Mirror, Mirror, On The Shelf
Commentary
The mirror on the wall gets a lot of looks. We are continually checking to see that our hair is right, that our teeth are clean, that our clothes are put together and put on in the most attractive way. We check the mirror in the bathroom, the mirror in the bedroom, the mirror in the car, perhaps a mirror in the bathroom at school or work, and we may even employ our phone as a mirror from time to time.
“Man looks at the outward appearance,” indeed (1 Samuel 16:7 NASB).
But then there is another mirror -- less used, but more useful. It does not hang on our walls but sits on our shelves. And it does not focus our attention so much on our outward appearance but gives magnificent insight into our inner beings -- our heart and soul and character.
This quite remarkable mirror, as you have guessed, is God’s book. The thoughtful reader of the Bible will always come away seeing himself or herself more clearly. And sensitive souls will feel the challenge to see themselves in the very stories of this book.
This, of course, was particularly true in the parables of Jesus. Time and again, Jesus presented his hearers with a choice of characters, and the implicit invitation was to recognize oneself in that cast. Am I the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan? Am I more like the first and second steward or more like the third? Have I lived more like the sheep or the goats? Which soil best depicts my responsiveness to the sower’s seed?
And so, it is in our collection of assigned passages for this Sunday. We are presented with several stories and a variety of characters. And as we look carefully at those folks from Moses’ day and Jesus’ day, perhaps we will find that we see ourselves in some of them. Mirror, mirror, on my shelf, which folks remind me of myself?
Exodus 17:1-7
How many servers in restaurants have gotten an earful because of something that was done wrong in the kitchen? How many ticket agents in airports have fielded the complaints of people for things entirely beyond their control? How many salespeople have been accosted for problems that trace back to the manufacturer?
So it was with Moses and the children of Israel in Exodus 17.
The text tells us that the people “journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded.” We’ll give more thought to the “stages” below. For the present moment, though, let us underline the phrase “as the Lord commanded.”
We know that the Lord provided the pillar of cloud to guide the people on their way. While Moses was universally recognized as their leader, therefore, he was not leading them in the sense of planning their route and arranging for their accommodations. No, but rather “in all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted.” (Exodus 40:36-37 NIV)
Not sure why paragraphs above are not indented but all the ones below are? When the Israelites had complaints about the journey, therefore, their quarrel was misplaced when they argued with Moses. They were giving the server an earful for a decision made by the manager or a meal made by the chef. And yet, time and again, the people fussed at (and about) Moses.
Moses serves continually as the go-between in the relationship between the Lord and that generation of Israelites. He took God’s word and directions to the people, and the people took their troubles to Moses rather than to God. I don’t think that’s the way it should be, and we see evidence in the larger story that complaining to Moses and grumbling to one another was an offense to God. Interestingly -- tellingly -- Moses complains to God (as in our Old Testament lection for this week) with impunity.
When the people griped to him about the lack of water, he reminded them of his limited role in their circumstances. “Why do you quarrel with me?” he asked. And then, in the next breath, he asked, “Why do you test the Lord?”
Only one action has been attributed to the people at this juncture: they “quarreled with Moses.” And that, Moses reckons, is tantamount to them testing the Lord. Moses does not connect the dots for them, but it is worth our consideration. Why does quarreling with Moses equal testing the Lord?
One possibility involves the principle of agency. When Person A sends Person B as his representative, how people treat Person B is reckoned to be their treatment of Person A. In other words, if the king sends a messenger to me, then I should treat that messenger with the respect that the king deserves. If I treat the royal emissary with disrespect, however, then it is a sort of vicarious disrespect for the king.
This was a lesson that Hanun and the Ammonites learned the hard way in dealing with King David (2 Samuel 10:1-7). It was also a principle implied in Jesus sending out his disciples (e.g., Luke 10:16). And so it may be that, inasmuch as Moses is God’s emissary, for the people to mistreat him is for the people to test the Lord.
The other possibility is that this is simply a matter of trust. For the people to complain may be an act of implicit distrust. After all, we don’t complain when we know that help is on the way. It’s only when we doubt that the needed thing is coming that we fret and fuss. Their complaining and quarreling, therefore, served as a sort of affirmation of un-faith in the Lord.
Meanwhile, both Moses and the people in this passage display a strange -- perhaps even perverse -- side of human memory.
