A sermon by the Very Rev. Sam Candler
The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 21, Year A
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.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death‑‑
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that 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.
—Philippians 2:5-11
Do you have a song that keeps coming up in your mind? Do you have a song, or piece of music, that you turn to in the middle of dark and sleepless nights? Do you have a song you sing when you feel down and trapped and stuck?
I believe that Saint Paul did. The Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 16, tells the fascinating story. In his usual way, Saint Paul, with his partner Silas, had been thrown into prison yet again, this time in the town of Philippi (What kind of prison are you in today?).
The Apostle Paul knew what it was like to be in prison. At midnight, however, an interesting thing was going on. According to the Book of Acts, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God...singing hymns to God! (They were like Wendy Fortner, and the “Voices of Hope” Choir, singing in the Arrendale Prison!) The other prisoners were listening to them, when suddenly an earthquake occurred, such a great earthquake that the doors of the prison were jarred open, and all the prisoners' chains were cast off.
Apparently, the Philippian jailer was scared to death. But Paul comforted him and—in fact—ended up baptizing him –and not just the jailer, but the jailer's whole household as well.
That story has other fascinating details which you're sure to like. But today I emphasize that one little phrase: the fact that, while bound in prison, Paul and Silas were singing hymns to God. When we are in the prisons of our lives, it is good to have a song to sing.
What were they singing? I have always suggested—it may just be!—that one of the hymns they were singing was this passage we have read this morning from, what else but, the Epistle to the Philippians (the church in Philippi!).
This beautiful passage, Philippians 2:5-11, which we read earlier today, has intrigued New Testament scholars for some time. Only recently, however, in the past hundred years, has the notion been advanced that this passage, Philippians 2:5‑11, is really an early Christian hymn. Maybe it started as an Aramaic psalm, maybe it was a Jewish‑Gnostic hymn filled with Christian theology, maybe it was a Syrian hymn. The scholars debate among themselves.
Whatever. My point is that intellectual scholars are way behind the creative artists! Because, before the New Testament scholars of the 20th century came to a consensus about this passage's hymn qualities, at least two poets and two more musicians had already put this passage to music for our church! In a few minutes, we will sing one of their efforts, hymn #435, "At the Name of Jesus." That hymn is actually a paraphrase of this powerful Philippians passage. The other paraphrase was written by the legendary Bland Tucker, hymn #477, "All praise to thee, for thou, O King divine, didst yield the glory that of right was thine."
Both these hymns seem to recognize implicitly that special quality of Philippians 2:5‑11 which makes it singable, a mixture of tightly woven theology and smooth meter. When we sing that text, we are singing the very same sort of thing that Paul and Silas were singing in the Philippians jail! Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus!
Years after the Philippian jail experience, Paul was again in prison, this time in Rome. It was from that Roman prison that he wrote today’s letter of encouragement back to the Philippians. And he creatively included this hymn! He may well have been remembering (maybe!) this same hymn that he had been singing in Philippi.
And it is a beautiful passage. “Though Christ was in the form of God,” verse 6 says. That word, “form” (of God) is the same sort of word that the book of Genesis uses, when God says "Let us make humanity in our ‘image.’" The word that can be translated "image" in Genesis, is translated "form" in Philippians. Adam was made in the image of God; and this Jesus is showing us the image of God!
But, says this Philippian hymn at verse 6, Jesus "did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped." Adam and Eve were given the condition, "if you eat of this tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will be like God." And what did they do but grab and take it. Adam, the old humanity, grasped it, and exploited that image of God. As a result of that grabbing, Adam tarnished the image of God.
But Jesus (it says here in Philippians), Jesus reverses this! Jesus –the new humanity—unlike Adam –the old humanity—did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but instead emptied himself. Jesus is thus a new humanity, characterized not by grabbing, but by self‑emptying.
Instead of the upward grasp of Adam, the movement of Jesus is a downward emptying. Thus, we learn through Jesus something important about the true image of God. Our God is a self‑emptying God.
Someone once said that "when God creates, it means that he allows something to exist which is not himself. This requires an act of profound renunciation.” (Diogenes Allen, The Traces of God, p.34). Wow, “...an act of profound renunciation.” Those of you who have had the courage to bring children into this world know what that is like. In love, you bring something, someone, into the world who is not you, not you! It is kind of letting go of yourself, a kind of renunciation. That is love. (Let this mind be in you.)
Oh, I know. I know that we who follow in the tradition of the old Adam, the old humanity, find this “profound renunciation” extremely difficult. We are scared of being empty. We usually prefer to be a grasping people. We seize. We take. We even hold on to things that were never ours to hold on to. Yet here is Jesus who has a valid identity – he is in the form of God – here is Jesus giving up even that divine identity.
Philippians 2 says "Let the same mind [or attitude] be in you that was in Christ Jesus..." Let the same song be in you! A self‑emptying attitude. When we allow ourselves to be emptied, we realize truth. It is when we give up what we think we are, that we realize the truth about ourselves. We are meant for love.
Love. There can be no other reason for God emptying himself for us. There can be no other reason for God creating us, allowing something to exist which is not himself. There can be no other reason for this downward movement of God. The movement of God in Jesus Christ is downward – downward, toward us, downward, toward those in need, downward in love.
"Have the same love," says Paul to the Philippians. "Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves."
When we empty ourselves, we discover what love is. In fact, emptiness may not be a despairing place at all. Emptiness may be exactly where God is most real for us. For it is often there, in our emptiness, in our renunciation, that we find two things. We find in our deepest realization, that we are loved –by Christ! And we find, in our deepest realization, that we can sincerely love one another.
These are not easy things to find, nor is this downward movement of God easy to explain rationally. This is why some of the best theology comes to us in art and poetry poetry! And why some of our deepest motivation comes in songs and hymns!
Yes, Paul and Silas, long ago, sang a hymn to God which broke chains of prison, which broke chains of bondage and of fear. Not afraid of being empty before God, they sang of a way of freedom. Nineteen hundred years later, we, too, sing songs of freedom –in our reading, in our prayer, in our action – that "At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess him king of glory now." Let the same song be in us.
In that proclamation is this great mystery of Christianity: that our Lord is not a demanding and conceited God, but a self-emptying and giving God. Our Lord, Jesus, does not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but instead empties himself and humbles himself. We now sing that self-emptying Christ as our Lord. And as we proclaim the downward movement of God, we follow that movement; we allow emptiness, we honor humility, and so we build up the glory of God.
AMEN.
The Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler
Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip