May 23, 2004 - Ascension Sunday
Ephesians 1:15-23
    NRSV KJV CEV
Luke 24:44-53
    NRSV KJV CEV

Open Minds, Open Hearts, Open Hands
First Congregational Church – Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
Ascension/Covenanting Sunday – May 23, 2004
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
[Texts: Ephesians 1: 15-23/Luke 24:44-53]
“ Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. . .” [Luke 24: 45]

There are many people who do not thing that religious people, especially Christians, are open minded. Yet, what we read in Luke tells us that Jesus “opened their minds” so that the disciples could come to a deeper understanding of the Scriptures. What Luke is telling us, I believe, is that to truly understand the Scriptures involves coming to the Bible with an open mind. I want to address what I think having an open mind means and then propose that developing an open mind leads to having an open heart and that open minds and open hearts are demonstrated by open hands.
College students can be extremely sensitive souls and at the same time absolutely brutal – I know, I was one and have spent more than a little time with them. When I was an undergraduate, pre-seminary student we used to joke about those folks whose approach to Scripture was a tad narrow. We used to say that they attended the “church of the open door and the closed mind.” I fear, however, that the joke is on wider Christianity since there are many people who hold the opinion that one cannot come to the Bible without surrendering one’s intellect and adopting a naïve literalism. Their opinion is strengthened by bumper stickers that read, “The Bible: God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” It settles something, but I’m not sure what and I get the distinct impression that is not what we see in Luke’s Gospel.
“He opened their minds.” Let’s establish at the outset that the mind is engaged here. We don’t have to check our intellects at the door when we come to church. I think we need to understand that the Bible is, first of all, a divinely human work and that being ‘inspired’ doesn’t mean that God dictated every word of it. God’s Spirit inspired the Scripture. Yes, God worked through the minds of those who wrote the Bible as they attempted to capture in limited human language – mere words – what they had experienced in their encounter with the living, creating God of the universe. God gave us minds and God expects us to use them to understand ourselves, the world God created, and the relationship to which he has called humanity from Adam on.
I believe that is why Jesus “opened their minds to understand the Scripture.” He was showing his disciples how the experience of the suffering, dying, and rising Messiah becomes the lens for reading the TANAK – the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings. Christians don’t read the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, with the same eyes that our Jewish brothers and sisters do. We respect them and their interpretation, it is God’s revelation for them, and they have not ceased to be God’s ‘chosen people.’ However, we read them in the light of the Risen Christ, whose witnesses we are all to be and whose word we are to preach by our words and our actions.
Our minds, our intellect, our understanding are to be used in the service of the God who made them. The gifts, the abilities, the imaginations all of us have are given so that we can tell the story of God’s love for the world. Why should we limit how we approach this task to a limited selection of language or thought? Let’s face, it god is far greater than our minds or our words can comprehend, so we must constantly be open to what God is trying to teach us. After all, isn’t that the essence of Anselm’s ontological proof for God’s existence? God is that greater than which cannot be thought? Why, then, should we bend over backwards to reduce God or faith to something so simplistic that we can say, “That settles it”? I find that unsettling.
The open mind is central for those of us who try to follow Christ in the Congregational Way. We have advocated a “learned ministry to a literate laity” from the very beginning. We do not close ourselves to the evolving of our minds and hearts as we grow in the knowledge of God, of God’s world and, indeed, of ourselves. Congregationalists see ourselves belonging to the church of the open Bible and the open mind. The foundations were laid for us in the words of John Robinson, pastor to the Pilgrims in Scrooby and Leyden, to his people as they were leaving for the new world, “. . .follow me only so far as I follow Christ . . . the Lord hath yet more light and truth to break forth from his word.”
In the nineteenth century George Rawson, a Congregational layman who was an attorney, wrote a hymn that incorporates Pastor Robinson’s words for the refrain. It is one of the great rallying songs of the Congregational movement and has become one of my favorite hymns. The second verse – which does not appear in our hymnal – sums up the challenge of what it means to follow Christ with an open mind.
Who dares to bind to his dull sense the oracles of heaven,
For all the nations, tongues, and climes, and all the ages given?
That universe! How much unknown, that ocean! Unexplored:
The Lord hath yet more light and truth to break forth from his word.
The Christ-follower who goes forth is this manner is like an explorer. We are only beginning to scratch the surface of the wonders that interstellar space holds and the same is true for the oceans. How much more do we have to learn of the love and grace and wonder of the God who made both? So the one who is blessed with an open mind realizes that we cannot limit God’s truth to “our poor reach of mind.” All we can do is rejoice in it and allow that truth to have an effect on how we think, interpret our world, and conduct our lives.
