Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity
“Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts”
The passage from 1st Peter, appointed for the epistle for today, begins with the phrase “be ye all of one mind.” It ends with our text “sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.” Everything in between is held together by these two phrases. And what is in between is an exhortation to a godly life against the forms of wickedness which so easily arise, not only in our hearts, but also in our common life together.
“Be ye all of one mind,” he tells us. But what is that one mind? Is it mere unanimity regardless of what one is agreed about? Surely not. Peter is talking about the mind of Christ for he goes on to describe the qualities of the love of Christ towards us which must become the form of his life within us. A group of people may be united in ways that are quite ungodly. They may arrive at a perfectly fine decision but the manner of their deciding may be perfectly disgraceful, regardless of the decision itself. Or the process of decision making may be perfectly fine while the decision itself lacks intellectual, spiritual and moral integrity. We see this time after time in every aspect of our culture. Mere consensus is no surety for truth; nor is pure process. For if “being of one mind” arises out of viciousness, personal abuse, willful ignorance, resentment, envy, paltry excuses, self interest, incompetence and dark prejudice, (and let us be honest, such things are all too evident and all too common), then it is not what Peter is talking about.
