Worship - Sermons - 4/30/06

The Lord of the Open Mind

Luke 24:36

William F. Schnell

April 30, 2006

There is a large population of people, not currently attending church, which I would like to attract to this one.  They are bright, well-balanced and compassionate people--and there are a lot of them--who do not attend church because they have come to the conclusion that one must forsake one’s intelligence in order to believe in God.  And who can blame them for this perception if: a) they were brought up in a church that embodied this anti-intellectual attitude, or b) they were not brought up in a church and the only experience they have with Christianity is what we see on television: the lady with the purple bouffant, the healer with the bad hairpiece, the politician wannabes with extreme views and social stances—just the kind of people you do not want to hang out with.

I just heard a comedian the other day referring to his mother-in-law as a “Shiite Catholic.”  He was not talking about some kind of Muslim/Christian hybrid.  He was talking about an overzealous religious attitude found in virtually all religions from Shiite to Sunni and from Catholic to the Religious Right.  It is a great attitude for creating a cohesive group identity, but it can easily result in a disconnect between the dictates of personal conscience and the dictates of external religious authority.  That is when people get into the awkward situation of officially being against birth control because the Church says so, while in practice using it like it is going out of style.  

Some people do not have any problem reconciling themselves to that kind of intellectual disconnect.  Other folks willingly disengage their brains before entering a house of worship because they consider it a small price to pay for the emotional high they expect to find there.  But there are still others who find such intellectual sacrifices to represent a compromise of personal integrity they should not be expected to make, most especially in their search for truth.

It is not a matter of the human intellect being elevated to the level of idolatry.  One cannot intellectually grasp God.  But one has been created by God to intellectually grasp certain things and should not be forced to deny them to go to church.  I respect people who refuse to deny their God-given intellects.  Those are the kind of people I would like to hang out with and invite to this church.  Do you think Darwin had a few good ideas?  Come on in and help us reconcile science and religion for a change.  Would you value the liberty to interpret biblical passages figuratively rather than literally?  You will find it here, hopefully in the good company and spirit of the Master Parable Maker himself.

In short, I would like to attract open-minded people to an open-minded church that worships “The Lord of the Open Mind.”  That is the title of our message as you can see, and it is inspired by our post-resurrection text for this morning.  Now I realize that there are some of you in the pews who struggle to make relevant sense of Jesus’ resurrection.  Good for you!  I would rather find people struggling with God over issues of faith than those who, on blind faith, automatically accept what they are told by this or that “religious authority”--including me.  After all, Israel is the Hebrew word for “one who struggles with God and prevails,” and the people of Israel are the chosen people of God, and that is who we aim to be—the new Israel.

The portrait we find of Jesus in the Bible is of a very open-minded person confronting a very closed-minded world.  He interprets Scripture differently from the more orthodox religious leaders of his own faith tradition, who are so closed-minded to anything different that they eventually conspire to crucify him.  Jesus is much more open-minded about the spiritual legitimacy of those his faith tradition regards as outcasts such as tax collectors, prostitutes and other sinners; the demon-possessed, lepers and others who are afflicted in mind and body; Samaritans, Greeks and other non-Jews.

Today we are going to find the risen Christ continuing to open the minds of his followers to new ways of understanding Scripture, new ways of understanding him and new ways of understanding themselves and their role in God’s kingdom.  Perhaps the risen Christ will continue to open our minds to some new things as we listen in on our text, which begins: While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you” (Verse 36). 

While who are still talking about what?  With Judas out of the picture, there are eleven remaining disciples.  Nine of them are gathered together in Jerusalem on the first Easter, while two of them have left for the town of Emmaus about seven miles from Jerusalem.  While on the road to Emmaus, the risen Christ appears to these two disciples, although they are initially kept from knowing who he is. 

He asks the two what they have been discussing on the road.  These disciples are of course downcast because of what has just happened to their Master.  After they recount for the “stranger” what has happened, this “stranger” opens their minds to understand it in light of Scripture.  He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!  Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”  And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself (24:25-27). 

This blows the disciples’ minds, so much so that they urge the “stranger” to stay with them in the village of Emmaus.  So he went in to stay with them.  When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.  Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.  They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (24:29-32). 

“The Lord of the Open Mind” opens the minds of his disciples to a new way of understanding Scripture, a new way of understanding who he is, and a new way of understanding how he is continuing to be with them in the breaking of bread, among other ways as we will see.  This is what the Eleven are talking about when the two disciples hastily return from Emmaus to Jerusalem to find their brothers and tell them the amazing news about their risen Lord.

