Setting the Mind

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

March 9, 2008

Text: Romans 8: 6-11

We want to emphasize that the Gospel tells us how to live, and yet we are told, it seems, that we should set our mind on the spiritual things and not on real life! Here we are, beings occupying space and time, flesh and blood, and the apostle Paul tells us that we should focus on invisible realities instead?

For those who think that Christianity is only about other-worldly matters, this section of Paul’s letter seems to confirm their suspicions that the real heroes of the faith are those with lots of time to pray or those elite spirit-filled people who spend a lot of time peppering their conversations with “Praise the Lords” but do not seem to get their hands dirty with the troubles of the human race. You can almost hear them saying, “If that is what Christianity is about, then count me out!”

Perhaps never has a translation of a biblical work from Greek to English worked such mischief as has the translation of the word sarx. The English word “flesh” simply does not describe what Paul is saying.

To “set the mind on the flesh” as the Apostle understood it meant to live our lives in obedience to our self’s perceived wants, not just in our physical wants but our whole nature insofar as we are ruled by selfish interests. It means for a person to be “shaped by, controlled by, the values and standards of the world in rebellion against God.” It is not simply bad behaviors but a “mind-set,” the way we lean into life. It is to establish self-interest--- narrowly understood--- as the captain of all our decisions. (Texts for Preaching)

Martin Luther wrote that such a mind-set meant that we enjoy only ourselves and “use everything else, even God….” It is to “seek ourselves and our own interests in everything.” We each become the objects of our own worship. We become truly stuck on ourselves, either in defense or offense (getting or preserving) or “curved in” on ourselves. (Romans)

Good endeavors, good goals can be made into the subjects of our selfishness: higher education, religious disciplines, external goods, spiritual meditation, skills of our occupations, family, health, beauty----all of these if pursued out of selfishness lead to “woundedness and ferment through and through.”(Luther). These done only for the self is the road to death. Our Hebrew forebears taught us that there is no such thing as living neutrally. We are going to set our minds----our whole lives, not only our thoughts but our hearts, souls, and minds---- on something, we are “always oriented, consciously or unconsciously, to a goal.” (Ernest Kasemann, Romans, page  217).  It is what Bob Dylan sang about, “You’re gonna serve somebody.”

We can despair of meaning and become experts at melancholy; or we can “eat, drink and be merry” because there is nothing worth living for beyond that; or we can try to prove our worth by being scrupulous observers of some code; or we can live our lives stewing in our guilt. Or we can truly become libertines. The common denominator in the flesh-mind-set is to act deliberately and consistently for our own self as the highest value. To set the mind on the “flesh” is to be absorbed “in the things that human nature without Christ sets its heart upon.” (Barclay, Romans)

As I spoke last week, the trap we are in is that we are inclined (slippery slope!) to live our lives in worship of our insecure egos. We know better, we sometimes act charitably toward others, but we cannot, by our own efforts, get ourselves free. But Paul says that God has done what we could not do. God has proved to truly love us by the gift of his Son, in whose life, teaching, death and resurrection this love has become truly with us and for us.

When we believe in Jesus Christ as the Word of God for us, when we receive Christ and the Spirit within our hearts and lives, we discover a great gift that has been waiting for us: the freedom to live differently. Instead of being slaves to ourselves, we can live for a higher purpose. Paul is proclaiming this new freedom not as another law but as a gift which we are invited to claim. (It would be cruel indeed to pile on the demands of being more spiritual without this gift! It would be another law which we must obey!) We set our minds on the Spirit because, in Christ, it seems right to us. “You have the spirit of Christ, you belong to Christ; this is not a matter for debate. Paul does not say “if” you belong to Christ or have the Spirit dwelling in you: he declares, “You are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.” In the words of Ernst Kasemann, “the residency is declared.” So we are urged to “pursue life in light of the residency of the Spirit.” (Page 76 in Lectionary Commentary)

The strange thing is this: in surrendering our attempts to find happiness and fulfillment on our own, in turning from our self-preoccupation and trusting in God for our worth, salvation and dignity, we truly find ourselves and are freed from worshiping ourselves!

