got so frustrated with the petty, dumb things churches do in the search and call process, he yelled, \u201cI want to be a bishop!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know that feeling, I\u2019ve had it. Sometimes, I let myself have a little daydream about starting up a church, a church where there are no Boards or committees, where I can just do everything right because I know what\u2019s right better than they do. The church of Jim: what do you think? Oh, wait: I\u2019m a minister of the church of Christ. Any time one of us stops trying to run things and listens to all the others, we have the mind of Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the church of Christ, it doesn\u2019t matter how long you\u2019ve been a church member, it matters whether you have the mind of Christ and the mind of Christ always thinks about others first. I used to be the pastor of a church that had a big turkey dinner on Thanksgiving Sunday every year. We also had Sunday dinners once a month; we rotated with some other churches on where they were held. One year it was our turn to host on Thanksgiving Sunday. After a little arguing and fussing, we decided to go ahead and do it and just make more than usual. This was a church like this one, where we endlessly agonized about not having enough people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the day came, the whole building smelled like turkey dinner and after worship we all went down to eat. A lot of our homeless and hungry guests came, so instead of the 30 or so church folks, we had over 200. It was a crowd and bless their hearts, our church folks thought with the mind of Christ and let those people go first. That meant the last church folks, a group of long time members, senior ladies, didn\u2019t get any turkey. I found out and you know I didn\u2019t much have the mind of Christ, I had the minister mind that thinks, \u201cI\u2019m going to be in trouble over this.\u201d So I went to over to see them, and they were so much better than me. One of them said, \u201cWell, we didn\u2019t get any turkey but thank God there was plenty of potatoes.\u201d She was thanking God for potatoes when I was worried about power. I think she had the mind of Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the church of Christ, it doesn\u2019t matter how powerful and important you are, it matters whether you can get down off your high horse and welcome a child. Years ago, it became a fad to have children\u2019s sermons in church, mostly little object lessons. I wasn\u2019t very good at it. But the church wanted something, so I started doing my version, which was to get down on the carpet with some kids and just ask, \u201cDid anything special happen this week?\u201d One Sunday I was going to be away and the church got a minister to preach who had a reputation for great children\u2019s sermons. After I got back, he called me. He said he\u2019d done what he usually does, gathered the children in the front pew but when he started the lesson, the kids interrupted. One said, \u201cThis isn\u2019t how you do children\u2019s time, you\u2019re supposed to get down on the floor and ask us what happened this week.\u201d He said he\u2019d thought about that ever since, and wished he\u2019d done that. And he asked me to thank the kids for preaching to him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you thinking with the mind of Christ? Are you putting others first? There is so much division in our country right now and it\u2019s seeping over into churches. A friend of mine, another minister, who is an ardent liberal was afraid her politics was seeping into her preaching. So she decided to go back to a tradition and pray for the President every Sunday. The first Sunday, during the pastoral prayer, she said, \u201cLet us pray for our President, Donald J. Trump.\u201d She got two calls that week: one complaining that she had prayed for President Trump at all, one complaining because they were a Trump supporters and they thought she was being praying for him as an anti-Trump message. I guess they were thinking with their political minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s on your mind? What are you thinking? Paul was thinking about division in that church in Philippi and his solution was simple: division comes when we let our own minds take charge; unity comes from thinking with the mind of Christ. That\u2019s still true today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you thinking with the mind of Christ? A couple weeks ago, we read a parable about a guy who received forgiveness and lost it when he didn\u2019t practice forgiveness. I said then that forgiveness was the way to deal with our past, to stop letting our past be a burden. Last week, we read a parable about some workers who grumbled and didn\u2019t get to laugh when they got paid and I said then that gratitude was the way to deal with our present, finding something to appreciate and thank God for in each day. Now we have this letter from Paul to Christians just like us, people with a lot on their mind and he wants to help them face the future. How do you face the future as follower of Christ? You think with the mind of Christ, you live from the mind of Christ, you act from the mind of Christ. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s on your mind? \u201cHave this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus\u2026\u201d God is at work in us, God is at work in you and me. We may not know it; we may not see it. Earlier, I mentioned the story of Fred Craddock\u2019s baptism and what was on his mind while it took place. But you know, that fourteen year old boy grew up to be a man who inspired thousands, who helped so many find the forgiving, grateful spirit Christ invites us to share. He did it because he learned to think with the mind of Christ. What will we do when we let the mind of Christ control us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have this mind among yourselves that was in Christ Jesus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"What's On Your Mind? ","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[101,3,13,2,69],"tags":[261,98,259,172,258,260],"class_list":["post-1151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-after-pentecost","category-sermon","category-theology","category-worship","category-year-a","tag-division","tag-hope","tag-humiity","tag-love","tag-mind-of-christ-2","tag-unity"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1152,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151\/revisions\/1152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}