Imitate Christ - Sermon Philippians 2:1-18

Typically when this passage from Philippians is read we stop at verse 11. For a congregation grieving the departure of a pastor I think it may appropriate to read through probably verse 13. However most pertinently, for members of the body of Christ needing to stand in solidarity with brothers and sisters in Christ who, for the second Sunday in a row met this morning also without a pastor, without many of their pastors, because of them I think we need to read through verse 18.

            This is what struck me very keenly last Sunday as the names of the 9 killed were read aloud. We were able to say goodbye to our pastor with thanksgiving and a celebration that we were able to share with him.  Mother Emanuel AME Church gathered last Sunday and this morning following incidents of murder and hate that stole their pastors and loved ones from them. We should, and must grieve. Change IS hard and much love has been shared in this place.  While we hold our own grief, let us not do so in isolation from those suffering immensely in our world. We are still needed to be the church in this place and Jesus Christ continues to call us into reconciliation with God and one another.

            In these verses we hear the apostle Paul pleading with the congregation at Philippi to imitate Christ. Paul is asking for Christ’s sake, that the gospel may be shared and God’s love may be known.  Paul is also asking for their sake, that they will care for, look after, and love one another. Finally He is asking this for his own sake as he, who has been a pastor to them, is apart from them and knows he may never see them again.

And so we, the portion of the people of God present here today, who call ourselves Maplewood Presbyterian Church hear now -from Philippians Chapter 2 verses 1-18-  the word of God for ALL the People of God:

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, ²make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. ⁴Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. ⁵Let the same mind be in you that was^* in Christ Jesus, 

6 who, though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited,
⁷ but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave,
   being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to the point of death—
   even death on a cross. 

⁹ Therefore God also highly exalted him
   and gave him the name
   that is above every name,
¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus
   every knee should bend,
   in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue should confess
   that Jesus Christ is Lord,
   to the glory of God the Father. 

¹² Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.

¹⁴ Do all things without murmuring and arguing, ¹⁵so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world. ¹⁶It is by your holding fast to the word of life that I can boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labour in vain. ¹⁷But even if I am being poured out as a libation over the sacrifice and the offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you— ¹⁸and in the same way you also must be glad and rejoice with me.

It is often said that most preachers only have one sermon.  You all have not heard me preach quite often enough to evaluate whether or not this is true for me, but I can tell you that each time I sit down to prepare a sermon in the various contexts in which I have been invited, I do find myself with a very similar starting point. I am merely thankful this morning that my text will cooperate. I am also thankful that Paul seems to have the same issue. This story of Christ humbling himself to be exalted, nearly a mirror of the Suffering servant poem that I asked Stephen to read for you this morning, is Paul’s “master story”. This is, to Paul, the basic gist of the gospel.   This Christ hymn, and the suffering servant poem suggest what is counterintuitive to the world outside the Christian church. It’s even counterintuitive to how most of us operate today within the church. What we are declaring is that God’s power in Christ was exhibited through being humbled. In Christian thought God could not be God without the self-emptying, without being humiliated and killed on a Cross. To most other religions that is ridiculous. You can’t kill God. But paul’s major story is that this is precisely how we know this is God. Here in Philippians however Paul is not just trying to tell Philippi that Jesus is God, he knows they already know that. In fact they probably sing this hymn fairly often. Paul is telling them that because Jesus humbled himself to reconcile humanity to God, so should the church humble themselves and be reconciled to one another.

For many years I have been captivated by Desmond Tutu’s words in relation to the South African concept of “Ubuntu”. The nearest English understanding we have of this word is simply to say that we are all bound up in one another, I am because you are. If I deny another’s humanity then I deny my own.  We have seen this play out in Charleston in these past couple weeks. The alleged killer denied his own humanity in committing the shooting at Mother Emmanuel, however the families of the victims when facing him in court upheld their own humanity as they upheld his when they forgave him.

Friday was the funeral for Rev. Clementa Pickney and regardless of your politics I would encourage you all to listen to President Obama’s eulogy for him. Though not named, this concept of Ubuntu surfaced when the President described Rev. Pickney saying “Clem understood that justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other.  That my liberty depends on you being free, too.” The President’s words centered on the Christian understanding of grace.  He practically quoted from a catechism one of the basic tenants of the faith, stated “According to the Christian tradition, grace is not earned.  Grace is not merited.  It’s not something we deserve.  Rather, grace is the free and benevolent favor of God as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings.” As he further defined grace throughout the eulogy the picture painted was not merely of the one-time sacrifice that gets us into heaven. No this grace that Mother Emmanuel showed, that we are told Rev. Pickney preached, was about ongoing work in the imitation of Christ. That the grace we receive from God must also be shared. The existence of evil is not a reason to withhold grace, but the very place where grace must become manifest. So on June 17^th those attending Bible Study at Mother Emmanuel AME church invited a stranger to sit with them and study, and we know that he sat with them for an hour in the study before he opened fire. The next day, after the alleged shooter was apprehended we are told the family members of the victims each took the opportunity to forgive him. The last woman, however, particularly struck me. Her parting words, after those of forgiveness, were the words members of Mother Emmanuel give to all visitors to their Bible study thanking him for attending she said “We enjoyed you.” In the space of their deep sorrow, they still extended grace.

