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THINKING LIKE MY COMRADE, MIKHAIL

Have you ever looked across a crowded restaurant, and seen your worst enemy over on the other side? Or maybe it's in church, and there's that hypocrite, that person you had a shouting match with, that person you simply cannot stand. They're right there, holding their hymnal, looking up the texts in their Bible, and your blood just boils as you watch them.
And then maybe you've had this thought go through your mind: "I wonder what it must be like to be that person?" And you try to imagine sitting over in their pew, in their shoes, in their suit of Sunday clothes, even in their skin. You ARE that person. You now have their attitudes, their upbringing, their feelings and emotions, their insecurities and fears.
Two books by retired U.S. presidents share a keen insight on this very challenge. In his book, Living Faith, Jimmy Carter writes about trying to imagine that he is one of his enemies. Here's the quote:

"In my personal life, I sometimes find it difficult to understand those with whom I disagree or those who contradict me. Strangely, I find it easier to put myself in the position of an adversary or even as an antagonist. As president during the intense days of the Cold War, for instance, I would sit in the Oval Office, glance at a big globe, and try to view the world as Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev did — living in a closed society, surrounded by frozen seas, powerfully armed enemies, and doubtful allies. The insights gained from this reflection helped me in negotiating, when I tried to alleviate his concerns while still pursuing the goals of my own country."

Sitting there in the comfort of the Oval Office, Carter would try to imagine being in the Kremlin instead. What must it be like to BE Brezhnev, to have the KGB instead of the FBI? To have rampant poverty everywhere instead of the prosperity of capitalism? To have food shortages and long lines for a loaf of bread? To have a 70-year history of suspicion, of spying, of barricaded churches? To know that there were enemies on your western side and other enemies on the east and nothing but the tundra and gulags of Siberia up north?
In doing his negotiating, President Carter tried to sympathize with, and have the mind of, his adversary: General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev.
Well, our spiritual challenge this week is certainly more daunting, but potentially more rewarding: we want to have, as the apostle Paul puts it, "the mind of Christ." How can we think the thought of Jesus Christ, have His attitudes, His understandings?
Well, the same Bible writer, Paul, goes on with some rather pointed counsels for us. In his letter to the new Christians in Ephesus, who, being new Christians, still struggled somewhat with "old minds," he had this to say:

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

But again, we might ask: "How?" How do we get to be "made new in the attitudes" of our minds? We get a bit of a hint just one chapter later, still in this long letter to the Ephesians:

"Be IMITATORS of God, therefore, as dearly loved children, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."

You know, in a way this sounds like a reversal of what we're looking for. We want to have the mind of Christ, to think like God thinks . . . and here Paul tells sinful people to simply copy-cat God, to imitate God. Like the old playground game: "Do what I do." Is this going to work?
In the classic book, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis wrestles at length with this issue of the mind, and the behavior which results from the kinds of minds we've all got. He makes a statement which could so very easily be misunderstood, so let me share it with extreme caution. Here it is:

"We are to become," he writes, "‘little christs.'"

And right away we say, "Hold on! Watch out!" You and I are not "christs" and we never will be. Jesus Christ is divine, the Son of God; in fact, He IS God, and always has been and always will be. You and I, on the other hand, are sinful human beings. Even when we're redeemed, we'll never be divine creatures; we'll never be gods or christs in that sense of the word. But as you read this entire book, you find that Lewis is simply challenging us to do what the Bible says many, many times: we are to act like Jesus, be like Jesus, think like Jesus, live like Jesus. We are to be "little christs" in the sense that we are as much like Him as we can possibly be, and as much as we permit Him to do in us. Professor Lewis amplifies his own words this way:
"He [Jesus] came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He had — by what I call ‘good infection.' Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else."

Even John, writing in the New Testament, begins his Gospel with these words found in chapter one, verse 12:

"But as many as received Him [Christ], to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name."

We've mentioned already this week that we have this happen, that we get "the mind of Christ," simply by reading and studying and praying and sharing and meditating. "By beholding, we become changed" — a line you might recall. C. S. Lewis takes this analogy of "good infection" a bit farther. Notice:

"Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught from a kind of infection. If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life" — that would certainly be "the mind of Christ" — you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry."

So the formula is actually quite simple: get close to Jesus. Sit right next to Him, so to speak. Lewis, still in this same book, has a chapter entitled "Let's Pretend," and talks about a process somewhat similar to what President Carter went through in his White House imagination. Just as Paul tells us to imitate Jesus, he describes it almost as the childhood game of "Dress Up." Listen to this:

"Now, the moment you realize ‘Here I am, dressing up as Christ,' it is extremely likely that you will see at once some way in which at that very moment the pretense could be less of a pretense and more of a reality." That's what we want, of course. He goes on: "You will find several things going on in your mind which would not be going on there if you really were a son of God. Well, stop them. Or you may realize that, instead of saying your prayers, you ought to be downstairs writing a letter, or helping your wife to wash up. Well, go and do it."

And maybe this process of imitating, of getting the "good infection," of "dressing up as Christ" will cause us to say "ouch" many times a day. That's all right. Friend, we want that brain transplant. But as we conclude this program, and read a final few words from Mere Christianity, we find some encouragement:

"There are lots of things which your conscience might not call definitely wrong (specially things in your mind) but which you will see at once you cannot go on doing if you are seriously trying to be like Christ." That's where we say "ouch." But then he adds this: "For you are no longer thinking simply about right and wrong; you are trying to catch the good infection from a Person. It is more like painting a portrait than like obeying a set of rules."

Does that help? It's hard to obey a long list of rules, but isn't it a glorious challenge to try to dress up as Christ, to have a mind like His?
Speaking of seeing through another's eyes, David, our writer/producer (and very loyal Democrat), just took a week of vacation and read the 723-page Republican biography, An American Life, by President Ronald Reagan. And Reagan, there in the Oval Office, went through the same challenge as Carter: trying to imagine the mind of his Soviet counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev. Over a three-year span, he and the General Secretary of the U.S.S.R. exchanged many, many long personal letters. The State Department didn't draft these; Reagan sometimes mailed Gorbachev seven-page handwritten letters, sharing the hopes and dreams and perspectives of the American people. Gorbachev responded in kind, and the two men eventually learned to respect and understand each other.

"Looking back now," Reagan writes, "it's clear now that there was a chemistry between Gorbachev and me that produced something very close to a friendship. He was a tough, hard bargainer. He was a Russian patriot who loved his country. We could — and did — debate from opposite sides of the ideological spectrum. But there was a chemistry that kept our conversations on a man-to-man basis, without hate or hostility. I liked Gorbachev even though he was a dedicated Communist."

Well, friend, there's something to be said for that kind of détente. Maybe it comes from writing someone a long letter. Or reading theirs to you.