"Welcoming Jesus"
A Sermon Preached by The
Rev. Thomas C. Leinbach
March 16, 2008 - Harwich, Massachusetts

Preaching Text: "Make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind." (Philippians 2:2)

Writing from prison, Paul's letter to the Philippians contains some of the apostle's warmest and most personal words. As was typical of his letters, Philippians opens with a salutation and a word of thanksgiving. Then Paul offers a prayer - a prayer that the church members' love would grow. Toward this end, he exhorts them to live Christ-like lives. At the heart of this exhortation is our epistle reading for this morning - chapter 2, verses 5-11, which urges the faithful to have, as he puts it, the "same mind" as Christ Jesus.

It is noteworthy that Paul places the title "Christ" (the Greek translation of the Hebrew word "messiah") before the proper name Jesus. The word "messiah" could refer to various types of people, but in particular it designated a king.

Of course, the image of a king naturally would suggest a conqueror; and a divine king would be nothing other than invincible. King Jesus, however, had chosen the path of surrender and meekness, allowing himself to die in order to conquer. It is this anomaly Paul seizes upon: if the son of God could leave the glory of heaven to live and die on earth, the Philippian Christians could imitate his humility and seek the spiritual and material good of others. In this, Jesus does not claim greatness in himself. Rather he claims greatness only for the purpose toward which God called him in his life and in his death upon a cross. His divine power is viewed "not as a thing to be grasped," but a thing received with the gift of life itself.

Philippians 2:5-11 points to a deeply spiritual understanding of self-esteem, especially as it relates to the concept of vocation. It suggests that true greatness - greatness that is not transient but transcendent - lies not in the greatness of one's gifts and talents, but in the giving of oneself. This is the meaning of the spiritual concept of vocation, the giving of oneself for God's purposes rather than our own.

Needless to say, this is not our naturally tendency. In our world, we tend to use our gifts and talents as a means to strengthen ourselves and our own. Time and again we celebrate our achievements, as if God had not given us each and every one of our abilities. We also forget that these gifts and talents were given to us not that we alone might prosper, but that these same gifts and talents might be used according to the purposes for which they were given - to bring all of God's people together, that no one need be without love or provision.

Of course, the underlying reason we are tempted to misuse our gifts is probably our desire to protect ourselves from a sometimes frightening and confusing world. Unfortunately, this life-strategy only ends up taking us further from our only real hope of peace - oneness with God and oneness with the world around us. In this mostly fear-inspired attempt at self-defense, we only exacerbate our insecurities, causing both moral confusion and a diminished sense of self.

"As we gather in Christian community," writes Martin Copenhaver, in To Begin at the Beginning, "we have an opportunity to live out the implications of the covenant that ties us with God and one another. No one can be a Christian by him or herself. A Christian alone is as useless and lifeless as an ear alone or an arm alone."

"When we join a church," he continues, "we not only commit ourselves to God and Jesus Christ, but also to one another. This is not a matter of some people joining an institution to which others already belong. When anyone joins the church, all its members are joined together. At this marriage ceremony," as he puts it, "everyone present gets hitched again. New members join longstanding members, and longstanding members join new members, through vows to worship and serve together as part of the covenantal community."

"In some ways," continuing Copenhaver's extended logic, "this is a reckless thing to do because, even if we do know a little about this God, we usually know even less about the people to whom we are committing ourselves. There are people in the church we will learn to like, and others whom we may never like. There are those in the church we would seek out as friends, and others whom we would probably have nothing to do with - except that they too are part of this community. So now we must listen when ordinarily we might consider walking away. Now we take on the burdens of others that, under different circumstances, we would never agree to shoulder. We endeavor to do all of this - and more - because now we are tied together in this motley bundle we call a church."

One of the events in the church's 2,000 year-old history that has always amazed me is the way that the early church, at the Council of Jerusalem, voted to allow Gentiles into their fellowship. After all, these people hated each other. They were enemies as far back as anyone ever knew. The Gentiles' traditions and their way of life were repugnant to Jews, and associating with them, even in a minor way, was thought to be reason enough for rejection.

