If I Only Had A Brain

"If I Only Had A Brain"

Mark 12:28-34

One of my favorite songs from the movie, “The Wizard of OZ” is, “If I Only Had A Brain.”  It’s sung by the Scarecrow when Dorothy tells him she is going to OZ.  He begins to imagine what it would be like to have a brain, and sings:

I could while away the hours, conferrin' with the flowers

Consultin' with the rain.

And my head I'd be scratchin' while

my thoughts were busy hatchin'

If I only had a brain.

I'd unravel every riddle for any individ'le,

In trouble or in pain.

With the thoughts I'd be thinkin'

I could be another Lincoln

If I only had a brain.

Oh, I could tell you why The ocean's near the shore.

I could think of things I never thunk before.

And then I'd sit, and think some more.

I would not be just a nuffin' my head all full of stuffin'

My heart all full of pain.

I would dance and be merry, life would be a ding-a-derry,

If I only had a brain.

If you had a brain, what would you do with it?  Because it’s not just a matter of having a brain. It is how you use it.

My son, Ryan, and his wife don’t watch too many movies.  They’ve never gone to a movie at a movie theatre together.  But recently they watched the movie, “Lucy.”  In case you’re not already familiar, the movie is about  a woman who is dosed with a high quantity of a powerful neonatal compound, which rapidly increases her access to untapped parts of her brain giving her ‘supernatural’ abilities.

It’s been said that we use only a small percentage of our brain.  The movie asks—and tries to answer—the question, “What would we be like if we used a much greater proportion of our brain?  What would our minds be capable of with full access to the brain?

I suppose the answer to that question would have to do with what was in control of our mind on full brain mode.  If you could do amazing things with your mind, what kind of amazing would that be—good or evil?  Probably both.  Just because humans could access more of their brains, and thus use their minds to full potential doesn’t mean we would be any better off, or better people?

That’s part of the reason Jesus’ statement about the most important commandment is instructive here.

When asked what the most important commandment is by one of the Scribes, Jesus replied, "To love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul; and love your neighbor as yourself.”  Heart.  Mind.  Soul.  I want to concentrate on just one of those this morning and use our brains to decide and explain what it means to love God with all our mind.

Something interesting happens in this exchange between Jesus and the Scribe about the most important commandment—especially as that has to do with God and the mind.  I’ve never caught it until this week as I was studying Jesus’ and the Scribes conversation.

Jesus told the Scribe what he thought was the most important commandment.  Then the Scribe pats Jesus on the back for his great answer, and parrots back what Jesus said.  But the Scribe changed a word in Jesus' answer.  When Jesus gave his answer, he used the word dianoia, for mind.  But when the Scribe restated what Jesus answered, he used the word, synesis, or understanding, instead of dianoia.

Then Jesus commended the Scribe, telling him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."

At first reading, I didn't get why Jesus thought the Scribe was close to the kingdom of God by simply saying back to Jesus what Jesus had just said.  Then I found the difference in words.  And I began to wonder.  Was Jesus commending the Scribe for shading that one word differently?  Was the Scribe signaling something to Jesus, and Jesus understood immediately?

The two words are very different.  Dianoia, or mind, is not a clear word in the Greek.  It's root word is nous.  The best way to describe nous is by calling it a person's disposition, or their inner orientation.  It's your natural mental and emotional outlook.

Dianoia, as a derivative word of nous, is more basic than that.  Dianoia is a word that describes more the faculty from which you have your mental and emotional outlook.  Dianoia is more the place from which you do your thinking.  It is more than just saying your brain.  It is the usage of the brain—the whole of our self, that directs our thinking and uses that brain.  When you use the word “mind” you are saying more than just brain.  That is what dianoia is.  Does that make sense?

So, when Jesus said to love the Lord your God with all your mind, he was using this word to describe how people need to love God with that inner faculty and that inner orientation—that thing the Scarecrow wished he had.

Whatever your natural mental capacity is, that has to be totally under the control of your love for God.  Whatever inner guidance system you use to determine where your true thoughts come from, it has to be controlled by your love of God.  To find your way in life you have to use your mind, and your mind has to be totally immersed in loving God.  You are to love God with that whole place, that whole mind from which you do your thinking.  That way, when you think and what you think is being controlled by your love for God.  That’s what Jesus is getting at by using the word dianoia.  Love the Lord your God with that whole place where your thoughts come from.

But the Scribe requoted the same verse Jesus did, but instead of using the word “dianoia,” he used the word “synesis.”  It's where we get our English word, synthesis from.  The word means literally, "to bring together," "union," or "confluence."  A confluence is the flowing together of two or more streams or rivers to become something larger.

