26th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) – October 1, 2023

St. Paul — Lyons, KS

Ezekiel 18:25-28; Psalm 24:4-9; Philippians 2:1-11; Matthew 21:28-32

“They used to do what??”

Have you seen those posts on Facebook, or I even think there are documentaries on the History channel or National Geographic—but they’re about all of the crazy things we used to do and accept from the medical field as “healthy” and “safe” options for medical treatment. For instance, there is that one ad from a newspaper about a cure for the common toothache: cocaine. Or everyone’s favorite cough drop: heroin. One of these that really got me: struggling with asthma, smoke a cigarette. You used to be able to buy a “soothing syrup” for your fussy baby: it was pretty much just alcohol and morphine. A famous one was the way they treated mental disorders: trepanation, when they would bore a hole in your skull to let it out. And this one (blew my mind when I heard it!)—milk transfusions! You know when you need a blood transfusion? They thought milk could be used as a substitute. So thank goodness we’re passed crazy medical interventions like that.

But think: why did they do such ludicrous things? Why? Because they had a certain understanding of the human body, of anatomy and physiology; they had a certain understanding of what blood is and what it does, or what mental illness is and where it comes from; they had a certain understanding of these drugs and the effects these drugs would have. Right? They had a certain mentality, a certain mindset, a certain way of seeing the human body and medical care. And because of that? Well, they did some things that we now know are pretty…ludicrous! And it wasn’t until more discoveries about the human body and diseases and these drugs were made that things changed! Right? It took a real change in mind.

Meta Nous: Revisited

Last week we started a new series that we’re calling “Meta Nous.” In the New Testament, there is a specific word for this kind of “change in mind” that I’m talking about; it’s the first command out of Jesus’ mouth: “metanoia.” Usually we translate it as “repent”: “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). But metanoia is actually just a combination of two Greek words: meta and nous. Literally, a “going beyond the mind.” “Go beyond your current mindset, meta-nous, have change of mind, a change of heart.”

Jesus knows that if anything he is going to say, anything that he is going to teach is going to make any sense, we—you and me—we are going to have to undergo a radical change of mind. And this is fundamental! I said it last week and I’ll say it again: the fundamental task of our day and age is to hear and to proclamation the gospel in such a way that our minds, our mindset can be transformed, changed from one way of seeing reality to a different way—to God’s way of seeing reality. Again, think of the crazy things they used to do in medicine: if they never had a change of mind, we’d still be doing that! But no, thanks be to God they had a change of mind!

Ok, listen: it’s no different for us when it comes to the message of the gospel and how that is going to affect our lives! Each and every one of us is carrying around many, many things that tell us how to look at the world around us, that tell us how the world operates and how we should operate in it. But it’s precisely these things that Jesus comes to challenge! Jesus isn’t teaching a bunch of random things because he wants to see if we’ll obey, no. Listen: Jesus comes to reveal reality to us, to clarify how reality truly is; to reveal us to ourselves! Pope Saint John Paul II loved to quote that line from Vatican II, “Christ…fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear” (Gaudium et spes 22). Jesus doesn’t come to teach us a bunch of laws and rules so that maybe, if we’re good little boys and girls, and we follow his teachings and laws and rules, he’ll let us into candy land when we die, no! Jesus comes to reveal us to ourselves, to reveal who we are, what we desire, what will make us happy, what will bring us joy—to reveal to us why and for what purpose we exist!

And think! Before you say, “Well, I think I’ve got life figured out, thank you very much”—think: for a good chunk of time, we thought heroin was a decent cough medicine, or boring a hole in your skull was a good cure for depression. And you think you’ve got life, happiness, love, humanity, your purpose, human fulfillment—you think you have everything figured out? I love that line from Ezekiel in our first reading. The people are complaining to God, “The LORD’s way is not fair!” And the LORD responds, almost laughing, “Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?” (c.f., Ezekiel 18:22ff). God’s looking at us like, “You’re the people that thought milk transfusions were a good idea, and you think I’m crazy?!”

Do you see my point? We’re careening through life with a certain mentality, thinking that we have a clear picture of how all of this works, how life works, who we are, what humanity truly needs. But—and you can listen to everything I say today and tell me you think I’m dead wrong—but maybe the assumptions we have in mind, the way we see and operate in the world—maybe Jesus’ call for us to have a change of mind, Meta Nous—maybe it is still very pertinent to us today. Maybe we carry assumptions around in life as dangerous—in fact, more dangerous than a milk transfusion, precisely because these assumptions have to do with everything in our life, that have to do with life itself.

American Narrative Vision: Modern Progressivism

So what is this way we look at the world? What is this mentality we carry with us? What many of us do—what I did for twenty-six and a half years of my life, what I still find creeping into my mind even now—what many of us do is see and understand the world and our lives and the lives of those around us through what’s called a Modern Progressive vision of reality (yes, even if you’re a “conservative”). Why? Because this was the vision of our Founding Fathers. And do you know where this vision came from? (I’m going to oversimplify the matter.) It came from the 18th century Enlightenment. People love to say that the United States was founded on Christian principles—and it was, in a certain sense. But in a much more real sense, it wasn’t. Yeah, we are “one nation, under God”; yeah, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Yeah, sounds Christian, sure. But all of this came from an 18th century worldview that had no place for God—not the God we believe in anyway—and no place for the vision of reality presented by the gospel, just a few of its teachings. And the dangerous thing is that it can seem very much like the gospel—but it distorts it in very small, but very important ways. Remember when I talked about DNA, and how the mutation of a single gene can literally threaten your life? Same here: simple mutations to our way of seeing the world, simple mutations to our faith can threaten the whole thing.

