August 25, 2011
Philippians 2:1-11
The Epistles – the New Testament letters written by Paul and other apostles to various churches around the Roman Empire – are a unique class of books in the Bible. Nowhere else in Scripture are we listeners able to listen in on a conversation, and hear one person’s words to another person or to a community. Because they’re such good primary sources, we in the church have made a lot of use of the letters in deciding how we should run ourselves as religious institutions based on how Paul told the churches to run themselves.
Now, usually, you have to be careful when you’re extracting wisdom out of the Epistles. You have to remember that they’re written to a specific people in a specific circumstance – so Paul might write something different to a church in Rome than he would to a church in Ephesus, or he might write something different to an all-Hebrew church than he would write to a church that’s trying to integrate Hebrews and Gentiles together.
So, usually, in deciphering Paul’s letters, you’re supposed to pay attention to the church that he’s writing to. If you read the letters carefully, you can get some clues about what was happening in these churches, what situations or problems Paul was trying to address, and you can see how he uses theology to guide these churches.
But Philippians is a little different. He doesn’t really give any clues about church life that he’s advising, or disputes that he’s solving. It’s all just pure encouragement in the faith. Keep strong, remember the basics, stay united, that sort of stuff. Be good to Euodia and Clement, they’ve been a big help to me.
If you listen to it… This is a farewell address. This letter has all the feeling to it of somebody who’s leaving the community, like Paul is delivering his parting words to the Philippians.
Above all else, he says, be unified in Spirit. Be of one mind in Christ Jesus. Share the same love. Be humble. Christ was a humble servant – you also be a humble servant.
Paul has a two-part occasion for writing this letter. The first is to thank the Philippians – one of their members, Epaphroditus (E-paf-road-itus) came to visit Paul with a gift, some financial support from the Philippian church. So he’s writing this note in part to give his thanks.
But there’s another reason. When Paul is writing this letter, he’s in prison. Between about the years 60 and 63, Paul spent most of his time in prison or under house arrest with Roman guards. He had been arrested in Jerusalem, and sentenced to death. He was in Rome to plead his case before Caesar, but he had no reason to believe that the Roman Emperor, the king of pagans, would accept his plea. So at this point, Paul has to think that his days are seriously numbered. The books of Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians, and Philippians were all written during this stretch of prison time.
We think that Paul made it out okay, and that he continued to preach and write for a few more years before he was killed, but at the time, he didn’t know that.
So he’s writing this letter from prison or under house arrest, very probably facing his death. He’s writing what could be one of his last communications to a church the he founded ten years ago, people that he’s shepherded in the faith from day one.
And Paul’s in a deep hole. He’s been through a lot. He’s had some triumph, but he’s faced a lot of suffering. He started out a well-educated, righteous Jewish upper-class citizen. Now, after a couple decades of preaching the cross, Paul is brought very, very low. And out of that deep place, Paul says – take heart from my situation.
In chapter one, he sounds positively excited about his imprisonment and death. “Yes, and I will continue to rejoice!... For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Which shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two!” He’s excited because he truly believes that whatever happens to him, be it freedom and ministry or be it prison and death… it will proclaim the Gospel. Whatever suffering I endure, so long as it spreads the Gospel, I rejoice in it.
Allow my situation to be gospel to you. Don’t look at it like I’m failing and dying – I’m imitating Christ. And just to drive home his point, he gives us this poem in verses 5-11. That passage has the structure of a Hebrew poem or song, and scholars think that Paul was quoting an early hymn that the Philippians would have already known.
The International Standard Version of the Bible gives us an idea of what this passage might have sounded like to its original listeners:
In God's own form existed he, And shared with God equality, Deemed nothing needed
grasping.
Instead, poured out in emptiness, A servant's form did he possess, A mortal man becoming.
In human form he chose to be, And lived in all humility, Death on a cross obeying.
Now lifted up by God to heaven, A name above all others given, This matchless name possessing.
And so, when Jesus' name is called, The knees of everyone should fall Where'er they are residing.
Then every tongue in one accord, Will say that Jesus Christ is Lord, While God the Father praising.
The Philippians would probably have known that hymn, they would have been singing along with Paul’s words. So what Paul is dong here is making his point sneak up on his listeners. He’s saying, you have proclaimed all along that Christ chose to empty himself of glory and power to live a life of a human being, that Christ chose to be a servant rather than a master. You have always proclaimed that Christ obeyed what God had in store for him, up to and including state execution on a criminal’s cross, and that out of that obedience, he was lifted to glory, exalted above all other names.
Paul says, you have proclaimed with me from the beginning that Christ chose to leave glory, chose to obey God’s will for his life, even through suffering and death, and that for this, Christ is exalted in glory.
And Paul says, that is the same attitude that we are to have, as followers of Christ. Paul says that’s why he rejoices in prison, even in the face of death – because Paul left a life of privilege, he chose to be a servant of God, and he was confident that his obedience to God would spread the Gospel.
Yes, Paul is confident that whatever happens, he will be raised with Christ in glory. Yes, he is confident in life after death, a restored life eternal. But what Paul is trying to get across to the Philippians, and to us, today, is that our job as believers is to submit as servants to God. Have the same attitude among you that was also in Christ Jesus: the attitude of a servant.
For the Philippians, being God’s servants meant living in harmony with one another, and continuing to live as a church. The message was still young and new, and the Philippians had to continue to put themselves at risk but living this countercultural life. They had to live as servants to one another, to make others greater than themselves.
In the Greek and Roman world, being humble and serving others were not virtues. They were signs of weakness and worthlessness, and they could seriously hurt your standing in the community. Yet this is exactly what Paul has done, and it is exactly what he has called the Philippians to do.
In our world, I wonder if it’s the same. I wonder if we feel comfortable being servants, or if we would rather exalt ourselves. Do we think of other people as being better than us? Just, generally, think that about everybody? Do we care more about other people’s concerns than about our own? That is what we are called to.
I think it’s a little easier in our world. Humility and service are kind of respected in our culture. But the example of Christ, the example of Paul, the ideal that we’re called to fulfill, is of somebody who makes themselves less in order to serve other people. We are called to make ourselves less in order to become servants. So this week, I charge us each to examine ourselves. To look at our lives and see where we could lower ourselves to become greater servants. Do I have reputation, and clout? Do I have money? Do I have extra time or energy? What can I sacrifice of myself to better serve God by better serving people?
When we confessed Jesus Christ as our Savior, we confessed him our teacher. When we learned his teachings, we vowed to take him as our master. Now we become servants of this master, and no matter what is asked of us – no matter where the journey of service takes us – we have glory ahead of us. We have salvation before us. It doesn’t matter what we must set aside in God’s service; Christ gave up his glory, Paul gave up his freedom and his life, but for all of us… life awaits. Life awaits us. Amen.