What does it mean to be out of our minds? We might think of moments of intense emotion where we lose it. Isn't being in our right mind a presupposition?
Isn't sanity somewhat subjective? How does one differentiate a hallucination from a spiritual vision?
Today I would like to suggest that humility is sanity.
Now let me switch gears for a moment. I've spoke to many people who have been turned off by Christianity because so many preachers & followers teach that billions of people will burn forever in hell because they didn't have the right mind to place their faith in Jesus.
I know this is a sensitive subject, one that I deal with in my blog quite often.
Suffice it to say that while most church systems derive tremendous institutional and economic power by creating a fear culture, the heart of the issue is confusion over the interpretation of the bible. Most interpreters don't wish to be cruel or elitists, but they only have a mind to see Jesus' exclusivity claim (John 14:6) in one dimension.
In cultural Christianity, salvation is usually depicted as saying the "sinner's prayer" or inviting Jesus into some imaginary place in our hearts. I also saw it this way for many years. But after reading the bible nearly 40 times, I began to see a few things.
There are many places in the old an new testaments where people are given salvation who didn't even ask for it or who knew nothing of Jesus. In these texts, the work of the cosmic Christ is completely sufficient. It's a theme repeated over and over.
One such story is the demon possessed man in Mark 5. The story depicts the worst departure from a right mind. A man who is insane and uncontrollable. He wants nothing to do with Jesus. He is consumed with alternate ideas and truth claims. (what could be more anti-Jesus than demons?)
What happens?
Jesus has compassion on him and saves him. No sinners prayer. No joining
a church, no going to an alter, no tithing. No act whatsoever on the part of the man.
Nothing but compassion from Jesus.
Later the man was delivered and in his "right mind" and he wanted to follow after Jesus. Jesus told him "No you can't come with me. Just go back and tell others what the Lord has done for you."
There is a hundred sermons that could come out of this text, but here is a central message:
"Christ has compassion on people who are not in their right mind." This means the road rager, the addict, the grieving, the tormented, the confused, the ignorant, the trapped or lost. In other words, salvation doesn't work according to the modern church delivery system, where you have to really want it or else it won't take. By the time you want it, it has already taken.
Salvation goes uninvited to unexpected places, to unexpecting people.
It seems the only people that his compassion will not reach are the proud and the
certain. (1 Peter 5:5)
The religious leaders of Jesus day were proud and certain that God only saved certain people in a certain way. No wonder they so hated Christianity, it originally taught that the God of the Jews could save gentiles without them needing to convert to Judaism. Has modern Christianity, in like manner, become too certain?
Perhaps a person who is proud and certain of their religion is the most insane of us all.
