“Change of Mind”
Wayne McLaughlin
September 27, 2020 – 17th Sunday after Pentecost
Ezekiel 18.25-32 NRSV
25 Yet you say, “The way of the Lord is unfair.” Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair? 26 When the righteous turn away from their righteousness and commit iniquity, they shall die for it; for the iniquity that they have committed they shall die. 27 Again, when the wicked turn away from the wickedness they have committed and do what is lawful and right, they shall save their life. 28 Because they considered and turned away from all the transgressions that they had committed, they shall surely live; they shall not die. 29 Yet the house of Israel says, “The way of the Lord is unfair.” O house of Israel, are my ways unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair?
30 Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, all of you according to your ways, says the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin. 31 Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? 32 For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live.
Philippians 2.3-7 NRSV
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
Matthew 21.23-32 NRSV
The Authority of Jesus Questioned
23 When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” 24 Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” 27 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”
The Parable of the Two Sons
28 “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ 29 He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. 30 The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.
SERMON TEXT:
The Room
Brie Larson, the actress who was the first woman to play the part of Captain Marvel is the same actress who won an Oscar for Best Actress in the movie Room. That film was based on the novel of the same name by Emma Donoghue.
Room is about a woman who was abducted and raped and made to live in a small garden shed, eleven feet by eleven feet. She was continually raped in that shed over the seven years she spent there. Her baby boy was born there. The story begins as her son, Jack, is having his fifth birthday. All he has ever known of the world is that 11 x 11 room. That’s his world. It is satisfactory for him because that is all he knows.
Jack is like the chief priests and Pharisees that find Jesus in the Temple teaching about the Kingdom of God. Their form of faith is like living in a small room, a room with small dimensions. Now, don’t misunderstand; they are not bad people. Their motives are pure. They want to serve the Lord and obey the Lord. Their desire is to honor God. But their way of doing it is small.
The word Pharisee means “the pure ones.” And their concern for purity is so extreme that they don’t want to rub shoulders with the “sinners.” They are afraid of being contaminated. It was an ancient form of Fundamentalism. Fundamentalists of any stripe are always striving to keep a distance from “worldly” things and people. One way to do that is to live in a small, walled-off room.
Two sons
Jesus tells a story about a father and two sons. The father tells the oldest son to go work in the vineyard, but the son says, “No, I will not work today.” But as he goes on his way he changes his mind, and goes to the vineyard to work. The father tells his next son to go work in the vineyard. This boy says, “Okay, I’ll go work today.” But instead he goes straight to the mall to see his girlfriend.
Jesus asks the chief priests and Pharisees standing in front of him, “Which son did the will of his father?” They answer, “The oldest son.” Jesus says, “That’s right, the one who changed his mind.” Then Jesus looks into their eyes and says,
“Why haven’t you changed your minds?”
Now, to be fair, the Pharisees and the chief priests are like the little boy, Jack—they have gotten used to their narrow frame of mind. They like their religious system. They follow the rules, and they feel safe. They also feel a little superior to all the people who are not as devoted as they are to their faith. They don’t feel the need for a larger space to practice faith in their God. They are not bad people. They have faith. They want to honor God. But they are captive to their small-minded faith.
The Baptizer
They had begun this conversation by asking about John the Baptizer. So, at this point Jesus brings John back into the conversation. He reminds these pious men that John came with a message about the necessity of changing one’s mind and showing this change by letting him dunk them in the water of the Jordan River.
Jesus reminds these religious leaders that tax collectors and prostitutes responded to John’s message; they had a change of mind and were plunged into the waters of death in order to be raised up into a new way of life.
“You saw them,” says Jesus to the chief priests, “You saw them go down into the water as a sign of their entrance into the kingdom. And you have watched them lead a different kind of life. You have seen how God transformed them—how their minds changed. Yet, you have not changed your mind. Why not?”
We change
I’m sure we have all changed our minds about some things. We no longer believe in Santa Claus or tooth fairies. I’ve changed my mind about broccoli and yogurt, which I used to not like. I still haven’t changed my mind about oysters though.
