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Sept 26, 1999
I lived in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, for four years. The city is surrounded by a series of lush green mountains, not unlike the peaks we see lining the north of Kowloon. And my eyes were frequently drawn to a large cross planted about l500 feet up one of these mountains. The cross was on the far side of the city from my home but it was visible and especially had drawing power at night when it was illumined. The cross is the symbol of the Christian faith and it is the one symbol which always uplifts our eyes, and often our spirits, for it calls us in looking up to it to experience its' unique power. The stories in Matthew 2l center on controversies that occur days before Jesus goes to the cross. They draw our attention to issues of authority and obedience which revolve around Jesus' cross. Jesus is confronted by the chief priests and elders who want to know by what authority he has doing THESE THINGS. We can assume that THESE THINGS refers to the events recorded earlier in this chapter: the entry into Jerusalem in a unique style riding on a donkey; the cleansing of the temple; and now his teaching in the temple. The spiritual authorities have been increasingly anxious about this rabbi and now they are personally confronted with him and want to know on whose authority he dares to confront them so directly. In good rabbinical fashion, Jesus answers their question by posing his own question. His question involves their understanding of the authority of John the Baptist. If they answer that the Baptist was divinely inspired, they open themselves to the charge of ignoring God's will and of being unrepentant. These same authorities had said or done nothing when John had been arrested and brutally murdered. If they say that John's authority came only from human beings, then they risk offending the crowd among whom many believed John was a true prophet of God. Either way, they are condemned. And so they plead ignorance. Jesus then tells a parable about two sons which offers his interpretation of the confrontation he has just had with the Pharisees. The first son tells his father that he will not go and work in the vineyard, but then changes his mind and goes to work. The second son tells his father that he will work in the vineyard, but doesn't. "WHO HAS BEEN OBEDIENT TO THE FATHER? Jesus asks the chief priests and elders. The priests answer correctly, according to common sense, that it is the first son obeyed his father. While verbally he declined obedience, he ended up acting obediently by doing what his father asked. But Jesus promptly denounces the rabbis because it is clear to Jesus, and probably to many in the populace, that the priests were acting like the second son: promising to be faithful to God but in actuality betraying their spiritual trust. He tells them that the tax collectors and the prostitutes, who responded to John's teaching by repentance, will enter the Kingdom of God ahead of them. It is not surprising that immediately the chief priests take counsel against Jesus to put him to death. At the same time the priests were conspiring against Jesus, Jesus retired to the Garden of Gethsame to pray to his father God that the cup of suffering and death might be removed from him. At this point Jesus was the reluctant son, hoping that his obedience would not require the ultimate sacrifice. In today's excerpt from Paul's letter, the apostle is thinking about our same issue of the authority of the cross of Jesus. Paul is reminding his Christian friends that Christ did decide to be obedient even to the cross and challenges them to follow Christ's cross in their own ways and days. What was Paul counselling them, when he advised 'LET THE SAME MIND BE IN YOU WHICH WAS IN CHRIST JESUS'? There are two interpretations and Paul signals them both in his closing phrase: BE ENABLED BOTH TO WILL AND TO WORK FOR GOD'S PLEASURE. The cross always serves as a model to which our wills may conform. Paul lifts up the Jesus who is obedient to his cross as right and inspirational model for servanthood, for giving and caring and loving regardless of the costs? We are challenged to do as Jesus did. Someone sent me a story written in the first person of someone who was at the airport waiting for a friend to arrive. On the preceding plane she sees a man come through the gate and he rushes into the arms of a waiting woman. The most effusive, intense kiss is given and received. Then the man sweeps up two little children and smothers them with hugs and kisses. Standing next to this palpably loving family the woman couldn't help but be impressed and said "Hey, it must be great to be back after a long trip." The man said, "Not long, just two days in China." The onlooker then added: "Well, I only hope that when I marry my lover and I will be so affectionate and committed." As the man and his family strode away enthusiastically, he turned and shot back: "Don't hope…DECIDE!" Our will is a key to our obedience and to the lifestyle we choose. The trouble with the Hebrews in today's text from EXODUS was not that they had needs in the wilderness and expressed them as complaints to Moses. Their problem was that they allowed their hard life experiences to alter their attitude toward God. They did not wish to be obedient; they ceased to do the first thing which obedience requires: to pray to God about their needs and trust God to help them. Where the will is lacking, or diverted into secondary channels, the power of conforming to the higher authority of God weakens or disappears. But Paul was suggesting more than the need to keep our wills focused on the cross. He mentions working for the realization of obedience. Paul believed that the very transcendent experience that Jesus had of going through the cross to triumphant resurrection and new power as the resurrected one was available to a body of people who believed in him enough to follow the cross? This is the challenge to do not literally as Jesus did by going to a physical cross but to do like Jesus did by experiencing the renewal power of going to our individual crosses. The phrase LET THIS MIND BE IN YOU THAT WAS IN CHRIST JESUS can be interpreted as an intellectual challenge and so we focus on the cross as an inspiration model; the same phrase can be suggestive of a spiritual experience, a Pentecostal experience, of new and mystical energy and dedication through Christ. Paul himself knew that by focusing on the sacrificial death of Jesus and conforming to the radical obedience, humility and self-giving love which Jesus exampled, the Philippians would be able to fulfil Jesus' hope for them to be a resurrected people walking in a manner worthy of the good news. Paul's recycling of the hymn in his letter allowed him to remind believers to comprehend the story of salvation in Christ in three parts: self-emptying (the incarnation), obedience (the crucifixion) and exaltation (the resurrection and ascension). Through the incarnation, Jesus willingly takes on human form and limitations, freely embracing humanity in body, mind and spirit. Through his humble obedience, Jesus serves as a counter-example to those in the garden who for their own selfish gain, "grasp" at likeness to God. In his self-emptying Jesus does not see equality with God as something to be used for his own advantage, but as an offering for others. It results in radical obedience and service to others, even suffering and death on a cross. In verses 9-ll, the exaltation, God vindicates the self-denying service to others embodied in Christ's death. The one who came as a servant is now proclaimed "lord" of all. Christ's authority to be called "Lord", the first Christian acknowledgement of his unique status, comes not only from his exaltation by God through the resurrection and ascension but through his self-emptying obedience. He who did not GRASP AT LIKENESS TO GOD, but those obedience. Therefore, Jesus is acknowledged as God or Lord, the first known proclamation of faith among gentile Christians, even preceding the later title of CHRIST. Therefore, Paul suggests that incorporation into the body of Christ demands humility and obedience of the type demonstrated by Jesus. All confirmation candidates and others considering baptism, listen up: God demands humility and obedience from you after the example of Jesus. The humility is not humiliation; the obedience is not blind obedience. Rather, the humility and the obedience that God asks is that you show faith and trust in the gracious and loving nature of God. This humility and obedience was beyond the grasp of the Pharisees whose grasp was centered on the status and prerogatives which their spiritual office gave them. It was, by contrast, within the reach of the prostitutes and other low types who had nothing to grasp at in their lives and so turned their hearts to God's goodness and embraced that goodness of God. During the entire four years of my residency in Costa Rica, when I would look across the valley to the great white cross I often said to myself: "Preston, you really want someday to climb up to that cross." And yet I never did. I deeply regret that I never made the climb to really grasp the cross. I missed something special by not going fully and completely to the cross. Of course, it is in God's merciful nature to have given me other opportunities for that climb and that commitment. When we hear Jesus' words of judgement upon the Pharisees, we should begin to tremble ourselves. For the Pharisees, even after they saw truth in John's call to repentance and new righteousness, did not change their minds, did not alter their grasp, did not choose to seek a new model to which to conform. The ways of this world are powerfully enticing and we are constantly given excuses and temptations not to go to the cross of Jesus. It's difficult to overcome these distractions unless we take the mind of Christ into ourselves and let His power, not our own, transform and guide us. Do not just gaze upon the cross; come near; but do not only come near; fall at the cross and let the resurrection power of Christ lift you up with Jesus
Pastor Gene Preston
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The Rev. Gene R.Preston14th Floor, Blk 36, Lower Baguio Villa Tel : 25516161 Fax: 25512114E-mail : gpreston@netvigator.com |
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