Always With a Broad Mind
John 14:25-27
Broadway Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
David A. Shirey
We’re in the last of three weeks reflecting on Broadway’s Values. We haven’t done them in order. But, hey, a little creativity never hurt anybody. So we’ve done Broad Hearts, Broad Reach, and this week, Broad Minds.
To broaden our minds, Ellen read to us from what Bible scholars call “The Farewell Discourse.” In John chapters 14-17, the cross is on the horizon. Jesus knows he’ll soon be separated from his disciples, so he spends four chapters preparing them for life in his absence. He begins the Farewell Discourse with the words “Let not your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1). He continues with, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18).
How will Jesus come to them? He says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever.” And who is that? “The Spirit of truth” (John 14:16,17). Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit to be with his disciples – with us – forever. Rabbis and pastors come and go. Rabbi Jesus himself came and went – born in Bethlehem, crucified at Calvary, raised from the tomb and appeared for 40 days, but at the Ascension he left the disciples as a physical presence. They weren’t abandoned, though. God sent the Holy Spirit to be with them. The best definition I’ve heard of the Holy Spirit is “Jesus’ presence in his absence.” When we’re being pulled in several different directions, we say, “I can only do one thing at a time!” That was the case with Jesus, too. Though fully divine, he was also fully human, meaning during his earthly ministry he could only be in one place with one set of people at one time. But now, through the Spirit, Jesus can be present everywhere, always.
To do what? What is the purpose—the job description-- of the Holy Spirit? According to what Ellen read, to teach us. To broaden our minds. In our Lord’s words, “The Holy Spirit, whom God will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 14:26). Which says to me that among the vocations most esteemed by God and crucial to God’s redeeming work in this world is teaching. So, thank you Broadway teachers. Thank you to you who teach outside the walls of this place in schools and colleges, preschools and universities. And thank you teachers who, wearing the mantle of the Holy Spirit, teach within these precious walls everything Jesus said to us. Thank you, Chuck and Belinda Davis, who have taught pre-Ks here since Jesus was a toddler in the Temple. Thank you all teachers of our children. Thank you once again Kate, Sarah, and company for VBS. Thank you John and youth sponsors. Thank you small group leaders and Discipleship Hour teachers. Hear me when I say you are literally answered prayer. The disciples fretted when their beloved Rabbi said he was leaving. But Jesus promised them they would not be abandoned. God would send the Holy Spirit to be with them to teach them. So, Broadway teachers. Thank you.
Now, it follows that if teaching is Spirit-anointed, then learning is, too. The rabbis of old said, “An hour of study is in God’s sight as an hour of worship.” We exalt God when we apply the minds God gave us to learning. My mother, in moments of exasperation when I had made a boneheaded decision would say, “David, God gave you a brain. Use it!” She could have just quoted the first half of the Great Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and might.” Broadening our minds by diligent study honors the One who gave us minds. A century ago, the pastor of the church I retired from, Central Christian in Lexington, KY, the Rev. Dr. A.W. Fortune said, “The church door ought to be tall enough so that it’s not necessary for a person entering to leave their head outside.” Amen to that! My mentors taught me to study the Bible carefully and intelligently—its context, its language, its divine inspiration and its human authorship. They taught me to seek God’s truth in all the ways it can be comprehended - in the arts as well as the sciences. Truth is truth wherever it’s found. So it is that our larger church family, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), has valued education throughout our history to the point we founded 209 colleges and 205 institutes and academies of learning across two centuries. Learning is a love offering to God.
Broadway’s value says: Broad Minds. So, I ask you: has your mind been broadened over the years? For instance, have you learned to think for yourself? I hope you haven’t settled for a hand-me-down faith. A hand-me-down faith is a faith you saw in someone else and put on without taking the time and energy to make it your own. You know how hand-me-downs are: they rarely fit right. Some have put on another’s faith and said, Too tight! I can’t breath in this! Others have found a hand-me-down faith too loose: There’s nothing to this. It flops all over.” Others see someone else wearing the faith so badly they vow they’ll never put that faith on: No thanks! Huh uh. Instead of wearing or rejecting the faith someone else wore, invite the Holy Spirit to come alongside you to guide you as you think for yourself in the company of other honest, earnest seekers after truth. Jesus promised “the Holy Spirit will teach you.”
