"Empty"
Rev. Matthew Miller
One of the gifts of the pandemic five years ago- and yes, for as difficult as that season was for everyone there were still gifts to be found in it- one of the gifts for our family at least was the TV show Ted Lasso on Apple TV. So, you can imagine our delight when it was announced that the creators of the show we putting out a fourth season. We were a little cautious in our enthusiasm given that the three season arc of the show as originally conceived and presented was so well executed. The new season debuted last month and we’re now four episodes in. Without revealing any plot spoilers, this last episode dealt with the phrase, “lose the dressing room, lose the team.” For those of you who don’t know the story of Ted Lasso centers on the title character as the coach of a professional British soccer, or football, team. Anyway, the presenting issue is that players of the team that Ted is trying to coach have fallen into cliques within the locker room. And as anyone who has spent any time in middle and high school can tell you, cliques by their very nature aren’t very good at getting along, which is how you lose a team. As Ted and his right hand, coach Beard analyze the problem. Ted observes that, “the two quickest ways to bring a group of people together is a common enemy, or a common goal.”
It’s no secret that life in the early church was far from some idyllic community. They were, after all, made up of human beings. The evolutionary genius of our survival is our ability to work together toward a common goal- like not dying from hunger or the elements for which our bodies are dramatically unsuited. But history also demonstrates our equally impressive capacity for conflict, division, and destruction. The great reformed theologian Karl Barth once observed that without conflict, there would be no letters to the church. That is, if we weren’t so prone to disagreement and division, the apostle Paul and others would not have felt so compelled to write to tell us, among other things, to knock it off. In some ways Paul sounds a little like Ted Lasso as he addresses the conflicted nature of the church he founded in Philippi. He doesn’t berate. He doesn’t scold. And he doesn’t point the finger in blame. He certainly doesn’t fall into the habit that is currently driving so much of the conflict and division in our own country at the moment by seeking to identify something outside of their group as the enemy. Instead, he invites them to consider a couple of propositional givens.
If there is any comfort in Christ, he begins. What does that mean? Well, the word we translate into English as “comfort” is the Greek word paraklesis which is the same root word used elsewhere for the Holy Spirit, the paraclete. That’s not some tropical bird, it literally means “to come alongside.” It is the encouraging presence of the one who helps us keep going when we aren’t sure we can and might otherwise give up. So first, has there been any companionship in the group that has kept us going.
Then he says, if there has been any consolation from love. Consolation is the attention we give to another’s loss, or disappointment. The love we hold for another leads us to console someone in their grief, to acknowledge how difficult it is when things don’t go the way we hoped or planned. Has there been any of that?
Third, has there been any sharing in the Spirit. Again, the Greek word is koinonia, what is sometimes translated as fellowship. We have a fellowship hall. One of the goals of our strategic plan as a church is “Engaged Fellowship.” I’ve got to come clean with you all and say that fellowship is one of those church words that sometimes makes me itch. There aren’t many places where that word gets used outside of church, so often it just sounds like insider lingo. But then there is Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring, the first of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in which a group of very different individuals come together in the service of a common cause. Whatever word you use- sharing, partnership, friendship- it is the bond created by the Holy Spirit in bringing together people who might not otherwise find a reason to know one another, let alone find common cause with them.
Finally, there is the compassion and sympathy that draw us together. It is the warm and tender affection we feel when receive mercy in the midst of our faults and failures instead of judgment and condemnation.
These are the things that are easy to forget when we find ourselves at odds with someone; when we’re challenged by what they’re saying or doing. When a group breaks down into cliques, or factions, or ideological bunkers we’re often quick to replace what draws us together as people, what has always drawn us together over millennia, with labels and categories that blind us to their humanity and turn them into faceless enemies.
Be of the same mind, urges Paul, the same love, in full accord and of one mind. That’s where it gets tricky doesn’t it? One translation renders this as, “be like minded.” And I have to confess that makes me a little nervous. That sounds like the borg in Star Trek, the cybernetic organism that operates as a hive mind. “Resistance is futile,” they intone, “you will be assimilated.” Yikes. No thank you, Paul. Often, when people talk about being like minded, or even being of one mind on something- when they say, “we all need get on the same page,”- what they really mean is, you need to get on my page. You need to agree with my way of thinking. As Wil Willimon points out, “sometimes, what passes for ‘unity’ is that dissenting voices have been suppressed, disagreement has been papered over, and dissidents have been encouraged to just fade away quietly. ‘Unity’ can be a matter of ‘Shut up and go along with the majority.’
That’s why what comes next is important. The mind we are to seek in comfort, consolation, companionship and compassion is the mind of Jesus. It isn’t unity born of selfish ambition that insists others share our opinions because we think we’re right and they’re wrong. That leads with what’s in it for me, or what do I get out of it. It’s the mind of Jesus, who had the most reason to claim some kind of high ground or superiority and chose instead to empty himself of all of it. Who did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited or grasped, but instead let all of it go; let every claim he might make to his own status go with an open hand. The words that Paul recites here are not his own, but likely one of the oldest hymns of the church, expressing the heart and mind of Christ. The image they invoke is counter to everything the world around us tells us is necessary to succeed. But then, success was never the goal. Our success, as believers, as a church, as a faith was never what Jesus was inviting us to receive. Success cannot save us. Only Jesus can. And Jesus does precisely by emptying himself and inviting us to empty ourselves too of the kind of thinking that grasps at success and invariably puts us at odds with one another; that teaches us that life is some kind of competition to be won instead of a gift to be cherished, received, and celebrated together.
But God knows, it’s not easy. It’s not easy to empty ourselves of the very things that the world encourages: competition, winning, bigger, faster, younger, more. When Paul suggests that salvation is something to be worked out with fear and trembling, it has nothing to do with putting our salvation in doubt. The fear and trembling aren’t about God, but about what becomes of us when we start leaning toward all the things that the world have us believe can save us from being wrong and our need to think we’re right. The trembling comes from looking to politicians to save us, or money, or position, or market share. To work out our salvation is the ongoing effort we make to align our heart and minds with the heart and mind of Christ and empty ourselves of all the rest. To work out our salvation is to empty ourselves when we get too full of ourselves. To work out our salvation is to return again and again to the comfort, consolation, companionship and compassion we find in the community of believers. To work out our salvation is to seek to let the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus because his is the only Word we have to hear and obey in life and in death. This is the common goal that unites us. This is the very thing that will save us from being torn apart by division and disagreement and some imagined enemy. And the good news is that God is already at work in us, enabling us to work it out, together.
