"WWJT: What Would Jesus Think?" - Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter

WWJT: What Would Jesus Think?
Easter 7 – Narrative Lectionary 4
May 13, 2018
Grace, Mankato, MN
Philippians 2.1-13

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

We’ve learned again this post-Easter season that the early church was making it up as they went along. Or, to put it another way, they were trying to figure out what it meant to be followers of Jesus. There was no operator’s manual for how to do that. It was through trial and error and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit that the Jewish Christians included all peoples in the good news of God’s love through Jesus Christ. But there was more, much more, to the story as we’ve seen. Not only did the first Christian communities deal with external threats but also internal questions. In some sense, getting beaten up, tossed into prison and persecuted were only a fraction of their problems.

As we know all too well, whenever a group of people are trying to discern their purpose and direction there’s bound to be disagreement about how that get’s worked out. Though generally a healthy church, the Christians at Philippi was not immune to difficulties. The Apostle Paul, who had a very close relationship with them, writes them from prison to give them some advice. After a long thanksgiving for that partnership, which we heard last week, he responds to their situation. And he does it in a curious way: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”

In the 1990s a Topeka minister started a movement with the acronym “WWJD.” It stood for, “What Would Jesus Do?” With this shorthand phrase, he intended to encourage his churchgoers to show the love of Jesus through their actions, and admirable goal. Unfortunately, as with many slogans, WWJD became jingoistic, trite and even unhelpful. I think part of the problem is that, though a wonderful sentiment, it was not really a good guide to how to live our lives for Christ. At the risk of committing a similar faux pas, I believe that Paul would say instead, “What Would Jesus Think?”

Paul says to the Philippians, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” So today we would do well to ask, “What does it mean to think like Jesus?” Verses 6-11 of chapter 2 have been identified as a very early piece of liturgy used in worship and has been dubbed by scholars as “The Christ Hymn.” In using it, Paul says that to think like Jesus is to think about others first and how to serve them. To think like Jesus is to exercise humility in our interactions, both inside and outside our community of faith. (I think our society could use a huge dose of humility these days.) Paul doesn’t give us a blueprint for action, but rather a way to think about what it means to follow Jesus.

Today is Mother’s Day and as we honor those who gave us life, we must take great care not to romanticize mothers. We all know that our mothers, like all of us, are mixed bouquets, so to speak, with both fragrant blossoms and stinkweed. Having said that, Mothers—and those who mother—when they are at their best think like Jesus. We think like Jesus when we consider the most vulnerable and marginalized in our world better than us and take time to nurture them. We think like Jesus when we walk with people in the midst of their suffering and grief.

Like those first Christians, we daily work out what that means in concrete ways and we don’t always get it right. But we start at the same place as Paul: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” Amen.