First, we hear the people’s expressed lament: “Why did you bring us out of Egypt...?” Just a few chapters earlier, the narrator had reported that “the Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God” (Exodus 2:23 NIV). So it was that they groaned to leave Egypt, and now they groan to go back. And this is not the only instance of that backward longing. At several other points in the story, the Israelites express a desire to return to Egypt. How soon we forget! How easily the troubles of the present distort our memories of the troubles of the past!
But then, too, we observe that Moses has his own memory problems. After the people complain and whine, Moses cries out to the Lord for help, and the Lord provides the help that is needed. It is a marvelous event, as water gushes forth in abundance from a rock there in the wilderness. Yet when it is all said and done, Moses “called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the LORD.”
Really, Moses? Are those the names you want to give to that place? Is that how the spot ought to be remembered?
If you were going to name locations according to the people quarreling there, the wilderness would have had as many spots named “Meribah” as Atlanta has streets and locations named “Peachtree.” That the people quarreled and tested the Lord was shameful, to be sure, but it was not remarkable. That the Lord provided an abundance of water from a rock in the dessert, on the other hand, is epic.
What name, then, shall we give to the spot? Shall we name it for the routine thing that happened there or for the spectacular thing that happened there? And, perhaps more to the point, shall we remember a time or a place because of the bad or because of the good? That is where Moses’ choice of names -- his decision about how to remember that location -- is questionable.
Both Moses and the Israelites display in this episode a perverse side of human memory. In the one case, the people let the inconvenience and uncertainty of the present cause them to forget the pain and oppression of the past. In the other case, Moses lets a negative experience become the dominant memory of a place rather than the good experienced then and there. And in both instances, the result is the same: a perverse memory forgets the deliverance of God.
The writer of Ecclesiastes says that there is nothing new under the sun. Accordingly, we should check the mirror to see if the memory problems of Exodus 17 look familiar to us!
Philippians 2:1-13
In the 1896 novel, In His Steps, Charles Sheldon popularized the expression, “What would Jesus do?” That simple, penetrating question has helped untold multitudes of Christians across the succeeding generations to discern the choices they should make. When faced with tough decisions, we often must weigh many factors. But the famous “WWJD” cuts through all the other considerations and reminds the Christian what factor is most important.
The Apostle Paul did Charles Sheldon one better. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul is also encouraging his readers to model their behavior after Jesus. But rather than asking, hypothetically, “What would Jesus do?”, Paul reminds the Christians what Jesus did do!
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” Paul urges the people. But rather than speculating about what Jesus might do in each situation, the apostle declares what Jesus did do. And then, in poetic fashion, Paul summarizes the person and work of Christ in six verses.
The flow of Paul’s thought might be graphed on a chart. Let the x-axis represent time, and let the y-axis represent glory. On the far-left side of the chart, then, we see that Christ is high on the y-axis: “in the form of God” and “equality with God.” There is nowhere to go but down from there. And down he goes, indeed.
Many downward turns in graphs are undesirable, and most of those are involuntary. The company doesn’t choose to have a downturn in sales or profits. The church does not aspire to a dip in attendance or membership. And so, too, a move down the glory-axis is undesirable. Yet Paul reveals that it was entirely voluntary.
Though “he was in the form of God,” Paul says of Christ, “he emptied himself.” And just like that, the bottom falls out. The line takes a plunge toward the bottom of the graph. How low does it go? Human likeness, the form of a slave, humbly obedient, death on a cross.
There was nothing higher than where Christ began. And there is arguably nothing lower than what he experienced. Yet he was no victim -- this was his choice. This was the humble, condescension and self-sacrifice of love.
And so, the Christians in Philippi are invited to ask, “What did Jesus do?” And the answer comes back, “He emptied himself.” “He took on the form of a servant.” “He became obedient to the point of death.” And now the Philippians understand how they, too, are meant to live.
Neither our appetite for comfort nor the demands of our egos make us naturally inclined to move down the y-axis -- and we don’t begin nearly as high as he did! Yet wherever we happen to begin, our natural inclination is always to want to move up. We want to have more: more comfort, more glory, more importance, more respect. We use the phrase “standard of living” to encompass a great many factors, and central to the American dream is a higher and higher standard of living. We want to move up the y-axis.
Over against that natural impulse, however, we are invited to follow in the footsteps of our Lord. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.” “Regard others as better than yourselves.” “Look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.”