When Paul came to the Christian church in Jerusalem, he proposed their inclusion into the life of a movement that had its roots solely in Judaism. That the early church agreed to this is nothing short of a miracle. But it showed that the early church took Jesus' words seriously, that reconciliation was to be brought to the whole world, even if this meant including people they downright despised.

In Thessalonica, for instance, in the first century, there was a community that included both Jews and Gentiles, their only connection being their common loyalty to Jesus Christ. They did not choose one another, yet here they were together - feeding one another, listening to one another, comforting one another - a remarkable thing. In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul commends the church for receiving strangers. It is clear from this that the members of the church had learned how to receive strangers who came to their church because they had first learned how to receive the familiar strangers who already were part of their church.

"If we practice the uncommon art of forgiveness long enough within the Christian community," writes Copenhaver, "then forgiveness can mark our relationships outside the church as well…In the Christian church we are invited to forgive one another, receive the stranger, and care for those we did not choose, because we gather in the name of the God who forgives, receives, and cares for us all. In the first century, a pagan wrote with astonishment, 'Behold how these Christians love one another!'"

"Christian community, properly formed and lived out," concludes Copenhaver, "can provide a welcome and welcoming alternative to the ways of a world that often treats people as commodities to be used when it is expedient and ignored when it is not. Indeed, if the church loses sight of its ministry to the world, if it begins to turn in on itself in self-concern, it endangers its very life. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once observed, 'Unless the church is the church for others, it is not the church at all.'"

In this, then, is the sum meaning of the spiritual concept of vocation: the giving of oneself to that purpose toward which one has been called, and not working in order to bring something to oneself.

Sometimes we forget this. We get so busy attending to our organizational goals that we forget not just God but the reasons for even being the church. In our busy doing we can forget what it means to have the mind of Christ, that we are called as the church to selflessly seek the good of the other, working to bring reconciliation and peace in our time.

One of the ways we effect the good of the other is by entering into another's experience, by empathizing with them. Obviously enough, empathy involves listening. But it is a certain kind of listening. It is a kind of listening that is not defensive, not critical, not suspicious. It's the opposite kind of listening a jury does when listening to witnesses. For the kind of listening that is necessary for empathy is sympathetic listening - as we seek to believe the story of the other.

Empathy involves not just listening to another's story but also participating in the other's story, so that the listener not only hears and believes the facts of another's experience, but actually feels the experience at some level. To have empathy with another is not simply to believe what that person says but to feel along with that person, to participate in that person's experience.

Thus to take an empathetic stance towards another means that I am able to transcend myself and my own experience in order to enter into the experience of another. Those who have received such empathy from another know there is nothing more healing or more validating than this.

As the church, we are called to be one people. In order to be that we must learn this kind of empathetic listening, which is the way of Christ. We will not be taught Christ's ways by listening to the drumbeat of the world. We instead must be intentional in our learning if we are to follow in Christ's way. Here in this place founded on God's forgiveness and grace we have the perfect opportunity to practice the life our calling requires.

100 years ago, at the turn of the century, our forebears believed in the myth of progress, that things would get better inevitably, almost automatically. To live was to grow and advance. After a century of bloodshed the likes of which the world previously had never seen, we stand chastened, aware that while scientific progress indeed has marched steadily forward, progress in the moral and spiritual realm has not; this has not been the experience of the 20th or 21st centuries. Things do not get better automatically. Good intentions and positive thought alone are not enough. Instead, if things are to change, we must do something. We must pledge to follow Christ not with good intentions alone, but with hard work, persistence and sacrificial effort, just as Jesus taught and as his life exemplified.

As the church, as Christ's body in this time and place, we have the opportunity to practice our faith again and again, within the protective shelter of God's mercy and care. With the example of Christ's empathetic grace and self-giving humility we can learn more of love's mystery as well as the peace and contentment found only in community and fellowship. At life's core, we know, this is what we all most yearn for and need.

So here, today, we pray Christ's presence amongst us, together with God's merciful and forgiving love, that together we might live out more fully our calling in Jesus Christ, to bring a new way of living to the hurt within ourselves - and our world. In this, truly, is the mind of Christ.

Amen.