A Father's Gifts

Typically, I despise any time someone says anything like, “you’ll never understand because you’re XXX” or “when you’re XXX then you’ll understand.” It annoys me because it implies some sort of deficiency in me or some gifting of the speaker. However, I have found that I am absolutely in love with my daughters. I’m not sure I understood that or was able to fathom that before I had children. I love them and I love giving them gifts. The depths of that love (even when they’re being crabby) astounds me and reminds me of the incredibly visceral truth Jesus proclaims when He says, “If you, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Something within resounds now that I have children because I LOVE to give them gifts. Maybe other people who are less selfish than I have understood this without having children but I never knew that kind of love until my first daughter was born. This profound realization also leads me to the truth about the Father. He loves His children more than I love mine. He loves to give them gifts more than I love to give gifts to mine. If I can love my daughters this much, how much more can He love me? Though I am a flawed, selfish, and erring sinner, I am also a child of God, adopted into His family, chosen by His good pleasure and not because of my inherent worth. I wrestle in prayer. I struggle to believe. Jesus’ words tell me though that the Lord loves to give me gifts. He’s not a begrudging audience to my mumbled prayers; He’s longing to give me what I need. I only need to receive the grace offered and ask.

Philippians 2:5-11

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

                                        Philippians 2:5-11

In addressing one of the letter's primary themes, namely, that the church should be united, Paul turns now toward providing an example or a template for believers to follow. This directly follows his exhortations toward unselfishness and the communal good in v3,4.  "Do nothing from selfishness," he calls, and, "do not merely look out for your own personal interests." Here, Paul now turns to the 'why' of such behaviors. 

Before examining the example given through Christ, we must first address why we even need an example at all and, more specifically, why Paul urges us to 'have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.' Due to our a) sin and b) limitations of human wisdom, our human efforts to love others will either be rooted in selfishness (though it will be cleverly hidden) or will fail when pressed upon. Paul alludes to this when he writes to the Colossians, "We give thanks ... since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love of which you have for all the saints; because of the hope laid up for you in heaven." The Colossians were able to love because of that eternal hope of heaven. Mere earthly hope, wisdom, and even good intentions are not enough to shield us from the strains of selfishness that creep in upon our efforts. In an of ourselves we do not have the resolve or the godliness to love others truly. Only in Christ is that well of compassion found. 

Paul turns now to the prescription to our condition. He informs us how we are to have the kind of unity that he is imploring us to have. His prescription is Christ. As in all things, the answer dwells in the person of Jesus Christ. Specifically, as we attempt to foster the unity among believers, the image and example of Christ provides an explicitly vivid template. The more we know Christ; the more we see and understand who Jesus is, the more we will naturally begin to exemplify His nature. 

An interesting contrast can be made between this description here in the letter to the Philippian church and Paul's description in Colossians (most likely written around the same time as Philippians) which emphasizes Christ's divinity and takes a decidedly more cosmological tone. In the letter to the Colossians, Jesus is shown to be a) the image of the invisible God b) the firstborn of all creation c) integral in the creation of all things and d) necessary for salvation. Whereas here in Philippians, Paul puts on display Christ's condescension. Here, Jesus sheds such divine attributes (temporarily), willingly subjecting Himself to human limitation, frailty, and ultimately the humiliation of death upon a cross. 

By viewing Christ through both of these lenses, we can see just what that obedience cost Him and how paltry our own sacrifices (or lack thereof) are compared to our Lord. This gulf between the fully realized Son as part of the godhead and the beaten and bloodied servant being led to Calvary should inspire us to subject every area of our own lives in obedience to the Lord and to one another.

There are a few observations we can make here in Paul's description of Christ. 

Christ was in very nature God

As we look at these specific verses in Philippians we can face some rather confusing terminology. The confusion comes from three similar words used throughout this passage. 

In verse 6, "[Jesus] existed in the form of God

In verse 7, "being made in the likeness of men"

In verse 8, "being found in appearance as a man"

By isolating any one of these phrases, we can easily be led into a number of heresies ranging from Arianism (Jesus was subordinate to the Father) to Docetism (Jesus only seemed to be human). The corresponding Greek words actually do little to clarify Paul's intent.

For verse 6, "form" is the word, morphe, which is defined as, "form, shape, or outward appearance."

For verse 7, "likeness" is the word, homoioma, which is defined as, "a likeness, form, similitude."

For verse 8, "appearance" is the word, schema, which is defined as, "fashion, habit, form, or appearance."

