One-Anothering (Sermon)

“One-Anothering”

Philippians 2:1-11

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

8/26/18

         ^1-4If then our common life in Christ yields anything to stir the heart, any loving consolation, any sharing of the Spirit, any warmth of affection, or compassion, fill up my cup of happiness by thinking and feeling alike, with the same love for one another, the same turn of mind, and a common care for unity. There must be no room for rivalry and personal vanity among you, but you must humbly reckon others better than yourselves. Look to each other’s interests and not merely to your own.

         ^5-11Let your bearing towards one another arise out of your life in Christ Jesus. For the divine nature was his from the first; yet he did not think to snatch at equality with God, but made himself nothing, assuming the nature of a slave. Bearing the human likeness, revealed in human shape, he humbled himself, and in obedience accepted even death—death on a cross. Therefore God raised him to the heights and bestowed on him the name above all names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow—in heaven, on earth, and in the depths—and every tongue confess, ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’, to the glory of God the Father.  (The New English Bible)

         Two things become evident when reading Paul’s letter to the Philippians. First, we realize that Paul loves this congregation and has invested himself deeply in the Philippian church.

          We also realize that the Philippians are caught up in some sort of struggle. While Paul doesn’t get specific, throughout the letter he offers words of encouragement and affirmation. Wanting the Philippians to recognize their crucial role in the ever-expanding gospel community, Paul’s epistle is an appeal for unity.

         The hinge-pin in today’s reading is verse 5. And I chose to read from the New English Bible specifically because of its translation of that verse. “Let your bearing towards one another arise out of your life in Christ Jesus.” To allow our “bearing towards one another [to] arise out of [our] life in Christ” is to embody our new reality in Jesus. For us, the kingdom of God is the new realm of human interaction. And Godcreates this community. Weparticipate in it and bear witness to it. We may even put our mark on it in some way, but the community itself is a gift of grace, not a human accomplishment.

         The marks of the new community include worship and the celebration of the sacraments. Those marks also include relationships of mutual care, forgiveness, and admonishment according to the loving example of Jesus. I call such relationships “one-anothering.” As followers of Jesus, we one-anothereach other as visible signs of the new kingdom we inhabit and the new life we live in it. Like the sacraments themselves, one-anothering is saturated with the real and mysterious presence of Christ.

          Jonesborough Presbyterian is very good at one-anothering. When families and individuals experience illness, death, job loss, crises with children, you’re there to cry with and comfort each other. That was beautifully evident yesterday as you all gathered around Conrad Crow’s family to lift them up, to grieve with them, and to give thanks to God for a truly remarkable man. When experiencing births, gradutions, weddings, or recovery, you’re there to laugh and celebrate with each other, too. And because you’re Presbyterians, casseroles figure in heavily on both sides.

         Let’s confess an uncomfortable truth, as well. And by no means does this apply to only one congregation, but the blessings of one-anothering often get poured out in greater measure on some folks than others. Unlike Christ, whose body we are, churches occasionally play favorites in their one-anothering. We tend to offer our most abundant grace to those who seem to “deserve” it, or to those who think, act, and look like ourselves. And while human beings have the freedom to practice selective response, as the community of Christ, we don’t have the right. We don’t exist for ourselves alone. God calls us to extend the fullness of one-anothering grace in Christlike abundance.

         Jesus’s first disciples struggled with this call. When they wanted to circle the wagons and keep the good news wrapped up in their comfortable little clique, Jesus said, ‘What good does that do? Don’t the tax collectors do the same thing?’ (Mt. 5:46) Followers of Jesus are different – and not just can be or should be. Jesus-followers aredifferent. “You will know them by their fruits,” he said. (Mt. 7:20)

         Paul echoes that: “If…our common life in Christ yields anything to stir the heart, any loving consolation, fill up my cup of happiness by thinking and feeling alike with the same love for one another…and a common care for unity.”

         When Paul says “if our common life in Christ yields anything” stirring and consoling, he means that a shared life in Christ does in fact yield the blessings of welcome, forgiveness, care for the poor and forgotten, and the exaltation of Christ. Without these marks, we’re just another business or club concerned about bottom lines and power arrangements. But when we faithfully share Christ’s mind, our life together reveals the kingdom of God.

          Now, when Paul asks the Philippians to “fill [his] cup of happiness by thinking and feeling alike,” he’s not asking everyone to agree on everything. No one can make everyone happy. He’s challenging them to practice one-anothering, with Christ-saturated hearts and minds, even in their differences, thus living as an unmistakable reflection of Jesus.

         This is where the preacher is supposed to tell some inspiring story to illustrate the point. You know the kind of thing: A disaster happens, and people of all stripes come together to help those who’ve been thrown into chaos by some war, storm, earthquake, or flood. And there are some really good stories like that. I’m certain that those stories are being played out right now in Hawaii in the wake of Hurricane Lane and in Indonesia after last week’s earthquake.

         The far more difficult – and familiar – scenario is that of Christians living and working day-by-day next to people in our families, neighborhoods, congregations, denominations, and in other faith traditions, or people who neither have nor want any religious faith, and find that many of these folks think completely differently than we do on crucial issues. So, what then? How do we reflect the heart and mind of Christ in those immediate and routine realities?

         Well, maybe we start with something we acknowledged a few minutes ago: Godcreates the new community. We participate in it, but it’s not our accomplishment. To me, that means that we approach the one-anothering relationships of spiritual community like we do a creative endeavor. When a sculptor sits down with a lump of clay, she considers the size of the lump, how willingly it yields to her touch. Her fingers begin to knead and pinch. Remaining open to her heart and to the clay itself, the sculptor begins to develop a relationship with what is otherwise a lifeless chunk of moist earth. And together they create something beautiful.

In the new community, we sit down with each other, intentionally and humbly. We yield ourselves to the presence of the Spirit between us. The clay, the gift, is the relationship itself. God is the sculptor – or, as Isaiah said, God is the potter. A Christlike “bearing towards one another” allows us – in time, anyway – to see across from us a brother or a sister, and to see that between us, God is creating something beautiful.

         We may disagree with that person on important theological, social, and political issues. And as long as we see him or her as an adversary who must be defeated, we’ll be like Adam in the garden. We’ll mistake ourselves for God. We’ll decide it’s ourjob to mold thatperson into something that suits us. And the whole community will suffer.

         Paul doesn’t sugar coat the new reality. Living into a Christlike “bearing towards one another” requires nothing less than self-emptying humility. It requires dying and rising with Christ, day after day, dying to the old and rising to the new.

         During Conrad Crow’s memorial service, I quoted a few of his sermons. And in one of them Conrad said that “the basic mission and purpose of the church is to be found in call[ing] the dead back to life. You see,” he said, “we have such a limited definition of death that we associate it always with the obituary column and the funeral. The Bible also recognizes death [that way],” he said. “But the Bible is also filled with the names and stories of those who, though they are alive, have never lived, who possessing many things are empty within, for whom the cessation of breathing is a minor calamity compared to a soul which has no pulse.”

“Through us,” he said, “weak earthen vessels that we are, God continues the vocation of our Lord, who said, ‘I come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.’ Through us,” said Conrad, “God continues [the] miracle.”

May we always humble ourselves to God, to the presence of Christ in one another, and to the miracle of the Holy Spirit’s one-anothering community at work in our midst.