Philippians 2:1-13
I'd like to begin this sermon with a story.
It's a story about a day I don't really remember. There are a few foggy, incomplete memories in my mind. But even though my memories are typically pretty sharp, in order to tell this story, I am dependent upon the memories of others who love me.
The day was March 14th, 2007. I was 25 years old, in my second year of seminary. I was spending a week away from Austin, TX where I was currently attending seminary. I was stepping into a long tradition, but for me, it was the first time. I was with a bunch of college students from University Presbyterian Church. I was on the annual ski trip to Salida, Colorado.
It was my very first time on the trip. But I should also say it was my first time skiing. On the first day we hit the slopes, I learned something quite obvious about myself: I was awful at skiing. Awful! In fact, I remember sitting at the bottom of bunny slope on the first day (and you know how far down that was. . .) completely frustrated that I was so terrible at skiing. Unknown to me at the time, in a few short years, I would join the ministry staff at University Presbyterian Church. At that time, I would be campus minister for a different group of students from this church, and I would be in charge of this annual tradition of a ski trip. But on this year, I was simply a participant. Some of the students in this group were the same age as me, and a few were some of my best friends in Austin. They were having a blast on those slopes. Meanwhile, I was nowhere near mastering the bunny slope.
So as you might imagine, it was a big deal that I improved vastly over the next couple of days. Everyone was cheering me on. In fact, I improved so much that on the last day, I was able to ski some of the blue slopes. I had moved beyond the bunny hill to the green slopes. (Greens are the easiest). And by the last day of the trip, it seemed like a miracle. I was on the blue slopes, the intermediate level hills. If we were giving out awards on that trip, I would have been the person to get the Most Improved Award.
The last day of our trip was March 14th, 2007.
I remember my improvements. I remember being quite pleased with myself in fact! But after lunch, the day took a different turn. I took the ski lift up, and I was about to come down a particular blue slope with Amanda and Jonathan, two of my best friends. The day was a bit of an anomaly in terms of weather. It was very warm for a March day. And that affected the snow on this hill. The snow had melted a bit and clumped together in big chunks.
I was coming down this hill - doing everything I was supposed to do, going back and forth in S-Curves - and Amanda and Jonathan were behind me watching me. All of the sudden, I hit that chunky patch of snow, and I began to lose control. "I need to fall," I thought. I made a decision to fall on purpose so that I didn't fall on accident. And with a few foggy exceptions, that decision is the last thing I remember on March 14, 2007.
What happened next was a beautiful string of actions - actions of care, concern, love, and I would even say salvation.
Amanda was behind me, and she saw me fall. She quickly skied down the hill, but when she got to the place of my fall, she couldn't find me. She was confused. She kept looking, and she even called out my name.
I didn't answer her. I was unconscious. Then she saw me in a thicket of trees, and I was bleeding all over the place. We still don't know exactly how I got there. Did I fall into a tree? Did I fall purposely, only to slide into a tree? All Amanda knew at the time was that this was serious. I had a cut on my head, and the scene was very gory.
So she immediately went into action. Amanda entered that reality with me and made things happen. She called ski patrol and kept calling out my name to bring me back to awareness.
Meanwhile, Jonathan, saw none of this happen. He just skied all the way down the hill and was confused to reach the bottom without us there. He found Ben and asked about us. Ben was in charge of the trip that year. He suggested that they just take the ski lift back up and meet us on the hill on the way down.
But from the ski lift, they saw everything. I'm sure they heard it too. I had come to and was screaming intensely about my back. It must have been terrifying to view it from a distance.
They skied down to us as quickly as they could. And that's when the members of Ski Patrol were putting me on the sled. It was like a stretcher on a sled. It was time to come down the mountain. And that was the moment where I have a foggy, beautiful memory. It's one of the only things I remember from that day.
No visual memory. Just Ben's voice. The one thing I remember on that day is him saying different variations of "I'm with you, Renee," over and over, all the way down the mountain. Ben entered that reality and was with me. "I'm right here, Renee." "I'm with you, Renee." "We all love, you." "I'm right behind you." "I'm right here. You're doing a great job."
Ben and I got into an ambulance. The fast speed of the ride down the mountain was terrifying, though I remember virtually nothing. But you'll love this: The EMT was working to keep me talking. "So Renee, what do you do?" he asked. I did not say my response. I screamed it with gusto. "I'M A THEOLOGIAN!!!!"
Later that put some levity on the whole event. But it was scary for everyone involved. Given the gore and the screams about my back, people were terrified I might not be able to walk. It turned out that I had cut my head and severely broken my shoulder. But thank God, but that was all.
