Philippians 2:1-11
Downward Mobility
James Sledge July
5, 2015
A
number of our youth recently went on a mission trip. Working with the
Pittsburgh Project, they helped elderly residents with limited income make
badly needed repairs or improvements to their homes. This is the second year
our youth have gone to Pittsburgh, in large part because those who went last
year has such a profound experience.
Similar
experiences have been shared by countless other youth groups, college groups,
adult groups, and intergenerational groups who’ve taken mission trips to all
manner of locations to do all sorts of work. Rarely, have I heard anyone
complain about their experience on such trips. Even though the accommodations
may have been incredibly spartan, even though the weather may have been
horrendous, even though the work may have been hard and strenuous, people talk
about how moving the experience was, how much it impacted their faith, how life
changing it was.
We
live in a culture that bombards us with messages of needing more, of striving
to get ahead, of leading a life that others can only dream about. Yet I’ve
almost never heard anyone tell me that their faith blossomed or their life changed
because they got that bigger house or nicer car, got that promotion everyone
else wanted, or got into that highly selective college. People may get immense
satisfaction or benefit from them, but they don’t talk about them in the same
sort of language they use for those times when they sweat and work in the most
difficult conditions, forming relationships with people very unlike those they
usually meet.
“The Spirit leads us downward.” That’s
the opening sentence in Brian McLaren’s chapter entitled, “Spirit of Service.” It
seems totally at odds with the upward mobility focus of our culture, yet it is
the experience of those mission trips.
The
Apostle Paul writes, 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. Paul is
apparently dealing with some sort of division in the congregation at Philippi. We
don’t know what it was, but we do know Paul’s solution. Think the same way
Jesus did. Regard others as better than yourself.
Paul
is not attacking a healthy self-esteem. He’s speaking to people who lived in a
very hierarchical, stratified world. Rulers, officials, and wealthy were at the
top, then those who enjoyed official Roman citizenship, then those who managed
to get by, then the destitute poor. And then slaves. Everyone knew where they
fit and who was over whom. But Paul says that to be in Christ, to experience the
indwelling of the Spirit, is to overturn this hierarchy.
When
I got out my Greek dictionary and looked up the word our reading translates as
“better” in that phrase regard others as better than yourselves,
the first definition was “to have power over, be in authority (over), be highly
placed.” And so we might translate Paul as saying something like, Do nothing
from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as having
authority over you, as higher ranking than you.
Now
I suppose this would have been a quite easy thing to do for slaves and others
near the bottom. But for wealthy, important members of the congregation, this was
an entirely new way of looking at the world… as it is for many of us.
Think
about what happens at a fancy fundraiser or big DC event, or on the red carpet
at an awards show. The attention gets focused on those of higher rank. If a
senator enters the party, it’s like a magnet. People’s gaze and attention move
that way. But if the president arrives, attention shifts in that direction. In
the same way, television cameras on the red carpet quickly abandon the B-list
celebrity when a bigger star arrives.
But Paul says that if you think like
Jesus it doesn’t work that way. The hierarchy gets blown up. The person with
the lowest status in the room is seen as one above me. And this is especially
radical, and difficult, for those who think themselves important, better,
elite, leaders, smarter, richer, more deserving, etc. The slave is above the
master? The private above the general? The poor above the rich? How will the
camera know where to turn?
____________________________________________________________________________
On
this weekend when we celebrate our nation’s independence, I’ve been thinking
about our national situation in light of recent events, especially the murders
in Charleston and the surprising impact that has had on issues related to race,
prejudice, white privilege, and the things that divide and unite us as a
people. And I’ve been wondering about the church’s role in all this, about our
role. Specifically I been thinking about how a hierarchy exploding, downward
mobility that has the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, that regards others as
above us, might contribute to our nation healing some of its divisions and becoming
a bit more like the commonwealth of God that Jesus said he came to proclaim and
inaugurate .
____________________________________________________________________________
I’ve
shared before a story about Fred Rogers, Presbyterian pastor best known for Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, but it’s worth
a rerun. A limo once took him to a fancy party at a PBS executive’s home where Rogers
discovered that the driver was supposed to wait outside. But Rogers insisted the
driver come in and join the party, to the dismay of his wealthy host.
On the way home,
Rogers sat up front with the driver. Learning that they were passing near the
driver’s home, he asked if they might stop so he could meet his family. The
driver said it was one of the best
nights of his life. Mr. Rogers played jazz piano and visited with the family
late into the night. And for the rest of his life Rogers sent notes and kept in
touch with a driver he met one night.[1]
It’s
a strange, even bizarre story. Imagine what the host, wealthy guests, and assorted
movers and shakers must have said about Rogers after he left. This is just not
how the world operates. It’s not how I operate. Yet I find the story strangely
moving and compelling.
What’s
more, Paul says we can all become like Mr. Rogers. At least he says the
Philippians can, and I suspect we’re not so different from them.
Paul
seems pretty certain this is possible. I hope this isn’t too much Greek grammar
for one sermon, but when Paul writes, If then there is any encouragement in Christ,
any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, it’s a different
sort of “if” than what we typically use in English. It’s closer to “because” or
“since,” and the word appears repeatedly in the Greek rather than just at the
beginning. Since then there is encouragement in Christ, since there is consolation
from love, since there is sharing in the Spirit, since there is compassion and
sympathy, make my joy complete… in humility regard others as higher rank than
yourselves… Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.
We
can have the mind of Christ, says Paul. It’s not something we go get, but
something we let happen to us by letting go, by practicing a bit of downward
mobility.
Could
that really be possible? We can become like Christ just be letting it happen,
by loosening our grip a bit?
It
certainly seems worth the try.
We
Make the Road by Walking. The
practice begun in Advent continues through summer of 2015. Scripture and
sermons connect to chapters in Brian McLaren’s book. This week’s chapter is 46,
“Spirit of Service.”
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