Some people change their minds and leave the Republican Party and become Democrats. And vice versa.
In 1977 I changed my mind about the denomination I was part of, and jumped through the hoops I had to jump through in order to become a Presbyterian minister of Word and Sacrament.
But the change of mind that Jesus is talking about is not a matter of taste or preference, it’s much deeper.
Paul’s explanation
St. Paul helps us understand the words of Jesus about changing the mind when he writes to the Christians in Rome and says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. (Ro. 12.2)
The Good News Translation makes it more clear:
Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind.
At another time when Paul was in prison he wrote a letter to the Christians in Philippi and said:
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.
So, evidently the change of mind that Jesus spoke of has something to do with us thinking like Jesus. It is a matter of allowing the mind of Christ to become part of our minds.
It’s not a matter of giving up your mind; rather, it is taking on additional mind—the mind of Christ. It is an enlargement of the mind.
If our God is the infinite creative Mind that made the universe, and if Christ is the embodied Mind of God, then when we take into ourselves the mind of Christ, we are actually entering into the Mind of God. We are taking our puny little minds and expanding them with the creative, loving Mind of God. To “change our mind” is to “expand our mind” in a Christological fashion.
Emptying
Paul goes on in the second chapter of Philippians to describe the “mind of Christ.” He says,
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited (or hung onto),
7 but emptied himself, and became a servant…
The mind of Christ is the mind that empties itself of ego. It takes the form of a servant. It humbles itself. It has no ambition to move up. Rather, it moves down. It stoops to serve.
It empties itself. It is not full of itself.
The religious leaders who stood a few feet from Jesus were not willing to empty themselves. They were full of themselves.
In contrast, the tax collectors and prostitutes were already so empty inside that they saw emptying themselves as a welcome opportunity to become their true selves. They were the ones Jesus had talked about when he said, Blessed are the poor in spirit. They were already almost completely empty.
To empty ourselves of our egoism is the way into the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is “full of emptiness.”
John the Baptizer was a threat to those who were concerned about status or upward mobility. His message seemed crazy. He was inviting people to downward mobility. That’s why they were put down into the water before they could be raised up from the water. Rinsed of respectability. Washed of the stain of status. Cleansed of clinging to power.
To indwell the mind of Christ is to expand the horizon of our love. To become inclusive. To welcome all of God’s children into our circle of love. To expand our minds to receive more of reality. To love wider and deeper and longer.
To have the mind of Christ is a new way of thinking. A new way of seeing life. A new way of seeing yourself. A new way of seeing the people you see every day.
The tax collectors (traitors to their fellow Jews), and the prostitutes (the immoral to their fellow Jews) lived lives of shame. They were the low-down of the low-downs. They were full of self-loathing. But they went down to the river and drowned their shame. They came out of the water dripping with self-respect. They went into the water as nobodies; they emerged from the water as somebodies. They were cleansed of self-loathing. They walked back to the bank of the river and deposited themselves on the ground dignity.
They got new minds. They got new self-respect. And they got new jobs.
Broader
The Englishman Frederick William Faber (d. 1863) wrote the hymn that says:
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
Like the wideness of the sea;
There’s a kindness in His justice,
Which is more than liberty…
For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of our mind…
And the love of God is broader because the Mind of God is broader.
Freedom
In the film Room the mother and son finally escape their little room. For five year old Jack it was a marvelous discovery of how big and wonderful the world is. He saw things he couldn’t even have imagined. He got to know his grandparents. He got to pet a real dog, which became his pet. He went to all kinds of places and saw all kinds of people. His reality had suddenly exploded with pleasures and relationships.
Jesus asked the religious leaders why they had not changed their minds. Why were they content with their little eleven by eleven room of faith?
I believe that even today Jesus is asking us the same question. Why have you not changed your mind?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we woke up every morning and put on the mind of Christ and walked out our door to see the world in a different light. To see the spark of God in every person we met. To hear the groaning of creation and to hear the voice of God calling us to be part of the healing of creation.
It would be something like being born all over again.
[text = 1700 words = 13:30 time]
