Passion/Palm Sunday 2017 – The same mind

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. [Phil 2:5-11]

Let the same mind be in you… The Greek literally says, Think the same in yourself as Jesus did.  “In yourself...?”  We are the first needing to be converted, and that is, each day – what the Benedictines call by the Latin, conversatio. 

Way back in Genesis (Gen 12:1 – and now we’re in Hebrew country), when God calls Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees, there is a curious feature of the biblical text.  The Hebrew verb lekh simply means “go – go out, get going, move…!”  God said to Abraham, Go from your country, from your birthplace, from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.   But this simple, commonly used verb, is written twice in the text, repeated, side by side, nothing in between.  It may be an ancient mistake in copying, but also it could be that the second occurrence had different vowels (in ancient Hebrew MSS the vowels are not included).  If we give that verb lekh other vowels it can mean go in, discover, find out, learn…  Maybe some rabbis were hinting that Abraham’s journey was to be inward as much as outward, to the land of promise.

When St Paul writes about the same mind in you that was in Christ Jesus, he is referring to the inward journey.  If you read the saga of Abraham you see how he indeed learned, changed, on the way.  Jesus also learned, changed, under the power of the spirit of his baptism… in Paul’s timeless words: …emptied himself, taking the form of a slave… humbled himself… became obedient to death, even death on a cross.  Paul invites us on that journey.  In senior years it may well be, if we retain an adequate supply of neurones, that the inner journey gets simpler, humbler and better… we feel freer, willing to explore.

Perhaps I indulge in a kind of Benedictine Brag, but that word obedient is actually one of the three great commitments of Oblates.  Obey has to do with listening, attending, actually hearing God’s word in Christ.  So it is that the inner journey at times becomes hard and rocky, because it entails attention and change.  What is happening is that we are questioning our fascination with ourselves, our own interests, possessions, safety, life-style, our own future… not that any of that is wrong, but it is occupying us less.  We are learning like-mindedness with Jesus.  The Greek word for this process is kenosis (κενωσις), a word Paul uses in this passage.  It means emptying… he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.  He is illustrating the extent to which the inner journey may change our priorities.  I think this is what the senior years are for, if we are Christian believers and especially if we are given to prayer.