Sermons

“Growing Up in Christ”

Matthew 21:23-32; Philippians 2:1-13 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – October 15, 2017

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that your Spirit might fill us and empower us to grow more Christ-like. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.

Most of the time, most of us do a pretty good job of acting our age. We are helped, of course, by a broad lack of consensus[1] on how any particular age should act. As long as we’re mostly holding it together, with no major meltdowns, we can figure that we’re at least keeping up with the bare minimums of expected behavior. Some of us may have a spouse who does a large share of our “adulting” for us, but we still manage to be a grownup in other areas of our lives.

The other side of this story, though, is the clear truth that the vast majority of potential growing up happens after we’re grownups, if it happens at all.[2] Maturity is a lifelong goal. And Christian maturity is no different. In our passage from Philippians, Paul entreats the early Christians to “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” It’s put a little differently in Ephesians 4, where we’re invited to “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” But the point is the same: Christ is an ideal we are called to live up to. And Christian maturity is one of the most effective ways of measuring that.

Scripture is full of examples of immaturity, and many of them are annoyingly familiar. Let’s just look at the passages we read today to identify some. First of all, we have the chief priests and scribes questioning Jesus’ authority in Matthew 21. As he so often does, Jesus responds to their question with a question: Was the baptism of John from heaven or of human origin? And here is where their lack of maturity is revealed. Rather than answering the question strait-away with the clarity of their own convictions, the chief priests and scribes debate with one another. And they’re not debating the merits of the question, various arguments for why John’s baptism was from heaven or earth; instead, they are debating the consequences of picking either answer. Their fear of how others will react to their choice outweighs their desire to argue with Jesus.[3] This kind of fear is a number one sign of immaturity. When we’re more worried about what others will think of us than we are committed to being ourselves, we allow the fickle winds of society to define us. As the old saying goes, ‘If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.’

Then we have the parable Jesus told those chief priests and scribes. I love this parable, simply because it feels so true to life. We know both of these sons, don’t we? The response to the parable, of course, is that the first son was the one who did his father’s will, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have his own form of immaturity. “Go work in the vineyard,” says Dad. “Nope. Not gonna. You’re not the boss of me,” says the son, but later he re-thinks it and goes ahead and gets the job done. I am tempted to minimize this particular expression of immaturity, because it’s the one I’m most fond of. ‘You’re not the boss of me’ is one of my strongest impulses. And since I do usually get the work done eventually – on my own time, mind you – it’s not truly disobedience, right? I’ve got all sorts of arguments here, but in the end, there’s no way around the fact that this sort of resistance is its own form of immaturity.

Then, of course, there is the second son – or “Brother Kiss-Up” as I like to call him. “Go work in the vineyard,” says Dad. “Oh, you betcha! I’m definitely going to get on that immediately. Anything for you, Pops!” But guess who never shows up for work?[4]

The need to tell people what they want to hear regardless of the honesty of such statements is a definite expression of immaturity. Why do we do this? We want to be liked. We crave approval. We’re afraid of what others will think. Of course this example connects back to those chief priests and scribes, because they are the point of this parable to begin with. You are the second son, Jesus is telling them. You say you’re following God’s way, but your actions do not match your words. Meanwhile, the people that society thinks of as “bad” are the ones actually responding to God, despite appearances.

There are a couple more examples of immaturity in the passage we read from Philippians, though of course they’re more abstract, since it’s a letter and not a story. We see the first one in what Paul tells the Philippians not to do. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,” he writes. When we’re only looking out for ourselves, we are behaving immaturely. To act as though I’m the only one who matters is to ignore the rest of the world, like an infant who just arrived and has a good excuse. The rest of us have no excuse. And yet, so often, we do this very thing. Putting others’ interests before our own is hard.[5] Sometimes it requires sacrifice. It means we have to consider perspectives other than our own, which is hard enough, but then also act on those observations, which is often harder. This is why it takes us our whole lives to grow up!

The final example of immaturity that I want to lift up is a little more subtle. Paul is talking about Jesus, who is our example of perfect Christian maturity. And what does Paul say Jesus did NOT do? Jesus “did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited.” This is huge. One of the tricky things about seeking maturity as adults is that we’re constantly being put into more and more tempting situations. The more mature we get, the more we’re trusted to behave maturely. Because we’re adults, there is no one to tell us not to eat cake for breakfast. Because we’re adults, we’re expected to make good choices even when there aren’t going to be serious consequences for bad choices. Because we’re adults, we’re sometimes put in positions of power over others. And that power is something that can be exploited. Can you imagine what it would look like to exploit equality with God? How would Jesus have dealt with those priests and scribes differently, if he’d chosen to exploit his power? Some lightning strikes perhaps? Some earth opening up and swallowing people? Some removing their capacity for speech?[6]

The Christian story would be very different if Jesus had chosen to exploit his equality with God. In fact, I’m pretty sure the Christian story wouldn’t exist if that had happened. That is the whole point of this brief hymn we find in Philippians 2. Scholars call it the “kenosis” or “emptying” hymn, because it tells us about Jesus emptying himself of the power he had as God, in order to become more fully human and accept the consequences of human existence. And lest that sound too unappealing, the hymn reminds us of the eventual rewards as well. Jesus emptied himself, but then God exalted him above all else. This is the Lord and Savior who is also our example for growing into Christian maturity.

So now that we’ve explored what it doesn’t look like, how do we begin to seek maturity in Christ? There are hints at the end of the passage we read from Philippians and even in the stories from Matthew. Paul talks about how he used to be present with the Philippians, so their faith was a matter of obedience. But now he is gone, so he tells them they will have to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” It’s like they had training wheels, and now they’ve been taken off. That’s partly how maturity develops. But that bit about “fear and trembling” and the overall point of the parable of the two sons point to the key: humility. If we want to become mature Christians, we have to do it for ourselves, but we also have to recognize we can’t do it on our own. “It is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure,” writes Paul.

We can more easily set aside our fears, loosen our resistance, let go of our selfishness and reduce our tendency to exploit power if we allow God to help us. If we can trust in God’s love, we have less need to make everyone else like us.[7] If we can trust in God’s desire for good in our lives, we have less need to resist God’s guidance. If we can deepen our relationship with God, we will have less of a tendency to focus only on ourselves and use everything at our disposal for our own benefit.

There are all sorts of memes on the Internet now telling us how hard “adulting” is. Christian “adulting” is even harder. But we’re not expected to be able to do it on our own. It is God who is at work within us, enabling us to “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” May it be so. Alleluia and Amen.

[1] TS – Do you know what “consensus” means? It means agreement, or more precisely, agreement that develops after a lot of discussion about everyone’s perspective on a certain question.

[2] TS – Who is the most grown-up grownup you know? What makes you think they are the most grown-up?

[3] TS – Can you think of a time when you were worried what other people would think about you if you did/said something you wanted to do/say? What happened? What helps you be your true self?

[4] TS – Which of these brothers are you more like? Do you resist but then do the right thing? Or do you say yes, but then fail to follow through? A little of both? Can you imagine growing out of these behaviors?

[5] TS – If you went to the beach and there was only one purple chair, and you and your friend both wanted to sit in the purple chair, would you let your friend sit in it? Would you be sad or mad, or would it not be a big deal to you? Can you think of another example of putting other people before yourself?

[6] TS – Do you ever feel like doing terrible things to your “enemies”? Do you remember how Jesus says to treat our “enemies”? Have you ever successfully loved an “enemy”?

[7] TS – Did you know God loves you so much it doesn’t matter that much if someone else doesn’t like you? Is that hard to believe? Can you think of a time when you really felt the truth of God’s love?