Philippians 1: 3-11
Chapter 4 - We Make the Road By Walking, Brian McLaren
Today’s Old and New Testament
readings were both familiar ones to
me. The serpent passage and the
choice made by Adam and Eve that was the catalyst for sin in the world is one that
has been told and retold and even caricatured in many ways. And the Philippians
passage is one of several that my former pastor encouraged me to memorize
during my time of discernment that eventually led me to seminary. But I had not
thought about them in relationship to one another until they were brought
together in this week’s chapter of our year-long study book, We Make the Road
by Walking.
And the parallels between the two
are striking.
In the Genesis passage, God has
provided for Adam and Eve everything they need for a good life in the garden.
They have been told to just stay away from one tree – the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. But temptation comes to them in the challenge that they could
become like God, knowing good and evil. So they eat, and their eyes are opened,
and they see immediately their own nakedness as a cause for shame. So they
cover themselves, and they hide themselves from God - something they had never thought of doing
before. When God finds out, he banishes them from the garden, diminishing the
life they would have had otherwise.
In the Philippians passage, Paul
uses an early church hymn, something familiar to the church in Philippi, to
explain to them what it means to have the same mind as Christ Jesus. The hymn
has two stanzas – one telling how Christ did not exploit his equality with God,
but rather emptied himself as a slave, and humbled himself in obedience to God
– even to the point of death on a cross. The second stanza then tells how God
highly exalted Christ, and gave him the name above all names – God named Jesus
Christ as Lord, and one day the world will be unified in that confession – that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Adam and Eve were not satisfied
with their position relative to God, but tried to grasp a more God-like status.
They disobeyed God. They chose the wrong tree. God was not glorified in the
choice these humans made, to exalt themselves, to compete with God. And God
reduced their status as a result, giving them a harder life of pain,
competition, sweat, labor, frustration, and death. A life outside the garden
that was their home.
Jesus Christ’s position relative to
God was equal, Paul tells us. But Jesus did not grasp after that equality.
Instead, he emptied himself out, not only into the form and likeness of a mere
human, but all the way to the likeness of a servant, a slave. And in that
emptied-out status, he humbled himself in utter obedience to God, to the point
of death on a cross. Therefore, we read – therefore – God highly exalted him
and named him Lord. He glorified God in his life of obedience, in his humility,
in his emptying. He modeled that for us – to show us a way of life that is an
imitation of God’s self-giving love. He poured himself out for us, and then he
asked us to follow him – to imitate him – with all of our lives, loving God with
everything we have, loving our neighbor as ourselves.
Adam and Eve tried to grasp more,
to climb up the ladder, closer to God. They lost their former lives as a
result.
Jesus, who was equal to God, did
not grasp what he had, but climbed down the ladder into the pit of brokenness
that humanity finds itself in, to love and serve them, to give his life for
them. As a result, he was highly exalted by God, and named Lord of All.
Who do we want to imitate? What do
we desire for our lives? What drives our desires?
I’m just getting around to reading
a book my daughter gave me my first year of seminary. My daughter is so
well-read in theological matters, and she teaches me and inspires me regularly.
This is a book by Martin Buber called I and Thou. It is a difficult book. You
read a paragraph or two and put it down to think about it for a day or so, then
pick it up again and read some more.
I’m just in the early part of the
book, but I have been thinking about
this one thing I read for days now. Buber suggests that every thought we have,
every action we take, every moment of our lives, is either focused on I / Thou
– Thou being God; or else it is focused on I/It – it being some object or
person. He claims there is no pure thought of “I” – that it always relates to
either Thou- or It (or he / she / they – whatever). I think this is an
important thing to consider when we consider the focus of our desire – the
question I asked about what we desire for our lives, what drives our desires.
If there is only two ways to relate to the world – I to Thou, or I to It, how
can that shift our desires, our daily focus, our choices, our thoughts and
actions?
This week I had a discussion at the
Thursday prayer group about this chapter, these passages. And I heard a story
about how someone’s work life changed, transformed completely, when a colleague
suggested to him that he shift his gaze from working for his supervisor or even
for the company who paid him, and instead to work as if all the work he did was
being done for God. He said this changed his whole perspective on how to handle
the pile of too much work, how to pray about getting it all done, how to turn
it over and trust God to work it out, how to pray for those who were
persecuting him in the workplace. He changed his desires. He went from an I/it
focus to an I/Thou.
Jesus modeled the way to I/Thou.
Everything Jesus did was for God. And this made even Jesus humble himself in
utter obedience. Where are we in our lives of obedience to Jesus Christ the
Lord? What are we willing to give of ourselves? What do we desire to hold back?
Jesus calls us to follow him, to
imitate him, to be generous with all of who we are, all of what we have. When
we do this, when we glorify God, when we focus our gaze on I/Thou, when we
decrease ourselves so that Christ will be increased in us, then we are gaining
our lives by losing them. Then we are trusting God to come alongside us in
everything we do and to perfect it, to make it good. Then we are acknowledging
that the kingdom of God is here and now, and that we desire to live in it,
rather than the desires that are birthed from the brokenness of our lives.
But the way to build and increase that I/Thou relationship is not for us
to work so hard to raise ourselves up to a standard that would begin to be
acceptable to God; rather it is to let Christ lower himself to us, as he
chooses to do; to recognize that Christ the Lord is Christ the servant, Christ
the slave, Christ the friend of all humanity, of all people. To approach him as
a friend, as a child; to turn our fears and our strivings and our feelings of
less than acceptable upside down, and to recognize that Christ came down for
us, that Christ emptied himself for us, that Christ humbled himself for us, that
obedience to God is not about striving to be the best, but it is striving to be
like Christ, in humility, in service, in friendship, and in love.
Come to me, says Jesus, all you who
labor and are heavy laden. All you who have been thrown out of the garden
because of the choices you have made. All you who have sought comfort and
happiness and peace in the desires that are harmful, prideful, fearful, competitive.
Come to me, imitate me, follow me, and I will give you rest.
In the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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