Is it possible to be of the same mind in Christ?

I think we all know that church folk are a special breed, and when we get into disagreements and disputes things can easily go off the rails. Let me tell you. Years ago, at my parish in Richmond, Virginia, I was preparing to lead a mission trip to Honduras. Our mission committee sent several thousand dollars to an orphanage so that it could buy a van to ferry the children to school and doctor appointments, and it would bear our church name. What we didn’t know was that the orphanage used the money to make its budget and did not purchase the van in time for our arrival. One of my fellow missionaries, an older woman, discovered this juicy tidbit and kept it to herself because she liked knowing gossip we clergy did not. I confronted her about this during a Wednesday night supper and she went apoplectic. She actually challenged me to a fight—not in the church parking lot (because that would be bad form)—but we were to drive a few blocks to the Kroger parking lot and duke it out. I am not making this up. She was also co-chair of the Episcopal Church Women. I don’t think something of this sort is what we read about in Paul’s pastoral letter to the Philippians. Because Paul is in prison, he sends his missive via a carrier to his co-laborers in Christ, Euodia and Syntyche. We don’t know why these women are at loggerheads and called out so publicly—it’s probably a doctrinal or leadership issue. Whatever it is, it’s more than bickering over the flowers on the altar and less than something leading to schism. When I hear Paul say, “I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord,” I think, “Well, Paul you’re going to need to pray over that.” Being of the same mind? Telling them that they need to stop thinking about their own interest and focus instead on their sisters and brothers in Christ? We all know that’s not how we humans work. Differences of perspective, hurtful words, past traumas, and our own weaknesses, defensiveness and agendas make letting things go quite difficult. Rebuilding trust is hard. Paul wants Euodia and Syntyche to be fully unified in their ministry at the Philippi church, and his pastoral approach to getting them there is a beautiful model for all Christians. First, Paul addresses them in ways that show his gratitude for their ministry, and second, he calls them back to who they are in Christ. He tells his letter carrier to “help these women since they have struggled at my side in the cause of the gospel.” These are women who have been “co-workers” in evangelism and upbuilding as much as any man Paul names in his letter, such as Clement or Epaphroditus. There’s no hint here that Paul thinks of Euodia and Syntyche’s role in the church as any less important. What’s more, Paul makes clear that these are women “whose names are in the book of life.” They are fully blessed by God and will be taken up into Christ’s victory at the last day. But Paul’s focus is not on the status of their salvation, but to remind them that they are co-equals as beloved children of God. They, like their Christian siblings, are to share the disposition of Christ, focused on service and self-giving love (Phil 2:2, 5). In the face of hardship and opposition, Paul is pleading with the Philippians to have one another’s backs. It’s not hard to think of our own divisions today when we read this epistle. Christians are falling out of fellowship with each other over politics, partisan loyalty, and doctrinal orthodoxy. For the life of me I cannot understand why a handful of transgender college athletes are a dealbreaker for my more religious-right brethren, but not the cruelty of children being taken or deported from their immigrant parents; or the cruelty of a law-abiding, tax-paying pastor being abducted off the street in his UPS uniform and flown across the world to a country where he has absolutely no ties; or the cruelty of 65,000 so-called “illegal aliens,” 70% of whom have no criminal record, and are imprisoned indefinitely in detention camps all over our country, all in the name of border security. That these scenarios are not deal-breakers for Christians whose empathy is supposed to be rooted in the gospel of Jesus, confounds and saddens me. When Jesus was pressured to side against the Empire or with the religious authorities, he always sided with the poor, the vulnerable, and the oppressed. By my own admission, I am having a difficult time overcoming our religious disagreements to be of the same mind in Christ. But then I ask myself, do I dare think I know the mind of Christ? The pitting of “us” versus “them” has been a successful strategy throughout all of human history. Social media companies have monetized our collective anxiety and our impotent outrage at our so-called enemies. We know it as “Doomscrolling” —an algorithmically curated tour of one’s landscape of hopelessness, despair and rage. Paul would describe this as “their god is their belly, their glory is their shame” (3: 19). Just last week, I read about an upcoming trial in Ohio where two working-class men, one liberal, one conservative, combusted in April at a dog park over opinions about President Trump. Their disagreement became an argument, then a screaming match, and then because they both had guns in their cars, a crime. They shot at one another—one of them took a bullet but survived—and now both of them face serious, life-altering consequences. It’s telling that in the aftermath, they asked about the well-being of their dogs before they did about each other. 