"Be of the Same Mind" (Ex 17:1-7)

A Messy Business

My sister-in-law, Erin, tells the story of when her parents’ church, which had started as just a handful of families, began to grow. They were meeting in a small sanctuary at the time. But the prospect of a growing children’s program had them planning for the future. For five years, they saved up money for an education wing.

Finally, they had enough. It felt like a hurdle had been cleared. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and looked forward to what the future had in store. And then…there was a church business meeting. Erin remembers it well. It began at 6 o’clock. On the agenda were several final decisions concerning the new building. Once these decisions had been made, ground could be broken and construction could begin. People showed up in a celebratory mood, anticipating the beginning of a new chapter.

Four hours later, the mood was anything but celebratory. What had backed the meeting up? Toilets…as it were. How tall should they be? Youth-sized? It was the education wing after all. But a small contingent in the business meeting asked, “What about years down the road? What if we have no children and the education wing is used only by adults? We need adult-sized toilets. We can bring stools and potty seats for the kids.” The quarreling over toilets roiled on for hours. At ten o’clock, Erin and her mom left. It was a school night. The meeting continued. Eventually a fragile peace was reached. There would be one adult toilet in the education wing. The rest would be youth-sized.

…Church business can get messy, can’t it?

Quarreling

The thing is, it was a necessary conversation inasmuch as toilets are a necessity, a legitimate need. Where the meeting got clogged, perhaps, was in the murky, subterranean competition of egos. What backed things up, perhaps, was a fundamental distrust or disregard. There was a failure to listen and an overriding impulse to insist on one’s own way.

What happened with the Israelites at Rephidim was not so different. Today’s scripture begins by pointing out that they have a legitimate need. “They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink” (Ex 17:1). The people are thirsty, so they go to Moses with a request, “Give us water to drink” (Ex 17:2). In my mind, this request is just as legitimate as their need. Their thirst—legitimate. Their request—legitimate.

The trouble lies in the manner of their request. It’s not the substance of their request that is the problem, but how they express it. “The people quarreled with Moses” (Ex 17:2). The Hebrew word here, riv,  is the same word used for making a formal complaint and bringing suit against another person. It implies distrust. Accusation. Listen to how the people take their very real and valid experience, namely thirst, and allege that it was Moses’ intention all along: “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” (Ex 17:3). They are thirsty, no doubt. That is a valid and pressing concern. But their request maligns Moses and spreads skepticism. It is as though they cannot accept a difficult reality. Their thirst is an unacceptable problem, and it must be blamed on someone. Their bitterness poisons not only their relationship with Moses but their faith as well. Listen to how they doubt Moses’ assurance that God is with them. They cry out, “Is the Lord [really] among us or not?” (Ex 17:7).

United They Stand

One of the supreme ironies of Israel’s wilderness experience is that the biggest threat to their survival is not without but within. The very next story—which has a legendary feel to it, as though it has been retold time and again around fires and has grown into this wonderfully illustrative tale—this next story shows that the key to life in the wilderness is unity. Or in everyday language, teamwork. Amalek and his forces attack the Israelites. As long as Moses is able to raise his hands, Israel prevails. But Moses begins to tire, which leaves the battle hanging in the balance. What swings it in Israel’s favor is simple: collaboration. Aaron and Hur each hold up one of his hands, and eventually Israel triumphs.

Aaron and Hur’s collaborative spirit draw a meaningful contrast with the Israelites’ quarreling. By putting these stories back to back, the storyteller seems to be making a point: “United, Israel will stand. But if they are quarreling, and everyone does only what’s right in their own eyes, they will fall.”

Not Thinking the Same Thing,
but Thinking the Same Way

Elsewhere in today’s lectionary, Paul gives the church in Philippi some advice that seems relevant to the Israelites’ plight, “Be of the same mind” (Phil 2:1). Now, at first glance, this counsel seems awfully idealistic. Is Paul urging uniformity? Is his idea of unity that the church all thinks the same thing?

I don’t think so. I think he’s advising them not to think the same thing, but rather to think the same way. He continues: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” This is high-minded language to say something really simple: “Listen to one another.” To listen means to be poor in spirit, to recognize that the perspective and voice of another person is a gift that enriches life. When Paul says, “Be of the same mind,” he’s actually saying, “Think the same way…think first of others. Listen.”

These words are spiritual dynamite, if we pause to think about it. Paul is suggesting that what makes us followers of Christ is not that we all think the same thing, that we all share the same beliefs, or that we all sign off on the same creed. Rather, we think the same way. Faith is not so much about the substance of our thoughts as it is about the spirit by which we live. It is less of a noun and more of an adverb that defines all our actions. It is less of a what and more of how.

Listen to how Paul concludes: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself…” (Phil 2:6-8). What distinguishes the mind of Christ is this extraordinary self-emptying. He could have claimed equality with God, he could have lorded it over everyone. But if anyone was bending the knee, it was him. He didn’t come with a program or a platform. He didn’t come to conquer, whether by sword or popular vote. He came with self-giving love that gives pride of place to the other. Christ listened. Repeatedly in the gospels, Jesus is interrupted or suddenly confronted by an intrusion. And repeatedly, he listens—and in so doing gets to the heart of the matter. He looks not to his own interests, but to the interests of others.

Willing to Sit Down with Everyone

Today is World Communion Sunday. Our scripture is a fitting text. On the one hand, it shows us a God who indeed meets our need, a God who provides water in the wilderness as surely as Christ fills us with love at this table. On the other hand, it shows us our humanity, our difficulty accepting our very real needs and our tendency instead to distrust and blame others. Community can be messy. Just ask my sister-in-law’s home church.

The good news, though, which Paul points us toward, is that we don’t actually have to agree on everything. Trying to all think the same thing is getting ahead of ourselves. It’s trying to take ten steps, when we only need to take one. The mind of Christ is simpler. It is to be poor in spirit, to treasure the other. It is to listen. To look not to our own interests, but for just a moment to look first to the interests of others.

I think I’ve shared it before but a question that really gives me pause is this: Is it better to be right in the wrong spirit or wrong in the right spirit? I think the mind Christ is more about a way than a what, that it has more to do with the spirit in which we live than with the particular beliefs, programs, agendas that we espouse. What scandalized Jesus’ contemporaries more than anything was not his theology but his behavior. Have you seen the people he hangs out with? The people he eats with? The people he listens to? Tax collectors and sinners. Nonbelievers and enemy centurions. That is the mind of Christ that Paul invites us to share. Catholic theologian John Shea gets to the heart of it with a quip that captures the hope of this World Communion Sunday: “The heavenly banquet table is open to everyone who is willing to sit down with everyone.”

Amen. May we follow Christ in this way.

Prayer

Compassionate God,
Who gathers us around a common table,
Who knows our very real and legitimate need,
Our hunger and our thirst—
Teach us how to be content
When there is not agreement
…
Teach us the mind of Christ:
How to be poor in spirit,
How to treasure others,
How to trust you are among us.
In Christ, who eats with tax collectors and sinners: Amen.