This past Sunday, as an attempt to worship God with
our actions and not only our words, our church participated in a “Service
Sunday”. After morning worship, we
shared a meal and then divided up to tackle different projects. Some of our children delivered hand-made
cards to the residents of a nursing home in Alexandria, while some of the
adults tackled projects for families at our church, and also helped sort
clothing that we had collected for a local women and children’s home. In a world that seems to focus on competition
as a motivating factor in all of our behavior, why take the time to serve
others?
To answer that question, we
explored Philippians 2:1-11, where Paul offers up Jesus Christ as the ultimate
example of service to others. In a continuation of his thoughts at the end of
Philippians 1, Paul picks up the discussion of how community strengthens our
resolve in the face of opposition to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the first four verse of Philippians 2 we
see two things at work. First of all,
there is a relationship between the Philippians Christians and the Trinity. While many translations read “if
there is any encouragement…”, the Greek syntax is deploying “if” in an “if-then”
sort of way, so that the “if” is actually better translated “since”. “Since there is encouragement in Christ…since
there is solace of love…since there is a sharing of the Spirit.” Each of these ties into a person of the
Trinity, with encouragement coming from Christ, love coming from the Father,
and the sharing of the Spirit referring to the Holy Spirit at work in and
shared by all Christians. How fitting
that the relationship that exists within the Trinity is shown to be intimately
tied to the Philippian Christians’ relationship to God, and also as Paul
continues his statement, to the relationship that the Philippians have one with
another. “Since
there are compassions and mercies” is a clear allusion to the outgrowth of
encouragement, solace, and the sharing of the Spirit that is witnessed in the
lives of those who follow Christ. “Selfish
ambition” and “vain conceit” are condemned, and will soon be contrasted with
the character of Jesus Christ. Instead humility,
a Christian virtue shunned by the Romans of Paul’s day, is offered as the
keystone to authentic community. An
invitation to consider others as better than ourselves is difficult to swallow,
and yet as we will see necessary if the church is to thrive. As a way of driving home his point, Paul
concludes this short section with instructions that “each of you” should look
not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. In a succinct and yet powerful way, the
apostle has demonstrated that community begins with the individual and their decision
to broaden their cares and concerns beyond the scope of themselves,
to encompass the needs and concerns of others.
It sounds great in theory, but does it work? Can anyone actually live such a life? Anticipating our skepticism, Paul transitions
into a telling of the story of the gospel that emphasizes how Jesus Christ
serves as the pattern for such a life. In
verses 5 through 8 of Philippians 2 we see how the Son of God voluntarily
became a slave, in the process providing the most powerful example possible of
love, humility, and service. God’s
mindset is revealed to us in the incarnation, so that we no longer need to
speculate on the divine nature, and what is at the very heart of God. Christ “emptied himself”, which is the exact opposite
of the vain conceit Paul has just warned us against. The contrast is even stronger in the original
Greek, where the literal translation of conceit is “empty glory”, or glory that
is baseless. While we sinners often
glorify ourselves with no justification, Christ emptied himself for the
greatest reason of all, love. In taking
the form of a slave, Christ renounced selfish ambition, and demonstrated that
it is not in God’s nature to grasp.
Rather, Jesus refuses to consider his equality with God, all the while
showing us what it means to consider others as greater than ourselves. In the ultimate example of emptying oneself, Christ even went so far as to suffer death on a cross. The scandal is not immediately apparent to us
standing several centuries distant from Jesus’ day. And yet, God on a cross was the scandal that
the Philippian Christians and all Christians had to live with. Imagine glorifying the instrument of death
that killed the one you proclaim to be Messiah.
Imagine trying to explain how it could be that the one the world
proclaimed as lord, Caesar, could execute the one you claimed to be both Lord
and Savior. The theologian N. T. Wright
touches on this tension when he states that “the real humiliation of the
incarnation and the cross is that one who was himself God, and who never during
the whole process stopped being God, could embrace such a vocation.” It makes little sense to think that God could
die, that God would die, or at least it makes little sense if that is the end
of the story. But it’s not.
Paul
continues the story to its rightful conclusion, where
we see the God who became a slave, in turn becoming Lord. There is a borrowing from Jewish scripture in
this section that ties together Jesus and the Father, indirectly and yet
unmistakably making the case that they are indeed one and the same in terms of
their divine nature. In the book of
Isaiah, Yahweh instructs Israel saying:
“Turn to me and be saved, all the ends
of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.
By
myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not
return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.’” –
Isaiah 45:22-23
Yahweh,
God the Father, transfers his prerogatives to Jesus, the Lord, announcing
Christ’s right to universal sovereignty.
This is our bold proclamation as Christians, that the same Jesus who suffered
and died in service to mankind, is also Lord over humanity. It’s also our motivation for seeking ways
that we can love and serve others. The
noted preacher and New Testament scholar Fred Craddock would remark that in
this telling of the gospel story, we see that “the central event in the drama
of salvation is an act of humble service.”
If we indeed are to live Christ-like lives, then we find ourselves cast
in the role of those who humbly serve the least among us. In closing, I'd like to share the lyrics to a song that does a far better job of preaching the essence of this passage,
and what it means to be Christ-like, than I ever could.
“Sometimes
I think
What
will people say of me
When
I’m only just a memory
When
I’m home where my soul belongs
Was
I love
When
no one else would show up
Was
I Jesus to the least of those
Was
my worship more than just a song
I
want to live like that
And
give it all I have
So
that everything I say and do
Points
to You
If
love is who I am
Then
this is where I’ll stand
Recklessly
abandoned
Never
holding back
I
want to live like that”
Sidewalk
Prophets, “Live Like That”
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