Good Words

Sermon 09/28/2008

Let the Same Mind Be in You ~ by Reverand Thomas Cary Kinder
September 28, 2008 Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont, UCC
Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 16:24-26

Introduction – Right now fear is rising around the world as the global economy is in a free fall and people are waiting to see how far it drops and where they themselves will land. Maybe you have felt some of this fear yourself. The job of the church at such a time is to equip us to be courageous bearers of God’s light and love and life to the world. The following sermon is about an essential spiritual practice that can help us find our way through fear to the love that always waits on the other side. One way to sum up this key practice is Paul’s line from Philippians, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” It is important to understand what the word “mind” meant to Paul when he wrote it. Paul talks about mind elsewhere. In First Corinthians he says, “We have the mind of Christ.” In Romans he says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” In both those cases the word for mind is the Greek word nous, which means mind in a broad sense, including what we would call intellect, heart and spirit. But in today’s passage, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus Christ,” the Greek word translated as mind is phroneo, which means to have a purpose or intention, as in, “I have a mind to do something.” It comes from another Greek root that means the midriff or gut. Paul is talking not so much about thought or feeling as having the courage of our conviction. He asks that we each try to find within ourselves the mind of Christ that informs our gut, our instinct, our intention. As you read the sermon below, please keep that in your (nous) mind, and let it move your (phroneo) mind!


Let the Same Mind Be in You
Jesus said, “Those who want to save their life
will lose it, but those who lose their life for my sake
will find it.” And, “Unless a grain of wheat
falls in the ground and dies, it will remain
a single grain; but if it dies, it bears
much fruit.” Paul said, “Let the same mind be in you
that was in Jesus Christ…who emptied himself…
to the point of death—even death on a cross.”

I had a dream the other night. I dreamt
I saw a native village on a river,
maybe the Connecticut. I saw the fields
of corn and beans and squash, I saw the forests
like parks of massive trees where they would hunt,
sloping back toward the mountains where they went
to seek the Spirit’s vision or to die.
I saw the harmony, sufficiency,
humility, the selfless oneness that
gave rise to justice, mercy and deep peace.
It was a dream, and so a pure ideal.
But then three men arrived who had gone off
far down the river to the Europeans.
They saw the power there of the river dammed
to turn the massive stone that ground the grain
that in their village women pounded long
on rocks to get enough to fill one bowl.
They saw the woven blankets, saw forged blades,
and saw a vision unlike any quest
up sacred mountains ever brought before—
they saw themselves with comfort, wealth and power.
They came back to the village loaded down
with gifts white traders gave them in exchange
for promises of mink and beaver pelts.
They came back changed, already filled with power
that had possessed them, heart and soul and mind.
A woman was the first to see them land
their freighted birch canoe and fill their arms
with blankets, knives and bottles. One went to drink
with cupped hands from the river, but she rushed
down in the water in her buckskin skirt
and called to them with deep, prophetic voice,
her dark eyes full of their own storms of power,
her hair like jet black lightning, round face shaking.
She cried, “If you drink from that river you
will sicken. You will die.” The men all scoffed,
not understanding what she meant. I woke
and felt I understood. It was God’s river
that she was standing in, but not the men—
they had discovered and brought back another,
a river that they carried in their arms
and heart and mind and soul, a river dammed
by their attachments and ambitions, greed
for wealth and lust for power. She meant that—
that was the river they would drink and die.
It was a dream, but we all know the truth,
that blankets, steel and bottles were the death
of what the native people here most loved.

Today we live far down that toxic river,
we see the sickness caused by drinking greed
and lust and pride, we see the earth in pain,
convulsing, large parts dying, and we see
the price that we are going to have to pay
for what a mind for money-grabbing ruined,
and many of us feel the spreading fear,
and many of us feel a helpless rage,
and many of us feel a grief for all
that we may lose, and for our children’s future.
So in this time, when that wise woman’s cry
has been fulfilled, and we see all around
a culture sick and dying, how can we
get back to that good river? How can we
save what there is to save and start anew?
Where is the hope? Where is the source of courage,
wisdom and strength we need? And where is peace?
When we see death, destruction and decay
ruling the world, what is it we can do?
The answer is to die before we die.
This is the message that we get from Christ:
to die to self so we may live as Christ.
“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth
and dies…” he said. “For those who want to save
their life will lose it; those who lose their life
for my sake—they will find it.” Let that same mind
be in you, Paul said, meaning empty yourself
of self, do nothing from ambition
or conceit, let each look not to your own interests,
but to the other’s, thinking them as better.
Though you be even in the form of God,
take for yourself instead the form of slave
as Jesus did, so free of self-regard
that you can choose the ego’s crucifixion,
or, when the time comes, choose a martyr’s death.
It seems absurd, like foolishness and weakness,
as Paul well knew, but ‘God’s foolishness
is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness
is stronger than human strength.’ And if we look
with eyes of wisdom, we can see God’s truth.
Look at the river flowing to the sea,
forever emptying itself of self,
forever being filled again from rains.
The water that it gives comes back again.
That is the sacred way of letting go,
surrendering, a dying that brings life.
Look at the way our bodies know to work—
we give our breath away and live in trust
that what we give will come again refreshed.
The chambers of the heart pump out our blood
and empty, trusting more will come to fill
and give them life. Our hearts each know the way,
and yet somehow our minds can be seduced,
like Eve, to think consuming gives us power
or happiness or wisdom, or like Cain,
who thought the way to gain his heart’s desire
was violence, was killing his own brother.
But Jesus came to reawaken us,
to lead us back to Eden’s primal way,
to show us how God works throughout creation,
to open us to fill with Spirit’s power
and wisdom so we could be changed and saved
from our own folly, and so save the world
that groans in longing to be freed from greed,
that longs to be restored as God’s good realm.

