Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
September 28, 2008

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Several months ago some of us from this church went to a lecture in Seattle by the great contemporary Christian theologian John Dominic Crossan about St. Paul. During the question and answer time after the lecture I asked him about a passage from Paul’s Letter to the Romans that troubles me and that seems to contradict much of what Crossan had said about Paul in his lecture. He responded by saying that the first thing we have remember about Paul is that sometimes he—and I’ll clean up the language here so I’m not swearing from the pulpit—said some very foolish things. Now, I don’t think that the passage we just heard from Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi is foolishness, or at least I don’t think that it is only foolishness. Indeed, I think that it speaks some very profound truth. I do think, however, that some of what Paul says here runs the risk of becoming foolishness—or even a lot worse than foolishness—if we take it too literally and too simply. Because I think that this passage contains both profound truth and profound danger, let me walk you through these verses from Philippians to try to discover both the truth and the danger, so that we can live into the truth and avoid the danger.

In this passage Paul is trying to get the people of the church he had founded some time earlier in the Greek city of Philippi to put aside their differences and to live in unity. In urging them to do that he says: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” Apparently there were divisions in the Philippian church, with some people at least acting selfishly and arrogantly, insisting on their own opinions and refusing to listen to others.

Paul disapproved, so he told them to knock it off. In his effort to convince them to knock it off he cited the example of Jesus Christ, and he did that by inserting into his letter an early Christian hymn about Christ that the Philippians probably knew. The hymn appears at verses 6 to 11 of our passage. It says that Christ Jesus
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.

These verses are known as the “kenosis” hymn—that word is in the title of this sermon in your bulletin if it helps you to see it in print. It’s called the kenosis hymn because the Greek word translated here as “emptied,” as in “emptied himself,” is a form of the Greek word kenosis, which means emptying. The kenosis hymn tells the story of Jesus Christ as being one of his beginning on the same level as God, giving up or emptying himself of his equality with God to become a humble human being who, so far from being God, was obedient to God even to the point of being crucified, and then being exalted by God and given the name Lord, the name that is above every name to which the hymn refers. Paul’s point in using the kenosis hymn is that the arguing Philippians who were insisting on their own opinion, on having their own way, should emulate Christ by emptying themselves of their claims of superiority, humble themselves, and resolve their differences free of ego involvement. Paul uses Christ emptying himself of his divinity to become a humble human being as a model for the Philippians and urges them to follow that model of humility and self-emptying.

Now, there’s a lot of truth in what Paul says. He’s right about Christ Jesus, of course. Christ did humble himself to come to us as one of us, and God did then raise and exalt him and call on us to call him Lord. He’s also right about using that self-emptying of Christ as a model for people, or rather, he’s right about using that self-emptying of Christ as a model for some people. Here’s where we run into the potential danger in Paul’s words. He makes no distinction between people here. He calls on all the people, or at least all of the people of Philippi, to humble themselves, not to insist on their own opinion, and to look to the interests of others. Now, maybe all of the people of the Philippian church did need to do that. I don’t know. I do know, however, that the danger in these lines comes when we universalize them and apply them to all people everywhere, something the Christian tradition has done unrelentingly over the many centuries since these lines were written. Let me explain, and to do that let me use myself as an example.

I know full well, and I have said here many times before, that I am a person who enjoys just about every privilege that my society and my culture bestow on people. I have white privilege, male privilege, straight privilege, able-bodied privilege, sound mind privilege, class privilege, and education privilege. I do not have to worry that people will dismiss or diminish me because of my race, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental condition, class, or because of a lack of education. About the only privilege I can think of that I don’t have in this society is the privilege of great wealth; and even in that regard I’m well-enough off that people don’t automatically dismiss or ignore like they do someone who is obviously poor. In terms of what the world has to offer, what the world considers important, I am filled to overflowing.

It is not so with everyone. Many people in our society lack one or more of those privileges that I enjoy, most of the time without even thinking about them. Some people lack all or most of them. Every day in our society people are diminished and dismissed because they are female, or Black or of some other non-white race, or gay, or physically or mentally disabled, or poor, or undereducated, or some combination of these human characteristics. In terms of what the world has to offer, what the world considers important, these children of God are already at least partially empty.

And here’s the important point: How Paul’s call to the people of Philippi to empty themselves in emulation of the self-emptying of Christ sounds changes very dramatically with the social location of the people to whom that call is directed. Given all the privileges I enjoy in this culture, I am precisely the kind of person to whom that call should be directed. It is so easy for me to use all that privilege I have to oppress others, even without knowing it. It is so easy for me to insist on my own way and unthinkingly to assume that I’m just right because my culture says that I am the sort of person people should listen to precisely because I’m white, male, straight, and so on. It is so easy for people like me to lord it over people who are not like me; and this culture of ours cheers us on every time we do so. It is perfectly appropriate for people like me to empty ourselves of all of the advantages our privilege brings, to humble ourselves, and to look not to our own interests but to the interests of those less privileged than we are.

But look how different it is when this call to self-emptying is directed so someone who is not privileged in this culture. Let me give you an all too common example. Take a poor, undereducated, mildly physically disabled, woman who lives in an abusive relationship with her husband. He beats her daily. He tells her that her only purpose in life is to serve him, to look out for his interests not her own. He disdainfully dismissed every opinion or thought she ever utters because he has learned from our culture that he doesn’t have to respect people like her, that he is superior to her in every way.

Now assume that she goes to her pastor for help, and what she gets is Philippians 2:1-13: Do not insist on your own opinion. Think of his interests not your own. Think of him as better than you. Empty yourself and become a humble servant to him because that’s what Jesus Christ did for us. In this case, which I can assure is far, far too common in the history and the present reality of Christianity, Paul’s words that were intended for reconciliation and peace making in a church in conflict become instruments of oppression and the perpetuation of violence. Words that when directed to me speak God’s truth, calling me to service to those less privileged than I, become when directed to her words of hatred, words that deny this woman’s God-given equal human dignity and worth.

So: When we hear words like the ones we heard from Philippians this morning we need to ask: Are we truly called to kenosis, called to self-emptying as Paul there says we are? The only answer we can give is “perhaps, but it all depends.” It all depends on who we are. If we are indeed full of all that the world offers and values—and very many of us in this congregation are—then yes. Yes, we are called to kenosis. We are called to self-emptying in the service of those who are not as privileged as we are. We are called to be servants as Jesus Christ was a servant. But let’s always be careful before we preach kenosis, self-emptying to others. Paul’s words here are un-nuanced. That doesn’t mean we have to be. May God grant us discernment as we consider our own call to kenosis. Amen.