Of course, the suggested, metaphorical graph does not end at the cross. Paul traces the upward curve, as well. Christ humbled himself, but God “highly exalted him.” And in the end, he will be accorded all the glory due him -- and more, I suppose, for it will be not just the praise due to the one who is “in the form of God,” but also the thanksgiving due to the one who saved by that death on a cross. And while we live for love rather than for glory, Scripture does affirm this pattern: God “mocks proud mockers but shows favor to the humble and oppressed” (Proverbs 3:34 NIV). And “humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (James 4:10 NIV).
Matthew 21:23-32
Our gospel lection is what a miner might call a rich vein. Anywhere you scratch the surface, you turn up something of great value. The preacher will have to show real discipline not to overwhelm both the sermon and the congregation with all that this passage has to offer.
We might turn our focus entirely on just the setting. “When he entered the temple,” Matthew reports, and that phrase is pregnant with possibilities. Jesus’ relationship to the temple is multilayered, from his dedication there as a child and what was revealed about him even on that occasion to his demonstrated affinity for the place as a 12-year-old; from his identification of the space as his Father’s house to his numerous recorded encounters there; from his cleansing it to his teaching there; from his alarming predictions about its destruction to his misunderstood promise to rebuild it in three days. The temple is where Jesus makes himself at home during the days of holy week, and so it becomes the place of showdown between him and his antagonists there in Jerusalem. It’s a provocative and profound sort of turf battle. And this pericope is just one episode from that battle.
The question about Jesus’ authority is meant to be a challenge to him. In truth, of course, the chief priests are hitting on a reality that they should want not part of. Matthew’s readers have been tracing the evidence of Jesus’ authority throughout the narrative to this point, and by the time the opponents ask the question, we already have a clear sense of the answer.
Jesus, however, will not give them any of what sports fans call “bulletin board material.” He will not fuel their antagonism by making the claims to which he has the right. And so, rather than answering their question directly, he turns the tables and asks them a question, instead.
It’s a clever ploy, to be sure. “I’ll answer your authority question if you will answer mine.” But when they calculate their possible answers, they conclude that they cannot afford to give any answer. And so Jesus, in turn, is relieved of the responsibility to give them an answer.
As an aside, it is a damning detail that the chief priests do not actually consider what might be the correct answer to Jesus’ question. For them, the “answer” is merely a matter of political calculation; it is not a matter of truth. That may resonate with how some questions are handled in our day, as well.
Meanwhile, the enemies of Jesus may have regretted that they “poked the bear,” as it were. If they had left him alone, he would have just kept teaching the people. But because they challenged Jesus directly, they drew his attention to themselves, which led to a succinct and biting critique.
Jesus posits a father with two sons -- each one is recognizable to any parent. On the one hand, there is the son who refuses at first to do what he is told but comes through in the end. On the other hand, there is the son who agrees to do as he was told but does not follow through in the end. The second son looks better at first, but ultimately, he proves to be a disappointment. His seeming cooperation and responsiveness prove only to be lip service, but not real obedience.
And just like that, Jesus has painted a picture of those who were generally regarded as good and obedient juxtaposed with those who were generally regarded as unrighteous and disobedient. Yet in the end, the tables are turned because of which group proves ultimately to be more responsive to God. And so, while Jesus’ opponents were self-satisfied with their self-righteousness, their failure to respond to John the Baptist puts them behind those whose otherwise irreligious lives they look down upon and condemn.
And that brings us, finally, to the theme of John the Baptist. Jesus introduced John into the conversation when asked about the sources of authority, and this concluding teaching proves that the reference back to John was not theoretical. On the contrary, John is central to the gospels’ story (note that all four gospels tell about John, for example, while only two tell about Christmas). And Jesus himself affirms the central importance of John (see, for example, Matthew 11:7-14).
Application
The scene from Exodus features a cast of thousands. Interestingly, though, there is not much differentiation between the characters. Indeed, everyone seems to fall into just one of two categories -- Moses and everyone else.
I like to think that there were some individual Israelites who did not fall into the “everyone else” category. Yet we know that certain attitudes or behaviors can prevail in a group -- or a mob, for that matter -- even if the attitude or behavior is not unanimous. And the attitude and behavior that prevailed among the “everyone else” was complaining.
It is worth noting that everyone has something or other that they could complain about if they were so disposed. Some have more to complain about than others, to be sure, though there is not always a correlation with the amount that a given individual complains. In any case, though, everyone has something to complain about.
