Work It!

Week 2 of my 4 week sermon series on Philippians. This week: Phil. 2:1-13.

Our index fingers: we use them to do a lot of things. We turn the pages in the magazine with them. We open up cans of pop with them. We scratch our head with them. In conjunction with our thumb, we pick things up with it. We use an index finger to put in our contacts. We use an index finger to tickle our grandchildren. We press buttons with it. We use it to point out the ring under the counter that we want a closer look at. In our house, we use it to point out which piece of cake we want – that one, the big one! Maybe that’s why the index finger is often also called the “pointer finger.”

Yep, it’s our finger for pointing. We use it to point out the funny clothes other people wear. We use it to point at people as we order them around. We point the finger, both literally and figuratively, to assign blame. It’s very useful for that.
“That’s him, that’s the guy that cut in line!”
“Who threw that?” “She did!”
“You lied to me!”
“It’s his fault we lost that client!”
“She broke it!”
“The offensive line stunk! It’s their fault we lost!”

Yes, what fun it is to point the blame. It’s a time-honored tradition, almost as time-honored as pointing the finger at ourselves in smug praise.
“Yeah, I got an A.”
“Anything you can do I can do better.”
“I’m not the one who screwed up that sale.”
“It’s a good thing I was there to bail us out with that game-winning touchdown catch!”

Now, Paul tells us to look not to our own interests, but to the interests of others. But I’m pretty sure all this accusatory finger pointing and self-congratulating was not what Paul meant. In fact, he tells us to do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than ourselves. Paul wants us to reverse the trend – to use our pointer fingers in the opposite way we’re used to. Instead of pointing at others for blame and ourselves for praise, Paul wants us to direct positive attention, not negative attention, outward.

As some of you know, I watch a lot of football. So I’ve seen players react in every way imaginable when they score a touchdown. Touchdowns are moments when a lot of positive attention is on the player, and end zone celebrations always serve to direct that positive attention to one of three things. The first way they may celebrate is by directing that attention at themselves – think Terrell Owens or Chad “Ocho Cinco” Johnson. These players revel in their own glory, in their moment of greatness. Sometimes they even literally thump their chests, pointing all the accolade, all the attention, at yours truly.

The second way to celebrate is to point at those who got you there. Wide receivers point at their quarterback as a thank you – an acknowledgment that it was a great throw that allowed them to score. Running backs often give a little thank you tap on the helmets of their lineman – thanks for paving the way, guys.

And then there’s a third way to celebrate. Many players take the attention given to them and direct it upwards, towards God. Many people criticize this gesture, thinking the players are merely pretending to be religious, or that it’s silly to think that divine intervention helped them score. But I like to think that at least some of these players are trying to tell everyone that it is God, not some flashy football player, that should get all our praise. To God be the glory, they seem to be singing as they lift their pointer finger heavenward.

Well, I don’t have to tell you which of these celebrations are pleasing to God, and which aren’t. But these gestures of praise are merely exaggerations of how we live each moment, for when we really stop and think about it, a lot of life is about finger pointing. Where are we directing our attention, and is it positive or negative attention? What are we focused on? The focus of attention drives most human interaction.

So far, I have not found an instance where Jesus pointed the finger at himself for praise. Maybe I missed the day in Sunday School when they told us the story of Jesus telling everyone how awesome he was. Even in the times that Jesus does reveal his true identity as the Son of God, we find that he reveals it by focusing the attention on who sent him. Jesus deflects all praise, all attention, all worship of himself as Lord and Savior, and points heavenward to God the Father.

This is the example of humility that Christ lays out for us. He empties himself in humble service to others, focusing attention outward and upward instead of inward. And this is the example we are to use if we are, as Paul says, to “work out our own salvation.”

One of John Wesley’s most famous sermons, titled “On Working Out Our Own Salvation,” is on this passage of Philippians. And one of Wesley’s major points centers on Paul’s phrase, “For it is God at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.” Wesley says that many people misinterpret this text, asking, “If it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do, what need is there of our working?” If God works in us, then can’t we just sit back and relax and let God take control? Can’t we just let God be our puppet master?

Friends, God as puppet master pulling all our strings while we do nothing is, to put it bluntly, not Wesleyan theology. It's also lazy theology -- lazy in the sense that it gives us no motivation to live or do anything. John Wesley tells us that “first, God works, therefore you can work. Secondly, God works, therefore you must work.”

Yes, God is at work in us, therefore we can work. God works in us by offering us salvation by grace and grace alone. We are saved by the grace of God which comes to us through God’s son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And that grace that has been given to us by God’s work frees us to share grace with others. It frees us to be God’s servants in a world so desperately in need of grace.

Secondly, God is at work in us, therefore we must work. What this means is that all who accept the salvation given to us by the grace of God will necessarily allow God to work in and through them. It is the mark of a Christian that the grace which is given to them is used for the advancing of the gospel message for the transformation of the world and the coming of the kingdom. Wesley says that “no man sins because he has not grace, but because he does not use the grace which he hath.” Thus, what it means to accept the gift of grace is to show that grace through our actions. When we fail to be gracious and loving in our actions, we are failing to live out the salvation that has been given to us. When we fail to let God work in us, we become road blocks for God’s work in the world. We get in the way of what God wants to accomplish.

