Privilege Poured Out (Seventh Sunday of Easter; Confirmation Sunday; Mothers' Day; Philippians 2:1-13; May 13, 2018)

Privilege Poured Out

Seventh Sunday of Easter
Confirmation Sunday
Mothers' Day
Philippians 2:1-13
May 13, 2018

Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, Iowa

The Sundays in May are a little over-scheduled. Mother's Day is celebrated today. It's a tricky observance. If we fail to give full-throated praise to motherhood itself, someone may take offense. If we fail to recognize that the notion of motherhood is complex and many-sided and that not all of the sides are sweet, we will hurt others. We are grateful and glad for all the women who take their responsibilities to the next generation seriously: the mothers who care for their own children, the step-mothers who care for the children of their spouses, the foster mothers who care for children whose safety would otherwise be in jeopardy, and the countless women who nurture children, watch over them to keep them safe, and make sure that they have food, clothing, shelter, and--above all--the love they need in order to thrive.

At the same time we recognize that the day serves as a painful reminder to those who could not have children. It can imply that there is something not quite right about the women who chose not to have children. It also picks open the not-really-healed wounds of those who never had the sort of mothering that we celebrate, those who were neglected and abused by mothers who were--to put it plainly--failures as mothers. So there is a very narrow road to walk today with deep ditches on either side.

Then conversations with the parents of our confirmands revealed that this day was the only day for weeks in either direction available as a possible date for Confirmation. So, we're doubling up on the day. It's okay, really, since our confirmands remind us that they have come to this step in their journey with the help of many adults, their mothers and fathers among them.

And it became apparent that even today would not work for all of our confirmands and their families. One of the members of this year's class is with her family today attending the graduation ceremony of her brother at the University of Iowa. So she will be confirmed next Sunday, the Day of Pentecost, Sunday School teacher recognition, and commencement for Decorah High School. Like I said, the Sundays of May are a little over-scheduled.

Then, of course, there is today's text that contains the well-known hymn to the humility of Jesus that begins:

Christ was truly God.But he did not try to remain equal with God.Instead he gave up everything and became a slave,when he became like one of us.

Most scholars believe that this hymn is not Paul's work. Rather he is using a hymn that was known to the church in Philippi, quoting it at length in the service of his argument. His argument seems to be that we should not put ourselves first. We shouldn't even try to get what we are entitled to have. Instead, we should be submissive and humble. God will eventually reward us, I guess in the afterlife, just as God rewarded Jesus for his humility.

That argument has a sorry history. It has been used against slaves who longed for freedom: There are those who are born free and those who are not. You shouldn't seek to rise above your place. Instead, submit to your master's desires and obey them. In this way God will reward you, counting your obedience to your masters as obedience to God.

The argument has been used against women: Women have their place from the beginning of creation as "helpmates" for men. They should obey their husbands, fathers, or other male relatives. God will reward them for this humble submission.

The argument has been used against the poor. In El Salvador, for instance, the Church preached that poor people should accept their fate. It had pleased God for them to be born into poverty and they should submit to that life. They should obey their social betters. They should work hard. Above all, they should not question the fact that some people work hard and have nothing and others don't work at all and are rich. They shouldn't demand better wages. They shouldn't demand land of their own. They shouldn't demand decent health care. They shouldn't demand at all. They should be like Christ and humble themselves in the hope that they would be rewarded in the next life.

When priests in El Salvador taught people that God wanted justice for them in this life, well, it's not too hard to see why rich people became nervous. It's not too hard to see why powerful people in El Salvador organized the killing squads to kill those priests and the rebellious people with their impudent demands. It's not too hard to see why powerful people in the United States on both sides of the political aisle were willing to send hundreds of millions of dollars to El Salvador to pay for killing those priests and the rebellious people with their impudent demands. It's not hard to see why, when the archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Arnulfo Romero, went to Rome to plead with Pope John Paul II, the Pope refused to listen to him: Romero should encourage his people to be humble and submissive, rather than rebellious and demanding. They should be like Christ and humble themselves in the hope that they would be rewarded in the next life. That's how this hymn has been used. Or I should say, That's how this hymn has been abused.

There is a clue left in the hymn that should alert us. Paul was not talking about private morality here. The hymn is what I will call a theo-political hymn. That is, it is theology with a political connection. Or, it is politics seen through a theological lens. It's the last line that gives it away: "Jesus Christ is Lord!" We are so used to reading the phrase, the Lord Jesus Christ, that we no longer notice how politically charged it is. There was only one person in the ancient world about whom people said that they were Lord. That was Caesar. "Caesar is Lord!" was what loyal citizens said. "Caesar is Lord!" was the pledge of allegiance, the loyalty oath, that allowed people to do business in the empire, to pass without challenge as obedient subjects of Roman power.

To say, "Jesus Christ is Lord!" instead was treason, a declaration that Caesar's power and authority were not supreme. The presence of this phrase at the end of the hymn set out Jesus and Caesar as figures to be compared with each other.

We know how Caesar used his power. He announced his power, asserted his power, showed his power, used his power. And all this for the purpose of increasing his power. Caesar's mandate from the gods was to exercise his power and, as long as he gave proper honors to the gods, they were fine with how he used it. And, when it came to proper honors, Caesar demanded and received divine honors. It was his right to be given worship "as to a god."

