September 9, 2007 Sermon

Humiliating Worship
Philippians 2:1-11

Before preaching I usually give a little background on the Bible text and its author. Just now I talked about the Apostle Paul and what he did before he started the church in Philippi. But with this passage we ought to talk more about what Paul did after he left the Philippians.

Paul left Philippi to start new churches elsewhere. Later, from an unknown location, Paul wrote the letter called Philippians from prison. (Paul often got thrown into prison. Wherever he preached, Jews and people from other religions became upset, rioted, and got Paul arrested for his trouble.) Scholars argue over whether Paul was in jail in Ephesus, Caesarea Maritima or even Rome when he wrote this letter. But they agree it is a kind of thank-you note. The Philippians had sent him money. Paul writes not only to thank them for their support, but to teach them the truth about certain questions he hears have arisen in their church.

Questions like who Jesus really is.

Paul writes, “(Jesus), being in the very nature of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be held onto; but made himself nothing, taking the nature of a slave, being made in a human form.” Paul believes that Jesus is God. He also believes that Jesus willingly gave up the all-powerful form through which we humans usually experience God. Paul claims that Jesus became a slave—and that we should imitate him. He introduces this startling idea with the words, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” So we have an imprisoned, trouble-making, humiliated traveling evangelist advising Christians to imitate a powerless, doomed, humiliated Savior. No wonder people struggle to live the Christian life! We western Christians of the 21st century try to make a good living, do a little good work, raise our families, build a church—you know, have it all—and the Apostle Paul advises us to become slaves.

Yet so long as we attempt to reach God from a position of strength we will fail. So long as we try to become spiritual enough to connect with God we will fail. So long as we try to live good enough lives to get God to like us we will fail. But when we throw ourselves at God’s mercy, we succeed. When we accept our smallness and seek the love of Christ we receive it. To coin a phrase, we need to practice humiliating worship.

Humiliating worship does not refer to a masochistic, self-destructive approach to God. Paul would not have had much use for the Flagellants, the order of monks who whip themselves constantly in the attempt to experience the same pain Christ did on the cross, and thus to draw nearer to him, somehow. No, humiliating worship refers instead to an attitude: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus,” Paul wrote. Jesus is God. While he lived on this earth Jesus was also fully and completely a human being. He never lost his divine form (his “godness”), yet he also became human. Jesus even permitted himself to die on the cross, the most shameful way for a Jew to die. He was humiliated.

Jesus accepted humiliation. He struggled mightily with an all-too-human fear of pain. Just before his arrest he begged God not to make him get crucified. He also struggled to accept his lower place in relationship to God the Father. His prayers as recorded in the Gospel of John make that plain. Yet he ultimately accepted his humiliation. How do we know this? Simple. Just look at the communion table.

On the night of his arrest, Jesus shared a Passover Seder with his closest followers. But he gave the Seder new meaning. Even as the man who would in mere minutes betray him to the authorities shared the meal with him, Jesus explained that it no longer stood only for the way God had delivered their ancestors from Egypt long ago. No, the Passover meal from that moment forward would stand for God’s deliverance for all who believed in Jesus as the Savior. Jesus would become the eternal Passover lamb, whose blood would protect his followers from death.

Jesus knew Judas would turn him in. He knew the Jewish and Roman authorities would crucify him. He knew that, still God, he could stop the on-rushing train wreck at any time. Yet he accepted his role as sacrificial lamb. He accepted his humiliation. Because he did, we celebrate his Passover meal today. Because he did, we believe in Him as the savior of the world. Because he did, we must adopt his attitude. As the Apostle Paul makes clear, we must accept that our path to God requires obedience to God’s will—just as it did for Jesus Himself.

We must accept humiliation. We must come off our attempts to make it all about us and kneel before God. Like addicts who cannot recover until they confess they have no power over whatever substance has them in its grip, we must confess that we have no power over our sinful natures. We rely totally on the grace of God to deliver us from our brokenness. Take your place at this table with an attitude of humiliation. Accept that you have a place at this table with your name on it only because Christ accepted his own double humiliation: becoming human, and dying on the cross. Jesus became nothing. We gain everything.

Yet because Jesus became nothing for a time, he has received glory for all time. Paul finishes his difficult words about the humiliation of Christ with this hymn to his greatness: “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” We accept humiliation in order to stick with Jesus. We do not seek glorification, but we do seek forgiveness and the peace it brings us. Humiliating worship consists of getting down on our knees—sometimes literally—and thanking Jesus for getting down there with us.

Practice humiliating worship. Approach Christ in worship with the attitude of Christ. Confess that you cannot rise to glory on your own. Do your best to obey the teachings of the Bible, even as Jesus did. Sit down at the communion table and accept your meal with thanksgiving. Pray for forgiveness. Come to God from below, as Jesus came to us.

The Apostle Paul writes that accepting our humiliation, as Jesus accepted His, gives us a deeper experience of his glory. It worked for Paul. It worked for Jesus. Let it go to work for you.