Sermon for Proper 21 A
September 25, 2011
Michael Coffey
I have been watching a lot of news
in recent months.
I’ve been listening to our political leaders
talk and fight and tear each other down.
I can tell you without a doubt:
I’m really sick of our politics today.
I’m really fed up with one more leader
getting a hold of some power or some attention
and exploiting it all for his or her own gain.
The funny thing is, they think we don’t see through it.
They think we buy their rhetorical cover-ups.
But when we hear a text like the one from Philippians
even if we were duped by politicians wrangling for power
we can’t stay duped any more.
In just a few, concise verses
Paul quotes what apparently was one of the earliest Christian hymns
and exposes all our misguided trust in those who exalt themselves.
5Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death —
even death on a cross.
So here, Paul tells us the powerful story
of the one who had all power and all authority
and all glory and all honor
and all privilege and all wealth
and all status and all birthright
and all pedigree and all rights
and didn’t use any of it for his own gain.
He used it all to embody the love of God
which is always a love that makes room for others
in the circle of one’s concern and love.
Paul even points out the great tragic irony
that Jesus didn’t just work hard all of his life
to love other people and help other people love other people,
he did that, of course.
But he even emptied himself of self-concern
to the point of dying in humility and shame
under the one political system that could never get
what God was about: the empire.
Empires can never get what God is about
because God is about self-emptying love
that lets go of control and power
in order to make room for others
in the circle of concern and love.
The early church apparently got this
to the point that it very quickly turned it into a hymn,
or an early creed.
That’s what this reading from Philippians is,
so very early the church got something
that we have to keep getting generation after generation:
Even if we can’t fix the political systems of our day,
we can still live the love of God in our very real lives.
I’m not saying we don’t work for and strive for
and hope for and vote for
better leaders and a better political life
that values care of others
more than elevating the self and grasping for power.
But the fact that our world doesn’t get it very well
has nothing to do with whether we
as people bold enough to claim the way of Jesus as our way
live with love for others as best we can.
But how can we?
How can we in the church live something radically different
from our common patterns in politics and business
and institutions and organizations?
I might even say:
How can we in the church live something
radically different from the church?
Since we know the story of the human institution of the church
is just one more example of the same old thing.
First, we begin at the proper place:
The self-emptying love of God in Christ.
The message here is powerful and clear:
God is love in the way that Jesus is love:
Emptying of self,
letting go of using power for self,
but using it for others.
God is best understood, the early church tells us,
as one who empties out
and makes room for others in God’s self.
We are the hearers and the believers
and the eaters and the tellers
of this radically different God
and powerful good news.
God isn’t a god who claims all power and authority
and pushes us aside in order to protect God’s power and authority.
God is power and authority to love
and to heal and to forgive
and to bless and to renew.
The church is the place that celebrates
the empty place in God where there is room for us.
You know, Augustine, the great early church theologian,
famously said: There is a God-shaped hole in each of us
that only God can fill.
And that’s wonderful and profound and I’ll come back to that in a second.
But I think the inverse is also true:
There is a you shaped hole in God
that only you can fill,
and God keeps that space empty
out of deep love.
This is the great power the church has
and it is not to be confused with the political power
that is so troubling today.
It is the power to free us all
to live in the love of God,
to live in God, really,
in the empty place in God where divine love
has made room for you, and keeps room for you.
We all have an empty place in us,
it is emptiness, it is a dark void
that is mysterious even to us.
We wrestle with it,
we feel the pain of it,
we anxiously try to fill it with anything that might make us feel better.
We mostly fill it up with our self-interest,
our self-preservation,
our fear-based hoarding of anything that will keep us safe
and in control and in power.
We aren’t so different, I guess,
from our political and institutional leaders,
they just live it out on a grander scale.
Jesus is the gift of God
to set us free so we can clean house,
get rid of all the junk that has filled us up,
have a garage sale for the soul,
empty ourselves out
so that we can be filled up
with the one thing that fits: God.
Once we have been loved by the one who makes room for us
we have room in us for others.
Once we have been taken in by the grace of God
we have much gracious space to take others in.
Once we have been filled by divine love
we have divine love to pour out to others.
Paul quotes this early Christian hymn
to make clear the powerful message of the Gospel:
Jesus is God’s self-emptying love for us
that is now available to all.
And then he says:
Let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus.
Let the same self-emptying love be in you.
Let the same pattern of living in God and loving others be yours.
Let the same acceptance of the power grabbing empire
lead you to live beyond and above the politics of the day.
But you say:
Pastor Coffey,
if we live that way in real life,
everyone else will take advantage of us.
Everyone will see how vulnerable we are.
Everyone will abuse our loving attitude
and use us for their own gain.
We can’t be that naïve and weak.
How could that change anything?
What did they say about Jesus,
those early Christians who lived in the power corrupted empire?
8he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death —
even death on a cross.
Yes, our human political and business and institutional world
will not give up power easily
or suddenly see how loving Christians are
and get all warm and fuzzy
like the end of a Hollywood fantasy.
So what?
That’s the whole point.
Somewhere, someone, some people,
have to embody the vulnerable, self-emptying love of God
in this world, or transformation of this world won’t happen.
And the one thing we know,
as people who gather around the gifts of self-emptying love
in bread broken and wine poured out,
the only thing that transforms us or anything
is the love of God that makes room for others,
and this love is costly,
it costs us ourselves, as it cost Jesus himself.
We know that in order to truly be ourselves beloved by God
we have to find meaningful and purposeful ways
to give ourselves away.
We are looking today for great reasons
to empty ourselves, give ourselves away,
instead of filling ourselves,
or wasting the gift we have to give,
which is the gift of our beloved selves in God.
We are needing to keep offering our young people,
and our more cynical and worn-out older people,
great reasons to love others greatly.
Yes, we have to decide here and now,
like we do every week when we gather,
that we are going to live a higher functioning life
than the majority of the world around us.
We are going to risk humility
in order for divine love to be enacted and shared.
We are going to die with Jesus
and be exalted with Jesus,
which is an exalting we cannot give ourselves,
but which we know is God’s endless gift to us.
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