Paul gives the church a pattern of thinking and living that is shaped by the way of Jesus. “Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ,” he tells his readers, “united in spirit and mind, side by side in the struggle to advance the gospel faith.”[1] He keeps writing about unity, describing it as being “of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.”[2]
I imagine there were already among Paul’s first audiences some who thought, “Oh, I’m all in favor of everybody being of the same mind, as long as we come to full accord around my mind. Behold how very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity—and I’m the one defining it!” I imagine Paul knew that many of us would take off in that familiar direction, and so he emphasized “having the same love.” Unity of mind leaves the door open for practices of domination and exclusion, where they belong to our unity only if they come around to thinking the way we think. Having the same love excludes any such domination, because in love the focus of attention is on the other—the child, the lover, the neighbor, the stranger. The focus is on them and their need, their perspective, their hope.
And so Paul urges his readers to “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit” and “in humility [to] regard others as better than yourselves. Look to each other’s interests and not merely your own.”[3] Such words were foreign and rare in a city like Philippi. The citizens of Philippi cherished their connections to the imperial household and their privileges as friends of Caesar. Roman culture valued force, competition, and honor-seeking. Humility was not considered a virtue. Roman society, much like ours, was built on the pursuit of status. You move up, and you cultivate networks of people who can help you move up even higher. The only reason for you to look around is to check out the competition with a quick glance over your shoulder. But you press on, your eyes on the next rung of the ladder, leaving behind those who cannot keep up.
Jesus’ movement is in the opposite direction —What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss to lay aside his crown… According to Paul’s hymnic declarations, Jesus enjoyed the highest status imaginable: equality with God. But his life showed that he did not regard his status as something to be held onto at all costs and used to his own advantage. Jesus emptied himself. To me, the language of emptying suggests a fullness being poured out, not in a single act, followed by other acts, but continually, in one lifelong, unceasing motion.
Jesus humbled himself. He became a human being—and not a man of high status, but a slave serving others. Holly Hearon observed, that
the primary contrast lies here, between the form of God and the form of a slave. In terms of the social hierarchy of the ancient world (much alive in the world today), the contrast could not be more extreme. God is the one who reigns above all other rulers, before whom every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth bends ... In between God and slaves are many social strata, each one serving those above while also being served by those below. A slave, however, only serves.[4]
A slave only serves. The point of Paul’s poetry, though, is not the glorification of self-degradation or the affirmation of societal power arrangements—Paul’s point is that our salvation comes by way of love’s unstoppable invasion of sin’s reign. Jesus came down, all the way down, nothing but the will of God on his mind, loving us with complete compassion and with a vulnerability for which we have no words. We call this week ‘holy’ because Jesus’ life on earth, and particularly his final days, reveal to us the heart of reality, and it’s not relentless competition in the pursuit of power and status. It is this other-centered love in the pursuit of true community. Jesus came down, all the way down, for our sake.
On the cross, his career in reverse reached its end and he died the most cruel and degrading death, reserved for slaves and insurrectionists against Roman rule. In the passion narratives of the Gospels, the emphasis is on how Christ is humiliated — spat upon, tortured, mocked, and crucified. In Paul’s poem, no one does this to Christ. Christ chooses. Christ humbles himself. Christ acts. And in emptying himself of his status, he does not give up his self—no, he gives full expression to his self in his relationship with God and with us.[5] He reveals who he is and who we are.
Who we are is part of the truth we must face when we look to the cross. This is what we are capable of doing to each other in the name of religion, in the name of justice, or in the name of political calculus. This is our doing—not theirs, not the Romans’ or the Jews’. This is the dark Friday truth.
The hopeful side of it is that it’s not all our doing. Jesus acts, and he reveals who he is and who God is. God is the one who highly exalted Jesus: who raised him from the dead, and gave him—the abused, tortured, mocked, and crucified slave—the name that is above every name, so that now at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
We call this week holy, because the story of Jesus reveals who God is, and not despite the cross, but because of it. We look to the cross and we see love that goes all the way for the life of the world, for our liberation from the power of sin, and for a future not bound by the past.
Amid the polarization and division in this country, we struggle to see a way forward toward unity of vision and purpose. Paul urges the church, polarized and divided as we are, to cultivate patterns of thinking and living that are shaped by the way of Jesus. That may not sound radical, but it’s the most radical thing I’ve ever heard.
[1] See Phil 1:27-30 (NRSV and REB)
[2] Phil 2:2
[3] See Phil 2:3-4 (NRSV and REB)
[4] Holly Hearon https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sunday-of-the-passion-palm-sunday-3/commentary-on-philippians-25-11-14
[5] See Hearon, reference above.