A life that says Yes

Philippians 2:1-13

1 If, then, there is any comfort in Christ, any consolation from love, any partnership in the Spirit, any tender affection and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

6 who, though he existed in the form of God,    did not regard equality with God    as something to be grasped,

7 but emptied himself,    taking the form of a slave,    assuming human likeness.And being found in appearance as a human,

8  he humbled himself  and became obedient to the point of death—    even death on a cross.

9 Therefore God exalted him even more highly    and gave him the name    that is above every other name,

10 so that at the name given to Jesus    every knee should bend,   in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11 and every tongue should confess    that Jesus Christ is Lord,    to the glory of God the Father.

12 Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence but much more now in my absence, work on your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

(This is the word of the Lord: Thanks be to God)

Matthew 21:23-32

23 When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” 24 Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why, then, did you not believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for all regard John as a prophet.” 27 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

28 “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ 29 He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind and went. 30 The father went to the second and said the same, and he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him, and even after you saw it you did not change your minds and believe him.

When we were getting started as a church, and someone asked what it was all about, I would refer to this little parable Jesus told.  It comes immediately after the chief priests and elders pretend to be seeking answers to serious questions when their real intention is to discredit him.  Jesus responds with his own question which reveals their duplicity; they see the truth but cannot acknowledge it because doing so would undermine their own position.  The religious authorities then and now are often more concerned with power than truth.

Jesus told a little parable about a Father who had two sons, and he asked each of them to go work in the field.  The first one says “No” but then later goes anyway, whereas the first says “Yes” but then doesn’t go.  “Which of the two did the will of his father?” Jesus asked the disciples - and they correctly replied, “The first.”  The religious authorities are like the second son who say yes to God with their lips but then whose actions reveal their actual response to be “No.” 

In my experience Christianity can often be an exercise in giving the right answers, of giving a “Yes” to God even as we don’t bother doing the things God told us to do.  We tell God what we think God wants to hear even as we have no intention of following through.   We profess with our lips even as our hearts are far away.  But what God really wants is for our lives to be “Yes” even if we say “No” with our mouth.  Perhaps it’s over-reading the parable, but the first son does not return to declare that he’s changed his mind; he just goes to work in the field.  He never gives the verbal “Yes” but his actions speak much louder than words.  

I want this to be a community of people who aren’t content to merely pay lip-service to God but who whose lives - and whose life together - embodies an emphatic “Yes”, who don’t want their religion to be a performance of faith, but rather an abiding faithfulness.  

And this little parable suggests that perhaps we can be those people before we’ve given a explicit “Yes” to God.  I think it’s quite possible to have doubts about God -  even to be pretty sure you’re given God your “No” - while you get to work doing the things God has commanded.  We usually assume that faithfulness - going to work in the field - requires a prior “yes” to God, and therefore that the task is getting people to give that “yes”.  But what we really ought to be doing, as I read this parable, is encouraging people toward lives which say “yes” even before their mouth is ready to say the word.  The assumed order of operation is that faith leads to faithfulness, but we might better reverse this: faithfulness leads to faith - in fact, faith is faithfulness.  

The Son, of course, who gave the Father an unequivocal “Yes” is Christ Jesus.  And Christ Jesus is also God’s “yes” to us - not in words only, but an actual life, an incarnation.  It turns out that God himself answers the call to go to work in the field.  This passage from Philippians is among the most important in all of Scripture, an ancient hymn which poetically names the mystery of Christ through which all mysteries are revealed, the capital T truth upon which all others depend, capturing like no other both the character of God and thus what it means to be human. 

The eternal God who created everything out of nothing is ultimately revealed as the one who took on the form of a creature and entered that creation, leaving the confines of heaven and condescending to earth, pouring himself out, even unto death on a cross - and it is precisely for this reason that he is exalted, given the name above all names - it is faithfulness that defeats death, that leads to resurrection, to exaltation.  

But this isn’t just something that God did once, a mere solution to a big problem.  Rather, this life that God lived in the flesh, a life of perfect obedience to the will of the Father, a life that bore the fruit of salvation, reveals to us the very nature of what it is to be truly human, what it means to be fully realized in the image of God.  This is what our lives are supposed to look like; we too must trace the arc of faithfulness that leads to down to death but then raises us to new life.   

This is the reality in light of which Paul implores his audience: "Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others.”   This is highly exalted theology translated into simple (but difficult) instructions.  Because Christ did this, so must we also, above all else because it’s the only true way to be.  And if you’re looking for a short description of what Christians should be like, you could hardly do better.  

If we consider ourselves to be the sort of people who have said “yes” to God, then we really ought to be the kind of people whose lives manage, however imperfectly, to bear this kind of fruit.  This is the “work” that God call us to, the work that Christ himself succeeded in.  If we are not humble, but selfish, if we place our needs ahead of the needs of others, then we are like the son who spoke falsely.  

Conversely, if you are convinced that humility and selflessness are essential to good living - and if in fact you manage practice these - but you’re not so sure about saying yes to God, I would say that there is a way in which you’ve already said yes without realizing it - and, even more, that the Gospel provides the most compelling, most beautiful, truest rationale for why we should give ourselves for others.   The people who have reached this conclusion “on their own” unknowingly bear witness to the truth of the Gospel and, having already given a kind of “yes” with their lives, ought to in turn say “yes” with the mind and mouth.  

One place this high-minded theology meets the concrete reality of our lives is in parenthood. Many of us feel - some more acutely than others - that being a parent unavoidably stands in tension with some of our other desires - both our selfish-ambition but also desires that are good true.  We cannot be everything if we are parents.  And it’s not unusual to feel like some part of us, in being a parent, is suppressed or denied - that, in a way, the obligations of parenthood have caused us to die to ourselves so that the child might live.  Often in Christian circles we feel the need - especially since parenthood is so often these days implicitly or explicitly chosen against - to assert how wonderful it is, to present it as the most fulfilling vocation.  I agree that it is wonderful and fulfilling, but this is not in spite of its demand that we deny ourselves but exactly because of this demand.  

There are many reasons more and more people decide against becoming, but certainly one of them is that having children seems like it will require too great a sacrifice, that we will not be able to live the kind of lives we want if we have to provide for the life of another.  We often prefer to look to our own interests (to the extent that we understand our interests) and not have to worry about the interest of others.  To be a parent is a burden; it does require that some part of us die, that we pour out our own life into the life of another.   And it’s not hard to see what so many feel like the cost/benefit analysis comes up with a negative balance.  

In many respects the way we think about the decision is a reflection of how we think about the Gospel itself.  Do we believe that it is only by dying that we truly live?  Being a parent is hard, but it also gives us a clear map by which to follow the same path that Christ himself followed, that arc of humility leading to exaltation, which represents the truest truth about what it is to be human.  Parenthood compels us toward Christlikeness, and becoming like Christ,  it turns out, is very must in our interest.  Self-denial is self-actualize.   When we become parents, and when we go through the daily struggle of trying and failing to be the best parents we can be, we give our “yes” to God.