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Luke 10:25-37 25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27 He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” 28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” 29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ 36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
Philippians 2:1-11 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Having the Mind of Christ: Love: The Power to Change Your Mind
Today is the first Sunday in Lent. Centuries ago the Lenten season was a time of preparation for baptism at the Easter Vigil. At midnight on Easter eve the baptismal candidates would face west and renounce Satan and all his works. They would repent of all their sins.
Then they would turn to the east from where the sun rises every day and conquers darkness and confess total faith in Jesus Christ and declare their allegiance to Christ. After this they would be immersed three times in the name of the Father, then of the Son and finally of the Holy Spirit. Following baptism they would return to the church and take communion for the first time.
Now we don’t have that long a process for baptism but the Lenten season is a time for self-examination, repentance and prayer. It is a time of preparation. As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 13:5-6 “ 5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test! 6 I hope you will find out that we have not failed.”
I thought you might be interested in how the date for Easter is calculated since it does vary throughout March or April. We know the date for the Resurrection since we know it occurred during the Jewish feast of Passover. Originally the date for Easter was set according to the date for Passover using the Jewish calendar. The Jewish people use a lunar calendar with each month starting with each new moon; this does not match up with our calendar which is solar, based on the time it takes for the earth to go around the sun. The Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, which also gave us the Nicaean Creed, set the date for Easter as the Sunday following the first full moon that falls on or after the Spring Equinox. In other words, wait until Spring starts, look for the next full moon and Easter will be the first Sunday after that. Sound complicated? Yeah, aren’t we glad it’s printed on our calendars for us?
That gets us Easter, how about Lent? Lent is a period of forty days between Ash Wednesday and Easter. There are numbers that are important in the Bible and forty is one of them. The Flood continued for forty days and nights. Moses spent forty days on the mountain with God. Moses sent Joshua, Caleb and the others to spy out the Promised Land for forty days but when the people were afraid to enter the land God causes the Israelites to wander in the desert for forty years. Jesus was tempted in the wilderness for forty days. This is the main basis for Lent being forty days. Now if you go and look at a calendar and count the days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday you will find that it is more than forty days. That’s because the Sundays in Lent don’t count because Sunday is the day we set aside for the Lord and that day is always a celebration. Sundays don’t count in Lent. As Christ fasted and prayed in the desert for forty days, during Lent we try to look to Christ for the standards by which we live our lives, with goals of His self-giving love.
We are going to work primarily with one scripture for all of Lent. The passage from Philippians 2 that I just read. In it Paul is exhorting the church in Philippi to have the mind of Christ and that is going to be our goal during Lent. The Greek word that is translated in English as “mind” describes a way of thinking that determines action. We might use the word mind-set. Think of it as the fundamental foundation upon which we build our lives, the internal frame of reference through which we perceive everything else. As a house holds together because of the framework so our lives are held together through the framework of Christ working in us through the Holy Spirit to conform us to His image.
The Lenten season is one that calls us to transform our lives to be more like Christ. This requires a radical reorientation of our thinking that will result in a radical transformation of our lives. To have the mind of Christ, to see the world through Christ’s eyes and to have the love of Christ in our hearts requires us to first die to self before we can rise to new life in Jesus Christ. Together we will explore the Christian disciplines of love, humility, servanthood, surrender, obedience and faithful suffering as a way to “having the mind of Christ.” Today we are looking at love.
In the second chapter of Philippians scholars believe Paul is quoting an early creed or hymn of the church that was used in worship to define the mind of Christ, Jesus’ way of thinking and acting, His self-emptying love of God that allowed Him to go to the cross for us. We are aiming to change our minds so they are more like Christ’s. Let me give you an example.
Have you ever gotten a song stuck in your head? Usually it’s one you don’t even like. Maybe an advertising jingle. I remember when our first three children were young; before the last two were even born we went to Disneyland in California. There is a ride there where you ride in a car past scenes of children in other lands. It was very nice, educational for the children and all that but during that ride I came to totally hate the song that played all the way through the ride, over and over again, “It’s a Small World.” It was so repetitive and I couldn’t get it out of my head. It became a family joke and the children would sing it just to annoy me, they thought that was funny! When Rachel, my older daughter ended up living in southern California for a while she sent me a mug from Disneyland with the song on it. Now getting a song stuck in your head can be a bad thing but there are ways it can be a good thing. It can help us learn. That’s why we teach young children the alphabet through song. I bet every person here, no matter how old, can still remember that alphabet song. Rhythm and rhyme help us learn. Throughout this season of Lent we will work with this one passage from Philippians, we will listen to this early hymn of the church and allow the rhythm of the self-emptying love of Jesus into our minds until we start to think, act, and live in rhythm with the heartbeat of God’s love in Jesus Christ.
This morning, as we explore the discipline of love we are going to work through one statement. The love of God revealed in Jesus Christ, discovered in community, and experienced in human relationships has the power to change our minds. So, what does it take to change our minds, the way we view the world and all the people in it?
First, the Love That Has the Power to Change Our Minds Is Defined by the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus. Now love can be defined in many ways, there are various forms of love. We tend to use the word rather loosely nowadays. Greek was a more complicated language than our modern day English so there are often several words in Greek that translate into the same word in English and there are nuances of meaning that are lost in translation. The word Paul uses that we translate love is agape which describes the unique love that God has for humanity as well as our reciprocal love for God. It is not romantic love or brotherly love. God’s love is displayed most clearly at the cross. It has the power to change our minds into the mind of Christ. We are talking about the self-giving love of God revealed to us through the life, death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Second, The Love That Has the Power to Change Our Minds Is Discovered in Community. I have often heard it said that there’s no such thing as a Lone Ranger Christian. You will find many outside of the church who say they are Christians and maybe even love Jesus and live good lives but they aren’t involved in any kind of Christian fellowship. That’s not what Christianity is all about. It’s about community. Living and loving together. Spreading the good news together. Paul’s letter to the Philippians was addressed to all the members of the church community. The agape love of Christ is best experienced in community with other Christians. Jesus said wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there am I also. We need to remember though that the love of Christ in not confined within the walls of the church. God’s love reaches out to the entire human family throughout our world. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that “radical agape love in action” is “God’s ultimate will for humanity” and that “God’s primary concern with human history was the restoration of the beloved human community.”
Third, the Love That Has the Power to Change Our Minds Takes Action in Human Relationships. This is where our reading of Luke 10:25-37 comes in; the parable of the Good Samaritan. When Jesus is questioned by a expert in the law concerning eternal life Jesus says, “What does the law say?” The expert in the law correctly answers, “”You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus tells the man he is correct but then the he asks Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus doesn’t answer his question with a list of those who qualify but He reverses the question to “Who is nearest to the one in need of help?” Gone is the idea of concentric circles of responsibility with ourselves at the center, followed by family, neighbors, and so on. Instead of ourselves at the center, the one in need is placed at the center and those who are nearest are to help. In our passage from Luke, three men were equally near the man who had been beaten by the thieves but only one acted as neighbor and that one was a Samaritan who by the world’s definition at that time was not a neighbor but an outsider to the Jewish community. The priest and Levite were concerned with themselves, by approaching a man who might be already dead they risked ritual uncleanliness, their mind-set said this was more important than the man. The Samaritan was of a different mind-set though. He was deeply moved with pity, with compassion. The man’s need outweighed both the inconvenience and the expense. When we have the mind of Christ we will act like the Samaritan, not like the priest and Levite. We will have the self-giving love of our Savior in our hearts. Let us pray.
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen