Sept 26, 1999
OBEDIENCE, NOT
STATUS
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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