Using this word, synesis, for mind, it is not the faculty of the mind as it is more of a unique process of the mind.  It’s that place in our mind, when we may be mulling something over.  Then, suddenly, a couple of things come together in our thinking, and we reach understanding.  It’s when those two or more thoughts come together when we have that “aha!” moment.  We suddenly get it.  We reach a level of understanding that we had not attained before.  That’s what “synesis” is:  the joining together of two or more thoughts that create a larger truth, and we exclaim, “YES!”  It’s that point in a cartoon when a light bulb goes on over a characters head.

So what is the Scribe signaling to Jesus by using this word?  That’s the intriguing question of their conversation.  Love the Lord your God with that place in your thinking, in the way that you use your mind, when you are making connections and coming to larger truths?  Love the Lord your God with that place where all the little streams of your mind come together into the larger river of life and truth?  Love the Lord your God not by just sitting around thinking about God, but with that place where thought and real life flow together and important decisions are made—where two plus two suddenly makes four.

Probably one of the best ways to describe this is use the life of C.S. Lewis as an example.  Lewis was probably one of the most influential Christians in the 20th century, but he wasn’t always so.

At age seventeen, Lewis wrote to longtime friend Arthur Greeves, "I believe in no religion. There is absolutely no proof for any of them, and from a philosophical standpoint Christianity is not even the best.”  That was the beginning of Lewis’ atheistic phase in life.

It was intensified during the years after his mother died.  Tragically, when Lewis's mother died, he in effect lost his father as well. Perhaps out of an inability to cope with the loss of his wife, Albert Lewis sent his two boys to a boarding school, whose headmaster, nicknamed "Oldie," was later certified as insane.

There were many other factors drawing Lewis toward atheism. One was the lure of the occult. Lewis indicated that if the wrong person had come along he might have ended up a sorcerer or a lunatic. Another factor Lewis had to face was the problem of evil. He read a lot from the Greek philosophers. Lewis came to the conclusion that, if God designed the world, it would not be a world so frail and faulty as we experience it.

Lewis came to believe in the meaninglessness of life and that we need to build our lives on the basis of "unyielding despair." Lewis's way of stating it was, "Nearly all I loved I believed to be imaginary; nearly all that I believed to be real, I thought grim and meaningless.”

Then something happened.  Another stream began to flow into Lewis’ life.  Once, before embarking on a long train ride, Lewis purchased a copy of George MacDonald's book Phantastes. MacDonald was a noted Christian pastor and author of fantasy at the time.  Lewis was surprised by what happened during his reading. Something came off the pages and "baptized his imagination." Although he couldn't put this quality into words at that time, he later came to describe it as holiness.

Another stream that suddenly flowed into Lewis’ life was that of the Catholic thinker, G.K. Chesterton.   Chesterton had a significant influence on Lewis. As Lewis read The Everlasting Man, he appreciated Chesterton's humor and was surprised by the power of his presentation. Lewis wrote that he began to feel that "Christianity was very sensible, apart from its Christianity.”

Yet another stream that flowed into his life at this time was that of novelist J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote The Lord of the Rings.  The two men and their great imaginations became kindred spirits.  But Tolkien was also a Christian. One by one, because of these men and the streams they caused to flow into Lewis’ life, the arguments that were obstacles to his faith were removed.  All these streams were coming into confluence with each other in Lewis’ mind.

All these streams were finally joined into one larger river of faith in Lewis’ mind in 1929.  While riding on a bus in Oxford, Lewis had the sense that he was "holding something at bay, or shutting something out.” He could either open that door or let it stay shut, but to open the door "meant the incalculable." He finally submitted himself to God, and called himself the most "dejected and reluctant convert" in all England.  But from that time on, his confluence of mind that brought him to Christ became one of the strongest flowing rivers in all of Christendom.  He saved my life as a young pastor in my first church, not knowing if I really had anything to preach.  His river of faith caught me up, and launched me into the ministry.

 

Lewis died the same day President Kennedy was shot, and his death was lost in all the media storm that grew out of that day.  But I dare say he was much more influential in so many people’s lives than JFK could have ever hoped to be.  Walter Hooper, Lewis’ long time friend and secretary, called Lewis the "most thoroughly converted man I ever met.”  That conversion happened because Lewis loved the Lord his God with all his mind—in that place of his mind where things come together and finally make perfect sense—become the truth upon which you base your life.

I think that’s why Jesus told the Scribe he wasn’t far from the Kingdom of God. His streams of understanding were coming together and he was at the threshold of believing.

It isn’t a matter of this being an either/or thing—that we have to go with Jesus’ word, dianoia, or the Scribe’s word, synesis.  I think it’s more both/and.  Because Jesus approved the Scribe’s statement, and his usage of a different word, Jesus was affirming how the Scribe “got it.”  The Scribe had come to his own “aha” moment, and used a different word for Jesus that proved he got it.

Do you get it?