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<\/a><\/p>\nNames.\u00a0 For the most part in our culture, we think about them in ways that are foreign to the biblical world.\u00a0 Sound, associations, family traditions, and social trends often figure into the choice of our children\u2019s names in a way that people in the ancient world would have considered strange.<\/p>\n
When I was an undergraduate I had a friend whose Father was named after a millionaire.\u00a0 An old bachelor, the millionaire told my friend\u2019s grandfather that if he named his son using his name that he would remember him in his will.\u00a0 So, my friend\u2019s father ended up being named, John Charles Breckinridge Marquette.\u00a0 Over the years my friend\u2019s father discovered that there were real liabilities to a name that long.\u00a0 The Selective Service cut off one part of his name when they issued his draft card.\u00a0 The Social Security Administration cut another part of it off, trying to keep track of his Social Security payments.<\/p>\n
But he and his wife hit on a strange strategy for avoiding this problem.\u00a0 They decided use use his nickname and her first name.\u00a0 So, at his birth, my friend was named Brack Evaughn Marquette.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve ever been to school or you have heard Johnny Cash\u2019s song, \u201cA Boy Named Sue\u201d, you understand the difficulties this posed.\u00a0 Which is why, when he reached the legal age to change his name, my friend went to the courthouse and named himself John Charles Breckinridge Marquette II.<\/p>\n
By contrast, in the biblical world, names were often chosen with a specific characteristic, mission, or life\u2019s purpose in mind.\u00a0 And in many cases they were given in the context of a blessing, suggesting the intimate connection between the name of a person and God\u2019s will for them.<\/p>\n
The name of God, however, Is of a completely different nature.\u00a0 It not only describes God\u2019s singular, utterly transcendent nature (\u201cI am who I am\u201d), but it also requires special reverence.\u00a0 So, in the Old Testament, the word for God that we pronounce, \u201cYahweh\u201d, is not even \u201cspelled out\u201d in the Hebrew or said out loud in worship.<\/p>\n
What is striking about the passage in Paul\u2019s letter to the Philippians is that \u2013 even as he urges reverence for the name of Jesus, he also urges the congregation to share the mind of Christ \u2013 his way of thinking and being.\u00a0 So, while Paul foresees a day and time \u201cwhen every knee will bend\u201d and \u201cevery tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord\u201d, he is also asking those who follow Jesus to live in accordance with his way of thinking and being.\u00a0 So, it turns out, reverence has implications for the way in which we live as Christians.<\/p>\n
In between the call to action at the beginning passage and Paul\u2019s description of the day in which the name of Jesus will be given its due weight, Paul describes what kind of thinking shaped the life of Jesus and should shape ours.\u00a0 And \u2013 at the risk of oversimplifying \u2013 a two-word summary of that thinking is a life \u201cpoured out\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,<\/p>\n who, though he was in the form of God, but poured himself out, I realize that many translations of the passage say that that Jesus \u201cemptied himself\u201d but I think that translation both misrepresents the Greek and the point that Paul is making.\u00a0 Jesus did not become \u201cless divine\u201d or \u201cnot-God\u201d.\u00a0 He \u201cpoured out\u201d his life, expended himself, used himself up, in embracing us and our lives.<\/p>\n It is this \u201cpouring out\u201d on behalf of others that Paul tells the Philippians is the Christian\u2019s calling.\u00a0 And it remains the Christian\u2019s calling.\u00a0 But what is that life all about?<\/p>\n One, selfishness and self-serving behavior are not an option.\u00a0 Or, to put it more positively, the Christian life is a life poured out for the well-being of others.<\/em><\/p>\n There was a time when I thought his was the kind of thing that only \u201cCaptain Obvious\u201d would have to say.\u00a0 But in today\u2019s world of boundaries and self-care, it is not so obvious any longer.\u00a0 And the curated lives that you see on Tic-Toc and Instagram are the ultimate expression of the self-serving life.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t misunderstand, I am not saying that a certain measure of self-care doesn\u2019t have its place.\u00a0 But it does mean \u2013 and I think that what Paul is saying \u2013 is that we are here \u2013 we are alive \u2013 for the sake of others. \u00a0And it is that value, not our boundaries that should take center-stage in the Christian life.<\/p>\n Practically speaking, this is a way of living that presents opportunities for us every day and everywhere we go.\u00a0 It requires attentiveness and it requires effort.\u00a0 But it doesn\u2019t necessarily require big projects and it doesn\u2019t require getting others to work on a common project.\u00a0 Those are great and \u2013 standing here \u2013 I can think of extraordinary organizations and ministries that we are engaged in as a church that do great good.<\/p>\n But \u2013 talking to the individual Christians at Philippi \u2013 I am also certain that Paul had in mind the Christ-bearing that we can all do on a daily basis.\u00a0 Serving our families, friends, communities, and even the strangers we encounter on a daily basis.\u00a0 We cannot underestimate the impact that \u201crandom acts of kindness\u201d \u2013 as they have been called \u2013 can have on others.<\/p>\n A second observation, I would make, is that we can and should acknowledge that in serving others, we are dependent upon the mind of Christ and his example.<\/em><\/p>\n Far too many Christians are afraid of lapsing into a quid pro quo<\/em> approach to the Christian life: \u201cI\u2019ll care for you, if you will get baptized.\u201d\u00a0 As a result, I\u2019ve met no small number of people who refuse to talk about the significance of their faith for the way in which they live.