0627 RADICAL RELATIONSHIPS

JUNE 26 = PHILIPPIANS 2

RADICAL RELATIONSHIPS

Paul has just said some things about radical unity in the church. By radical unity, I mean more than being polite and not arguing. It’s more like sacrificial acts on the part of each member to do what is best for all. See what Paul says about it, and note the emphasized words:

“Therefore if you have any ENCOURAGEMENT from being UNITED with Christ, if any COMFORT from his LOVE, if any COMMON SHARING in the Spirit, if any TENDERNESS and COMPASSION, then make my JOY complete by being LIKE-MINDED, having the SAME LOVE, being ONE IN SPIRIT and OF ONE MIND. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in HUMILITY VALUE OTHERS ABOVE YOURSELVES, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the THE INTERESTS OF OTHERS.”

Let’s see those words put together and see if it comes through even more clearly:

Encouragement, united, Comfort, love, Common sharing, tenderness, compassion, joy, like-minded, same love, one in spirit, of one mind, humility, value others above self, looking to the interests of others.

Who would not like to have their life and relationships described with words like those? And yet, such relationship come at a cost. We need to commit ourselves to follow the example of Jesus Christ, who did the extreme version of sacrificial love. Or, even more radical than that, the attitude of Jesus was absolute, as Paul goes on to explain. This is what it costs to have all that unity and love among us:

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! 

Christ Jesus was in very nature God. That’s an absolute to begin with. But he did not take advantage of his high position. Rather, he made himself nothing. He took on the role of a servant by being made in human likeness. That is radical. But people are made in the image of God, so maybe even moving from infinite to finite was not absolute. So he went around calling himself the Son of Man, and said that he had come not to be served but to serve. Again, that is far down the list of radical relationships. How many of us make the choice, even though we are finite humans, to serve others so radically? But he wasn’t done yet. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death. Wow. From God to human to servant to death. 

But there’s one more! “Even death on a cross.” The Roman military members who lived in Philippi would recognize this choice of deaths was quite the absolute. The Romans had developed and fine-tuned the single most painful, disgracing form of death ever invented. Crucifixion was reserved for those who received not just a death sentence but the extreme death. Talk about radical!

But this passage is only half done. Paul has created the downward slope of going from God to man to death on a cross. But now he completes the second stroke of the X when he gives the upward slope:

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Notice that God did not simply raise him from the dead, or even just give him a high place, or even the highest place. It is more radically extreme than any of those. At the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord. And not just every knee of every person, but (to be as complete as possible) every knee in heaven, every knee on earth, and every knee under the earth. Let’s see, any others out there? I didn’t think so.

Paul has presented Jesus as submitting to the ultimate place of humility, who is now raised to the ultimate place of honor. 

They call this form of writing a “chiasm,” as in the shape of the letter Chi in Greek. It looks like the English X but it is pronounced “K” and spelled like “CH.” You know, like the beginning of the word Christ? 

So you might say that Christ was the ultimate Chiasm. Let our attitude be the same as his. Amen.