more thoughts on boasting

This week we revisited some of the themes we have been dwelling upon lately. Coming back to the Philippians passage we talked some more about what was likely in Paul's mind when he gave his challenge for us to have the same mind in us that was in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2). We noted, as we did last week, that applying this exhortation can be very slippery because it is ever tempting for us to reduce the gospel to some kind of moralism - in this case an imitation of Jesus' behavior - which puts us in charge in of our lives, our character development. In order to shed light on how Paul's exhortation complements the basic message of the gospel we turned to two later exhortations within the same passage: (1) the call to obey Paul and (2) the call to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

Paul's call for his churches to obey him is read by some as an example of authoritarian leadership based on his apostolic authority. A similar interpretation is sometimes offered which prefers to see the obedience called for as obedience to God's word which Paul is uniquely qualified to understand interpret and teach. A finer point is sometimes put on this latter view; seeing the contradiction of a minister of the gospel practicing an authoritarian style of leadership, some interpret his command for obedience being in reference to the office of leadership in general. There is some truth in that interpretation insofar as other New Testament passages point to a kind of obedience to the church that is proper and beneficial. However, it is hard to imagine that obedience to an office of leadership is what Paul has first in his mind here, following on the heels of the beautiful portrayal of Jesus' self-abnegation. Most likely what Paul was saying to these young Christians was something along these lines: "The salvation you are working out is a new way of understanding God and his love in light of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. There are only a few of us who have learned our need for the cross to be at the center of our lives. Follow my example insofar as I have the 'same mind that was in Christ Jesus'. If I don't exhibit this cruciform pattern then don't 'obey me'." As we continued to think about this during the homily we looked at what Paul had to say about the danger of boasting in the wrong things (Romans 5:1-11).

The two sorts of people that Paul probably has in mind in this passage are his contemporary Jews on the one hand, and pagan Romans on the other. His fellow Jews tended to boast in race instead of grace. Whereas, his Roman contemporaries often boasted of their good works as works of benevolence for the common good to be admired by all. In the face of all of this boasting Paul exhorts us to boast in Jesus who died for us while we were sinners. In doing this Paul confronts not only his kinfolk, who had the wrong idea about God and his grace, but he also turns on its head the moral framework which inhabited the patron-client relationship of the Roman world. One might die for the "good man", but the gospel reveals that the only really "good man" died for us. The patron-client frame is turned upside down; the patron dies for the client. This brings us back to the Philippians passage where Jesus reveals God in giving himself away - not regarding equality with God as something to be exploited. We noted last week that one of Paul's points in telling the story of God in this way was to confront the story the Roman emperors told of themselves. The emperors shamefully exploited their power in the name of god and propped up their ersatz peace and justice with a diabolical theology that normally deified their rule. Paul's point: the true emperor does not regard his power as something to be exploited.

The point of all of this ---- when we boast in the cross of Christ we boast in the same thing Jesus does and share in his mind. He boasted in the cross because he knew this was the way to bring salvation to the world. This is at least a bit of what it means to have the same mind that was in Jesus. We are to boast in our need for the cross, what the cross does for us, what the cross reminds us of, and how the cross helps us think about others and the whole world. The cross brings us to God in repentance and puts us in a posture to receive Jesus' life in us, a far cry from moralism. This brings us to our (2) from above. Many have read Paul's exhortation, to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it is God who is at work within us" as a proof-text that part of our salvation is up to us and part of it to God. We would suggest that is not what Paul has in mind. He evokes the most common language of the Scriptures (fear-of-the-Lord) to remind us that it is God who is the one who is at work within us. Our call is to respond God's work in the world and us in reverence, worship and awe, because it is God at work in our midst.

We concluded our homily with some thoughts from Eugene Peterson's excellent, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. "The Christian Life is the lifelong practice of attending to the details of congruence - congruence between ends and means, congruence between what we do and the way we do it..... Christ both the means and the end playing through our limbs and eyes to the Father through the features of our faces so that we find ourselves living the Christ life in the Christ way." The ideas are taken form a sonnet by Gerald Manely Hopkins where he suggest poetically that we will have Christ play through our limbs and eyes as surely as kingfishers catch fire and dragonflies draw flame. His point is that there is no quick route to maturing in Christ. It will only come in time as we follow the cruciform pattern and understand that our means and end are one and the same.

1. What sort of means do we tend to imagine to be congruent with our end that are, in fact, incongruent? What makes a means incongruent with respect to our end? What makes a means congruent with our end?
2. What could you suppose that Peterson might mean by living in the Christ way? Does the Philippians passage help you with this?
3. What role do you think Sunday worship (and weekday worship) plays in helping us live the Christ life? Could you do this without the church community?