September 28, 2008

Spotlight or Shadows

 Philippians 2:1-11

 Matt Sturtevant, Associate Pastor

When you go to a play, you will see two types of people.  Some people are in the spotlight.  The stars.  The chorus.  The divas.  Others are in the shadows.  The orchestra pit.  The stage crew.  Too far hidden to actually see.  It is a metaphor for life, in some ways.  There are the people who have chosen the way of the spotlight…the way of vanity, conceit, arrogance – in front of the spotlight, making sure their needs are met first.  Then there are others who have chosen the way of the shadows – humility, sacrifice, emptying themselves for the needs of others – waiting in the shadows while others receive the glory.  The Bible confronts us with a choice.  But it also tells us that we are not the first to choose.

Adam and Eve were probably the first.  They faced a choice.  There were so many options available to them in the garden, but the serpent told them that they were being cheated.  They were missing out on the best stuff.  If they only ate from this tree – the tree that God had told them not to – then they would receive so much more wisdom.  More than that – they would be like gods!  So they made their choice, and failed.  Conceit and self-gratification led to broken relationship, exile, and death.

Later came Aaron, the brother of Moses.  He also faced the choice.  Should he follow the way of the shadows, making himself the unpopular one as his people asked for a god to see, to touch, to hold?  Should he reject their desires and receive their scorn and maybe even their wrath?  Or should he choose the way of the spotlight – work his magic and give the people what they want?  He deserved a little anyway, with his brother Moses hogging it all up on the mountain with God.  He bowed to the pressure and made his choice.  And failed.  When Moses – and God – saw the golden calf, their righteous anger burned and Aaron’s choice led to broken relationship, aimless wandering, and death.

Even later came Samson.  He also faced the choice.  He was given great strength by God, but also the Achilles heel of his hair – if it were cut, then he would lose his strength.  Should he seek the spotlight – the attention, the power that his strength gave him, or should he stay quiet and give God the credit?  Silence would mean that he would not receive the attention.  It would mean that he would not impress the girl.  It would mean that he could not be the star of the show.  So again and again, he made his choice.  And it led to imprisonment, loneliness, and death.

Much later came Pontius Pilate.  He was the Roman governor of Judah, given the responsibility to judge who would receive his freedom – the rabble-rouser Barabbas, or the supposed heretic Jesus.  If he released Barabbas, he would gain popularity points with the crowd, with the religious leaders who had it in for Jesus.  But if he released Jesus, he would side with his conscience, knowing deep down that Jesus was innocent.  He heard the shouts from the crowd, responded to the public opinion poll, and chose the spotlight.  What’s more, he made a further spectacle of washing his hands of the whole business – pretending to be innocent while Jesus went to his death.

Finally, today we hear the story of the church members at the church in Philippi.  Many of them had been directly converted by Paul, who had started the church and had left to start more churches.  It seemed so easy when Paul was in their midst – so obvious, so apparent what they were to do.  But now, times had become hard.  There were attacks from the outside – political leaders that wanted them to worship the true gods – the Roman gods.  And religious leaders – Paul called them dogs – who were so stuck on orthodoxy and legalism that they missed the point that Jesus came to share with the world.  Then there were attacks from the inside – church members who were more concerned about looking good in front of each other and themselves than about obedience to Christ’s teachings.  So now, they faced a decision:  The way of the spotlight: conceit, self-gratification, focusing on their own needs.  Or the way of the shadows: quiet obedience, letting their own needs go for the sake of others’, and humility.

Their choice then is our choice now.  We face that choice at work, at home, at church.  Will we choose the way of humility?  Or will we choose to save face, to put our needs before others?  As Christians saved by grace, are we to choose the way of the spotlight, or the way of the shadows?  Paul’s words continue to strike to the heart…

There are three main sections of the passage that we read earlier.  The first several verses are a beautiful personal plea.  “If we agree on anything, let it be this…”  Paul had a personal connection with these people and so he offered a personal plea.  “I believed that we were on the same page here.  If I am right, then pay attention to these words:”  From the Message:

Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.

He clearly states the need – be content to stay in the shadows, don’t push your way to the spotlight.  The third part is a hymn, probably something that he readers were familiar with.  He points to Jesus as our mentor, our guide.  He points to Jesus’ humility as a goal for us.

Jesus, too, had a choice, he says “If the way of the cross was good enough for Jesus, shouldn’t it be good enough for us?”  Jesus could have chosen the way of the spotlight.  He had every reason to.  He was, after all, God.  His very nature, Paul says, was divine.  He could have chosen to rule this world from above, but he chose to empty himself and lead from our midst.  Once he became flesh and dwelt among us, he could have chosen to kick butt and take names, but he chose to lead through service and humility.  He could have walked away from the cross, but he took his place upon it and died for our sins.  Who are we, then, Paul asks, to choose the way of the spotlight?  If Jesus was God himself, and chose the way of the shadows – the way of the cross – then who are we to do any different?

