Good Thoughts
The
By Stephen Terry
“Let
this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." Philippians 2:5
Our lesson this week
confronts us with the paradox of right thinking in a world full of wrong. Somehow, surrounded by images and experiences
that constantly surprise and challenge us, we are to cleanse our thoughts of
anything deleterious. Many have tried to
accomplish this through the centuries. The attempts at purification center on
two major themes. Either the problem
with purity is because of our actions or because of the actions of someone
else. Both approaches see the world as
black and white, ignoring that all of us are mixtures of each in different
proportions resulting in a vast number of shades of grey. If we imagine Jesus as purely good and
therefore purely white and the Devil as purely evil and therefore purely black,
then we must admit that all of mankind falls somewhere in between.
Historically we have
been unwilling to live with this. Christians have a history of believing
they can, like Christ, be completely white, completely free of sin. Never
mind that Jesus came to deliver us from our sorry sinful state, some Christians
have always believed that by force of will they can attain to a state of
perfect sinlessness. The hermit has been a
recurring symbol of this struggle.
Well documented in
Christianity as far back as the 4th century, individuals have sought to
withdraw from society and devote themselves to austerity and prayer to control
their thoughts and actions. Fasting or following microbiotic
diets, they attempted to control every spiritual appetite through controlling
what they ate. Perhaps a modern equivalent is the vegetarian or vegan
diet followed for a religious purpose. While many acolytes have regularly
followed these hermits and marveled at their strength of purpose, their efforts
to control their thoughts and avoid temptations were fraught with frustration.
This was famously illustrated in Hieronymus Bosch's triptych,
"The Temptation of Saint Anthony," an event also illustrated by Bruegel, Grunewald and many others.
The problem with seeking
sanctification in this way is that it says several negatives about our
relationship with God. First it implies that God will not have anything
to do with us unless we can somehow "clean ourselves up enough" to be
suitable company for Him. This ignores Romans 5:8: "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us." And verse 10 goes on to say
that we were not only sinners but "enemies" toward God. This does not
sound like a God who waits for us to be perfect before He will have anything to
do with us.
A second error of self
sanctification is that it implies that God cannot be trusted to sanctify us, we
must do it ourselves. Those who believe such things often cite Philippians 2:12
which says "...work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling" but they ignore the following verse that tells
us "For it is God which worketh in you
both to will and to do of his good pleasure." The Bible
clearly identifies sanctification as God's work and not ours.
Our
only "work" is to step out of the way and let God have his will with
us. For those who like to be in control, this can be the hardest work they have
ever done. But when they do this, they will find rest and calm like they
have never known before. The way to win this struggle is to cease to struggle,
to surrender our defeated carnal nature and will to a God who is willing to
take it all upon Himself.
Let's return now to the
idea that our purity might be affected by the actions of someone else rather
than from our own sinful nature. A good example of this would be the
woman who is sexually assaulted and then blamed for dressing in a manner that
invited the assault. In this example, we first look at our own inability
to deal with temptation and then project that onto the attacker, then unwilling
to admit to the weakness we just projected, we blame the victim for the
crime. When we do this, we move from trying to control our own purity to
trying to control the purity of others. This cannot work for us, and it
does not work for others. We see an example of this in the Burka worn by some women in Arabic cultures. Some in
the West ridicule the practice, but Christians have their "burkas" as well. Women will dress in ankle
length jumper dresses and long sleeved blouses with even the hair covered to
enhance the image of Christian purity. Taken to an extreme this principle
has resulted in some countries in laws that will not allow women to leave their
own homes unless escorted by a male. The idea is that somehow the women are at
fault for the lack of purity in society and must be tightly controlled.
Being an American, I
must also admit that in our own history we have done similar things. Not
until the Women's Suffrage Movement were women able to begin shaking off the
shackles of control in the
In the end we come back
to the essential element of good thinking, by giving up, by surrendering so
that God can assume control we actually win the battle we were losing on our
own. Some may feel that we must make every effort on our own and then God
makes up the difference. But this is tantamount to saying that God's
power to work in our lives is limited, and we cannot trust Him to complete our
preparation for heaven. When we see that God has given Jesus on the cross
to bring us home, how can we think that he would fail in any way to complete
what is needed in us for the trip?
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