So why do I tell this story in relation to the passage we just heard?
It's this: From beginning to end, from the moment Amanda found me, to Ben's voice on the mountain, to the couple from a local church who let me stay with them that night, to the moment that some of my peers washed all the blood out of my hair the next day - this community, by the grace of God, lived in the mind of Christ. This community, by the grace of God, mediated the mind of Christ to me - Christ's love, Christ's presence, Christ's desire to save me and heal me. Jesus Christ aims to be with me - and with you, with all of us - and in this moment, we are called to imitate his love, giving it freely to one another and to people beyond these walls.
I love the scripture passage that we heard today. Paul, the apostle, itinerant missionary, and church planter, wrote these words to a particular Christian community he founded in the city of Philippi. He was experiencing a great deal of pain in his own life. Persecuted, he was writing these words from prison. Later in the letter to the Philippians, Paul says that he's unsure about whether he will live or die. And yet, many people look to this letter as the most joyful and most encouraging of Paul's writings.
The passage we read today connects us to the convictions of Christians who lived long before us. Most scholars believe that Paul didn't write all of the words from this passage. Instead, they believe he was quoting words that were intimately known to the Christian community at Philippi. Paul was likely quoting a hymn, a beautiful hymn about God's presence in Jesus, a beautiful hymn about humanity's presence in Jesus, a hymn that tells us who God is, how God loves, and the lengths God will go to love and save us.
Scholars believe that the Epistle to the Philippians was written in the year 62 AD. And if Paul is quoting a Philippian hymn that existed earlier, it is among the earliest writings of the New Testament, earlier than the Gospels which were written a few decades later.
Let's hear that hymn again, listening to the deep convictions shared about Jesus, one who empties himself, coming down to meet us and be with us, and one who is exalted, bringing even us to the very life of God.
Let the same mind be you that was in Christ Jesus. . .
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death --
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Karl Barth, one of my favorite theologians, wrote volumes of theological treatises during his life in the 20th century, and he did so, in part, based around a Double Movement of salvation. And so often, he looked to this passage because it gives us convictions about this Double Movement and beautiful visions of the truth of who Jesus is with and for humanity.
The first part of this hymn illustrates a downward movement. Jesus Christ, equal to God, did not regard that equality as something to be exploited. A commentary by William Greenway, one of my seminary professors, put it this way: "The point is not that Christ Jesus was in nature God and so it is stunning that Jesus did not grasp after equality with God. . . The point is that being in nature God, Jesus Christ did not grasp after equality with God because that is not God's nature."1
This hymn reveals the nature of God to us. It tells us that the very God who has loved us and breathed life into us through the Spirit seeks to be with us. And this God will go to great depths to be with us and be one of us in Jesus Christ. There is a downward movement to salvation. Jesus Christ is human for each one of us. He lived, taught, served, and loved for you and for me. And so great was his love - so great was his movement to be with us - that he never once let that love die in the face of adversity. The hymn tells us that Jesus loved us all the way to the end - to his last breath - and to the end - to the aim, the goal. He loved us even to and through death on a cross.
But the story doesn't stop there. There is also an upward movement of salvation. God raised Jesus to new life, and as our humanity is found in his life, we too are raised to new life. God highly exalted him, giving him the name above all names, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Wow, every knee, every tongue. What a vision. . . In my shortsightedness and arrogance, years ago I used to look at this vision of everyone bowing and confessing, and I thought, "Ha! In the end, everyone will have to do it! In the end, everyone will see!" But that is a shortsighted and arrogant way to view it. In fact, that understanding is exploitative, and as we said before, that's not who God is. What if we saw this upward movement differently? What if the very God who loves us so deeply to be with us pursues us consistently with such a saving love that one day, each and everyone one of us - everyone who has ever existed! - will bow of our own volition in awe, in confession, proclaiming that this love is for each one of us and for the world.
That is quite a vision and quite a reality.
So how has God saved you? How has the Double Movement of salvation been at work in your life? How has Jesus descended to be with and for you, and in Jesus' exaltation, how are you too raised to new life?
Why don't you tell someone this week?
Maybe we can live into that vision and practice some of that proclamation right now of our own volition. Maybe we can be part of that vision today and this week. Thanks be to God. Amen.
-Renee Roederer, Director of Young Adult Ministries, and the Community at Pasadena Presbyterian Church
1 The commentary to which I refer is Feasting on the Word Year A Volume 3. Dr. William Greenway wrote the 'Theological Perspective.'
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