If the intent of Paul's Greek usage here was to push a particular Christological platform, it actually appears a bit muddled. Morphe in verse 6 might lead one towards Docetism while the usage of homoioma and schema in verses 7 and 8 would seem to lean towards Arianism. Surely, Paul was not intentionally contradicting himself in subsequent sentences. In my opinion, the best way to understand this passage is twofold: first, by assuming that Paul simply used different synonyms to describe similar ideas and second, by remembering that we must read Scripture as a complete unit rather than isolating particular verses that seem to support one particular cause or theological bent. By looking at the thrust of Paul's discussion here and by viewing other corresponding verses in Scripture we see that Jesus Christ was God with all of the attributes and honor therein (as somewhat described in Colossians). 

Christ made Himself nothing

Even though Jesus Christ was, "all the fullness of deity [dwelling] in bodily form" (Col 2:9) and existed in the form of God, He was not content to wield that power while on this earth. Paul uses a stream of phrases to express the way that Christ condescended to humanity:

-      He emptied Himself

-      took the form of a servant

-      was in the likeness of man

Christ first emptied Himself of the rights and powers available to Him in the Godhead. He chose to relinquish those rights for the sake of the Father's will. He knew, within the framework of the Father's sovereign will, that a righteous sacrifice was required--- an acceptable offering was needed. As it was the Father's desire to demonstrate His grace by bringing the unworthy and the unrighteous into the fold of God; He desired to adopt those who were not His children to be His children, Jesus obeyed. To this end, Christ, the Son, subjugated Himself in three specific ways:

-     Jesus Christ became human. Jesus, who had existed eternally before the creation of the world, physically became a human being. He was born. He ate. He slept. He felt pain. He wept. He suffered all the indignities of the mortal life. Since only a perfect offering could fulfill the justice of the Lord (and the Mosaic law), Jesus chose to become the righteous sacrifice.

-     Jesus Christ became a servant. Not only did Christ condescend to humanity by becoming one with mankind, He also became a servant to other men. He came down among lowly men and set about to serve them. Far from the expected Messiah who would come with pomp and circumstance and the rod of justice, Christ came to serve, and not just to serve the 'righteous' and the noble, but to serve the lowly and sinners. This image is most vividly demonstrated when He washed the feet of His disciples. He touched the untouchable. He associated with those who respectable men did not associate with. He taught the masses.

-     Beyond even these powerful abdications, Christ became obedient to the point of death. The key word here is obedience. It is the heart of Jesus' engagement with humanity. Jesus, who was so far above mankind, became a man. He did not however settle into a place of power or a seat of authority. As a man, He came to serve the lowly, to put Himself beneath those who were, by rights, so far beneath Him. This though, was not enough. Jesus, who was righteous, wholly perfect, came under unjust condemnation of imperfect men. The greatest injustice in the whole of history fell upon the holy Son. Not only did He receive condemnation but He suffered and was killed. At the core of every human is the seed of self-preservation even at the neurological level. We are wired to avoid pain and yet Jesus, now living in fully human flesh of a man, willingly subjugates Himself to an ignoble death at the hands of ignoble men for unjust rationale. He felt pain He didn't deserve to feel. Why? Because He was obedient to His Father's will. He put His Father's will above His own comfort, when few of us are willing even to sacrifice any measure of comfort.

Application

All of this paints a wondrous and impressive portrait of Christ, and that is Paul's point. He has been exhorting his readers to willingly give up their own claims on self for the claims of others and for the ultimate aim of unity within the church. The example of Christ shows us the very attitude we must maintain as we seek to be united. Four applications spring to mind.

1.     First, and most importantly, the example of Jesus' obedience should drive us to worship when we consider the place from which Jesus descended--- a place of power and authority, and what He stepped down into--- mockery, subjugation, and death. The gulf between the two and the price of Jesus' obedience makes us pause to consider how we ought to respond. Even the coldest, most cynical heart is driven to its knees by the marvelous and powerful obedience demonstrated by Jesus. Many of us attend a service on Sunday morning. Many of us sing songs during those services but how many truly worship? We often participate corporately for emotional reasons or for experiencing unity (not that those are bad reasons outright) but fail to truly worship, to pour out our adoration on our Lord. The remedy for this absence is manifested in the person of Jesus. As we realized the scope of Jesus' obedience, the door is opened to wonder which in turn moves our hears to awe.

2.     The second application is the notion that obedience is better than forced compliance. Though some debate the peccability or impeccability of of Christ (whether Jesus could have sinned if He had wanted to) the fact remains that Jesus was obedient. He chose to obey. Paul chooses to use the word hupekoos, which communicates to the reader the ideas of listening to, obedient, and submissive. It is better that Jesus chose to be obedient to the Father's will rather than simply following the script. It is better that we are allowed to choose whether to obey than operating as automatons. There are days, as we wrestle with sin, doubt, and uncertainty, when we (if we're honest) would prefer to be programmed to obey. However, just as information is most effectively internalized through experience, trust is best (if not solely) expressed through obedience. Faith is demonstrated through struggle and struggle cannot exist without choice. Even though we often fail and waver, the meager faith we posses cannot occur without the choice to obey. 