As we noted above, both Moses and “everyone else” do some complaining. Yet not all complaining is equal. Some of it is misplaced. Some of it is clearly an expression of doubt or fear or discontent, while other complaining may be an act of faith. We are invited to look in the mirror of Exodus 17, therefore, to see what sort of complaining we do. Do I, like Moses, take my candid complaints to God? Or do I merely grumble and murmur to those around me about the hardships, disappointments, and inconveniences of my life?
The gospel lection also presents us with two alternatives. Two sets of two alternatives, actually. On the one hand, we see the juxtaposition of the audience that gathered to hear Jesus teach and the religious leaders who came out to antagonize Jesus. These may be roughly paralleled, then, by the second set of juxtaposed characters: the two sons in Jesus’ brief illustration.
You and I, along with the people in our pews, probably see ourselves much more quickly in the audience that gathers to listen to Jesus than in the antagonists who seek to oppose him. That’s probably correct. The subsequent illustration, meanwhile, may be a little more sobering. While we may not resemble Jesus’ opponents, we may recognize in the mirror of Matthew 21 the son who promises to obey but doesn't come through in the end.
Finally, we come to Philippians 2. This passage sports one of the most remarkable features of the biblical mirror. No ordinary, physical mirror I know of can do for us what Philippians 2 does. Philippians 2 shows us not what we do look like, but what we ought to look like.
That would be a fascinating sort of mirror to have in one’s bathroom, would it not? Here is what you would look like, David, if you got proper rest and recreation. Here is what you would look like with appropriate devotion to diet and exercise. It would be a challenging sight, to be sure, but also motivating and inspiring. I would, after all, like that sight more than the actual one, and so I would strive to match that perfect picture.
Paul offers the perfect picture by showing us Jesus. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who...” And what follows reflects what Jesus did, which shows me what I should do. I look in this part of the Bible’s mirror and see what he is like, and thus I have my vision of what I am meant to be like. Mirror, Mirror, on my shelf, thank you for showing me Jesus himself!
Alternative Application(s)
Exodus 17:1-7 — “How We Get from Here to There”
The writer of Exodus is simply recording a routine fact. It’s really little more than a clause designed to help set the stage for the actual story of the selected passage. Yet in the process, the ancient storyteller may be making a profound theological statement.
“From the wilderness of sin,” he writes, “the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded.”
The people of God journeyed by stages. That seems unremarkable, at first blush blush?, but it’s actually an important and fascinating detail. These are a people, after all, who have been miraculously delivered from bondage, who were miraculously enabled to cross a body of water on dry land, and who are being miraculously led and fed on their way. One might wonder, therefore, why they should have to journey by stages, at all. Why does not the God who has spectacularly enabled and supported them in all these other ways just transport them instantaneously from A to B?
A skeptic, of course, would call that suggestion foolishness. They didn’t move from Egypt to Canaan in an instant because that’s impossible. And if our starting place is to doubt the miraculous, then that’s a fair conclusion, and my speculation is a moot point.
But that is not the view of Scripture, is it? If we are going to take the story at face value, then we have to acknowledge that these people are being commanded and led by a God who is fully capable of overcoming what we think of as natural limitations or impossibilities on their behalf. And, within the larger corpus of the Scriptural testimony, we think of Elijah’s reputation for suddenly being swept away by the Lord (1 Kings 18:12) and Philip’s sudden transport from one road to another (Acts 8:39-40). And so, we shouldn’t conclude that the Israelites were not instantly conveyed from the land of their bondage to the land of God’s promise because the Lord couldn’t do it. No, it must be because the Lord chose not to do it.
They “journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded.” That was God’s will, you see. It could have been instant, but it was not. It could have been fast, but the Lord deliberately chose to make it slow.
Perhaps the experience of the children of Israel becomes a model and a reminder for us. Surely there are times when we wish something could be done instantaneously. We know that God is capable of it, and we wonder why he doesn’t do it that way. Yet perhaps it is, more often than not, his will that we should “journey by stages.”
This is built into the very design of his creation, is it not? Living things grow. The seed does not turn immediately into a tree as soon as water is added. The newborn does not emerge as a full-grown adult. The harvest does not come immediately after the planting. Most of nature journeys by stages, you see.
Perhaps it is literally unnatural, therefore, for us to be as impatient as we sometimes are. We want God to intervene and make something happen instantly, when his revealed will and recurring pattern are quite different. The very design of creation seems to be a divine endorsement of process.
