“How to Be a Humble Star”
Philippians 2:1-15
Dr. Dale Southorn
Calvin Presbyterian Church
Tigard, Oregon
Of all the virtues one should strive for in life, humility is the most difficult to achieve. In fact, it is something that is downright impossible to grasp. You work at and work at it, but the minute you think you’ve achieved humility, by definition you’ve lost it. You see, you just can’t be proud of your humility, can you?
I actually find it quite annoying how much God is helping me in this area of my character development. Things keep happening to knock me down a peg or two, but I guess I should be thankful because I am closer to my goal of being humble, I think.
Like most guys, I take a lot of pleasure in my cars. I’ve usually had a fairly new, nice-looking car that I keep clean and polished. But a few weeks ago I was driving the wrong car at the wrong time. I was returning from a day of skiing with my son and his friend when we noticed the car in front of us was driving erratically. He was wandering in and out of the lane, slowing way down and then speeding up. It was clear to me he was drunk so I called 911 on my cell phone. The operator connected me to the State police and the officer began to ask questions like what highway are you on, what is the driver doing and what kind of car is he driving? It is a dark Jeep Cherokee, I told him. Then he asked, “and what are you driving, sir?” For an instant I thought of saying, “A Lexus RX 350.” But honesty won out and I said, “A purple Dodge minivan.” I heard the officer wince as I imagined him saying, “I’m sorry.” My son and his friend died laughing. I thought to myself, I’m never driving my wife’s car again. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a great car and it is even kind of cute. But at a time like that, guys just aren’t into cute. I was being important, being a brave citizen doing my duty, but I got humbled a little.
We were in Southern California recently visiting friends. In that part of L.A. I would not want to have had my purple mini-van. All the cars on the road seemed to be new silver German sedans or sports cars. Humility is not a virtue that is in big supply in Hollywood. It seems like everyone is either a star or they define themselves by how many stars they know, or at least how many star sightings they have in a day. Hey I saw Dustin Hoffman taking out his garbage the other day, isn’t that cool? There are a few exceptions, though. The other day I read about Harrison Ford, and he seems like a regular humble sort of guy. The article said Barbara Walters was impressed that he even called her after their interview to thank her. She said no one in Hollywood ever does that. I loved Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones series, so I can’t wait until the new one comes out.
In our society we don’t seem to make humility one of the qualities we look for in our heroes. When you stop to think about it, our heroes are really pretty one-dimensional. They can sing, sort of, or they can swing a bat or a golf club. But more often than not their personal life is a mess. For Christians, we need to look higher for our role model in life—way higher. The apostle Paul, in the letter to the Philippians tells believers that Jesus Christ himself is our hero. He is the one we should strive to be like. And in Christ, humility is not only a virtue; it is the heart of the very nature of God.
But I am getting a little ahead of myself. We need a little background and context before we look more closely at what I believe is one of the most beautiful passages in the whole New Testament. So in the 45 minutes allotted to me (right pastor Tom) I am going to take us back to when Paul visited Philippi on his second missionary journey; then explore the elegance and simplicity of what has been called a hymn to Christ; and finally reflect on how you and I can become stars in a world that needs to see the light.
First, who did Paul meet in Philippi? In Acts chapter 16 we have the story of the new church development of the First Presbyterian Church of Philippi. The first thing to notice was that Paul had a vision of a Macedonian man pleading with him saying, “Come to Macedonia and help us.” So Paul and Silas, and possibly Luke and the young Timothy all immediately sailed to Philippi in Macedonia, which is at the top of the Aegean Sea between Greece and modern day Turkey. The story introduces us to three people who would likely still have been part of the church when Paul wrote his letter to them from a prison cell a few years later. The first is a wealthy merchant woman named Lydia. We are told she and her whole household were baptized and the new church often met in her home. Next we meet an unnamed slave girl who was making a living for herself and her handlers through fortune telling. When Paul casts the demon out of her and she becomes a believer, her agents are furious at their loss of income and they have Paul and Silas thrown in jail. Paul, always the evangelist, even converts the jailer and his family, with the help of an earthquake that opened all the prison cells.
So here we have quite a cross section of Roman society: a rich, cultured merchant woman, a slave girl fortune teller, and a Roman civil servant. One would like to believe that they all got along famously, but the tone of Paul’s letter suggests that pride and social standing were getting in the way of creating the kind of community that Christ would have them be. And so Paul sharpens his quill for the second chapter of his letter and my does he wax eloquent.
The chapter begins with a rhetorical question. If, Paul says, if you have any encouragement, any comfort or fellowship, or any compassion and sympathy; then make my joy complete. No answer is needed to this question. Of course they have encouragement in Christ and fellowship in the Spirit. Of course they love Paul as the father of their church and they will naturally want to try to please him, to make his joy complete. So, Paul tells, not asks, tells them to be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. What Paul is not saying here is that they need to agree on everything. That is not what he means by saying be of the same mind or be of one mind. No, he is taking them to verse 5 which says they are to have the mind of Christ. And to describe the mind of Christ he focuses on this central virtue of humility.
He sets up the poem that is to follow by saying they should all have humility and regard others better than themselves; that they should look to the interests of others not just to their own. Remember he is speaking to Lydia, the slave girl, the jailer, and all the recent new members of the Philippian church. And through the power of the Holy Spirit, Paul is speaking to you and me when he says, “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”
Then in verses 6 – 11 we have what is this beautiful hymn to Christ. Let’s read that hymn together so it is fresh in our minds as we reflect on it for a few moments.