That’s all well and good, you may say, but rather impractical, isn’t it?  So how are we supposed to make that choice.  How are we supposed to choose the way of the shadows?  Can you even do that?  Can you choose humility?  Isn’t that more about personality and life circumstances?

Jeremy Taylor would say no.  Taylor was a writer in England in the 1600’s and he claimed that yes, humility begins as a gift from God, but it is cultivated as a habit that we can develop.  There are habits that we can develop…disciplines that we can practice…choices that we can make on the way to a greater sense of humility.  He writes about these choices in the book The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living.  I have adapted his language, but his wisdom is timeless.  The choices lie before us:

Choose a positive but realistic self-esteem.  Humility is often misunderstood and is seen as the opposite of a healthy self-esteem.  In fact, this cannot be farther from the truth.  There are those that walk around with a sense of shame about where they came from, where they live, what their job is, or what they have done.  There are those who cannot accept compliments because they believe that there is nothing good about them.  That is not humility – it is bad self-esteem.  Humility is something else. 

Humillty consists of seeing yourself for exactly what you are – created in God’s image and saved by God’s grace.   God made you and said “that’s good”.   But humility also consists of seeing yourself exactly what you are not – perfect.  You are imperfect.  Paul said it this way in Romans: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  You are a sinner.  You do not deserve grace.  You cannot earn your own salvation.  It sounds cynical…it sounds like bad news.  But the without the bad news, the good news isn’t  needed.  You are a sinner, but Christ has died for you.  You do not deserve grace, but God has offered it anyway.  If that doesn’t give you a strong sense of self, I don’t know what will.  Humility is not poor self-esteem.  It is knowing exactly who you are – a sinner saved by grace and gifted to do the work of the Spirit in the world.  This leads us to a second choice…

Choose confession.  Taylor reminds us of a practice that is largely forgotten in the church today – confession.  Sharing before God your sins.  When the circumstances are right, sharing those sins with another caring Christian.  In a world that would rather gloss over sin, the way to humility is to take that sin on face-to-face.  Admit it.  Confess it.  Not in an unhealthy, soul-bearing exhibitionist way.  But thoughtfully, penitentially, repentantly.  Choose confession.

Choose silence.  You do not need to tell people that you are humble.  You might laugh, but we do it all the time.  We run ourselves down around others, in hope that people will disagree with us and tell us how great we are.  We tell people how hard we work.  We explain why the whole world hates us, all the while fishing for compliments.  We defend ourselves to make sure that we look good in others’ eyes.  Choose silence.  Do the good that you do in secret, Taylor tells us.  Don’t let your right hand know what your left is doing.  You do not need to tell people how humble you are.

That does not mean that we will always be silent.  That doesn’t mean that we are never to be in the spotlight.  Jesus was in the spotlight – he spoke before thousands and healed hundreds.  Humility does not always mean that we hold our tongue.  But it does mean that spend time in silence before God.  The ancient writers on the Christian disciplines remind us that we need to set a time in the schedule of our lives to sit in silence before God.  If we are to place ourselves in proper perspective next to God, then we must spend time in prayer, in meditation, in silence before God.  Then, in the quietness of the moment, God creates in us the way of the shadows.  Sometimes, the spotlight gets pointed at us to speak, to proclaim, to share, and we should.  But we do so because we have lived a life in the shadows, placing God before our own needs.  Choose silence.

Choose encouragement.  The easiest way to build ourselves up is to tear others down.  The easiest way to cultivate humility is to build others up.  It is hard because of our envy – we want to be that good of a musician or ball player or teacher.  But the way of the shadows – the way of humility is to encourage others.  This is a hard one for me.  Just this week, I started preparing this sermon about humility and meanwhile I thought about people that needed to hear it…I missed the point.  Humility is about building others up.

Choose consistency.  In the devotional book My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers tells us that anyone can do a heroic and even humble act once.  But to cultivate humility, we must choose a consistent life of serving and sacrificing in quiet.  Doing the jobs that no one else wants to do.  Glorifying God while no one watches.  The way of the spotlight is about the show, for the spotlight is on only a couple of hours at a time.  The way of the shadows is a 24-hour a day, 7 day a week task.  Look for those in your life who have chosen that 24-7 life of humility.  Look for those in your life that you have yet to notice BECAUSE of their humility.  They are the ones to emulate.  Serving in silence.  Encouraging others.  Consistently putting others’ needs before their own.  Those people are in your life.  They are in our church.  Slow down to notice them.

Finally, Paul finishes with these words…

9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
 10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus Christ is Lord.  Our final choice today is to choose worship.  At the heart of humility is worship and at the heart of worship is this declaration: Jesus Christ is Lord.  We worship in this place, but we also worship when we leave this place – in our homes and school and work.  We worship when we place ourselves in the shadows, and put God in the spotlight.  We worship when we bow our knees and we confess with our tongues that Jesus Christ is Lord.