Paul understands this and says as much to the church in Ephesus. “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints. . .” To heed God’s Word with an open mind opens the “eyes of the heart” to the riches God intends for those who open themselves to relationship.
We can know something intellectually; can even believe it, without that knowledge making any difference in our lives. Many people in the United States – over 80% according to some polls – say that they “believe in God,” but they don’t behave as if they do. God to them is an abstract concept, the First Cause or the Great Architect, not someone with whom they relate or with whom they share life. But the “Father of Glory” wants to share life with us. That is precisely the hope to which we are called, that the Creator of all that is desires to know and to love us and to be known and loved by us. That sort of relationship is born of an open mind and leads to an open heart.
Both Luke and Paul use Greek words that derive from the words for “mind” or “intellect,” and “knowledge.” They use them in a manner that speaks of a special, a complete or full understanding or knowing. What the eyes of the mind cannot comprehend the eyes of the heart can. To the Mediterranean world of that time the heart and the eyes were the location where the human capacity for thought, judgment, and emotion dwelt. To see with the “eyes of the heart” was to truly understand something, to walk, as it were, out of the darkness and into the light.
The eyes of our hearts are enlightened when we recognize that our ability to love, to think, to feel, even to be at all, are all gifts from God and that we live and move in response to that gift. God’s gift is an affair of the heart as God’s heart opens to ours and, as Francis de Sales said so beautifully, “heart speaks to heart.” Out of that sublime, wondrous, delicious conversation flows our relationship with others around us. This is especially the case, or at least it should be, when we gather as God’s people for worship. To me it is the essence of what it means to be church and I was excited to find this passage from the 19th century American theologian William Ellery Channing because it sums it up so well.
We come together in our places of worship that heart may act on heart; . . . I see the signs of Christian affection in those around me, in which warm hearts are beating on every side, in which a deep stillness speaks of the absorbed soul, in which I recognize fellow-beings who in common life have impressed me with their piety. [The Church, p. 434]
Our commitment to the open mind and open heart is expressed in our church covenant. We pledge to share in the worship and service of God, to grow in the knowledge and expression of our faith, and to treat each other with love and understanding. The covenant is our short-hand reminder of what it means to live toward an open mind and an open heart. Notice, however, that these aren’t just lofty ideals, they imply action right here and right now that is expressed in our concern and our conduct toward each other – the open mind and open heart mean having open hands.
To be “tight fisted” bespeaks greed and I think that those with tight fists must possess closed minds. Let me illustrate with an old story about how to capture a monkey. First, you make a box with opening just large enough for the monkeys to get their hands through. Then you fill the box with big pieces of food and after that you wait. The monkeys will come, thrust their hands through the openings, grasp the food, and stand there howling because they will not let go of the food and they can’t get the hands through the openings. The open hand is the key to freedom and they won’t open it – the same goes with the mind and the heart. Open hands speak of peace – they carry no weapon. Open hands proclaim generosity – they hold nothing back. Open hands testify to honesty – they conceal nothing. The open hand is the freedom to give to another – it’s what we commit to do in our covenant by reaching out with compassion to those in need and returning to God a portion of God’s gifts.
People of open minds and open hearts are people of open hands – as they are generous with their intellect and emotion they show it by their generous use of material things for the common good. In other words, those who are open minded and open hearted show it by their actions – they are open handed.
It shouldn’t be surprising that people in our world think religious people closed minded. History is loaded with examples of people who have professed faith, went to church, and lived lives absolutely closed to God and to other people. The history of Congregationalism itself isn’t free of this stigma either. There was a time when we persecuted people who didn’t think, or worship, or believe the way we do and we did it all in pursuit of a “pure church.” Gandhi’s quote should shame Christians in every age and inspire us to live our faith, “Christianity hasn’t failed. It has simply never been tried.” The challenge – the perpetual challenge – of being a Christian is trying to live as lovingly, selflessly, honestly and openly as Jesus did – open mind, open heart, open hands.
Today a group of young women and men have affirmed their Christian faith and owned the covenant with us. As Paul prayed for the Ephesians I pray for them, and for all of us, that we know the riches of life in relationship with God, the Father of Glory. If you remember little of your covenant class through the years, please remember this – that to be a Christian is to live with open mind, open heart, and open hands. As God and God’s people have embraced you today, embrace others. Never give up learning and growing, you are the witnesses of God’s love, the recipients of God’s promise of loving relationship and the world needs to be touched by God through you. With open minds, open hearts, and open hands we can make a difference – shall we?