FELLOWSHIP OF THE LIKE-MINDED

If there be any fellowship of the Spirit, make full my joy by being like-minded. —Philip. 2:1-2

I thought of writing this article while I was in the hospital in Houston, but I was too busy trying to get well so I could get out of the place. A hospital is no place to be when you’re sick! Let’s just say that I thought out this piece while in the hospital, and I put it into words now that I am at home convalescing.

It was a nurse named Mary that led me to draw some of the conclusions herein. She came to America some years ago from Nigeria, and is of course black. She is a Carmelite nun. All that I knew about this order was that it is very old and that its name was taken from Mt. Carmel in Palestine where it was founded. Mary explained that the order’s mission was to serve people in the name of Christ. It is a cloistered order, which means its work is done mostly in seclusion and away from the public eye. Mary took a leave of absence from the order so she could go back into the world and get more education. She graduated from Spelman College in Atlanta and is now in the School of Nursing of Texas Woman’s University, which is part of the impressive 17-institution complex of the Texas Medical Center in Houston. But she had already been a nurse in her order in Nigeria. She may not return to her order, for she is considering becoming a secular nurse and working in a Catholic hospital in this country. Her only interest is to serve Christ by serving others.

Mary was my night nurse, and during those first few nights she was an angel of mercy. And a bit fussy, the take-charge kind of gal. If I erred in some detail, she would score me with, “What are you doing that for?” She knew that I was a sick Indian and she watched over me not unlike a mother hen with her chicks. Through my I.V. I was already getting some morphine, and I only needed to press a button to get more, if I needed it for pain. My day nurse told me not to worry about how much I pressed the button, for it was regulated so that I could not get too much. But Mary would caution me to bear a little pain and forego more morphine, and once I was through with the I.V. and took pain pills only on request, Mary would urge me to take as few as possible. “It is better for you to be in control, not the drugs,” she would advise. I was a good patient and heeded her advice.

It was evident to me that Mary was special. She had a genuine interest in her patients. In her countenance I saw the love of Christ. When I spoke of our common faith, and asked her if it was her devotion to Christ that made her such an attentive nurse, she replied, “Yes, of course.” She served me and others as if she were serving Jesus. I told her that I shared her view of life, to serve Christ by serving others, that this is what being a Christian is all about.

In those night hours in that hospital Mary and I found a common bond. There was an absent Friend whose Spirit was present, and he made us like-minded. Eventually that line from Scripture came to mind: “If there is any fellowship of the Spirit, make full my joy by being like-minded.” I was reminded that when the apostle called for like-mindedness he was not talking about seeing everything alike, nor was he calling for some kind of doctrinal conformity, but he was pleading for Christlikeness. We are like-minded when together we are Christlike!

The nurse and I would surely have some doctrinal differences, and they might be important, but it was the Person we shared in common that drew us together. It was our mutual devotion and commitment to Jesus Christ that created the “fellowship of the Spirit” between us. We were like-minded in that we both found in Jesus the focal point of our lives. This is what made the heart of the apostle Paul joyful, when the Philippians found in Christ a common bond. Paul would have had no cause to rejoice just because people agreed on doctrinal matters. Joy is the fruit of personal relationship.

Christians can see the millennium differently and still be like-minded. They can differ on ways and means of doing the church’s work, and even over such significant doctrines as baptism and the eucharist and yet be like-minded. They are like-minded, not because of doctrinal agreement, but because together they have the mind of Christ. To be like-minded is to share a sincere commitment to the lordship of Jesus Christ. If two people have resolved in their hearts and minds to follow Jesus Christ the best they know how they are like-minded, and this is the basis of fellowship. When two people like this meet they are immediately drawn together by that joy that the apostle spoke of.

This in no wise makes Christian doctrine unimportant. People who are like-minded will be of the mind to learn all the sound doctrine they can, for they realize that this builds them up in the holy faith. It only means that people can and will differ as they learn doctrine together (or separately), if for no other reason because they differ in age, opportunity, and ability. It is like any family of sisters and brothers, who, for all their differences are like-minded in that together they love their parents and are committed to the welfare of the family.

The apostle confirms this view when he goes on in that passage to elaborate on what like-minded means — “having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” If this is made to mean that we have to see all doctrine alike, and thus be of “one mind” by being of one understanding on all the issues, then it is impossible to be like-minded. It has never happened in any church or even between two people, and it never will, for we never see everything alike.

But when we see that “having the same love” means that we have the love of Christ in our hearts, and being of “one accord” means to have the single purpose of following Christ, we can readily see not only the wisdom of such an injunction but also its possibility and practicability. We can be like-minded. It is not a matter of effort as much as yielding to the fellowship of the Spirit. Is that not Paul’s point? If there is any fellowship of the Spirit, he is saying, then there will be like-mindedness, which is unity in Christ. Unity is a gift to be received more than a condition to be attained.

This is why two people who are Christlike (like-minded) do not have to work at it to be in fellowship, for they are immediately bonded by the Spirit within them. When Mary, the Nigerian, and I discovered each other in the dimness of a hospital room, there was a bond that made us one. We were the recipients of a common gift, the unity of the Spirit.

This is the fellowship of the like-minded, which transcends race, color, age, sex, nationality, and circumstance of birth. Its bonding power is love, which binds everything together in perfect unity. —the Editor