The phrase “work out your own salvation” tends to be misinterpreted, because in English it gives the impression that we can be saved through works. But when we look at the original Greek text, we see that the word we translate to “work out” actually means something closer to “finish”, “complete”, or “fulfill.” So we see that Paul’s original message for the Philippians would better read “finish your salvation” or “fulfill your salvation.” God desires that we fulfill or finish the salvation that we have already been given, and the way to fulfill our salvation by grace is to allow God to do God’s work through us. And we fulfill our salvation by the way we use our precious little pointer fingers. We fulfill it by where we direct our attention. We fulfill it with Christ-like humility, pointing out the good in others and the good in God. Christian punk band Relient K has a song called “Maybe it’s Maybelline.” I love the song. It’s a song about pointing the finger and placing blame. I want to read you those lyrics.

Relient K – Maybe It’s Maybelline
People make mistakes
finally everything breaks
and it always is the samegotta find someone to blame
cause these errors that we make
cause we’re all human earthquakes
yeah we made the hurricane
but we’re not the ones to blame
we point the finger even though it’s not polite
we condemn the son of God
we’re hoping two wrongs make a right
maybe it is them, maybe it is me, or maybe it’s maybelline
people make mistakes
we took the apple from the snake
and it always is the same
gotta find someone to blame
our reputations were at stake
but the guilt we could not take
America’s gone down the drain
President’s at fault again
we point the finger even though it's not politewe condemn the son of God
we're hoping two wrongs make a rightmaybe it is them, or maybe it is me, or maybe it's Maybelline
the truth is, excuses are lame
accept consequence
accept the blame
we're all sinners
we're all unclean
maybe we're born with it
or maybe it's Maybelline

Yes, it always is the same – we gotta find someone to blame. We like to build up our egos as people, as Christians, by pointing out the good that we do and the bad that others do. “Look at what our church does”, “Look at my charitable giving”, “Look at how much I help other people.” But this is not how a true servant thinks. A master does not want servants who brag about being servants. And God does not want us to brag about how great of servants we are. God does not want us to brag that we are better than other servants, or better than those who refuse to be servants. God does not want us to take the credit for the work that God does in and through us.

If we’re going to brag, God wants us to brag about God, and to treat others as more worthy than ourselves. We love to point out the shortcomings in others, but how often do we really stop and point the finger at other people for the good they do? How often do we lift up those who are different from us as better than us?

When I was in seminary, I spent time in an urban ministry setting in downtown Atlanta. One of the things I learned through that experience was that I had always looked at homeless people as needy. My attitude was that they had needs, and I, the enlightened, well-off seminarian was called to help them with their needs. I learned that this is really not a good attitude to have. It doesn’t really accomplish anything to consider myself as need-less and others as needy. First of all, to consider myself need-less is to consider myself perfect – I have nothing to gain from others; I have no need of help from others. And that, my friends, is simply untrue. No one is truly need-less.

Second, no one is completely needy. I used to look at the homeless population of Atlanta and forget that they were humans too, humans with something to offer to society. By classifying people as “needy”, we suggest that they have nothing of their own to offer. But everyone has the capacity to offer something. Perhaps these homeless people had nothing to offer financially or materially, but they possessed skills and knowledge that could be put to good use, if only someone gave them the chance to contribute.

I’m afraid we like to think of ourselves as having arrived at some sort of pinnacle of need-lessness, while others in need have reached a point of worthlessness. It’s a subtle yet harsh form of finger pointing, separating the “haves” from the “have-nots”, as if there are people out there who truly “have” nothing to contribute to society. That is simply a false and unloving idea, that there are people with nothing to contribute.

You see, we spend too much time congratulating ourselves that we fail to point the finger at others for anything but blame and judgment. We fail to point our fingers at others as a way of lifting them up, encouraging them, and enabling them to let God work through them. We point the finger in all the bad ways and none of the good.And it is God’s pleasure to do work through us, but we so often ruin it by letting people give credit where it’s not due. We bask in our own glory rather than pointing our finger upward to the one for whom all good actions are done. Not only are we failing in our horizontal finger pointing in our human relationships, but we fail in our vertical finger pointing as well. We forget that every good and perfect gift comes from above. We forget that without God, we would be unable to congratulate ourselves. We forget that it is God who is at work in us, enabling us to will and work for God’s good pleasure. And when we forget all these things, it is then that we become slackers in the completion or fulfillment of our own salvation. It is then that we sin by not using the grace already given us. It’s when we’re pointing the finger in impolite and harmful ways rather than in humble and glorifying ways that we restrict the spread of the gospel message. So let us not slack off, but work out our own salvation, remembering that it is God at work in us. For it pleases God to be able to work through each and every one of you. In the name of God the Creator, Jesus Christ the Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit the Sustainer, every knee will bend and every tongue will confess the glory that we find on this day. Amen.