3.1.09 Jesus gives himself away

We began the season of lent at Grace Chicago Church by reflecting on the famous passage from Philippians wherein Paul challenges these young Christians to have the same mind in and among themselves that Jesus did - namely that he did not regard equality with God a thing to be exploited but took the form of a slave (Philippians 2:1-11)

This passage has been both a sobering challenge and stirring inspiration to countless followers of Jesus over the years and much has been said about it. Unfortunately, it has often been misunderstood. Some have taken it to mean that to simply imitate Jesus' life is at the heart of the gospel. Others have suggested that the passage teaches that the way up is always down - that becoming humble in attitude and circumstances will put one on the sure path to eventual exaltation. Some of this thinking stems from an interpretation of our passage that runs something like this example of a common view popularized by the New Testament Scholar, Ralph Martin: Jesus Christ, equal with God as the eternal Son, made a decision not to use his deity as a means of "snatching a prize but chose rather to divest Himself of that advantage and take the form of a slave as an act of voluntary humiliation..... He had equality with God as His Image, but refused to exploit it to His personal gain (Martin quoted in N.T. Wright's The Climax of the Covenant." This view suggests that Jesus, in spite of being God, became humble. Another view, and the one subscribed to in the homily depends on a different interpretation.

In 1970 C.F.D. Moule suggested that we should read the passage this way: Jesus did not regard equality with God as consisting of snatching, exploiting, or grabbing (like the pagan deities) but instead he regarded equality with God as consisting of giving himself away. Building on Moule's study, N.T. Wright puts it this way: "the one who.... possessed diving equality did not regard that status as something to take advantage of, something to exploit, but instead interpreted it as a vocation to obedient humiliation and death; and that God the Father acknowledged the truth of this interpretation.... God acknowledged Christ's self-emptying as as the true expression of divine equality (Wright in Climax of the Covenant)."

The difference between these two views is subtle but important because the first view suggests that Jesus set aside the privileges of being God in order to set forth a pattern of humility which led to exaltation. In contrast, the second view suggests that Jesus understood that to be the incarnate one, who, to quote the creed, for us and our salvation came down from heaven, meant that he was to give his life away; at the very heart of what it means to be God is to give and not get. We have, therefore, not Jesus teaching that the way up is down but instead offering an understanding of God based on the gospel. "Against the age-old attempts of human beings to make God in their own (arrogant, self-glorifying) image, Calvary reveals the truth about what it means to be God. (Wright in Climax of the Covenant)." So, to "let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus" will be for us more a confession than a description of those who have figured out how to imitate Christ by our humility. For, to let the same mind be in us as was in Christ, is first and foremost a confession that love, healing, forgiveness, and God-likeness can only be found at Calvary. The extent to which we give ourselves away to others will depend on the life of the Spirit at work in us, which, in turn, depends on our death to self that occurs only in our death with Christ through repentance.

Rowan Williams has some excellent devotional remarks on this text:
Philippians 2 is "A story of a God who is the way he is by giving away: that's what it's like to be God. Jesus, in the form of God, knowing what it was to be God, does not think that being God is a matter of grasping and clinging and defending. The divine nature is the absolute opposite of this and that means that not only in time but in eternity, God is pouring out God into what is other. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit pour out their lives into each other with such freedom and intimacy that they are one God eternally. And when the world comes into being it is because God has let the same pattern of self-giving draw out something quite other to God, a world. And not only does God make that world to be loved, to be the recipient of his outpouring; he takes on the shape of a slave. The form of a servant is of course the neat religious way of talking about it. But what it says is the 'shape of the slave'. God initiates a human life on earth which more and more is entirely given over into the hands of others. That's what slaves experience, their lives are given into the hands of others. It's shocking, bold, difficult language when you think of what slaves really were at that time. The form of a servant can still perhaps conjure up somebody in a uniform, serving you a cocktail. The shape of a slave evokes something rather deeper and rather more threatening. The slave is the person whose life is in somebody else's hands and God's love is such that he puts himself in somebody else's hands. The form of God becomes the shape of a slave; being God finds its ultimate revelation, its final embodiment in a life given into the hands of others, into our hands, into the hands of human beings with their selfishness, their resistance to love. And in the middle of that the entire world is turned around. That's the story."

Questions for discussion:

1. In your own words can you talk about the difference between the two views of Jesus' self-emptying sketched above? Do you think there is a difference between the two of them in the end. After all, each view suggests that Jesus' humility is important and is in some sense a model for us?

2. What do you think we meant when we suggested that having the same mind in us as was in Christ Jesus is more of a confession than a description of those who have figured out how to be humble?

3. Does it make you uneasy to think of God revealing himself and his love in the form of a slave? Williams suggests that it is threatening. What do you suppose he thinks is threatening about it?

4. The Second Lesson for this Sunday's liturgy was taken from 2 Corinthians 8:1-9 where Paul uses language similar to the language we have been considering above when he encourages Christians to give in the midst of adversity: "For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich." Does this passage speak to you in the midst of the economic downturn which is touching so many of our lives? If so, how?