So, if anybody's interested, here's the actual sermon, from the rebellious text that kept its own counsel on the printer Sunday morning. I'll start with Willis Barnstone's translation of Philippians 2, which was read aloud before the sermon (or what should have been...) Oh, you get the picture.
Philippians 2:1-11
Willis Barnstone's "Restored New Testament"
(c) 2009
If there be
consolation in the Mashiah,
If there be the
comfort of love, if there
Be fellowship of
spirit and compassion,
If there be mercy,
then complete my joy
So you will think
the same, with the same love
As in joined souls,
one thinking being in full
Concord. Do nothing found in rivalry,
Do nothing out of
vacuous conceit,
But in humility, in
lowliness
Of mind. Consider others better than
You are, not
brooding only on yourself,
And feel compassion
for another’s cares.
Let the same purpose
be foremost
In you that also was
in the Mashiah;
He shared the form
of God, but had
No thought of
robbery, of being
Equal to God. He came empty,
Assuming the form of
a slave
Born in the likeness
of a man.
Appearing like a man
he lowered
Himself and was
obedient
Until his death—but
it was death
Upon a cross. Therefore our God
Exalted him, gave him a name,
Gracing him with a
name above
All names, and every
knee should bend
Before that name of
Yeshua:
Those who live in
heaven, on earth,
And
underground. Let every tongue
Confess that he is
Yeshua,
Who is the Mashiah,
who is
In glory of the
father God.
 |
| Paul of Tarsus |
1.
There’s
no doubt that the Apostle Paul has a special place in his heart for his friends
in Philippi and for the community of Christians he’s founded there. Think about the first community you ever
loved: I’m not talking about a person or an infatuation or a crush. I’m talking about the first community you
ever loved: maybe it was a school, maybe it was a neighborhood, maybe it was a
church or a team. Paul loves these
Philippians. All you have to do is read
the first few chapters of his Letter to them.
He loves these people. “I hold
you in my heart,” he says. And that’s
sweet, but how about this? “I yearn for
you,” he says. “I yearn for you with all the affection of Christ Jesus.”
In his other
letters, Paul’s not always so tender, not always so sweet. But these Philippians have a claim on his
heart, and on his passion. And this is
unquestionably a love letter. This
Letter to the Philippians. “My brothers,
my sisters,” he says toward the end. “My
brothers, my sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and my crown.” Imagine that.
“My brothers, my sisters, my joy and my crown.” That’s love, friends. That’s love.
But it’s
also true that these same Philippians are divided as Paul writes this letter,
that they’re competing for leadership and authority in the church. And it seems pretty clear that their in-house
bickering, and their cynicism toward one another, has distorted the gospel Paul
entrusted to them. The gospel of Jesus,
and his reconciling, healing, inclusive and expansive love. Cynicism strains the bonds of love. Bickering Christians have a knack for souring
the gospel. So in this Letter, Paul’s
writing to encourage a community he truly loves and honors—his joy and his
crown. And he’s writing to call them to
a deeper experience of sisterhood, brotherhood and communion in Christ. He wants that for them. He yearns for that in their life
together.
2.
At this
point, I want to reflect, just a bit, on the cynicism and bitterness unleashed
in our national community over the past two years, and the election cycle
itself. I don’t know about the rest of
you—but I sense a kind of toxic impact around last month’s election. It’s almost as if Fox News is in our heads
now. We’re even more prone to contempt
for political rivals. We’re even more
prone to skepticism about others’ intentions and their greed and their
hubris. And as Jesus says, when we
started judging one another like that, when we invest so many of our energies
in critiquing and judging one another, our hearts harden. Inevitably.
Our hearts harden and we lose our spiritual capacity for compassion,
grace and humility. To judge is to be
judged. And that’s toxic, that’s a
strain on any community. And it feels
that way in America this fall.
So don’t
you agree that the church has a gift to offer in times like these? Don’t you agree that we’re called to a
resilient kind of sisterhood and brotherhood, that we’re called to a robust
kind of loving and caring, that we’re called to resist cynicism and practice
humility—as an antidote to the culture’s fury?
I think this is what Paul’s after—in all of his missionary work, and
especially in Philippians. I think he’s
passionate about community and communion.
I think he’s hopeful about the Philippians’ capacity for lovingkindness
and forgiveness. I think Paul believes
that the example of Jesus feeds and nurtures a countercultural church. And boy, isn’t that what our world needs,
today, in our own time? A
countercultural church!
So this
gets at the heart of the song we’ve read this morning, the old hymn Paul quotes
in the early stages of his letter. The
way to compassion and resilience, the way to community and communion, the way
to the countercultural church: is the example, the heartbeat, the pattern of
Jesus’ life. You heard these words. You heard these verses just a moment ago:
Do
nothing found in rivalry,
Do
nothing out of vacuous conceit,
But in
humility, in lowliness of mind.
The
example, the heartbeat, the pattern of Jesus’ life.
Consider
others better than you are,
Not
brooding only on yourself,
And feel
compassion for another’s cares.
Let the
same purpose be foremost
In you
that also was in the Mashiah.
The
example, the heartbeat, the pattern of Jesus’ life.
 |
| R. Valiente-Neighbor |
The challenge for Christians, I think—the
challenge for Christians everywhere—is not to idolize Jesus’ life, not get all
proud about it, but to follow in his footsteps.