“From the wilderness of sin, the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded.” Every element of that verse rings true. And so, even though it may just be the narrative stage-setting for the story that follows, it is a lesson, reminder, and reassurance to us all.
“Man looks at the outward appearance,” indeed (1 Samuel 16:7 NASB).
But then there is another mirror -- less used, but more useful. It does not hang on our walls but sits on our shelves. And it does not focus our attention so much on our outward appearance but gives magnificent insight into our inner beings -- our heart and soul and character.
This quite remarkable mirror, as you have guessed, is God’s book. The thoughtful reader of the Bible will always come away seeing himself or herself more clearly. And sensitive souls will feel the challenge to see themselves in the very stories of this book.
This, of course, was particularly true in the parables of Jesus. Time and again, Jesus presented his hearers with a choice of characters, and the implicit invitation was to recognize oneself in that cast. Am I the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan? Am I more like the first and second steward or more like the third? Have I lived more like the sheep or the goats? Which soil best depicts my responsiveness to the sower’s seed?
And so, it is in our collection of assigned passages for this Sunday. We are presented with several stories and a variety of characters. And as we look carefully at those folks from Moses’ day and Jesus’ day, perhaps we will find that we see ourselves in some of them. Mirror, mirror, on my shelf, which folks remind me of myself?
Exodus 17:1-7
How many servers in restaurants have gotten an earful because of something that was done wrong in the kitchen? How many ticket agents in airports have fielded the complaints of people for things entirely beyond their control? How many salespeople have been accosted for problems that trace back to the manufacturer?
So it was with Moses and the children of Israel in Exodus 17.
The text tells us that the people “journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded.” We’ll give more thought to the “stages” below. For the present moment, though, let us underline the phrase “as the Lord commanded.”
We know that the Lord provided the pillar of cloud to guide the people on their way. While Moses was universally recognized as their leader, therefore, he was not leading them in the sense of planning their route and arranging for their accommodations. No, but rather “in all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted.” (Exodus 40:36-37 NIV)
Not sure why paragraphs above are not indented but all the ones below are? When the Israelites had complaints about the journey, therefore, their quarrel was misplaced when they argued with Moses. They were giving the server an earful for a decision made by the manager or a meal made by the chef. And yet, time and again, the people fussed at (and about) Moses.
Moses serves continually as the go-between in the relationship between the Lord and that generation of Israelites. He took God’s word and directions to the people, and the people took their troubles to Moses rather than to God. I don’t think that’s the way it should be, and we see evidence in the larger story that complaining to Moses and grumbling to one another was an offense to God. Interestingly -- tellingly -- Moses complains to God (as in our Old Testament lection for this week) with impunity.
When the people griped to him about the lack of water, he reminded them of his limited role in their circumstances. “Why do you quarrel with me?” he asked. And then, in the next breath, he asked, “Why do you test the Lord?”
Only one action has been attributed to the people at this juncture: they “quarreled with Moses.” And that, Moses reckons, is tantamount to them testing the Lord. Moses does not connect the dots for them, but it is worth our consideration. Why does quarreling with Moses equal testing the Lord?
One possibility involves the principle of agency. When Person A sends Person B as his representative, how people treat Person B is reckoned to be their treatment of Person A. In other words, if the king sends a messenger to me, then I should treat that messenger with the respect that the king deserves. If I treat the royal emissary with disrespect, however, then it is a sort of vicarious disrespect for the king.
This was a lesson that Hanun and the Ammonites learned the hard way in dealing with King David (2 Samuel 10:1-7). It was also a principle implied in Jesus sending out his disciples (e.g., Luke 10:16). And so it may be that, inasmuch as Moses is God’s emissary, for the people to mistreat him is for the people to test the Lord.
The other possibility is that this is simply a matter of trust. For the people to complain may be an act of implicit distrust. After all, we don’t complain when we know that help is on the way. It’s only when we doubt that the needed thing is coming that we fret and fuss. Their complaining and quarreling, therefore, served as a sort of affirmation of un-faith in the Lord.
Meanwhile, both Moses and the people in this passage display a strange -- perhaps even perverse -- side of human memory.
First, we hear the people’s expressed lament: “Why did you bring us out of Egypt...?” Just a few chapters earlier, the narrator had reported that “the Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God” (Exodus 2:23 NIV). So it was that they groaned to leave Egypt, and now they groan to go back. And this is not the only instance of that backward longing. At several other points in the story, the Israelites express a desire to return to Egypt. How soon we forget! How easily the troubles of the present distort our memories of the troubles of the past!