1 I suspect that Paul would argue that our civic and political animosities fester because we’re not looking at each other as co-laborers whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life alongside our own. How often do we accuse “these people” of not being true Jesus followers but outliers under the guise of Christianity. Again, this is where my struggle lies. I have a hard time rejoicing in the lord, as Paul calls me to do. I have a hard time with a specific expression of Christianity that seeks to elevate a very particular vision for the United States. Christian nationalism espouses a very specific preferred citizen who is both White and natural-born. Its theology relies on a historical narrative of the United States which holds that it was this group of people who created our country, and it is this group who should enjoy the easiest access to civil rights, social benefits, and political power. Its narrative also reinforces the idea that racial and ethnic diversity, including the arrival of brown-skinned immigrants and refugees, only weakens our nation. And this my friends is why we celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day—not only do we repent of the Church’s role in weaponizing erasure, forced assimilation, and cultural violence of our native brethren—but we do so in order to prevent the rewriting of history. It’s our duty to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery, a principle of international law dating from the late 15th century and upheld by the Supreme Court in 1823, which sanctioned the conquest, colonization, and exploitation of non-Christian territories and invalidated the humanity (the humanity!) of indigenous peoples. What we have to understand is that this is all of a piece. The nullification of human beings in this country began with the slave trade and the anti-Black racism and bigotry that followed. It seems that we humans throughout history cannot help but dehumanize those we perceive as the other, the enemy, or beneath us. Recognizing the third anniversary of the October 7 event is why we can never be neutral or silent about antisemitism, and, of course, anti-Muslim hatred. The Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, the Palestinian Evangelical Lutheran pastor based in West Bank, sees racism as the essential companion of colonialism. From his own context, he says, “It renders Palestinian life, most acutely in Gaza, expendable to many Christians, allowing mass displacement and death to be rationalized or ignored.” 2 Now, to think I might know the mind of Christ is presumptuous at best. But Paul understood this—and he gives me, gives us, a roadmap to rehabilitate our worst instincts, which are set on earthly things, not heavenly. “Think about these things,” he writes, “… beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (4:8). The notion of fixing one’s attention on what is pleasing and praiseworthy might sound like mere escapism, a willful retreat to blissful ignorance, but in our context, it’s also a way to resist the paralysis of despair. Because choosing to be a decent person these days is a profoundly political act. So is prayer! Joy, gentleness, peace—these are shaped by our habits of prayer and our posture of confidence knowing Christ has triumphed over all the evils and snares that surround us. My friends, we must hold fast to what Thomas Merton implored, “Do not be discouraged. The Holy Spirit is not asleep.” I want to end by reminding you of what is known as Jesus love—agape—it’s the kind of love we give freely without expecting anything in return. It means we can love another simply for the fact that God loves them. We don’t have to like them; we don’t have to condone their beliefs, but we do have to love them and respect their innate dignity. They, like us, are created in God’s image. Their names will be written in the Book of Life too. This helps me approach the differences with my fellow Christian pastors who may be “antagonists” but are also co-workers in the labor of the Gospel, as infinitely valuable to Jesus as I aspire to be. Paul is beseeching Euodia and Synteche to have more Christian love and affection towards each other, just as he is beseeching us to strive for the mind of Christ. Again, he points us toward this agape love, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:4-5). If we can measure any bit of this, then there certainly is reason today to “Rejoice!” Again, I say rejoice! Amen. 1 “They Argued About Trump at a Dog Park, Then They Pulled Their Guns,” The New York Times , October 5, 2026, reported by Jessica Contrera. 2 https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/news/2025/06/11/rev-dr-munther-isaac-insists-we-see-jesus-every-child-pulled-under-rubble The post Is it possible to be of the same mind in Christ? appeared first on Washington National Cathedral .