*

After the death of her young daughter the 19^th century British reformer Josephine Butler expressed that she had a need to, in her words “find some pain keener than my own – to meet with people more unhappy than myself.” She had no clear plan, other than to help: “my sole wish,” she explained, “was to plunge into the heart of some human misery, and to say (as I now knew I could) to afflicted people, “I understand. I, too, have suffered.” 

Over the next decades Josephine founded a group which fought for women’s rights in a variety of areas but specifically in an area that we would now call human trafficking. During her time women accused of prostitution were subject to the “Contagious Diseases Acts” which required forceful checks for venereal disease and their names were placed on registries for confirmed prostitutes. Some women would be placed in facilities known as Magdalene Institutions to be reformed. There were never any consequences for the men who sought their services. Prince Leopold once commented that though she was one of the most beautiful women in the world he wished that she, as a woman, would stick to more lady-like endeavors.

Not simply interested in changing policy Josephine went out and met the women in the streets. It was not long before many of them came home with her. A particular woman, Mary Lomax, became an important part of the Butler family household. One night, Josephine’s husband George – an ordained minister-, went up to read to Mary from the bible. He returned only a short time later, somewhat flustered but amazed. He told Josephine that before he started Mary said to him that she did not need to hear from him about Jesus. That she had seen Jesus. George, intrigued by this, asked what she meant, to which she replied, “When I arrived at your home on that afternoon, you offered me your arm and led me out of the carriage. You smiled and spoke to me as you took me up the steps to your door. You have both treated me as an equal in your home. Nobody has ever done this for me before. This is what I mean when I say I have seen Jesus.”

Many of you have noticed the tattoo of a woman on my right shoulder, I call her Josey. Underneath is her famous quote “God and one woman make a majority.”  Taken in one way that very easily can be problematic theology to simply claim that God is on my side. However what I believe Paul is pointing us to in this passage in Philippians may clear up the murkiness of such a statement. The God of which Josephine is speaking is the God we meet in Jesus Christ the one who as Paul tells us “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” and so, as I have researched Josephine’s life, for her to be on the side of God is not to be one seeking power but to take on humility.  It is, again as Paul exhorts us, to consider others as better than ourselves. This is not a humility that asks us to be a doormat and pushed around. Josephine’s timidity didn’t repeal the contagious diseases acts, her humility in seeking to join others in their pain, even as she carried her own is what did that.

Finally, Paul highlights that it is even more important now in his absence than ever that the people at the church in Philippi imitate Christ and represent Christ to one another and that this is how they will honor Paul, by remaining true to, and worthy of, the gospel.

Yes, our church is currently vacant of a head pastor but we are overflowing with priests and ministers, so we are well equipped to move forward. As protestants and especially as Presbyterians we believe in the priesthood of all believers. In a world that as Paul says is “crooked and perverse” in which women are just as exploited as they were in Josephine’s time, and in which a man will enter a church for the purpose of killing as many as he can, over his hatred of their difference. We are needed to continue to be the church. Evil in our world perseveres and so must we, but I want to emphasize that it must be all of us in the ways that we are able. Not simply the people who have always done the work. And that exhortation from me is two sided! Don’t just hear me saying “You need to help out!” Also hear me saying “You need to let go of control, let someone help you!” Beyond helping, participate.  Part of how we are formed as the body of Christ, part of how we learn to imitate Christ is by spending time together and studying the word together not simply in worship on Sunday morning. And if you are tired, but are afraid to let something drop for fear no one else will do it, maybe you need to let that happen.

Part of the death and resurrection we learn about in Christ is metaphorically applied throughout the faith. One of my favorite phrases of late is this

Death is something empires fear. It is not something gardeners fear, it is certainly not something resurrection people fear.

If you need to let something die, then let it. It may be resurrected with greater support, and we’ll all be better for it. The Wednesday night study has been pretty sparsely attended and I’m told the same goes for Wednesday at noon and as I’ve said part of how we learn to imitate Christ is in studying the word together, so maybe Wednesday isn’t working. Maybe how we’re conducting the study isn’t working. We need to know what might work, and we’ll need some help in implementing that. Speak to me as your intern, speak to the other elders, tell us how you think we might better learn together beyond Sunday morning.

            We are in an exciting time in which we can imagine and grow and maybe along with that we need a little bit of death and resurrection. I chose the song that was our prelude this morning, Trusty and True by Damien Rice and it will be the postlude as well, but without the video. I want to encourage you to stay seated after the benediction, close your eyes and listen. It begins beautifully as a confession and then it moves into a call to worship with the words “If all that you are is not all you desire then come” throughout it reminds us to come however we are and concludes by asking us to come and let ourselves be wrong.  This is Paul’s call to the Philippians, a call to humble ourselves and seek together the better world Christ has called us into. One in which we empty ourselves of the pride of always needing to be right and humbly consider how we may let ourselves be wrong and consider others as better than ourselves. So as we begin this new season in our life as a church, please come, look for and draw out Christ in others and help us to see Christ in you.