What did you want to be when you grew up? The first time I remember thinking, “I want to keep doing this!” I was in fourth grade and my class was learning about dinosaurs. We excavated dinosaurs out of plaster of paris in Dixie cups, and I decided I wanted to be a paleontologist.

Later on, I wanted to be a sportscaster. Then, I started writing poetry and I wanted to be a writer. I went to college and thought I’d be a musician. I went to seminary and thought I’d be a professor of theology. It took me a while to realize I was being called to ministry, and each one of those interests–studying the ancient world, learning to speak well and off the cuff, practicing my writing and teaching–had been part of the process of discovering who God was calling me to be.

Even though there are a few outliers who knew what they wanted to be from a very young age and never varied from it–people like my cousin who always knew he wanted to design airplanes–for most of us, learning who we are is a process. We discover pieces at a time as we learn to love God with our hearts, our souls, our minds, and our strength.

Today, we are continuing our sermon series Overflowing Love. In this series, we are walking through the greatest commandments as  described by Jesus in Mark 12. Jesus is asked which commandment is the greatest, and he responds, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 

Today, we will be looking at what it means to love God with our minds. The word Jesus uses in Mark 12 for “mind” is not the run-of-the-mill word for “mind.” The word Jesus uses here instead is dianoias, a word that combines the word for mind with the prefix dia. This prefix means “thoroughly” or “side-to-side.” Put together, the word Jesus uses for “mind” means to examine something with the mind, to be willing to follow something through from one side to the other, and perhaps even change our minds because of what we discover. These greatest commandments, paired with our two Scripture passages for this morning call us to keep our minds ready, to go searching for Jesus, and to be willing to be surprised by what we find.

First, we love God with our minds by keeping our minds ready. 1 Peter 1:13 puts it this way: “Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed.” The part of this verse that is translated “prepare your minds for action” more literally says to “gird up the loins of your mind.” In the ancient world, men wore tunics, and if you’ve ever worn a tunic, a dress, or a skirt, you know how hard it is to move quickly in them. To help with this, men would gird up their loins, or pull the fabric of the tunic from the back, through their legs, and then knot it together. This would transform the tunic into something more like shorts. 

Girding up our minds means keeping them active and limber. What are some ways we keep our bodies active? Taking a walk. Riding a bike. Making sure we don’t sit for too much of the day. Some of us can keep motivated to do this without starting a training program, but others of us need the accountability of taking an exercise class or finding an exercise buddy. Keeping our minds active is very similar. Some of us are really good at creating daily or weekly Bible reading habits, or reading commentaries to help us understand what we read in the Bible. But others of us do better with companionship and accountability along the way.

If you don’t already have a discipline of reading and studying the Bible, I would encourage you to try one out for the next week. It may be tempting to start big and say you want to read the whole book of Genesis in one sitting, but I would encourage you to start small. Aim for a few minutes 3-4 times a week. Just like you wouldn’t start a fitness routine by trying to run a marathon on the first day, choose a Bible study goal that will give you a gentle challenge, but one that isn’t so lofty you can’t keep up. We love God with our minds by keeping our minds limber and active and ready.

I love the story of Jesus and his parents getting separated from one another because it is so human. I also love it because it reminds us to go searching for Jesus. In our passage from Luke, Luke tells us that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus went to Jerusalem every year for the Passover. Every single year, Jesus and his family would walk 75 or so rugged miles from Nazareth to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, and this shows us the dedication of Mary and Joseph to raise their child in the Jewish faith.

I would imagine that Mary and Joseph had many extended family members and friends who also took this journey with them. Because of that, it’s not really a huge surprise that they trusted Jesus to make his way back with them and the rest of the group without having to keep an eye on him the whole time. They continued along their way for a days’ journey, which could have been 12-20 miles, before they realized Jesus was no longer with them. They would’ve had to turn around and walk another 12-20 miles to get back to Jerusalem as they searched for him–their anxiety and fears rising the whole way back.

So often, we don’t even realize we’ve wandered away from Jesus. We mindlessly go about our lives focusing on the wrong things, allowing our minds to get consumed by anger, indifference, or some other preoccupation, when suddenly we realize we are a long way away from where we should be.  Or, we have good reason to think everything is fine–just like Mary and Joseph did. We are checking all of the boxes on our lists, and we are keeping up with things that are important to us, and we don’t even realize we are missing something.

Too often, it takes a big realization–often a painful one–before we realize we are way off track. I recently started listening to the audio version of the book 10% Happier by journalist Dan Harris. Harris worked under Peter Jennings, and plowed his way into covering everything from the Taliban in Afghanistan to presidential elections. He was talented and driven, but he was disconnected from himself. Eventually, he found himself using drugs, and then eventually having a panic attack on national television. In this book, he talks about how his life had to bottom out before he was willing to make a big change. We often have no idea how far off track we are until something happens that wakes us up.

We love God with our minds by keeping our minds active, by going searching for Jesus, and then by being surprised by what we find. When Joseph and Mary find Jesus, they are shocked to see him holding his own with the teachers in the Temple. He’s learning from them, but also asking tough questions. The person in front of them is not a little boy; he is growing into his own as a skilled person of faith. 

Mary lets out her anxiety, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” I think every parent has said something similar at one point or another. And Jesus says, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” 

When we go searching for Jesus, we may not find what we expect. We may expect to encounter one who affirms all of our biases and rationalizes all our bad habits. Instead, when we encounter Jesus, we are invited into a whole new way of existing in the world. Invited sounds rather nice, doesn’t it, but sometimes it feels more like running into a wall.

Friends in Christ, are we keeping our minds active and ready? Maybe it’s time to try something new as you strengthen your mind. Perhaps downloading a Bible app on your phone and committing to read for a few minutes a few times a week, or partnering up with someone and sharing insights from your Bible study with each other. Or, maybe you want to participate in our after church Sunday School class to have some committed time and accountability. We love God by keeping our minds active and ready. 

Friends in Christ, are we searching for Jesus? Or are we going through the motions of our lives without seeking God’s presence within it all? Perhaps this week is a good time to ask that question. Maybe we will find we are right where we hope to be, or maybe we will find ourselves like Mary and Joseph, some 12-20 miles away from Jesus and having no idea how we strayed so far.

Friends in Christ, are we willing to be surprised by Jesus? For those of us who’ve been part of a community of faith for most of our lives, we’ve had a lot of time to pick up our own ideas about who Jesus is. We may have forgotten what it was like the first time we learned that Jesus loved us, or the first time we realized God wanted us to love that person who was terribly frustrating. Let’s take some time to allow Jesus to surprise us by searching for him with an open mind and an open heart.

May the Holy Spirit transform and renew our minds so that we may be people who love God with all of who we are. Amen.