To die before we die. That is Christ’s way,
but what on earth in our lives can it mean?
A man too young found out that he had cancer,
a brutal, killing kind. But he was strong,
and he had always bent life to his will
and used his energy to do good things.
He loved the coast of Maine and sailed it all.
He served as president of Outward Bound
to help bring others his same bold, strong joy.
So when he heard the doctor speak of death
he charted out a course to save his life.
He exercised, he ate organically,
visualized health, did chemotherapy.
One day a friend was visiting. Her talk
turned to the dangers of a sail through fog.
The man said, yes, but there is much that you
can do to keep yourself from feeling fear—
note all you notice in your log precisely,
stand on the bow and scan in all directions.
Or, the friend said, just let the fear come up
and fall right through it to the other side.
The man looked at her as if she had stabbed him.
Let fear come up and fall—to what? To death?
Over the next few weeks he gave up all
the desperate measures of his planned-out course.
He gathered in the family to say
good by and settle his affairs and wait.
Not long before the end his friend came back
and saw the miracle that she had heard
from his whole family, how as his body
withered before their eyes, his soul grew large
and luminous. Love radiated out from him,
a force field all could feel. He now faced death
with open heart, brave, trusting and serene.
He whispered something and his friend bent down
to hear his weak and muffled, rasping voice.
“Are you fearless yet?” he asked her. “Not yet,”
she answered. “I’m still trying.” Then he said,
“Fall…fearless…into…love.” His parting words.
(Story from The Wisdom Way of Knowing by
Cynthia Bourgeault, p69ff, where many of the
ideas in this sermon are discussed)

That man had learned the secret Christ was teaching.
Our small and frightened self sees life or death
as threats requiring fighting off the fear
through strategies for happiness we learn
as children and then practice all our lives—
we seek control or power like that man,
or some security or worthiness,
we form attachments, cling with all our might.
The secret is to let those habits go,
to let go all we have and all we are,
to turn from fearful taking in ourselves
to selfless giving all we are to others,
self-giving love, surrender, sacrifice.
To die before we die. To fall right through
fear to the other side. Why does this work?
Because, as Paul says, it is God at work,
God who enables us to will and work
for love of God and neighbor. Empty out,
die to this world for Christ’s sake, and God will fill
the emptiness within you with new life.
This is the primal motion, the primal force,
the emptying and filling up again,
and emptying and filling up again,
the losing life for Christ and gaining back.
Jesus himself knelt in Gethsemane
and prayed in fear and anguish to be spared,
but then let go and said, “Thy will be done,”
emptying, opening, surrendering,
and in that moment he filled with new power.
The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
at twenty-six, brand new to ministry,
brand new in town, was chosen by Montgomery
to lead their protest. He came home and had
just twenty minutes to prepare to speak.
He later said, “I became possessed by fear….
I turned to God in prayer….” There he found power.
Months later when a death threat woke him up
he put the phone down and got out of bed,
went to the kitchen, made a cup of coffee
and sat down at the table staring at it.
Again he prayed. He said that night to God,
“I am at the end of my powers. I
have nothing left.” He sat there emptied out,
and fell through fear. “At that moment I
experienced the presence of the Divine,” he wrote,
“the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying,
‘Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth
and God will be at your side forever.’
Almost at once my fears began to go.
My uncertainties disappeared. I was
ready to face anything.” Let the same mind
be in you that was in Christ Jesus and
Martin Luther King Jr. and Paul and
all of the saints who ever felt their fear
rising within them and fell through to love,
who ever let go self-concern and emptied
and let God’s Spirit fill them up again.
Let the same mind be in you over and over.
Let this be your practice when the world’s fear
or your fear or uncertainties arise.
All else may fail or fall away in ruin,
but like the river, like the human heart,
if you let go in pure self-giving love
and turn to God, God will replenish you.
Prayer is no substitute for loving action,
King said, but prayer gave him the power to act.
Let us pray now in silence in our hearts,
emptying out all thoughts and letting God
refill us with the Spirit’s guiding power.
Quiet your mind to find the mind of Christ
within you here and now….Let us pray…


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