Library
Friday, June 30, 2006
Humility
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Philippians 2:5-13
5 Let 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; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
We are looking at one of the most important chapters in the entire Bible today-the second chapter of Paul’s letter to the congregation he started in Philippi.
Cindy Bates started this discussion last week when she focused on one of Paul’s most important lines: having the mind of Christ or the attitude of Christ. I encourage you to read a copy of her excellent sermon if you were not able to be here because it is a necessary foundation for what I am doing.
This chapter from Paul says that when God was at work in Jesus Christ, the message God sends us is one of humility and self denial and becoming a servant. Paul says to us, this is how you should be also-just as Christ was. Have in yourself the mind of Christ.
The words in these verses are probably not ones we hear much outside of church: humility, obedience, emptying oneself, denying oneself, becoming a servant or even a slave . They are radical words about what Jesus did and what it means to imitate Christ and follow Christ.
The poem or hymn about Christ in verses 6-11 is probably earlier than Paul and one that he is quoting. It is a message about what God has done for us in the person of Christ to teach us about God and about how to live.
I want to look at three ideas in these verses: Paul asks the Philippians and us to have the attitude of Christ. That attitude is one of humility and one of service to others. I want to look at both those ideas-humility and service. Then I want to think with you about the last thing Paul urges us to do- to continue to work out/work on our salvation/our wholeness with fear and trembling.
Let’s talk about the ideal of humility. Who would you think of in your life as an example of humility-someone who does what Paul says earlier-does not think too highly of themselves?
Judy Martz pointed out to me two weeks ago the obituary of one of our city’s most prominent attorneys-Leonard Martin Campbell who was a partner at Gorsuch, Kirgis and Campbell. Mr. Campbell worked his way through CU as an undergraduate and then through CU law school. He had been orphaned as a child. He stayed with his law firm for 60 years and helped build it up to a staff of 100 attorneys, and in that time the firm gained a reputation according to one former employee of the firm, as being “one of the more humane places to practice law in the city of Denver.”
Mr. Campbell took time to mentor young attorneys. He was willing to take time out from his successful practice on two occasions to serve his community-one leave of absence was in 1947 when he served as manager of safety for the city of Denver for a year, and the other time was as city attorney for Mayor Quigg Newton 1951 to 1953 when he helped reform Denver’s financial system and reorganize the police department.
Something else that impressed me about Mr. Campbell was that he and his partners made a habit of eating lunch at the Woolworth’s lunch counter downtown and at other downtown coffee shops to stay in touch with people and not to be concerned as much about billable hours and expense accounts.
Humility. Who do you know who is not impressed with themselves and who seeks to put the needs of others on the same level as their own?
Perhaps it would help to think about the opposite of humility-arrogance, hubris, and self absorption. If you want to see a great example of that in a current film, look at the marvelous performance by Meryl Streep in the film, “The Devil Wore Prada.” Streep does her usual brilliant job of acting as she portrays a fashion editor who gives new meaning to word imperious. I commend the film especially since it ends with an affirmation of some more traditional values like the idea that there is more in our world than materialism and greed. The film affirms the belief of Albert Einstein that not everything that counts can be counted and that not everything that can be counted really counts.
There are some commentators who would also lift up the negative example of right wing religious leader and politician Ralph Reed whose ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff seemed to have sunk his bid for Lieutenant Governor in Georgia. Last week our family was in Atlanta for the weekend for a conference I will tell more about in a moment, and I was intrigued with the analysis in the Atlanta newspapers about why Mr. Reed lost in a race where his fundamentalist Christian base is so strong. Several commentators said that Reed thought it would make no difference that he had taken money from gambling proceeds even though he had also spoken out against gambling, and that he lost the race because he was the victim of his own hypocrisy--which people could see fairly easily. Most of you remember that one of the strongest concerns in Jesus’ criticism of the religious leaders of his time was the issue of hypocrisy.