Now you know that those nine disciples have to be scratching their heads and looking at each other like, “I don’t think so.”  But just as dramatically as Jesus had disappeared from the two disciples, he now appears to the Eleven.  The disciples are completely flabbergasted by his appearance, thinking him to be a ghost.  Jesus pulls back his garments to reveal his hands and feet, and encourages them to touch him for proof of his corporeal reality.  They are probably too afraid to touch him, so he asks if they have anything to eat and they give him a piece of fish that he proceeds to eat. 

Then, our text says, he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures (Verse 45).  Previously the disciples had been very closed-minded about a lot of things.  They had been closed-minded about Jesus and God’s will for him.  Though Jesus had tried to tell them ahead of time about his rejection, suffering and death as the necessary prelude to his resurrection, they did not want to hear about it.  They had been closed-minded about their own human failings.  Jesus had told them that one of them would betray him, another deny him and the rest desert him, but they did not want to hear about that either. 

Now that all of this had come to pass, “The Lord of the Open Mind” was able to open the minds of his disciples to God’s plan of salvation—a plan of salvation that had been both revealed and concealed in Holy Scripture.  Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.  He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Verses 45-47).

Jesus’ exposition of the Law and the Prophets has not been preserved for us, but we have a pretty good idea what kinds of texts he interpreted as prophecies about him and his role as the Suffering Servant of God.  Then he says to them, You are witnesses of these things (Verse 48).  Witnesses of what?  Witnesses, first of all, of his suffering and resurrection, now that the risen Christ has appeared to them. 

But they are also living witnesses of the repentance and forgiveness of sins they will soon be preaching in his name to all nations.  They have witnessed their own human failings in betraying, denying and deserting Jesus.  And, excepting for Judas, they have repented of those sins and found forgiveness and a second chance to be Jesus’ faithful followers.  What better way to preach the gospel than from the voice of experience!

No longer will the disciples be closed-minded about the people to whom they will be sent, even though they come from different nations, different cultures, different perspectives and different ways of “doing” religion.  For example, some of them are not going to be from Jewish backgrounds and they are not going to want to be circumcised.  No longer will the disciples be closed-minded about the fundamental things they have in common with all people everywhere: their status as children of God, their sinfulness and their need for divine forgiveness.  No longer will the disciples be closed-minded about whom God is able to save from sin and how he chooses to do it. 

If “The Lord of the Open Mind” was able to open the minds of his close-minded disciples then he should be able to open ours as well, for I do not suppose it is beyond the realm of possibility that we could occasionally be closed-minded too.  And do you know how to tell when we are being closed-minded?  It is when we do not listen to others any better than the disciples listened to Jesus when he tried to tell them things they did not want to hear.

The disciples did not want to hear what Jesus had to say about rejection, suffering and death.  That is understandable.  But in closing their minds to the bad news they also closed them to the surpassing good news – the good news about his resurrection from the tomb and into glory.  Had they been able to hear the good news they would have been able to bear the bad news.  What is the good news we are failing to hear because we are too closed-minded to listen?  What are the different perspectives that we have shut out?  How may “The Lord of the Open Mind” been trying to reach us through those ignored perspectives?

St. Paul has something interesting to say to those who come to the Lord’s table.  He says, …anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself (I Corinthians 11:29).  We certainly do not come to this table to eat and drink judgment upon ourselves.  So what does it mean to do so recognizing the body of the Lord?  The church has been called the Body of Christ, and we have been called the many and varied parts of that body whose head is Christ. 

Recognizing the body of the Lord means recognizing the person next to you in the pew as a part of the Body of Christ.  It means recognizing the Catholics at Our Lady and the Lutherans at Hope as parts of the Body of Christ.  It means recognizing Latinos at the Spanish-speaking churches in Cleveland as parts of the body of Christ.  It means recognizing believers from different cultures and perspectives as parts of the body of Christ.  Otherwise we eat and drink judgment upon ourselves because we have done so without recognizing the body of the Lord.

We do not want to do that.  We want “The Lord of the Open Mind” to reveal his pardoning presence with us in the breaking of bread, just as he did with those two disciples in Emmaus.  Therefore, may we come to this table with open minds that are capable of recognizing the many and varied parts of the body of Christ in our midst.