Humility and Community: October 1, 2023

 Philippians 2:1-13                                    Year A, Pentecost 18                                     

My last church was situated in a lovely and relatively small city called Hampton. We didn’t have a minor league baseball team, much less a major league team.  We had a team that was made up of college baseball players who were looking for places to play in the summer.  The games were a lot of fun because you were able to get close to the action.  The people in my church were big supporters of the team.  There was one night where the baseball organization made a specific invitation to churches.  We decided to attend and someone finagled me an invitation to throw the first pitch along with another pastor from a different church. 

This was horrifying prospect for me.  I played soccer. The only time I had thrown a baseball was at a dunking booth and that was embarrassing enough.  I practiced a little, but when the time came, I was overcome with anxiety and the ball didn’t make it over the plate.  It was humiliating. So of course I posted the picture on facebook--- of me on the pitcher’s mound with my head in my hands and wrote, “Another opportunity for humility.”  At the time, I perceived any failure as an opportunity to gain more humility…which isn’t entirely wrong…but I will explain later why this experience wasn’t a great example of humility. 

          One of the themes you will find throughout Paul’s writings is the importance of community, unity, and humility.  Our reading from Philippians starts with the very beginning of chapter 2, but it’s very much connected to what he said in the first chapter.  There he said, “I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the Gospel.”  He returns to this idea of being in the same mind or of one mind several times in our reading for today. 

It’s natural to assume that Paul is telling everyone that they need to agree with one another and even think the same way.  But the Greek that is translated to “be of the same mind” is tricky to translate.  A more accurate interpretation might be “having a depth of understanding and practical wisdom, to know how to act correctly, even in complicated situations.”  That kind of makes just agreeing with one another sound a bit easier. Wouldn’t it be easier just to agree with someone rather than try to understand them? I have had a lot of practice in trying to understand people who I disagree with and it can be a brutal experience.  Rewarding—but brutal.

What does it mean to be of the same mind if you don’t have the same exact beliefs of others in your Christian community? Paul answers that in the direct yet indirect way he excels at.  “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.”  Regard others as better than yourselves.  Now that sounds a bit much.  It’s one thing to respect others and serve others, but why do we assume everyone has to be better than us?  It sounds more like self-degradation and self-deprecation, which can often lead to insecurity and even self-hatred.  Jesus loves his children.   He doesn’t want any of them hating themselves.  So what does Paul mean? I don’t think he intended to focus on how we feel about ourselves, as much as how we feel about others.  Paul wants us to see ourselves and others as beloved children of God.  Sometimes we are good at that, sometimes not so much. 

I saw a bumper sticker that said, “God loves everyone, but God loves me the best.”  And you know, I think we sometimes think that.  We think there is a tier system and surely we are on the top.  When I am really upset with someone, I try to remember, “God loves them too.”  I say it to myself, but I am not sure I am convincing myself. Because if we truly believe that God loves all  God’s children equally, we wouldn’t be able to look down on people.  That’s humility---it’s not about lowering yourself, but raising up others.

When we are able to truly humble ourselves, then we can live in an authentic community.  We can be of the same mind without agreeing about everything.  Because we can acknowledge, “Ok, we might not agree and I am may be absolutely right…but they are still loved by God and they deserve my respect.”  That is what a true Christian community looks like---always remembering that God loves us all equally.

So what does this have to do with my first pitch?  It was humbling and I remember adoring the people of my church as they cheered while the ball rolled across the plate.   They didn’t care that I threw a horrible pitch. They just appreciated that I tried.  But here is where I failed at humility.  You see…the other pastor, he had clearly played baseball. He had the right clothes and he threw a perfect pitch and I was not happy about that.  Because he was from the huge Baptist Church that didn’t allow women to be ordained.  Now I could have been a good Christian and gone up to him and introduced myself.  I could have invited him to lunch so as to get to know him and find some common ground.  But I didn’t do any of that.  I just muttered under my breath about his fancy pitch and found the people I knew loved me.  Because of my inability to see him as a beloved child of God, I missed a chance at being in a community with a different kind of Christians 

Now in my defense…since you don’t know me and might be thinking I am incredibly petty, I did get to know a lot of pastors and Christians from other denominations in my time in Hampton.  I became friends with pastors who I disagreed with on all kinds of levels, but we all cared about serving  people and bringing God’s love to those people.  We raised one another up and we formed a genuine community.  We formed that community when George Floyd was killed three years ago.  We knew that we could not help a diverse community heal without a diverse group of pastors coming together.  That was one of the times when I really learned how important humility is when forming a community of people with wildly different opinions.  It’s not about thinking less about yourself.  It’s about thinking more of others.

I have been here for less than a week, but I have been blown away by your kindness and hospitality.  You have brought my family food and offered to help unpack boxes. I have also seen how you care for one another through Good Shepherds, Parish Life, and small groups bringing communion to those who are homebound.  While I don’t know you, I am going to take a wild guess and assume you all don’t agree about everything all the time.  That’s ok. That’s actually good.  The church is the one place, the one community where you don’t have to have anything in common except faith or a desire to have faith.  You don’t need to vote for the same people, you don’t need to have the same level of education or the same amount of money.  You might not have anything in common with the person behind you.  You don’t even have to all like the Eagles!

That makes us unique and exquisite.  It also makes it hard to stay in community and you can tell from Paul’s letters, it was hard for the early Christian community as well.  But it’s worth it.  If we can just try to see others as God’s see them, then we will discover what humility really means.  It’s putting the needs of others above our needs.  I know you already have a good community, but my hope for my time with you, is that we will build an even more diverse community that is imbued with the Holy Spirit….a place where we can really know one another.  That is what we all crave, being known and loved for who we are. We can do that together, with humility and love.