And so we spend the rest of our lives in the discipline of “setting our minds on the Spirit.” And when the spirit dwells within us, we live in this human life with a great difference. We move from death toward life and peace.To set our minds on the spirit is not to ignore the ordinary world or our physical selves, which are good gifts of God. We are freed to be in the world but not of the world----or better said, we can live oriented toward the “strange new world” (Barth) which God has created through Christ. This means that we “belong to this new order [begun by Jesus]….and the new community of faith where God dwells as spirit.” (Oxford Annotated RSV Notes)

We can have an “anticipatory transformation” when we live our lives toward God and not toward the dark side of a fallen world bent on its own death. We begin the “live the future we envision….We must be doing what we want the world to be.” ( Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in  Paul Achtemeier, Romans)

“Spiritual persons abandon themselves in faith, hope and love to the inscrutable ways of the Spirit. They let God be God and let the Spirit blow wherever it wills. At the same time, they are deeply involved in the endeavors of the world. They experience the triumphs and defeats integral to being fully human.” (Coombs and Nemeck, Spiritual Direction, p. 40)

We live as if, as an immeasurable gift, we belong to God in Jesus Christ. We declare ourselves to be on God’s side. We are given that “peace which passes all understanding.” (Philippians 4:7)
We are given by God the “freedom to stop brooding over a wicked past and turn our attention to the present life with its opportunities for good. We let go our resistance against God’s freeing Spirit. We discover that freedom is real.” (Achtemeier)

What does this spirit-focused life look like? There are many heroes we could mention. But I am drawn to the “ordinary” people who, often without notice, have their minds set on the Spirit in daily life. Elsie Magee, an octogenarian Methodist in Midland, Texas, who in the 1960s came alive with a zeal for the renewal of the ministry of the laity in real life, especially in race relations and ministries to the poor.Pearl Robertson, who, with her husband, eked out a lived on a small farm near Graham. Her steady witness defined the character of a struggling church looking for a mission, and the gave courage to a first-year pastor learning how to lead.

A Methodist teacher in Victoria who, demoted from teaching gifted and talented students to teaching at-risk youth, gave himself to his students with such a level of tough love, including both support and accountability, that doors were opened for students who had no place else to turn. A faithful doctor who tirelessly gives himself to influence legislation to relieve suffering of terminally ill patients caught up in ideological battles of right and left.

Charles Colson, the originator of a ministry to prisoners, heard from a 93 year old grandmother. She had spent her “declining” years, she said, writing to inmates in prisons, and it had “filled my last days with joy.” She wanted to meet him.  He located her in a soot-covered brick high-rise in Columbus, Ohio. He heard her story. She had married at 17. She had a hard life. She was ready to give up, wanted to die, when her youngest son died. But her travails only let her “lean closer.” She said, “Mr. Colson, the Lord don’t need no quitters; first thing you know the Lord will turn us around every which way.”

The Lord told her, “Write to prisoners.” So she did. Her first letter:
“Dear Inmate,
I am a Grandmother who loves and cares for you who are in a place you had not planned to be. My love and sympathy goes out to you. I am willing to be a friend to you in correspondence. If you would like to hear from me, write me. I will answer every letter you write.
A  Christian Friend,
Grandmother Howell”

The letter must have been passed on to the prison chaplain. She received eight prisoners to whom she was invited to write. Other names came to her from other sources through the years. Grandmother Howell has subsequently corresponded with hundreds of inmates, becoming a one woman ministry reaching out all over America.  Her strategy is simple. She said, “When I get a letter, I read it, and when I answer it, I pray, ‘Lord, You know what you want to say. Now say it through me.’ As He gives me, I write it. His Spirit works. I obey. I don’t put anything in there that I feel is of self, of flesh.”

One inmate wrote back:
Dear Grandmother,
I was very happy to get your letter. The guys kidded me when they said I had a letter. I didn’t believe them. I’m in the hole now; that’s why I can write letters. Why am I so afraid, Grandmother? Why doesn’t God answer my prayers about this? I am really glad to know that there is someone out there who cares. I remember you in my prayers tonight starting now and forever. Please write soon.
Love in the name of Jesus,
Joe
(from The Saturday Evening Post, date lost)

What does it mean to set your mind on the Spirit? The examples are all around us in people who have given their lives to Christ and who live for him, the one who died and was raised for their sake and for the sake of the whole world.

With all our hearts, will we set our minds on the Spirit? Who knows what the Lord may have in store for you and me in days to come?