But then, too, we observe that Moses has his own memory problems. After the people complain and whine, Moses cries out to the Lord for help, and the Lord provides the help that is needed. It is a marvelous event, as water gushes forth in abundance from a rock there in the wilderness. Yet when it is all said and done, Moses “called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the LORD.”
Really, Moses? Are those the names you want to give to that place? Is that how the spot ought to be remembered?
If you were going to name locations according to the people quarreling there, the wilderness would have had as many spots named “Meribah” as Atlanta has streets and locations named “Peachtree.” That the people quarreled and tested the Lord was shameful, to be sure, but it was not remarkable. That the Lord provided an abundance of water from a rock in the dessert, on the other hand, is epic.
What name, then, shall we give to the spot? Shall we name it for the routine thing that happened there or for the spectacular thing that happened there? And, perhaps more to the point, shall we remember a time or a place because of the bad or because of the good? That is where Moses’ choice of names -- his decision about how to remember that location -- is questionable.
Both Moses and the Israelites display in this episode a perverse side of human memory. In the one case, the people let the inconvenience and uncertainty of the present cause them to forget the pain and oppression of the past. In the other case, Moses lets a negative experience become the dominant memory of a place rather than the good experienced then and there. And in both instances, the result is the same: a perverse memory forgets the deliverance of God.
The writer of Ecclesiastes says that there is nothing new under the sun. Accordingly, we should check the mirror to see if the memory problems of Exodus 17 look familiar to us!
Philippians 2:1-13
In the 1896 novel, In His Steps, Charles Sheldon popularized the expression, “What would Jesus do?” That simple, penetrating question has helped untold multitudes of Christians across the succeeding generations to discern the choices they should make. When faced with tough decisions, we often must weigh many factors. But the famous “WWJD” cuts through all the other considerations and reminds the Christian what factor is most important.
The Apostle Paul did Charles Sheldon one better. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul is also encouraging his readers to model their behavior after Jesus. But rather than asking, hypothetically, “What would Jesus do?”, Paul reminds the Christians what Jesus did do!
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” Paul urges the people. But rather than speculating about what Jesus might do in each situation, the apostle declares what Jesus did do. And then, in poetic fashion, Paul summarizes the person and work of Christ in six verses.
The flow of Paul’s thought might be graphed on a chart. Let the x-axis represent time, and let the y-axis represent glory. On the far-left side of the chart, then, we see that Christ is high on the y-axis: “in the form of God” and “equality with God.” There is nowhere to go but down from there. And down he goes, indeed.
Many downward turns in graphs are undesirable, and most of those are involuntary. The company doesn’t choose to have a downturn in sales or profits. The church does not aspire to a dip in attendance or membership. And so, too, a move down the glory-axis is undesirable. Yet Paul reveals that it was entirely voluntary.
Though “he was in the form of God,” Paul says of Christ, “he emptied himself.” And just like that, the bottom falls out. The line takes a plunge toward the bottom of the graph. How low does it go? Human likeness, the form of a slave, humbly obedient, death on a cross.
There was nothing higher than where Christ began. And there is arguably nothing lower than what he experienced. Yet he was no victim -- this was his choice. This was the humble, condescension and self-sacrifice of love.
And so, the Christians in Philippi are invited to ask, “What did Jesus do?” And the answer comes back, “He emptied himself.” “He took on the form of a servant.” “He became obedient to the point of death.” And now the Philippians understand how they, too, are meant to live.
Neither our appetite for comfort nor the demands of our egos make us naturally inclined to move down the y-axis -- and we don’t begin nearly as high as he did! Yet wherever we happen to begin, our natural inclination is always to want to move up. We want to have more: more comfort, more glory, more importance, more respect. We use the phrase “standard of living” to encompass a great many factors, and central to the American dream is a higher and higher standard of living. We want to move up the y-axis.
Over against that natural impulse, however, we are invited to follow in the footsteps of our Lord. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.” “Regard others as better than yourselves.” “Look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.”
Of course, the suggested, metaphorical graph does not end at the cross. Paul traces the upward curve, as well. Christ humbled himself, but God “highly exalted him.” And in the end, he will be accorded all the glory due him -- and more, I suppose, for it will be not just the praise due to the one who is “in the form of God,” but also the thanksgiving due to the one who saved by that death on a cross. And while we live for love rather than for glory, Scripture does affirm this pattern: God “mocks proud mockers but shows favor to the humble and oppressed” (Proverbs 3:34 NIV). And “humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (James 4:10 NIV).