Who do you know who is a good example of humility and who seems to do what Paul asks us-to have the attitude or the mind of Christ? This might be a good lunch table discussion for you today!
The second thing Paul asks us to do is to follow the example Christ gives us of denying ourselves and becoming a servant. 20th century theologian and scholar Albert Schweitzer said, “The only people who will be truly happy are those who have sought and learned to serve.”
Is that something you have learned and are practicing? Is that how you want to be remembered-as a person who, like Christ, was a servant leader?
I guess I ask the question about how you want to be remembered because it is a question that pastors deal with regularly as we conduct funeral services and memorial services. I had the privilege this week of co-officiating at the funeral service for Mr. Dave Price, the father of St. Andrew member Ellie Uhland. The service was at Burns United Methodist Church where Mr. Price had been a long time member. Dave Price died just a few weeks before his 99th birthday. He lived a long and full life, staying active in his black powder gun club well into his 90’s. I was inspired to hear his friends tell about his kindness and especially his many acts of generosity.
People said as we were leaving the sanctuary that they also had found the service inspiring and helpful. I responded in the way I usually respond: if the person has lived a life of generosity and kindness and servanthood-if we have stories to share about that, then it is an inspiring service. But it is the kind of life we live that will determine how we will be remembered!! I have told some of you before that I well remember conducting a funeral for a relative of one of our church members in Colorado Springs about 25 years ago. This person was not a member of the congregation but we were quite willing to do the funeral. I was meeting with the family to hear their memories and their stories, and they were having trouble coming up with positive memories. Finally one of them said that what they remembered about uncle Fred (not his real name) was that he always kept a clean car.
Well---that is nice. I like to drive a clean car-and I suppose that cleanliness is next to Godliness. But is that how you want to be remembered?? Don’t we want to be remembered for the difference we made for others? For being a servant? For doing deeds of generosity and service for others? For leaving the world a more just and compassionate place to live? For letting God’s light of justice and love shine through us?
How do YOU want to be remembered at the end of your life? Paul says he hopes that people see in our lives the mind and attitude of Christ, the willingness to serve and to be obedient to the teachings of Christ.
We quoted at the funeral service for Mr. Price last Thursday what we always quote from Steven Covey: Covey says in his book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, imagine your own funeral. Think about who you hope will be there. Then, think about how you want to be remembered-what you hope people will be able to say about you.
Then, Covey says, be honest with yourself. Am I living in such a way that people will be able to say those things? Am I living the practice of generosity or selfishness? Am I living as a servant or as someone who is self absorbed?
Finally, Covey says, after that honest self evaluation; look at what you need to do right now to be remembered in the way you hope to be remembered! And do it! Just do it.
It is not about you, Rick Warren says at the beginning of his best selling book. It is about the privilege of becoming servants for others in the spirit and the example of Jesus Christ.
We could offer so many examples of people in this church with that attitude of service to others. We could name all of our 200 plus youth and young adults who have been involved in mission trips the past six weeks to Belize and to Alamosa, experiences that help us get out of our insulated suburban world and have a chance to serve others and make a difference.
This is a church that keeps instilling that attitude of service in children and youth and adults. When I drove up to the church building at 8 AM Thursday morning there were about 8-9 of our high school boys gathered on the front porch beside a pickup truck waiting to go and help one of our members who needed help moving and who could not pay for a moving company to do that for her. Learn to be a servant Paul says. You were not put here just to look out for yourself.
We could name the example of one of our former St. Andrew members who moved to Chicago a few months ago but whom Judy and Todd and I were with last weekend at the National Down Syndrome Conference with 1600 other people. Dave Donahue was transferred by Crate and Barrel to Chicago a few months ago and we are missing Dave and his generous volunteer spirit in this congregation. But one of Dave’s other servant leader roles has been to work for the past three years at this yearly conference as the coordinator of about 70 other volunteers who themselves work with 200 plus young adults with Down Syndrome for their three day conference that is part of the larger conference. So Dave pays for his own plane ticket and his own hotel and food bills so he can go and be a volunteer, a servant, where his leadership makes a tremendous difference each year.
