Catherine McNiel—Year C Passion of the Christ

Anthony:

Anthony: Our next passage of the month is Philippians 2:5–11. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for Liturgy of the Passion, April 13. Catherine, we’d be grateful if you’d read it for us, please.

Catherine: I would love to.

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, assuming human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. ⁹ Therefore God exalted him even more highly and gave him the name that is above every other name, ¹⁰ so that at the name given to 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.

Anthony: What a Christological hymn. And I’m so thankful that this particular pericope shows up once if not twice every year in the lectionary cycle. Because, man, we have to keep coming back to it and singing this song.

Catherine: Yes.

Anthony: And the Christology is breathtaking. And so, speaking of understanding Christ, what does this passage reveal about the God we see in Jesus Christ, Catherine?

Catherine: Well, Anthony, I’m so glad you asked that. This is possibly my favorite question. Come on. This is what the disciples had such a hard time grasping, as we saw earlier, and it is what we have such a hard time grasping today, and it is the core of the good news. One thing we maybe have a hard time seeing from our modern vantage point is that in Paul’s Greco Roman culture, hymns like these were written and sung to express praise and allegiance to a human man who had risen to the status of a god, such as the emperor. The hymn would tell of his mighty deeds, status, and the power he obtained, the names he had won for himself. And this hymn does that, but with a profound and powerful difference. All the values are upside down. Everything here is opposite. It’s like a satire.

Rather than a man becoming god, we have god becoming man. Rather than this man accumulating power and status, Jesus is divesting himself of these things, even though they are rightfully his. Rather than an account of his mighty deeds, Jesus becomes a servant, taking the lowest position, even as a slave, performing deeds of obedience, even obedience in death.

Even the most publicly humiliating death is set aside for the lowliest slaves. To the Roman world, this would have been the opposite of praiseworthy, the opposite of what the gods or even men would do. And yet Paul declares, this is how Jesus won for himself a name.

And not just any name. God is exalting Jesus to the highest place. It gives him the name that is above every other name, so that every knee will bow, that every voice agree together that Jesus is Lord. And Paul says that this is to God’s glory. And if this is God’s glory, we need to take a second look at who God is. For this God is nothing like we expected or have seen before.

This hymn about Jesus is a hymn about God and God’s character and it is mind blowing, life changing, world changing. Paul looks to Jesus, who holds eternal equality with God, and describes what he did with his position and power. And here’s where our attention is grabbed. We’re used to people with power and position using it to defend what they have and gaining more.

If there’s anyone in the universe who could be excused for doing this, it would be God. But this is the opposite of what Jesus does. God does not forcefully seize or violently defend his status. God does not grasp power. God divests himself of power. It’s worth sitting with this for a moment, because we live in a world where might makes right, where politicians and CEOs and even pastors are often known for forcefully seizing or violently defending their status, their wealth, their position. And God does not do this. I’m not sure that we can wrap our minds around what an enormous statement this is. God, who rightfully has all power and authority, still does not seize what is rightfully his. And he does not use his power against us.

Even in leaving behind his heavenly status, Jesus could have become an earthly king, a wealthy aristocrat, or a powerful influencer. But God came low, not just a little bit, he went all the way. Jesus divested himself, became a human, and took the form of a slave, humbled to the lowest position, becoming obedient not only to incarnation, but to death. And not just any death, not a death of satisfying old age. God submitted himself to the most publicly humiliating death known at that time, which was crucifixion.

It’s as if God is using the most exaggerated and direct image possible to say what the world values and what the world thinks is godliness is dangerous and wrong. Let me show you vividly just how different I am than you think I am.

In the Roman world, similar to now, the emperor values were strong on masculine might and power and status. There was no virtue at all in being humble or submissive or weak. The gods clearly demonstrated their favor through gifts of power and strength and even violence. Death was the linchpin of weakness and humiliation. To be killed as a criminal at the hands of the empire through the public torture crucifixion — there literally could be no greater humiliation.

And therefore, there could not be anything further from godliness. For in their eyes, godliness was masculine, powerful, violent, and victorious. But God says no. God says, I disagree. And then God shows us what he does value, what is good and right in God’s eyes. And he shows us vividly.