(re-read verses 6-11)
For a while I was a member of the first Presbyterian Church of Berkeley when one of the great preachers of our denomination was pastor there. I’ll never forget some of what Earl Palmer, the soon to be retired pastor of University Presbyterian in Seattle, said about this hymn. He pointed out that the flow of the poem is like a parabolic curve. It starts high, with Christ in the form of God; then it flows down through his becoming human, even a slave and then dies the most humiliating death of all—the death on a cross. Then from this cosmic bottoming out God lifts him up to where every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Some would argue the final point of the curve is even higher than the beginning point.
Let’s look briefly at each of the three parts to this curve: the journey down, the bottom, and the journey up.
Could there possibly be a greater fall imaginable. Here is the pre-existent Christ, very God of very God as the Nicene Creed says, so there’s no higher possible starting point. Then this Christ voluntarily empties himself to become a human, and even what would be in the Greco-Roman mind, the lowest form of humanity, a slave. I wonder if Paul had that slave girl in mind as he described Christ himself taking on the form of a slave.
Then in the ultimate act of humility accepts death, even death on a cross. While at this lowest possible point of the curve it is important to pause and reflect on just who was on that cross. Some scholars have tried to say that on his way down Christ emptied himself of his divinity to the point where it was only the human Jesus who died in that horrible moment. But this totally misses the point. As one commentary put it, “Christ did not cease to be “in the form of God” when he took the form of a slave, on the contrary, it is in his self-emptying and his humiliation that he reveals what God is like.”
This is the nature of God, high and lifted up, but so is this. God is with us in all our pain and struggles, even in the valley of the shadow of death. But, and here is the good news. He doesn’t stay there and neither do we. He begins the ascent in verse 9 with the word “therefore.” And whenever you see the word “therefore” you should stop and ask, what is it there for? Therefore God highly exalted him. With echoes of Easter and the resurrection Paul describes how God lifts Jesus up from the depths of death and despair by using every superlative he can think of. God gave him the name above all names, at which every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And it all comes back to the glory of God.
Wow, that’s our Jesus, our hero. Our role model for whom humility is not just one of many virtues, but it is the very nature of who Christ is. In his humility he reveals in the deepest way possible the humility of the heart of God.
So what does all this mean for you and me in our daily lives? Well, verse 12 begins with another therefore, so let’s stop and think about what it is there for. IT is there to bring us to the point of reflection on who we are in Christ. This is an awesome thing, to claim to be a follower of this self-emptying Christ. Paul tells us in a very memorable line to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Remember that the same God who was in Christ Jesus is in you, guiding you into becoming the person God wants you to be. And just as God lifted Christ up to new heights, God wants to life up you and me to stardom. No, we’re not going to be the next American Idol. But we’re going to shine like stars in a dark and lost world.
I love this image of shining like the stars. In our modern city lifestyles we have forgotten how beautiful and awesome the stars are. I’m sure you’ve had those moments of looking up in wonder at the night sky when you were out camping, away from the city lights. Just remember that Paul had spent many months at sea and the stars were not only beautiful, they guided the ship safely to its destination. That’s the kind of star you and I are going to be as we point people not to ourselves, but to Christ. That’s the humble stardom God wants for you and me.
Do you know any stars like that? People who reflect the humility of Christ in such a way that they shine brightly in our dark world. There are of course thousands of stories that could be told of those who have had the mind of Christ and lived a self-emptying life. There are the mother Teresa’s of history. But there are some even closer to home. I’m thinking of a man I know in Portland, Oregon who reflects the light of Christ to the down and out of our society.
This man’s name is Bill Russell and he was a successful attorney when he came to a place of emptiness in life. He wasn’t a believer, but he didn’t like what he saw in the lives of his heroes either. They were making money and acquiring cars and houses and ex-wives. He wanted more. So he asked a Christian colleague how he could learn more about Jesus. Bill told him, “look, I like what I hear about the life of Christ, but I don’t want to have to listen to all that hellfire and damnation stuff.” His friend told him, “Why don’t you try the Presbyterians?” No lie. He looked up the local Presbyterian church and was disappointed to see that the title of that Sunday’s sermon was “The Consequences of Sin.” But he went and he heard about grace and his heart was won over to Christ.
To make a long story short he left his career as an attorney and he eventually became the director of the Union Gospel Mission in Portland, and he has had a blast ever since. He loves working with these men and women who are the true salt of the earth types. There’s no pretense or false humility here. This is the real thing and he loves every minute of it. I’ve visited Bill and it is fun to walk around Portland’s Old Town with him. He knows everybody on the street and they know him. He knows who’s on the way up and who’s slipping downward again.
Bill’s story follows the same parabolic curve as the hymn in Philippians 2. He started at the height of all this world has to offer. He had money and prestige, but he came to a place where he saw the emptiness of it all and he surrendered himself to Christ. From that point on God has lifted him up to be a star shining the light of God’s love into the darkest part of the city.
So you want to be a star. But you wonder if you have anything to offer. Come to think of it, that’s a pretty good place to start. In the Kingdom of God it is not how good or how talented you are that makes you a star. It’s how willing you are to completely surrender all you are and all you have to Christ. May we have the mind of Christ in all we do and we will shine like stars in a dark and needy world. Amen.
