Romans 8:1-8

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed, it cannot, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Romans 12:1-2

1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”  It’s a saying I learned in kindergarten that tried to teach me to not pay attention to the mean things other kids might say.

It is true that a spoken word will never break skin like a stick or stone can, but the reason the saying was created is because words actually can hurt. They can inflict invisible wounds that last longer than any cut or broken bone.  Words can have power, they can be a weapon.  And like any weapon, they can be used for evil, but they also can be used for good.

Our thoughts, what goes on in our minds, are words as well.  Unspoken, internal words, but powerful words nonetheless, and once again have deep potential for the greatest good and the darkest evil.

Thoughts don’t usually start out big or loud.  They’re echoes, small whispers, little ideas usually at first.  But the more we listen to them, and listen for them, the louder they become, the more true they sound, the more we believe them.

This works with negative thoughts, “I’m stupid,” “I’m ugly,” “I’m unlovable,” as well as with positive ones, “I am loved,” “I have gifts,” “I was made for a purpose.”

We may not believe the thoughts at first, but the more we pay attention to them, the more we repeat them, it’s like throwing one more log on that fire, and the more we feed the fire, the hotter and more consuming it will become.

I think this is much the same as what Paul talks so much about in his letters of the war between flesh and Spirit.  When we do things throughout our day, we’re metaphorically placing a log on a different fire, in this case we can call one fire “the flesh” and the other “the Spirit”.

But we’re not the only ones placing logs on our fires…the people around us, the things we listen to, can throw logs on either fire as well if we let them.  This is why we have to be thoughtful of our minds.  We have to think about what we’re thinking about.  We have to pay attention to what we’re surrounding ourselves with.

Are we being conformed to the pattern of this world?  Mindlessly absorbing what everyone around us says is good?  More money, a nicer neighborhood, escaping the world and starting a homestead?  None of these things in and of themselves are bad, but we have to ask why we want them.  Is that really where the Spirit is leading us or is that what our flesh wants?  Maybe it’s a little of both…

But how do we know God’s will?  His good, pleasing and perfect will?  Paul says, we need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  Not the complete overhaul of our minds…we don’t need to start back at square one necessarily, but we need to be able to sift through our thoughts and ask what is really true? What is really good?  What is really from God?

How is it possible to do this?  

We ask.  We ask God to help us change, we ask God to transform our minds, we ask God to give us the strength to stop conforming to this world.  

We seek.  We seek the Spirit in everything we do, in every decision we make.  We seek wisdom in the scriptures, we seek wisdom through our elders.

We surrender.  We accept that we are made of flesh and will always struggle at some level with our fleshly desires and with the constant current of the pattern of this world, so we surrender to the Spirit and his guidance that we sought, even when it seems painful.

We set our mind on the Spirit, we try to notice every wandering thought, we ask God to help us identify what is of the world (or flesh) and what is of the Spirit, and we cast aside logs that want to build the fleshly fire and accept the ones that build the Spirit’s fire.  Paul says that is when we find life and peace.

1 Corinthians 12:12-26

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

14 Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many members yet one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect, 24 whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, 25 that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

I’ve always found this passage from Paul to be quite genius in explaining community and diversity.  As an introvert who tends to run on the assumption that things are just better when I can be alone, this passage always helped me understand the necessity of community. 

It would make me picture myself as a hand or an eyeball or a brain or some particular part of my body and how I would be stranded and fairly useless without an arm, a head, a torso, and feet and all the other parts dependent on one another that help me function.  I am very glad to have all of the parts of my body, and that is usually as far as this metaphor would go for me in previous readings of this passage: my whole body is a good thing and so is having a community to be surrounded by.

But this time reading it I was struck more by the necessity of a diverse community than just a community itself.  Maybe it’s the season of life I am in where I work from home and an no longer surrounded by the hustle and bustle of people constantly that my introverted self can finally run on a mostly full battery and actually seek out and enjoy the company of others because I can show up with a full tank rather than run on fumes like what I worked a desk job.

And in this season, when I find I am up for community unlike I have ever been before, I am not struck with the idea that it is good to be with others, I’m already feeling that on my own!  I am more struck with reflecting on the members that make up the community I surround myself with.  

When I think about it honestly, I tend to seek out those more like me.  A hand wanting to hold other hands rather than hang around the recovering stubbed toe.

Paul’s words this time have reminded me that my life is not truly good, the way God says it can be good, outside of community, but even more so it is not truly good outside of a diverse community.

Now I don’t think this means I need to kick all my friends and like-minded or like-gifted people to the curb and find different ones, but it does remind me, especially in an election year like this one, that life is not really good when I think about certain things as “us vs. them”.  Life is not really good when I think of it as “me vs. the world”.  Life is not really good when I’m always in my comfort zone (note…I think it’s ok to be comfortable, but when our decisions are all made based on how comfortable something will make me, I think that’s the problem)

It may be frustrating or even scary sometimes to butt heads with others in community, and some personalities and viewpoints can chafe sometimes.   It usually feels safer to be with like-minded or like-tempered people.  It makes life smoother.

It reminds me of the saying, “great minds think alike,” and often use it to celebrate being in agreement about things. But did you know  that’s not the whole saying?  We’ve lost the last little bit, probably out of convenience: “Great minds think alike, though fools seldom differ.” 

When we surround ourselves with like-minded people all the time we get stuck in an echo chamber.  We can also get just plain old stuck.  Without diversity of perspectives and giftings we tend to just keep doing the same old thing, which may be fine…but what about when the same old thing just isn’t working any more?  What about when habits have gotten you in a rut?  What about when the path you’re on is bypassing or possibly even intentionally avoiding certain areas of life that need to be addressed?

Community and diverse community (and this is not just culturally diverse…we’re talking age, socioeconomic status, married/single, religious affiliation, family background, and so much more) helps us see what we can’t see on our own.  Grow to places we couldn’t get to on our own.  Understand things we were ignorant of.  Challenge us in ways where we have to really think about what we believe and how we want to live.

True, healthy community pushes us, it can be hard, it can be uncomfortable, but it is very good.