Matthew 21:23-32
Our gospel lection is what a miner might call a rich vein. Anywhere you scratch the surface, you turn up something of great value. The preacher will have to show real discipline not to overwhelm both the sermon and the congregation with all that this passage has to offer.
We might turn our focus entirely on just the setting. “When he entered the temple,” Matthew reports, and that phrase is pregnant with possibilities. Jesus’ relationship to the temple is multilayered, from his dedication there as a child and what was revealed about him even on that occasion to his demonstrated affinity for the place as a 12-year-old; from his identification of the space as his Father’s house to his numerous recorded encounters there; from his cleansing it to his teaching there; from his alarming predictions about its destruction to his misunderstood promise to rebuild it in three days. The temple is where Jesus makes himself at home during the days of holy week, and so it becomes the place of showdown between him and his antagonists there in Jerusalem. It’s a provocative and profound sort of turf battle. And this pericope is just one episode from that battle.
The question about Jesus’ authority is meant to be a challenge to him. In truth, of course, the chief priests are hitting on a reality that they should want not part of. Matthew’s readers have been tracing the evidence of Jesus’ authority throughout the narrative to this point, and by the time the opponents ask the question, we already have a clear sense of the answer.
Jesus, however, will not give them any of what sports fans call “bulletin board material.” He will not fuel their antagonism by making the claims to which he has the right. And so, rather than answering their question directly, he turns the tables and asks them a question, instead.
It’s a clever ploy, to be sure. “I’ll answer your authority question if you will answer mine.” But when they calculate their possible answers, they conclude that they cannot afford to give any answer. And so Jesus, in turn, is relieved of the responsibility to give them an answer.
As an aside, it is a damning detail that the chief priests do not actually consider what might be the correct answer to Jesus’ question. For them, the “answer” is merely a matter of political calculation; it is not a matter of truth. That may resonate with how some questions are handled in our day, as well.
Meanwhile, the enemies of Jesus may have regretted that they “poked the bear,” as it were. If they had left him alone, he would have just kept teaching the people. But because they challenged Jesus directly, they drew his attention to themselves, which led to a succinct and biting critique.
Jesus posits a father with two sons -- each one is recognizable to any parent. On the one hand, there is the son who refuses at first to do what he is told but comes through in the end. On the other hand, there is the son who agrees to do as he was told but does not follow through in the end. The second son looks better at first, but ultimately, he proves to be a disappointment. His seeming cooperation and responsiveness prove only to be lip service, but not real obedience.
And just like that, Jesus has painted a picture of those who were generally regarded as good and obedient juxtaposed with those who were generally regarded as unrighteous and disobedient. Yet in the end, the tables are turned because of which group proves ultimately to be more responsive to God. And so, while Jesus’ opponents were self-satisfied with their self-righteousness, their failure to respond to John the Baptist puts them behind those whose otherwise irreligious lives they look down upon and condemn.
And that brings us, finally, to the theme of John the Baptist. Jesus introduced John into the conversation when asked about the sources of authority, and this concluding teaching proves that the reference back to John was not theoretical. On the contrary, John is central to the gospels’ story (note that all four gospels tell about John, for example, while only two tell about Christmas). And Jesus himself affirms the central importance of John (see, for example, Matthew 11:7-14).
Application
The scene from Exodus features a cast of thousands. Interestingly, though, there is not much differentiation between the characters. Indeed, everyone seems to fall into just one of two categories -- Moses and everyone else.
I like to think that there were some individual Israelites who did not fall into the “everyone else” category. Yet we know that certain attitudes or behaviors can prevail in a group -- or a mob, for that matter -- even if the attitude or behavior is not unanimous. And the attitude and behavior that prevailed among the “everyone else” was complaining.
It is worth noting that everyone has something or other that they could complain about if they were so disposed. Some have more to complain about than others, to be sure, though there is not always a correlation with the amount that a given individual complains. In any case, though, everyone has something to complain about.
As we noted above, both Moses and “everyone else” do some complaining. Yet not all complaining is equal. Some of it is misplaced. Some of it is clearly an expression of doubt or fear or discontent, while other complaining may be an act of faith. We are invited to look in the mirror of Exodus 17, therefore, to see what sort of complaining we do. Do I, like Moses, take my candid complaints to God? Or do I merely grumble and murmur to those around me about the hardships, disappointments, and inconveniences of my life?