\u00a0 Wrongly, I think, they have concluded that selfless love has no face or character.<\/p>\n But it is possible to be loving and \u2013 loving in the name Christ<\/em> \u2013 without expecting anything in return.\u00a0 And \u2013 in fact \u2013 the logic of the Gospel is that it is only in Christ<\/em> that we truly understand what it means to pour out our lives.\u00a0 It\u2019s no surprise for that reason, that there is a direct correlation between a lively relationship with Christ and a willingness to give to others.\u00a0 \u201cReligious people<\/a> are 25 percentage points more likely than secularists to donate money (91 percent to 66 percent)\u00a0and 23 points more likely to volunteer time (67 percent to 44 percent).\u201d<\/p>\n That said, however, Paul clearly believes that the \u201cpouring out\u201d to which we are called is a witness to the love of Christ and has an \u201cattractive\u201d nature, that should be made explicit.\u00a0 When you think about it, there is something strangely self-aggrandizing about serving others without telling them \u2013 or allowing them to see \u2013 why we serve others.<\/p>\n Growing up, I used to hear people say that the Christian faith was about \u201cOne beggar, telling another beggar where to find bread.\u201d\u00a0 Do we really want to live a life that effectively says, \u201cI\u2019ve got bread, I will give you bread, but I\u2019m not going to tell you where I found it\u201d?\u00a0 That might make us look good.\u00a0 But it doesn\u2019t do the world much good.<\/p>\n The third observation that I would make is that the poured out life is not about idiot compassion.<\/a><\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n That last phrase is one that I became acquainted with some months ago.\u00a0 The phrase does not mean that people who are compassionate are idiots.\u00a0 But it does mean that some forms of service and compassion are idiotic, meaning \u201cfoolish\u201d or unlikely to achieve a desired goal.<\/p>\n There is, in fact, a lot of idiot compassion out there: poverty programs that don\u2019t facilitate the escape from poverty; drug programs that promote addiction.\u00a0 We have all known cases of idiot compassion on a smaller scale, as well.\u00a0 Homes where one spouse makes excuses for an alcoholic husband or wife.\u00a0 Parents who make it far too easy for adult children to remain children.\u00a0 Friends who help their friends live in constant dependence on their generosity.\u00a0 All of these practices and others may assuage our discomfort with the struggle of others and make us feel good about ourselves but they are \u201cidiotic\u201d in that they don\u2019t actually accomplish the goals that we have in mind.<\/p>\n The goal of a poured life is a life that is poured out in a way that draws others to Christ and allows them to make their own journey into God in Christ. \u00a0This doesn\u2019t mean that it is always \u201cspiritual\u201d care that we offer one another.\u00a0 It can take the form of meals, transportation, physical assistance, and any number of other forms of service.\u00a0 But ultimately that care has to be measured against the way in which it enhances the possibility of another person\u2019s spiritual journey, and that requires a sense of connection, community, and purpose \u2013 all of which are part and parcel of being made in the image of God.<\/p>\n And \u2013 fourth \u2013 this also means that the poured out life not the life of a door mat, without strength or character.\u00a0 <\/em>Or to put it another way, the Christian life is poured out from a place of spiritual strength.<\/p>\n What is interesting about the ministry of Jesus is that he does not simply do what other people want him to do.\u00a0 He offers forgiveness of sins to people who think that their only need is physical healing.\u00a0 He offers the rich young ruler a way forward in his spiritual journey but when the rich ruler goes away, Jesus does not run after him.\u00a0 The religious leadership and even some of his disciples would prefer he was a different kind of Messiah, bringing a different kind of Kingdom.\u00a0 But Jesus remains clear about his calling and firm about the true nature of the Kingdom.<\/p>\n This \u2013 and not world of self-care or boundaries \u2013 lies at the center of the poured out life.\u00a0 Jesus finds time for prayer and rest.\u00a0 He lives out of that peaceful center which is not about the absence of chaos but of a grounding in the Father\u2019s will.<\/p>\n And because he lives there, he is not driven by insecurity, ambition, or the demands of others.\u00a0 This is why, as many people as he touches, the story of the Gospels leaves us in no doubt about his goal.\u00a0 His ministry is not one long list of demands made on his time and attention.\u00a0 He isn\u2019t captive to the visions of others or the roles that they project on him.\u00a0 He is building the bridge between the brokenness of our lives and the fullness of a Kingdom in which the image of God is restored in each of us.\u00a0 And that understanding of himself both grounds him and is the one, necessary thing against which he measures the way in which he pours out his life.<\/p>\n May we find that center in our own lives and pour out our lives in service to others.<\/p>\n Photo by Geetanjal Khanna<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Names.\u00a0 For the most part in our culture, we think about them in ways that are foreign to the biblical world.\u00a0 Sound, associations, family traditions, and social trends often figure into the choice of our children\u2019s names in a way that people in the ancient world would have considered strange. When I was an undergraduate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":240,"featured_media":5970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4722,4713,4719,4716],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boundaries","category-kenosis","category-life-poured-out","category-philippians-25-8"],"yoast_head":"\n
\ndid not regard equality with God
\nas something to be exploited,<\/p>\n
\ntaking the form of a slave,
\nbeing born in human likeness.\u00a0 (Philippians 2:5-8)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n