God’s response to Jesus’ utter and public humiliation, from deity to human, from power to slave, from heaven to earth, from life to death, from victory to defeat, from glory to humiliation, was not to turn his back on Jesus, but to exalt Jesus, to honor and endorse Jesus, to give to Jesus the highest name in all the earth and above the earth and below the earth. God speaks definitively in Jesus and says, “This is who I am, and this is what goodness looks like.”

Anthony: Wow, that’s … just what do you say? But wow, it is so utterly not what you expect. And so, we can rightly say with God, expect the unexpected. And, you know, he does — you talked about him divesting a power — he also reframes what real power looks like. It looks like cruciform love. It looks like laying down your life for the sake of the other, which is again, utterly unexpected. Yes. And that brings us to this kind of concept of kenosis, of self-emptying, which was unexpected, that we read in verse seven.

And we know that by the Spirit. As disciples, followers of Jesus, we want to become more Christlike in our self-emptying. So, teach us about this nature we see in Christ and, how do we get practical with that or embrace ways of self-emptying in our own lives?

Catherine: Yeah. Well, as I mentioned, these sorts of hymns were written at that time to praise and deify a man who had, according to the emperor and the empire’s values, achieved God status and a name for himself through great and powerful deeds. So, to the Philippians who first read this, these verses would sound like satire, very poignant satire for everything. All the structure is in place for the hymn, but everything is so very upside down.

Instead of a man becoming God, Paul is singing of a God becoming man. Instead of earning a name and a place of status through powerful deeds, Jesus is earning the very highest name through service, humiliation, through death. And   the contrast between what was expected and what was sung would have been scandalous.

And as we bring it down to us here today, 2,000 years later, what strikes me is how very similar a situation we’re in. We are still surrounded by an empire and empire values that insist that we should hold on to what’s ours, that we should grasp for more, that we should be ready to fight for our rights.

And we still platform powerful men who are willing and able to climb on the backs of the vulnerable all the way to the top. And we are still harmed by those who use God and goodness to seize for themselves or to defend themselves. So, I opened a discussion recently on social media to ask friends of mine to describe a time, either personally and recently, or historically, something they’d read when someone used the name of God or Christ to grasp power or privilege to the detriment of others.

And you won’t be surprised that the responses just poured in. Some people mentioned notorious historical figures who destroyed countless lives and impacted generations out of their greed and evil but used God’s name. And many, many more people named folks closer to home, like relatives, community members, church leaders, community leaders, who genuinely believed that God’s call on their lives was to grasp and to take, to enforce, to hold authority, rather than to empty themselves, to become a servant, to serve, to give, to pour out, to live out of compassion, that fearlessness, that love.

But the Christian way of life and the Christian community cannot look like the empire. We are called, and we have accepted the call, to empty ourselves, and we trust that as we follow Jesus, that God will lift us up to that resurrection that Paul was talking about earlier.

Anthony: Yeah. I often hear it referred to as the upside down kingdom because it doesn’t look like empire of the day. But I had a friend recently say, no, that’s not right. It’s the right side up kingdom because it’s what true reality looks like. What we’re doing here is upside down. It is not kingdom principle, kingdom ethic. And so, I think that dude does truly speak to …  there are practical ways … I remember Eugene Peterson saying resurrection is not just about the future tense and what is to come. It is the way that I live my life in the here and now — at a particular place with a particular people. Is the kingdom emerging in my midst? And that’s what we want to participate in, because guess what? This is what Christ is doing unexpectedly. This is what he’s doing.

Catherine: I love that Eugene Peterson talks about, like this time in this place, because I do think we get overwhelmed by all that’s going wrong across the globe. But we are called to love our neighbors and to build community and to impact the city that we live in. And I think part of where this becomes practical, where we live, this right size kingdom, is right here on the ground where we are. And I think that can be grounding for us to remember that the principalities and powers of this world are beyond what you and I can impact, although we know that Jesus, the Spirit, lives in us, we have already overcome. We can seek justice and mercy and live humbly and love our neighbors with compassion, with hospitality, in a very practical, very local, very grounded and rooted way. And I think that both, it gives us hope and gives us next steps. And I find that to be helpful.

Anthony: Yes. Very helpful. I’m so glad you said that. You know, there was this term in business years ago about thinking globally but acting locally and they called it glocal. And, ultimately, it’s the gospel. It’s like we think in big picture ways, but how does that get lived out? You know, when we think of neighbor, what about the person that’s just sleeping 40 feet away from me in the next house or the next apartment or whatever. You know, how am I loving them? Yes. It gets very practical then.