So what are some of these? What is this way we look at the world, this mentality we carry with us? One is that we’ve placed our faith in the idea of human progress. Have you ever heard the phrase, “That’s so old fashioned,” or, “C’mon, it’s the twenty-first century,” or, “Let’s be on the right side of history”? Ok, these are all part of this idea that humans are progressing further and further toward perfection. And yeah, in some ways it is: technologically, we are progressing more and more! “We sent a man to the moon!” Medicine, communication, science, you name it! But then there is this blindspot we have: we think that since humanity is making such incredible strides technologically, that we’re also making incredible strides socially and morally, too. And that’s where we’re fooling ourselves. I mean, the easy example is that we think we’re past slavery, right? But right now, there are more slaves than in the history of the world, almost 50 million people are trapped in slavery worldwide. The one that’s real close to home: the cobalt and mica mines in Africa, mining for the minerals that give us smartphones and other devices.

Or think of another mentality, and I’ve mentioned this before: it’s not that people don’t believe that God exists (no, most people believe a God exists); people do not think that God matters. In other words, God has been pushed to the margins. We live a sort of “practical atheism.” Yeah, we believe God exists. But practically, in my day to day life, it’s still all up to me: friends, love affairs, questions about marriage and family, right and wrong, social affairs. As Americans, we tend to be very religious, but we customize our religiosity to fit our own personal preferences. When we don’t agree with what is taught by the Church, we just believe what we want or we find a church that agrees with what we think. So our God is really just…us.

Another really common mentality: we have an intoxication with what we can see and touch and feel; our entire mentality is about “this world,” our focus is on the here and now, our lives are focused on what we can have here. Why? Because this life is most important. This is why you spend hours a day worried about politics. This is why cable news and podcasts and YouTube videos can literally talk about politics 24/7, and people watch it 24/7. This is also why doctors and psychiatrists and psychologists and trainers at the gym and nutrition gurus and financial advisors are the new “priests” of our time. This is also why we are so worried about what we drive, or what Chip and Joanna Gains tell us our house needs to look like. And it’s also why, in just a devastating way, even children are a commodity to us: we calculate how many and what kind of children we want based on what kind of life we want and how many we can afford while still living a certain lifestyle or certain quality of life, or have time “for ourselves” before we get too old to enjoy life; or we decide to have no children at all, or we choose to get rid of children that were “accidentally” conceived or that might possess certain traits we don’t want to deal with. Why? Because “this world” and my life “here and now” are most important.

Put On the Mind of Christ

Like I said last week, none of these things are very new. Why? Because as much as we have progressed technologically, humanity really hasn’t changed much. And when this is our mindset, yeah, we may be at church, we may say we believe in God, we may be a really good person. But we could also be totally missing the point—and faith is just something we sprinkle on top of a life that has nothing to do with the gospel. That’s the simple message of the Gospel reading today. We can easily say, “Yes,” to the father…but then we don’t do it. We profess our faith, we pray, we go to Mass…but then we do our own thing, live our life with a mentality that is not shaped by the gospel. It’s not our faith or what we profess to believe that gives shape to our life, but just whatever it is that seems to fit with our mindset—a mindset that has no room for the gospel.

Remember Paul’s message from Philippians last week, “Conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel. That is, ‘behave as citizens’ of the gospel. Even though you’re in a culture and nation that is not shaped by the gospel, continue to live, first and foremost, as citizens of the gospel.” And to live as a citizen of the Gospel, it requires a fundamental shift in our mindset. And that’s what Paul makes very explicit in our second reading today, this reading from Philippians. Paul says, “Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus,” literally, “put on the mind of Jesus Christ.” And what does that mean?

“[Jesus], though he was in the form of God, did not regard his equality with God as something he ought to exploit.” Stop there. We do the exact opposite of this all of the time. We think, “If I were in charge,” or, “If I made the decisions around here”—the first thing we think to do is exploit our power and influence. What did Jesus do instead? “Instead, [Jesus] emptied himself, and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of humans.” Jesus could have exploited his divine power. But instead, he took on the form of a slave, he became a weak human being. And then what? “He humbled himself, and became obedient even to the point of death, death on a cross.” And that’s the crux of it, huh? Jesus, God himself, didn’t accomplish things by use of divine power and imposition. Instead, he emptied himself, humbled himself, and became obedient.

Jesus’ question in the Gospel isn’t, “Which one was a good person? Which one did good things?” Jesus asks, “Which of the two did the Father’s will?” Which one took the form of a servant, emptied himself of their own plans and ideas, humbled themselves, and became obedient. Which one heard the Father, and did what He asked?

God’s ways are not our ways. Emptying ourselves? Humbling ourselves? Obedience to the Father’s will? What? “The LORD’s way is not fair! Why can’t we use milk instead of blood in transfusions??” That’s exactly what Paul is warning against—don’t use your own mindset, put on Christ’s. Don’t be scandalized by God’s gentle way of working in your life or in the life of human history. Meta nous, have a new mind. Because as the life of Christ shows us, that mindset leads to glory.