Musings on the Daily Lectionary

"Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness." Philippians 2:5-7

Years ago a church member came up to me after worship to complain about one of the songs we had sung. He was good sort of fellow and his complaint was gentle and intended to be helpful. It wasn't the typical complaint about the song being unfamiliar or hard to sing. Rather, he was somewhat troubled by the words. It happened so long ago that I can't recall the exact song, but the issue was a line in it addressed to God or Jesus stating something to the effect, "I want to be like you." To this person, that seemed to be going too far. His sense of reverence for God and Jesus made it difficult for him to sing these words.

I appreciated his desire to maintain appropriate reverence for God. Too often there is not a lot of that in the Church. We approach God easily, even casually, as though it were no big deal. A lot of Christians seem to have little sense of the awesome, transcendent majesty of God, that biblical "fear of the LORD" that Proverbs calls "the beginning of Wisdom."

But while we would probably all do well to heighten our reverence and "fear" of God, the Apostle Paul does seem to think we can be like Jesus. We can have "the same mind" that was in Christ, which is to say we can regard our relationship with God as something not for our own personal gain, but for doing the work of God. For Paul, this shows up concretely in the sort of behavior he recommends to the Philippian Church. "Regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others."

For Paul, having the same mind as Jesus is not about mystical communion -- not that he's opposed to that sort of thing -- but is about the way we act. That might be a pretty good way for me to evaluate my day. Did my actions seem to flow from the mind of Christ, or from something else entirely?

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