3.     Naturally flowing from this is the application that this life is a continual series of opportunities for obedience. Every decision we make is a choice to obey the Lord, either in action or intent. Whether we acknowledge it or not we are consciously or unconsciously making decisions all the time about what and how we will live our lives. In every conversation, for example, we are given the choice to a) speak intentionally to honor God b) speak intentionally to dishonor God, or c) to abdicate the responsibility. [By the way, we most often choose A or C, with C being tantamount to choosing B]. Understanding that every moment is an opportunity to pivot toward Christ or away from Him forces us to do two things. We must a) be aware of the choices and b) actually make a choice. As difficult as it often is to choose to make those pivots toward Christ and Christ-likeness, it requires almost more courage, practice, and prayer to be cognizant of those decisions before wemake them. We need to be praying, as consistently as we are able, that the Holy Spirit would make us aware of those moments.

4.     The final application is the consummation of all of this: we must submit the way Jesus did. This is intimidating. It should be intimidating. Jesus condescended to us. He stepped down to earth. He got His holy feet covered with dust. He did it all to be obedient to the Father's will. he was willing to endure things beyond our scope of comprehension. Paul highlights this to inspire us to do the same for the sake of others. It hurts to submit our desires to the Lord. It is a struggle to submit our lives and our choices. The process is both supernatural in that our submission is facilitated by the Holy Spirit working to fill the deficiencies in our spirits but it is also a gradual strengthening of our faith muscle. We need to be in constant prayer that the Spirit would provide us the strength to submit our lives. We must also be forcing ourselves into positions and situations where we feel incapable. Only that kind of radical dependency will build our faith. Exercise hurts. All submission is difficult. Submitting our very wills bucks against the core of our human, sinful desires.

It will hurt,

but it is what is required of us and what we see demonstrated in the life of Jesus.

His submission hurt. 

XI.

The breeze,

that aborted vernal illusion,

brought tonight

the cries of gulls

---the distant cacophany.

Far off,their jawing, swept along by

some wayward, sojourning draught,

seemed born of some rocky,

foreign shore,

cold and barren,

invites not a visit

but an emigration.

Boredom, Stillness, and Solitude

The sky was clearer than it had been in months. No cloud disrupted the sea of blue stretching out to the horizon. Tufts of snow still clung to the ground from a recent storm but the day was warming quickly and they would soon be gone. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity it was warm enough that I could take off my hat and gloves without incurring the wrath of winter’s pervasive chill.

I sat on my favorite rock, a moderately large boulder that is positioned nearly at the half-way point of my normal hike. It overlooked an old field that was rapidly being reforested. My family was occupied until noon so I had ventured out for a morning walk on the trail. As far as I could have dreamed it, this was an extravagant morning.

Yet

Yet, I felt the irrepressible urge to go home. Now, there was nothing pressing at home I needed to attend to. As I said, my family was out and would not return for a few hours. The cleaning could wait. I didn’t really have the urge to watch TV or play any games. In spite of all this, I still wanted to leave. Mind you, the place I was sitting was the exact place that I often dreamed of being. In the flurry of activity at work, this is where my mind wandered. There were few places that I idolized more. So why was I still longing to be doing something else?

This was not an isolated incident, far from it. I have found that my mind abhors a vacuum. Perhaps I am a product of my era but boredom is a word that creeps insidiously into my mind unnoticed. Even the things I desire most hold my attention for remarkably little time before the prospect of some new engagement is born. These traits are often associated with a particular generation or a particular stage of life but I believe that they are, in greater or lesser degrees, universal within the human condition. Surely advances in technology have exacerbated this trait but I believe it has always been there.  Blaise Pascal once wrote that “all men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.” There are truths realized in solitude that we are often wont to flee from. So, to avoid such discomfort we flee to entertainments. It is not that these entertainments (books, television, physical activity, conversation) are negative but their use as a tranquilizer needs to be examined.

Be still, the Lord tells us.

Be still, and know that I am God.