This is a pattern we understand. It's all around us. We are expected to look out for ourselves. Our culture honors those who use their power to make money and their money to gather power. They don't even have to pretend to be doing something else. And we don't even require that they follow the rules, at least not if they are rich enough. If you are rich enough, then you can work the bankruptcy laws to your advantage. If you are rich enough, you can wiggle around tax laws. If you are rich enough and break enough rules people will admire you as someone who, instead of being taken advantage of, takes advantage of others.

Most of us aren't all that rich. But that doesn't mean we aren't privileged. Now that is a word that is misunderstood. But it's a pretty simple idea, really. We can think of privilege in the context of a race. If life is a race then privilege means that others wear ankle weights. Privilege comes from our position in society. Being white gives us a little privilege. So does being a man. So does being straight. It's not that these things guarantee success. It's not that straight white men don't work hard. It's just that others are running the same course with a little extra weight and it makes a difference.

Privilege isn't something we can do anything about, one way or the other. I didn't make myself white and I can't make myself un-white. I can't even step out of privilege, even for a moment. I might be able to refuse a result of privilege. But my ability to refuse is itself the result of privilege; I have a choice where others do not because I have privilege.

But there are things that I can do to call the whole privilege system into question. I can name it, for one thing. Like I'm doing now. I can keep my mouth shut and let others speak, others who are overlooked because of my privilege. (Well, I can try, anyway. It certainly isn't easy.) I can give myself to the struggles that others are engaged in to make justice a reality and let them tell me what to do. As a straight man I can ask the LGBT community what they want me to do. As a white man I can ask people of color how I might contribute to their efforts without trying to school them about what they should be doing.

In other words I can cultivate humility in the face of the struggles and wisdom of others.

Clearly this matter of privilege is at the heart of this hymn. What did Jesus do with his privilege? For what did he use it? For whom did he use it? How did he use it?

Well, he sure didn't use it like Caesar. He walked a cross-shaped path. He gave up his status. He provoked the violent response of Caesar's empire and refused to claim any privilege when it put him to death. He did it all for the sake of the vision of God's dream for the folks at the margins of society, for the beggars and the prostitutes, for the day-laborers and the sick, and even for the outcast and the outsider. He acted from love, from his for God and from God’s love for all of us and all of creation.

Notice that in the hymn Jesus isn't humble toward the religious authorities; he isn't humble toward Caesar or Herod or Pontius Pilate; he isn't humble toward the rich. He is humble only toward God. Humility toward God means that he did set God's dream above his own wants and needs. But God's dream is a nightmare to the rich who cling to their wealth, the powerful who hoard their power, and the comfortable who bask in their privilege.

If we sing this hymn often enough in church, we won't be able to hear it as an insistence that we respect things as they are and just go along with them. Sing this hymn often enough and we will begin to follow Jesus in calling out the injustice and inhumanity in things as they are. The more we sing it the less respect we will have for the way that Caesar used his power. And for the way that Caesar uses it today. The more we sing it, the less likely it is that we will be submissive and humble toward the so-called authorities and powers of our day.

The wrong people have been using this hymn. The rich and powerful and privileged have been using it to keep the poor and weak and disadvantage in their supposed place. But that is an abuse of the hymn. The hymn is asking the rich, "What are doing with your wealth to do justice for the poor?" The hymn is asking the powerful, "What are you doing with your power to make sure that the weak come into their own power?" The hymn is asking the privileged, "How are you using your privilege to take down systems of privilege?"

These are hard questions, not because the answers are difficult, but because it's hard to bring ourselves to ask them. Once the questions have been asked, the answers are pretty obvious. And even though the grownups in the congregation haven't finished asking or answering these questions, I still dare to pose them to young people.

All of our Confirmation sessions have turned on the question of what it means to be follower of Jesus. We have compared that to being a member of an athletic team in terms of gaining knowledge and skills, growing in commitment to the team, and giving it our full devotion. We've looked at a few followers of Jesus from the past. The young woman Perpetua gave up her life rather than deny being a Jesus-follower. Benedict and his sister Scholastica longed for a deeper and more committed path as Jesus-followers. Francis and Claire gave up comfortable lives as part of the emerging middle class in order to depend directly on God's mercy for everything they needed. John Wesley exchanged the easy-going life of an Oxford tutor for the exertions of constant travel in difficult conditions so that he could share God's dream with the poor and laboring classes of early industrial England.

And now it's your turn. I don't expect you to commit today to doing what they did. You've a way to go before you will be ready for that. But make no mistake: you are a relatively privileged group of young folks. You don't live in a country or neighborhood where you have to worry about getting shot while getting to school and back home. You won't go to bed tonight knowing that there is no food for tomorrow. You aren't going to be arrested and maybe put in danger for the crime of walking while black. You aren't at threat of being deported because you parents decided to bring you here when you were two. If you get hurt, you will have good medical care available. When you travel abroad, you will do it on an American passport. All of these things about your lives are privileges.

So my question, and the hymn's question, and--I think--God's question is this: "What are you going to do with your privilege?" Will you use it to make a comfortable and secure life for yourself? Or will you spend it for the sake of God's dream of justice and peace?

God will love you either way, you know. So this isn't like a test about whether God accepts you or not. It's a different question, this question: How much you are willing to let God's dream become your dream?

That's the question we are all living with. We are glad that you have decided to live that question with us. We are glad to have you as companions on our journey. We are glad to have you as our partners in living toward God's dream.

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