The gospel lection also presents us with two alternatives. Two sets of two alternatives, actually. On the one hand, we see the juxtaposition of the audience that gathered to hear Jesus teach and the religious leaders who came out to antagonize Jesus. These may be roughly paralleled, then, by the second set of juxtaposed characters: the two sons in Jesus’ brief illustration.
You and I, along with the people in our pews, probably see ourselves much more quickly in the audience that gathers to listen to Jesus than in the antagonists who seek to oppose him. That’s probably correct. The subsequent illustration, meanwhile, may be a little more sobering. While we may not resemble Jesus’ opponents, we may recognize in the mirror of Matthew 21 the son who promises to obey but doesn't come through in the end.
Finally, we come to Philippians 2. This passage sports one of the most remarkable features of the biblical mirror. No ordinary, physical mirror I know of can do for us what Philippians 2 does. Philippians 2 shows us not what we do look like, but what we ought to look like.
That would be a fascinating sort of mirror to have in one’s bathroom, would it not? Here is what you would look like, David, if you got proper rest and recreation. Here is what you would look like with appropriate devotion to diet and exercise. It would be a challenging sight, to be sure, but also motivating and inspiring. I would, after all, like that sight more than the actual one, and so I would strive to match that perfect picture.
Paul offers the perfect picture by showing us Jesus. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who...” And what follows reflects what Jesus did, which shows me what I should do. I look in this part of the Bible’s mirror and see what he is like, and thus I have my vision of what I am meant to be like. Mirror, Mirror, on my shelf, thank you for showing me Jesus himself!
Alternative Application(s)
Exodus 17:1-7 — “How We Get from Here to There”
The writer of Exodus is simply recording a routine fact. It’s really little more than a clause designed to help set the stage for the actual story of the selected passage. Yet in the process, the ancient storyteller may be making a profound theological statement.
“From the wilderness of sin,” he writes, “the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded.”
The people of God journeyed by stages. That seems unremarkable, at first blush blush?, but it’s actually an important and fascinating detail. These are a people, after all, who have been miraculously delivered from bondage, who were miraculously enabled to cross a body of water on dry land, and who are being miraculously led and fed on their way. One might wonder, therefore, why they should have to journey by stages, at all. Why does not the God who has spectacularly enabled and supported them in all these other ways just transport them instantaneously from A to B?
A skeptic, of course, would call that suggestion foolishness. They didn’t move from Egypt to Canaan in an instant because that’s impossible. And if our starting place is to doubt the miraculous, then that’s a fair conclusion, and my speculation is a moot point.
But that is not the view of Scripture, is it? If we are going to take the story at face value, then we have to acknowledge that these people are being commanded and led by a God who is fully capable of overcoming what we think of as natural limitations or impossibilities on their behalf. And, within the larger corpus of the Scriptural testimony, we think of Elijah’s reputation for suddenly being swept away by the Lord (1 Kings 18:12) and Philip’s sudden transport from one road to another (Acts 8:39-40). And so, we shouldn’t conclude that the Israelites were not instantly conveyed from the land of their bondage to the land of God’s promise because the Lord couldn’t do it. No, it must be because the Lord chose not to do it.
They “journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded.” That was God’s will, you see. It could have been instant, but it was not. It could have been fast, but the Lord deliberately chose to make it slow.
Perhaps the experience of the children of Israel becomes a model and a reminder for us. Surely there are times when we wish something could be done instantaneously. We know that God is capable of it, and we wonder why he doesn’t do it that way. Yet perhaps it is, more often than not, his will that we should “journey by stages.”
This is built into the very design of his creation, is it not? Living things grow. The seed does not turn immediately into a tree as soon as water is added. The newborn does not emerge as a full-grown adult. The harvest does not come immediately after the planting. Most of nature journeys by stages, you see.
Perhaps it is literally unnatural, therefore, for us to be as impatient as we sometimes are. We want God to intervene and make something happen instantly, when his revealed will and recurring pattern are quite different. The very design of creation seems to be a divine endorsement of process.
“From the wilderness of sin, the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded.” Every element of that verse rings true. And so, even though it may just be the narrative stage-setting for the story that follows, it is a lesson, reminder, and reassurance to us all.