We want to know the Lord but we buck at stillness. Stillness means inaction. Inaction means unproductive time. Even when we aren’t ‘producing’ anything we still crave to be productive, to be doing something. We flit from activity to activity, from thought to thought like the expeditious hummingbird whose physiology prevents it from idleness. Speaking for myself only, my mind is a hummingbird. It flits about seemingly unbidden, constantly in motion. Speed seems to be an attribute that haunts us. In conversation, we are thinking of the next thing we want to say. Even when we are not speaking, the speed at which our brains operate often cause us to make rushed or unexamined decisions. This in turn, creates anxiety. I find that I read too fast, not truly comprehending that depth of what I have just read. Similarly, I write too fast, often sacrificing wisdom for immediacy. Netflix and other streaming services have recognized and addressed this desire for immediacy and have begun straightaway playing the next episode once the previous has ended. Mind you, I’m not condemning these technologies as they are merely meeting the desires we already have.  To our detriment, we seem unable or unwilling to slow ourselves. Breakneck speed is our default setting.

In my own life I have tried several methods for stilling my mind. Depending on one’s circumstances however, different methods might be expedient. On a time management side, I schedule time to be outdoors in creation. This mitigates the amount of stimuli I am exposed to. In the course of work or while reading, I try to remember to take deliberate slow, deep breaths and often practice the Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”) or use other verses that I have memorized. In this I try to imagine myself moving as if in slow motion, truly experiencing the events, objects, and people around me. Too often, as we fly about, we fail to notice (or remember) that the Lord is with His children wherever they go. The Holy Spirit speaks and leads us throughout the day. In our perpetually rushed state, we often miss this voice which seems to prefer the whisper to the whirlwind. By stilling ourselves and engaging with the Lord in prayer (by this I mean conscious awareness, not necessarily speaking words) we allow ourselves the opportunity to notice what the Lord is doing, to see the image of God in those with whom we are engaged, and perceive the course He desires that we take.

At the root of this all is solitude. We are not inclined to solitude. For the most part we are afraid of it. So we fill our experience with people, entertainments, and even thoughts that shield us from facing it. “Solitude is one of the deepest disciplines of the spiritual life,” writes Richard Foster, “because it crucifies our need for importance and prominence. Everyone--- including ourselves at first--- will see our solitude as a waste of a good time.” It is difficult but many difficult things are just the things that we need the most (I find this true most of the time in my life). Henri Nouwen, speaking of the benefits of solitude writes, “Once we have committed ourselves to spending time in solitude, we develop attentiveness to God’s voice in us.”

Unless we cultivate the disciplines of stillness and solitude, even our greatest desires will fail to fulfill us, even the grandest experiences will fail to inspire awe. Unless we develop the muscle of solitude through discipline we will fail to fully experience the ways that the Spirit speaks to us. When we allow ourselves (or force ourselves) to slow our activities and thoughts, we can begin to realize that the joy of the believer is knowing and being known by the Lord at all times. Any other aims we have within the spiritual life pale compared to the fullness and joy of knowing the Lord and experiencing His presence. If we seek it, we can experience this at any time, at work, at play, in routine, in chores, even, in pain. If only we could still.

X.

The sound of rain
after a long winter,
a balm in the wake
of protracted pain.
In the darkness,
muted poetry;
in the warming of the earth,
joyful consolation.

IX.

In the heart of suburbia

There dwells an aching void which fails

To be molified by feeble

Attempts to placate. Here the dry

Bed of ancient stream languishes

Overgrown with vegetation.

Wild souls pacified by toys and 

Glitter, such vapid amusements

While bones ache for substance. We are

Citizens without nation; the

Self-imposed exiles of richer

Provinces, condemned to shallow

Lives lived without root. O Lord let

Us explore the loam, dig deeper

To be a people of a place.

Bind us together with sinews

Of memory and time, bonds of

Community and love. May our

Bones resonate with River, street,

Song. May we be a people whose

Blood runs with history rather

Than a history running with

Blood. Satisfy us with richer

Fare than circumspect but hollow

Isolation masking itself

As independence. Write our names

Upon the roads. Stamp legacies

In the bricks. Cause our gardens

To flourish with yeilds hundredfold.

VIII.

I did not know what to say

So I walked down to the lake.

I did not know what to think

So my feet found familiar paths.

The stones they smiled and met me there

And invited me in.

I know,

That as these hours pass

These pleasures cannot last

That dusk will soon be here

To claim this day's spoils.

So I'm left

With tragic insufficiency

Longing for Eden.

With the dream-lights pale,

Flickering above the face of the waters

And the waves beneath rippling

I spied the place a pine had been

Many years before.

Pruned, it had been once

Now ground into oblivion,

dust to paint the soles

And a garden to native things.

From the placid surface rose the moon

Rusty face ebbing.

Her pilfered light displayed for mortal man,

For the erring and the needy.

Spying her dusky domain

Shedding her bulk and color

She ascended into prominence.

I shuffled my feet 

The dry leaves rang impossibly loud

Til my presence seemed incongruous.

Then I surrendered

Becoming less

While aching for more

Until into the shadows I receded.