Free your mind and the rest will follow - May 28
Today’s Scripture: AM Psalm 105:1-22; PM Psalm 105:23-45Zech. 4:1-14; Eph. 4:17-32; Matt. 9:1-8
The lyrics of a hit song from when I was in sixth grade come to mind when as I read today’s lesson from Ephesians: “Free your mind and the rest will follow.” En Vogue wrote a song about judgment and prejudice and our ability to essentially place people in boxes based on our knowledge, knowledge that is limited and based on stereotypes. Freeing your mind was about finding freedom because you could be alleviated of what you learned over time which kept you from finding the fullness of life.
In this letter to the Ephesians, the author says, “you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart.” The author is claiming that the mind is useless for the Gentiles because of their hardness of heart. This is a pretty odd thing to lift up in our tradition, a tradition that values education, philosophical reasoning, and the pursuit of knowledge.
I am beginning to wonder if one of the concerns of spending less time with people in this physically distanced reality, is the risk of spending too much time in our own heads. We either spend too much time reading articles on Facebook or making snap judgments about the people we see on the cover of articles or walking around the grocery store. As it pertains to judgments, some of those might be warranted, but what the author of Ephesians could be suggesting is the limitations of our mind if our heart is hardened.
Consider this – everything we have been discussing as a society struggling to figure out how to live in a pandemic is based on knowledge. ‘How do particles spread? Rates of infection? How to clean? How to gather? Who is contagious? What is contagious? Why do some people get affected and not others?’ If we are waiting to discover some complete amount of knowledge for how to live and be and thrive, we will spend the rest of our lives living in the walls of our minds.
Instead, how do our lives change when we focus on what comes from the heart? ‘How can I care for that person who is stressed out? How can I reach out in love to my neighbor who is scared or lost her job? How can I listen to my friend who is sick and hurting? I wonder if these are more important questions to frame our lives. At the root of these questions are not some sort of knowledge or wisdom, but a loosening of the heart to have compassion be the driving ethic of how we live. It’s probably not wise to throw out all of our knowledge but considering how our hearts might guide our lives more deeply seems like a worthwhile expression. Maybe it’s to free our mind, and the rest will follow.
- John+
Questions for Self-Reflection
What knowledge do you work to obtain? How do you strengthen your mind? How do you strengthen your heart? Are those done differently?
Daily Challenge
Pick a day to fast from reading the news or doing research on a topic related to current events. Use that time to pray or reach out to a neighbor or friend in need.