Or I think of the 28 year old young woman whom Judy and I have known most of her life whom we were privileged to have time with this week after she has just returned from two years in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua. Julie Sage is a member of the church we served in Colorado Springs and she grew up in a youth group just like the one here where she experienced mission trips and choir tours and she caught the spirit of service to others that Paul is asking us to have. So after she graduated from CSU she joined the Peace Corps and became a health education worker for two years in Nicaragua where she worked with people who have so much less than we do. We had the chance to be with her last Thursday night and to hear a bit about what that time has meant to her and about how her church involvement led her to that servant leader role.
Paul says in this most important chapter, have this attitude in you which was in Christ-an attitude of humility and of being a servant.
Finally he encourages us to do something else really important at the end of these verses:
keep on working out your salvation with fear and trembling!
Paul says, don’t think you are finished yet. Don’t think that saying yes to Christ means that you are all done and have your ticket punched and you don’t have to learn or grow any more. Salvation for Paul is not a once and for all deal. Salvation is not just about what happens after you die, it is about living in the spirit of Christ every day-starting now and showing in our lives the “fruits of the spirit” (Galatians 5): love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, self control. Keep on keeping on Paul says. Don’t stop questing and thinking and growing because this act of following Christ is WORK! It will continue to ask something of you. You will need to be studying and thinking and learning and sometimes WRESTLING WITH GOD-like the story of Jacob in the book of Genesis wrestling all night with God!
Is that image of faith as sometimes a wrestling match part of your spiritual vocabulary? It is for Paul-it is a journey of working it out even with fear and trembling. Catholic monk Thomas Merton understood this when he said. “If you have found God with great ease, perhaps it is not God you have found.”
And part of that journey and that struggle is to bring all of our doubts and our questions to this engagement with God and work those out right here in the community of faith. Being a person of faith does not mean that all of our doubts and questions go away and that we are just absolutely all of a sudden clear about every little bit of dogma. In fact many spiritual leaders are suspicious of church folk who have absolute certainty and entertain no doubts or questions. Philip Yancey says in his excellent book “Reaching for the Invisible God” that he is suspicious when people say that their faith has never wavered or someone who has never been disillusioned by the church. He has written for years for a well known evangelical journal and he says they once asked him to sign their magazine’s statement of faith “without doubt or equivocation”. He told them he can barely sign his own name without doubt or equivocation!!
It is normal and acceptable to be a Christian and still have questions and doubts and times of disillusionments and to think that we do yet have all the answers.
One writer says it is important that Jesus did not say, “I am the answer” but said instead “I am the Way”. Following Christ is a matter of joining him on the Way, on the journey and then, in humility-that is, in fear and trembling continuing to work on and work out our wholeness and our salvation (they mean the same thing!)
It is work. It requires that we know the sources for our faith-that we know our Bible and are grounded in as Jesus was, and that is why we encourage Bible study in this church and that is why over 200 of you have already signed up for the Disciple Bible classes that start six weeks from now. Have you been in a class or a group or a Bible study yet? That is part of the work involved in your journey toward wholeness.
Stay on the road to wholeness Paul say. Don’t act like you are finished yet. Keep on moving. Be like the fourth grader who when his Sunday school teacher asked the class “Who made you?” responded, “God made me-but I’m not finished yet.”
I mentioned our time with our dear friend Julie Sage just back in the US from her time in Nicaragua. She shared a blessing that a friend had sent to her that she has found very helpful in her own journey of faith. I will close with that blessing:
May God bless you with discomfort At easy answers, half truths, And superficial relationships So that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, Oppression, and exploitation of people, so that You may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May god bless you with tears to shed for those Who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation And war so that you may reach out your hand To comfort them and to turn their pain to joy.
And may God bless you With enough foolishness to believe That you can make a difference in this world!