I’m not sure if you know anything about the reformation. But it’s probably important that you do. Today, of course, is Reformation Sunday when we celebrate and remember those early reformers who were courageous enough to put their faith and often their lives on the line because of what they believed in and who they trusted.

Martin Luther was probably the most formidable among all those reformers he took on the established tradition of the Catholic Church. He did not want to be separate and against the church - but really he wanted to reform it from within. But his efforts met little if any acceptance by the leaders of the church. And so finally he had to take stronger and stronger stands that became more and more – well, lop sided you could say in terms of a sense of being over and against the Catholic Church. And then it was in 1517 when he nailed his 95 theses to the castle church door in Wittenberg, Germany that it was really launched because he took on the indulgences of the Catholic Church. People could actually pay to get these indulgences which then would insure them that their sins would be forgiven and they could get into heaven. So, if you paid enough money - you could get a ticket to heaven.

There have been schemes like that going on – off and on – over the centuries – but I’m not going into that this morning.

It was Luther and his great mind at work in wrestling with the scriptures and his understanding of the word and what that meant for those who were faithful believers. So, as a result of the Reformation we came to a term – a phrase that we often say in our tradition – the priesthood of all believers – he broke down the notion that there had to be a priest – some kind of intermediary between the people – the masses – the uneducated folks and God. And so all of us in a sense then are priests. That’s why in our church we say the Pastors in the church are Ron, Susie and myself. The ministers in the congregation are all of you. Because we believe in the priesthood of all believers.

So, this morning we are going to explore the gift of intellect – in our sermon series "Growing Gifts with God" and we are making, hopefully today, a wise investment – that’s what we want to explore. Investments are what we, of course, invest ourselves in. Vestments are simply clothes, what we clothe ourselves in. That’s what we are vested in, it is what we care enough to have with us and around us. And so we are called to make investments in God’s work because first God has made an investment in us. So, we are here this morning to look at the gift of intellect.

It was James Thurber, American humorist, who observed,

"It is better to ask some of the right questions – than to know all the answers."

Why is it that some people never ask questions about the deeper substance of their lives? Is it because they have simply stopped growing and learning? Is it because they feel so overwhelmed with all there is to know – that they have given in to the futility of it all? Is it because of their self-image – that they see themselves as ignorant and incapable of understanding anything complex?

Or is it because they have been intimated and don’t want to be perceived as asking dumb questions? There is a direct correlation between our minds and our lives. When a person’s mind is predominantly empty it is likely their entire life will be empty too.

One of the more extreme examples of that is the tragedy of Alzheimer’s disease. And when you have known a loved one who has slipped away to that kind of empty existence – you know how sad it can be.

But even more tragic than that – is the person who has a good mind and doesn’t use it. Because, then a choice is made to deny utilizing a gift. Another mistake that is often made is closely related and it is thinking you already know most everything you really need to know and so the quest for learning is minimalized to meaninglessness. For these folks, perhaps they become too certain about too many things too early in their lives.

Impatience can cause people a desire to get everything settled in their minds – such that they can just cruise on through life on auto-pilot. In our quick paced world – where people expect more and more to be stimulated by things coming at them – like the T.V., DVD’s, the internet and so on – fewer and fewer people seem to know the joy that comes when the mind lingers over an evocative image or a wonderful insight.

"Some people," said Alexander Pope, "will never learn anything…because they understand everything too soon."

Or as Henry Ford once quipped,

"Thinking is hard work, that is why so few engage in it."

I was appalled a few years ago to learn that the average minister reads less than five books a year. But the point is, I suspect we all have resistances of some kind that keep us from growing our minds as much as we might.

Now, I want to digress for a moment, just long enough to offer all the southpaws listening today a word of support. Because with all the research that has been done with left brain thinking – they’ve discovered the right side of your brain controls the left side of your body and the left side of your brain controls the right side of your body – which is all to say that left handed people are the only ones in their right mind.

Actually, I’ve come to discover that intelligence has a lot to do with what people believe. Those with smart kids, for instance, are more likely to believe in heredity.

Philosopher, Michael Polanyi offers this insight into understanding in his book, The Tacit Dimension,

"I have shown that any attempt to avoid the responsibility for shaping the beliefs which we accept as true is absurd; but the existentialist claim of choosing our beliefs from zero is now proved absurd too. Thought can live only on grounds which we adopt in the service of a reality to which we submit."

And this brings us to our jumping off point for this morning.

Today we are looking at the gift of intellect – but before we do that we must go back to last week when we examined the gift of faith. You see, faith in its most elemental meaning – which is basic trust - precedes intellect.

The proverb text in verse 7 puts it this way,

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge."

Fear in this context is awe, reverence, respect, and trust. Trust precedes knowledge.

The first phase of a new-born’s life is not intellectual at all – it is learning who and what can be trusted. And so a child learns early on whether or not mom and dad and other family members can be trusted. And the early trust learned determines later on how much can be transferred over to teachers and other people who will begin offering guidance. There is a direct correlation between the faith we place in teachers and mentors and the progressive nature of our intellectual development.

Like the blind man in our text from Mark,

"He first had to place his trust/faith in Jesus before he could follow and later have the wisdom to know who he was.”

Whenever there is a complete lack of trust in those around a person – his or her intellectual growth will be thwarted. For as was mentioned, faith precedes intellect.

A positive way to state this is in the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes,

"A mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions."