I hasten to add this: as you think for yourself along the path of lifelong learning, are you able to ask questions? I say that because though kids ask questions – a lot of them – adults tend to keep our questions to ourselves. Have you ever noticed how we often preface our questions by saying, "This is probably a stupid question, but …." Well, I had a professor who told us the only stupid question is the unasked one because many of Jesus' greatest teachings were prompted by people’s questions. If nobody’d asked the question, we’d never have benefitted from Jesus’ answer.
· For instance, the question, "Lord, would you teach us to pray?" led to Jesus teaching the Lord's Prayer.
· The question, "Lord, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" led to the parable of the Good Samaritan.
· The question, "Lord, which is the greatest commandment of all?" led to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and might and love your neighbor as yourself."
Don’t ever withhold a question. Some of the Bible’s best teachings are responses to questions.
I suspect some of us withhold our questions because somewhere along the line we picked up the notion that it’s some kind of sin to ask a question. Questions = doubt. Doubt = bad. Therefore, Questions = bad. I had a friend I grew up with. I saw him several years ago at a reunion. We caught up on what we each were doing and Eric said, “You’re a pastor. I’ll be honest with you. I haven’t been to church for a long time.”
I asked, “What happened?”
“Well, when I was going through confirmation class we were being taught all kinds of things about the Bible and what Christians believe. For the first time in my life I got to thinking about everything they were saying and I had some questions. So, I asked them.”
“And?”
“And I was told, ‘You ask too many questions.’ And when I got home, I told my mother what happened and she said, ‘Just believe what you’re told!’”
I beg to differ. I believe our Lord wants to be known by us. And if our coming to know God better and believe in God more fully requires our asking questions, bring 'em on! There are, after all, only two types of people who don’t ask questions. 1) Those who know it all (the arrogant) and 2) Those who don't care (the apathetic). Aspire instead to be like our Lord Jesus himself who, when as child he became separated from his parents during one of their visits to Jerusalem, was found him where? “Sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions” (Luke 2:46). Please, for the sake of growing in faith, feel free to ask questions here. In fact, I hereby move to amend the Bylaws of Broadway Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) under Roman numeral IV, Section 1, Paragraph C to read: No man, woman, youth or child shall ever be made to feel ashamed or made to feel their faith is flawed or in any way excluded from our fellowship as a result of asking questions. Our desire here is to educate, not indoctrinate. Broadway Christian Church is a Questions Welcome Zone. All in favor say, Aye.
Has your mind been broadened over the years? Has your mind been broadened by learning new things? Two chapters after what Ellen read us, Jesus says, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12, 13). Wow! To think that Jesus has things to teach us beyond the pages of Scripture. And to know that guided by the Spirit, we’ll come to new understandings of Scripture for a new day. Inspired by that word of our Lord’s, our brothers and sisters in the United Church of Christ said, “Never place a period where God has placed a comma. God is Still Speaking.” How has your mind has changed over the years? Could you give examples of how your understanding of God and God’s ways and God’s will for the living of our lives has broadened?
And this: are you broad-minded enough to listen to others’ perspectives respectfully? Or is your inclination to rebut, rebuke, ignore, roll your eyes, whisper disparaging comments, or cover your ears when you’re hearing something you don’t agree with? Hear me when I say Christians on the left can be as dogmatic and closed-minded as those on the right. All of us in Christ and in the Holy Spirit he sent ought to be broad-minded enough to respectfully listen to each other. Doing so is a way of loving our neighbors.
Which brings me to an important reminder: the reason Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to teach us is so we’ll live life more fully, more faithfully, more generously and justly. To use a phrase from Bob Goff’s book we’re learning from, the goal of our learning is “to become love.” John Ortberg said, "The goal is not for us to get through the Bible; the goal is for the Bible to get through us." Dwight L. Moody said, "The Bible was not given for our information but for our transformation." It can't be stressed enough: God working through the power of the Holy Spirit to teach people can and does transform lives and transformed lives can change the world! The classrooms and small groups of this church ought to be incubators of spiritual transformation. The goal of learning is changed lives and a changed world.
John, come over here. I want you to do something for me as we complete this series on Broadway’s Values of Broad Hearts. Broad Minds. Broad Reach. Measure my mind. Measure my heart. Measure the breadth of my reach. Write those numbers down for me, please, because I believe that as a result of being here at Broadway, even for nine months or so, my heart, mind, and reach are going to grow. Broaden.
Come Holy Spirit come, and teach us. Change us for the good.
Let all God’s people say AMEN.