To take the pattern of his life as our own. And there’s a difference. To follow Jesus, to take the pattern of his
life as your own—this means considering others better than you are, and
counting their needs as every bit as important as your own. To follow Jesus, to take the pattern of his life as your own—this means doing nothing
in found in rivalry and nothing out of vacuous conceit, but cultivating
compassion for the cares and hurts and hopes of others. The heartbeat of Jesus’ life is
humility. The heartbeat of Jesus’ faith
is emptiness.
So here’s a story about that.
Once there was a wise old monk who lived in an
ancient temple in Japan. And one day the
monk heard an impatient pounding on the temple door. So he opened it, and
greeted a young bright-eyed student. And
the student said, “I have studied with great and wise masters. I consider myself quite accomplished in Zen
philosophy. However, just in case there
is anything more I need to know, I have come to see if you can add any wisdom
and knowledge.”
“Very well,” said the wise old master. “Come now, and have tea with me, and we will
discuss your studies.” So the two seated
themselves, in the temple, one opposite the other, and the old monk prepared the
tea. And when it was ready, the old monk
began to pour the tea carefully into his visitor’s cup.
And here’s where things got interesting. When the cup was full, full as a tea cup can
be, the old man continued pouring, kept right on pouring, until the tea spilled
over the sides of the cup and into the young man’s lap. As you might imagine, the startled visitor
jumped back. And he shouted
disappointedly, “Some wise master you are! You are a fool: who doesn’t even
know when a tea cup is full.”
But the old monk smiled and calmly replied,
“Just like this cup, your mind is so full of ideas that there is no room for
any more. Come to me with an empty-cup
mind, and then you will learn something indeed.”
Here’s a tale that captures something like the
heart of Zen teaching. And at the same
time it opens a door for us, as we consider Paul’s Letter to the Philippians
and the heart of our own Christianity. Come
to me, says the monk, with an empty-cup mind, and then you will learn something
indeed.
4.
The translation we’ve heard this morning—the
Willis Barnstone translation of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians—does a couple
of interesting things. First, it evokes
the sound and feel of first-century Aramaic, the language of Jesus and his
first followers. Aramaic was akin to
Hebrew, and the conversational language of Jesus and his friends. It was probably Paul’s first language
too. And Willis Barnstone textures his
translation with Aramaic words and names: like Mashiah for Messiah or Christ,
like Yeshua for Jesus. It’s a wrinkle
here, and it helps us hear an old text with new ears.
But the most important thing in Willis Barnstone’s
rendering of Philippians 2 is the poetry, the versing of the text. You see, it’s universally accepted that these
verses—the ones we’ve read this morning—capture one of the church’s oldest
hymns. Maybe the very oldest. This is a hymn that Paul and his friends were
singing: in the house churches where they gathered, in caves where they hid
out, even in prison where they paid a price for their faith. And most scholars are convinced that Paul was
in prison as he wrote this Letter to the Philippians.
Do
nothing found in rivalry,
Do
nothing out of vacuous conceit,
But
in humility, in lowliness of mind.
Consider
others better than you are,
Not
brooding only on yourself,
And
feel compassion for another’s cares.
It’s almost a given that these verses, that
this hymn is older than anything else in the New Testament: older than Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John; older than the Sermon on the Mount; older than the
nativity stories and the healing tales and the parables of the good Samaritan
and prodigal son. Liturgically,
poetically, linguistically: this is where the church begins:
Let
the same purpose be foremost
In
you that also was in the Mashiah;
He
shared the form of God, but had
No
thought of robbery, of being
Equal
to God. He came empty.
He came empty.
These three words are perhaps the heart of the hymn, and the heart of
the Christian story itself, and the Christmas story we celebrate this
month. He came empty. The Christian story, the Christmas story:
it’s a celebration of emptiness, a celebration of the empty and simple Christ,
in the arms of the empty and simple Mother.
He came empty. He shared the form
of God, but had no thought of robbery, of being equal to God.
Come to me, says the monk, with an empty-cup
mind, and then you will learn something indeed.
5.
I know many of you were here last Sunday for
the remarkable gathering of Muslims and Christians and Jews and others, and for
the presentation of Victoria Rue’s stunning play, “Mary/Maryam.”
Watching those stories unfold, those stories of
Mary and Maryam and her angels and her friends and her family, I was startled
by this. By Mary’s openness to God’s
will, to God’s way. By Mary’s humility
in accepting her own life, her own body, her own dreams as God’s gifts. The spirit of the empty Christ lived in Mary,
long before she conceived or gave birth to a baby boy. The spirit of the humble Christ opened in her
a space for compassion and courage and grace.
Amazingly, Victoria’s play showed us all that
the spirit of the empty Christ is something very much like the spirit of the
Allah, the spirit of the tender prophet Mohammed. Christianity’s Mary needs Islam’s Maryam, and
together, like two sisters, they offer us a pathway to humility and
communion. Wasn’t it an extraordinary
experience? And in the process, last
Sunday, we let go of our pride, we released our grip on judgment and spiritual
righteousness, and we found instead a spirit of consolation, comfort and
mercy. Muslims and Christians in Donald
Trump’s America. A spirit of
consolation, comfort and mercy.
Friends, this Christmas, our task isn’t to fill
up our trunks with expensive presents or pile the boxes high under our
trees. Our challenge is to go empty into
the mystery of Christ, into the mystery of God, into the mystery of human
suffering and hope. And Paul reminds us
this morning—as Victoria and Lori and so many others reminded us last
Sunday—that the gift of such emptiness is community and healing. The gift of such humility is reconciliation
and consolation and hope.
And isn’t that what the world needs most of
all?