And once we accept this relatedness of faith and intellect and begin the journey of learning – we discover that with each new learning there is even more that we do not know.

We have not yet arrived Without this growing notion: Our knowledge is a drop, Our ignorance an ocean. - Anonymous

Yet, this awareness need not be an inhibitor – it can be a challenge to keep our minds ever growing.

In his book, The Church, Hans Kiing, the German theologian, writes,

“Freedom is demanded of the Church precisely because freedom has been given to the Church. The indicative precedes and makes possible the imperative: ultimately it is not because freedom has to be struggled for and won that it is granted, but it is because it has been granted that it can and must be lived. True freedom is not rooted in our existence, but comes to us from outside.”

Our freedom for thinking comes out of our very creation – for God created us with free will. And it was just out of such a discovery that our early Congregational ancestors in the faith came to the new world. The early Pilgrims wanted to live out their religious freedom – where no one could dictate what they had to believe or how they had to express their religious belief. And they did it out of a rich tradition of intellectual development.

The leaders of the pilgrim colonies were Cambridge bred in England – having had highly educated clergy. The first college in this country was founded by Congregationalists. One individual with prophetic and intellectual vision gave his entire library and half his fortune to begin that endeavor.

And the rest is history – for the early settlers and this John Harvard founded Harvard College in 1636. Sixty-five years later in 1701 the Congregationalist started Yale and then Dartmouth College was founded initially for the Indians in Connecticut.

Many others followed from an affiliation with the Congregationalist – some forty-four to be precise. Among them were Mount Holyoke – the first women’s college – established in 1837. And with the movement west – came Olivet College, Michigan, in 1844 – which was the first college in the country open for all races, creeds and genders. And then our ancestors in the faith founded the first black college, Tougaloo College – in Mississippi.

Friends, we have a rich history in the development of higher education and nurturing the gift of intellect – always respecting the rights and thoughts of individuals. If you have not been using your gifts of intellect as much as you might these days – this sermon is a prompter to not let that gift die on the vine.

Hear again the writer of Proverbs, who challenges us still across thousands of years,

"For learning about wisdom and instruction, for understanding words of insight, for gaining instruction in wise dealing, righteousness, justice, and equity; to teach knowledge and prudence to the young – let the wise also hear and gain in learning, and the discerning acquire skill."

Scripture also tells us in Luke 2: 52 that Jesus himself increased in wisdom and stature. The models and challenge for intellectual growth are all around us. We are never too ignorant or smart – to stop leaning. And we are seldom too young or too old to stop expanding our minds.

During these days of political elections, regardless of whether or not your candidate will win, I want to take you back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt who expressed his surprise to find Oliver Wendell Holmes in his study reading something as deep as Allegories of Plato at the age of ninety. Mr. Holmes replied, "Mr. President, I am reading Plato to improve my mind. At the age of ninety, I have retired from government and from writing, but I have not retired from growing."

Perhaps it may be true – that our transition from this life to the next is more like a schoolroom than a courtroom. It’s too bad that some churches do not press the intellectual development side of the faith. Faith and intellect – as I’ve tried to point out are not mutually exclusive – as some would say. No – they go hand in hand.

Friends, this church – with all its Congregational heritage – is a church where questions are welcomed and thinking persons are valued!

You’ve hear it said,

"A mind is a terrible thing to waste."

That’s true for a young person who doesn’t go to college – or at least doesn’t finish high school. And it’s equally true for those of us in this congregation.

The French Jewess and companion of Christ, Simone Weil knew the need for developing the intellect and enriching the mind when she wrote,

"Christ likes us to prefer the truth to him because, before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms."

And this leads us to our New Testament text from Philippians, hearing it now in the framework of making a wise investment:

"If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 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 interest of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus."

Jesus had a mind – a brilliant mind.

Now, we all have different gifts of intellect – and our gifts are as different as we are each distinctive. But our unity comes in combining our differing gifts – all within the mind, the focus, the direction, and the life of Christ!

Earlier I said that faith in the form of basic trust precedes intellect – and now we see that faith in a deeper sense flows in and beyond intellect.

The English Congregational preacher, Leslie Weatherhead, in his book, The Christian Agnostic, penned these extraordinary lines expressive of the integral relationship of faith and intellect,

"Faith is not a leap in the dark or treading a road that is contrary to reason and superstitiously running in another direction. It is taking the road of evidence as far as it will go and then, with the energy provided by meditation on the character of God as Christ revealed him, making a leap of faith, only to land finally in a conviction as strong as proof can supply."

You see, we are not called to default on the gift of our minds as growing and creative beings – we are to take the gift of intellect and keep pressing it forward as far as we can take it – and then taking the leap of faith.

Science at it’s best is not wisdom – it is knowledge. Wisdom is knowledge and faith in wonderful combination.

"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers." – so observed the poet and novelist Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Utilizing the gifts of faith, intellect, and deeper faith still – is what having the same mind that was in Christ Jesus our Lord is all about.

It is a wise investment. It is understanding – standing under – standing in the mind of Christ.

Well, throughout this series of sermons we are exploring the potential of "Growing Gifts with God." And next Sunday we will look at where a lasting, a growing and a wise investment takes us as we seek to be faithful to all the gifts God gives us.

In closing are these words of the Irish writer George Bernard Shaw,

"We are made wise not by the recollections of our past, but by the responsibilities of our future."

Friends in faith, we are making a wise investment in Jesus Christ! Amen!