I’m in no way against making New Year’s resolutions, I’m sure they’re most helpful for some.  I tend not to make them for myself, though it is not unknown.  This year, we have an unofficial (so unofficial it’s mostly unspoken) resolution around our house that we are going to try and do more cooking for ourselves.  Less eating out/ordering out/taking out.  It’s so far so good.  Ask me how it’s going in a month or two.  They say that 80% of New Year’s resolutions are not kept, and you can make of that what you will.  I think that part of the challenge of them is that we are often depending on our own resolve/strength of will/mindset.  If we are remaining resolute on our resolutions, there is always the danger of getting self-righteous in the strength of our own will, at least for me. 

We are talking about being made new in Christ.  This has been our prayer since the year began.  “Lord, make me new.”  “Lord, make us new.”  Through these weeks of Epiphany, we are looking at what Jesus names as the greatest commandment and one like it.  You shall love the Lord.  Love Neighbour.  Today we are considering what it means to love the Lord our God with all our minds.  “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds” writes Paul in Romans 12:2.  “Therefore prepare your minds for action” writes Peter in 1 Peter 1:13 (literally “gird up the loins of your mind”).  “I’m gonna change my way of thinking,” wrote Bob Dylan in his gospel phase, “Make myself a different set of rules.  Put my best foot forward, stop being influenced by fools.”  Let’s ask for God’s help as we long to hear God’s word to us this day.  Let’s pray.

Over the following three weeks, we are looking at Jesus’ words to the sincere scribe in Mark 12 who asked Jesus, “Which commandment is the first of all?”  We read that Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’  The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’  There is no other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:29-31)  We are sitting with the love of God in its vertical aspect – God’s love for us, our love of God, or knowing God’s love – and God’s love in its horizontal aspect – loving others as ourselves, or flowing it.  To use a different analogy with respect and love to the plants that are in our sanctuary, the root and the fruit.  Divine love and its manifestation. We are looking at loving God with our heart, soul, mind and strength over three weeks.  There are two things which I would like to clarify as we begin. The first thing is that we are not compartmentalizing these three aspects of our humanity – how God made us- out (even though we’re looking at them separately).  We are talking about loving God with the entirety of our being, and considering what this looks like when it comes to our minds, our spirits, and our bodies.  Mind, spirit and body are all part of who we are.

The second thing that we always need to keep in front of us is this.  Any thought, talk, or action of loving God and loving neighbour is rooted and grounded in the truth that God loves us; the truth that the Lord is good to all and his compassion is over all he has made.  We come back to this truth again and again.  We looked at this truth at some length last week as the foundation of everything.  It is in Romans 12 that Paul begins to speak about what living in Christ looks like.  He has spent the previous 11 chapters speaking of what God has done is doing and will do in Christ and in the Holy Spirit.  He breaks out into praise (and we’ll speak more of this next week when we talk about loving God with all our spirit) and exclaims, “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways!  For who has known the mind of the Lord?  Or who has been his counsellor?  Or how has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?  For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be the glory forever.  Amen.” (11:33-36)  What a grand, sweeping statement that tells of how everything that we are comes from God.  Everything we have comes from God.  Everything that exists is the work of God’s hand, and everything that exists is sustained by God’s power and love and grace and mercy. As followers of Christ, we act in loving service to God who first loved us. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God…  It is much the same in 1 Peter.  Before talk of girding up the loins of our minds is this, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” (1:3)  Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!  “Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed.” People of Christ.  People of Advent.  People of hope, peace, joy, love.  People of grace.  Become grace-shaped people.  Paul is urging.  Peter is urging.  This gives us the idea that being formed in the image of Christ is not automatic, neither it is instant.  Eugene Peterson has a book on discipleship – being a student of Christ, a follower of Christ – which he calls “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.”  We follow that path in the company of Christ and the company of one another.

The renewal of our minds is not simply an intellectual exercise.  There may be an intellectual aspect to the renewal of our minds if we are called to study, called to academia, called to read works like Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics.  Some are!  I thank God for those people who are called to read Karl Barth and then write about it for people like me to read.  The renewal of our minds is not just for intellectuals or the exercise of our intellects though.  The making new of our minds gives us a whole new way of thinking.  The renewal of our minds means that transformation or renewal goes beyond the surface; beyond following a set of rules or being told what to do.  It’s to be given a whole new worldview – literally a new way of perceiving others.  Looking at others and seeing people who are made in the image of God and loved by God.  Looking at brothers and sisters in Christ and seeing brothers and sisters in Christ.  Looking at the created world and seeing a commonality because we have all been created by God.

This begins with presenting ourselves to God every day.  “I appeal to you, therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”  To say every day “I belong to you Lord.”  In so saying, knowing life.  This is our spiritual worship.  All that we are.  This is our reasonable worship.  In light of the mercy of God; in light of the way that has been made for us to live in a loving relationship with God and with one another; what else could we do?  Then this -  “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds…”  Speaking on this passage, Martin Luther King Jr. said that followers of Christ are to be  “transformed nonconformists.”  The question becomes “To what are we not conforming?”

Let us think about this.  It can be easy to be unaware of the water in which we swim.  A story is told of two young fish who are swimming along.  An older fish meets them swimming the other way.  “How’s the water boys?” he asks.  The two young fish continue on thoughtfully.  A few moments later one says “What the heck is water?”  It can be easy to forget the water in which we swim; to be so used to the messages with which we are surrounded and the ways in which we are influenced.  We are constantly exposed to messages that seek to persuade us or sway us or shape our way of thinking.  These messages may espouse consumerism – you are all about what you produce, consume, and acquire.  They may be about individualism – it’s all about you; get as much as you can; if it feels good, do it.  Many voices and images simply vie to monetize our attention, often by creating anger and division and stratification.  Someone has paraphrased Romans 12:2 like this, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-make you so that your whole attitude of mind is changed.”  When we talk about the world or “this age” in this way, we are talking about life lived without regard for God as creator and sustainer and source of light and life.  “Let your minds be renewed,” says Paul. 

“Prepare your minds for action,” says Peter.  Be alert.  Let us examine the messages that surround us that purport to speak of what is most important or what is true.  “Set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed.” God has a plan in place for deliverance, for wholeness, for restoration, for the renewal of all things.  This is the promise and we stand on that promise.  Peter is literally saying to gird the loins of your mind.  This is an ancient expression.  It means tuck up your robe into your belt so you can be ready to move, ready for action.  The people of Israel were given a promise of deliverance in Egypt.  For the Passover meal, they were told this, “This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand: and you shall eat it hurriedly.  It is the Passover of the Lord.” (Ex 12:11)  Be alert in our trust in God’s promises.  It’s easy to get lulled into complacency or inaction.  Spiritual lassitude.  It’s easy to numb ourselves in any one of the variety of ways in which we may choose to numb ourselves.  Prepare your minds for action.  Take off your warm-up suit, cognitively speaking, it’s game time!

God will transform our minds, our way of thinking, our way of perceiving, and our way of seeing.  We can allow ourselves to be open to this transformation.  We can put ourselves in situations and in relationships that will allow the Holy Spirit to do the Holy Spirit’s transforming work within us.  Being in God’s word each day is one such way.  Listening to people talk about God’s word is another.  It may be a podcast.  It may be reels.  We may find songs of praise to be a way that our minds are open to renewal and transformation.  We may memorize verses that have particular meaning for us.  Write them down.  Text them to yourself.  We may find in the middle of a sleepless night that reciting the 23^rd Psalm is a way that leaves ourselves open to the renewal of our minds.  We may want to be in conversation with brothers and sisters in Christ through books.  I said that the renewal of our minds is not a purely intellectual exercise, but it can be if this is how God has made us.  Dennis Bruce gave me this book after a visit with him and his dear wife Muriel.  He said that trying to get through it was like trying to get through a thicket.  I have to say I felt pretty pious pulling it out of my bag on the subway!  I have yet to get through it but I hope to.  I was glad of Dennis’ encouragement.  We need to be encouraging one another in the renewal of our minds.  This whole mind renewal thing is not simply for our own benefit or peace of mind if you like.  There is a larger purpose to it, which Paul points out in v2.  “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.”   We are talking at this point about what I like to call “God’s big will” or the things that God wills for each and every one of us.  What does God have to say about God’s big will?  Micah 6:8 is good here – “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  To seek God’s will is to ask the question “What does the love of God call for in this situation?  What does a grace-shaped life look like here?  What does the mercy of God call for here?”  What does loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and loving your neighbour as yourself call for here?’

If you are thinking at this point “This is all very well and good, but I’d like a concrete example of this kind of renewed thinking of which Paul is writing,” – Paul provides such an example. It’s for the church.  When it comes to discerning the will of God - what is good and acceptable and perfect – we are not talking about an individual exercise.  Iron sharpens iron, as the Proverb goes.  Being part of a Christian community is vital to being made new, to flourishing.  When it comes to how we think in community, Paul says this, “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we who are many are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.”  We belong to Christ.  We belong to one another.  Community unified in Christ.  Diversity in unity in Christ.  Do not be high-minded.  Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he as in the very form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself…  The church is surely one of the few is not only places where we will be told it is not all about us.  It is not, in fact, all about me in Christ.  Who we are in the church, who we are in Christ – beloved of God, recipients of God’s mercy, recipients of gifts, recipients of forgiveness – are all an expression of God’s great grace toward us.

A new way of thinking/seeing/perceiving God, neighbour, and ourselves, whose outflow is love and God and love of people.  God grant that we all may be so renewed. Amen