Sermon Transcript: May 17, 2026
Our reading today is from Paul’s letter to the Philippians chapter 1. Just a reminder that outside of the Gospels and the book of Acts, most of the rest of the Christian scriptures, the New Testament is one side of a conversation. We’re essentially reading Paul’s outgoing mail, and we don’t have the other side of the conversation. Although we can kind of sometimes piece it together from other clues from Scripture.
We may remember a few weeks ago we read from the book of Acts when Paul and Silas visited the town of Philippi in northern Greece, how they kind of encountered some trouble there and were jailed, and how even in the midst of being jailed they sang hymns and prayed and were attracting people to the faith, even their jailer. Paul established a community there and last week we read the beginning of his letter to the Philippians as he’s writing to them some years down the road after that visit.
This is a community, and this is not always the case with Paul, where he has great fondness for them and he really just wants to kind of encourage them along. Some other times he’s kind of addressing problems or dissatisfaction within the community in Philippians, by and large, Paul is just trying to encourage them along. They’re doing well. He wants them to continue to grow in love for one another and grow in faith and in service of others. And so we encounter this reading then from Philippians:
Philippians 2: 1-13
If, then, there is any comfort in Christ, any consolation from love, any partnership in the Spirit, any tender affection and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 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. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore God exalted him even more highly
and gave him the name
that is above every other name,
so that at the name given to Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
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, for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.
***
So today on the National Mall in DC, the White House is sponsoring a nine-hour event called Rededicate 250. Thousands of Christians will gather to reclaim what they believe to be the Christian roots of our country and to rededicate our country as one nation under God.
Now, as a Christian pastor, you might think I would be in favor of such a thing.
But you would be wrong. And I will tell you why.
Now, to be completely transparent, many of my objections could be rightly categorized as political. I think you all know we certainly address politics here. I don’t know how to preach and not address politics, because politics is life, right? But the pulpit is not a place for partisan politics—except when they step into my territory. And I would say Rededicate 250 is firmly in my wheelhouse here.
So my objections are—even though I do have political ones—I’m going to try my best to put those aside and concentrate on the theological reasons, not of what it means to be an American, but what it means to be a Christian.
So to be clear, I think there are plenty of reasons to object to this as Americans, but I do want to claim something really important about what it means to be Presbyterian.
Because, see, as Presbyterians, we actually value a diversity of thought and opinion. We not only value it, we invite it, we expect it, okay? Just to give you a feeling for how important this is to who we are as Presbyterians: part of our Constitution as the Presbyterian Church (USA)—most of it can be amended, because we expect that rules and guidelines will change over time, that we can grow in wisdom, and that practices need to be relevant to the time.
There’s only a small part of our Constitution which cannot be amended. These are the things that we think are pretty timeless, are important, are kind of as close as we can get to universal truths, okay?
And one of them is captured in this phrase: that we fully expect people of good conscience to disagree. That’s an essential part of who we are as Presbyterians.
We expect people of good conscience to disagree.
So didn’t we just read from Paul about having the same mind? A full accord with one mind? What is that if not a like-minded community? And how can we then reconcile our Presbyterian value of diversity of thought with what Paul seemingly upholds here as like-mindedness?
Well, first of all, I would argue that what Paul calls us as Christians to be of one mind—what he really means might be better translated as like-hearted rather than like-minded.
I actually cut out a little piece there of what Paul said. He doesn’t just call us to be of the same mind, he calls us also to be what? Part of the same love.
And then he goes and reminds us of the example that Jesus gave us in his life.
The verses that follow are what scholars call the Christ hymn. And there are many who believe here—this is really interesting, perk up for a minute—there are those who believe that what Paul is quoting here is actually a very, very early Christian hymn.
In fact, this section that’s kind of formatted differently maybe in your pew Bibles is thought to be maybe one of the very earliest pieces of Christian writing: a piece of music. Makes sense, right? It makes sense to them that this hymn is something that would have been known and spread, and that Paul here is just quoting it because he knows the Philippians know it. And so he’s grounding them in what they already know.
But if that’s the case, that’s really interesting, because this little bit shows us a whole lot of what the earliest Christians thought about what it meant to follow Jesus.
Professor Catherine Shaner writes, “The Christ hymn is clear: domination, conquest, exploitation—exactly the patriotic images that the Roman Empire embraced—are antithetical to divine power. Jesus’ death and resurrection reject our human displays of power and violence precisely because we know the divine was present in the worst kinds of violence, fear, stigmatization, and brute force. Violence, fear, and death are not God’s plan.”
But wait a minute.
Isn’t part of this hymn that every knee should bend? On earth and under the earth, at the name that is above all names, Jesus Christ? That sounds a little bit forceful, doesn’t it?
Maybe. I would suggest that we read it that way because that’s our lens. We come out of this lens of thinking about power as domination. But what Paul is doing here is something different.
He’s not saying that every knee shall bend because they will be forced to against their will, but that the vision for all of creation—for all of creation, for all of humanity, for all of it—is that we will be so into the love of God that, in the end, we will all come to realize that that is the greatest power of them all, and not all of our other attempts to amass power and wealth for ourselves, to dominate others through violence and through force.
Now, it would seem to me—and actually not just seem to me, because the Christian nationalist leaders who are organizing and participating in today’s rededication have explicitly said this, and I have quoted them from this pulpit before—that it is their intention to force their brand of Christianity on everyone else.
Matthew Taylor, a religious scholar of the ICJS in Baltimore, has been studying the leaders of this movement for the past five years. You may remember he came here a couple years ago and gave a talk on his book, The Violent Take It By Force, which was his attempt to explain the Christian leaders who were involved in the January 6th insurrection.
About the event today, he writes, “Their goal is not merely Christian nationalism, the claim that the U.S. is especially Christian. It is Christian supremacy, privileging Christianity over other religious and nonreligious worldviews in policy, and offering premium citizenship to their kind of Christian.”
So while at first we may look at this passage and they can find their justification for “every knee shall bow,” look at the rest of the hymn. Look at the rest of the passage. Where is it saying that this will happen by force?
No. God does not work by force, but by attraction.
So what are we to do? How can we make a difference? Should we just moan and complain, wait patiently for the next vote, withdraw from what’s going on in the world and just tend to our own souls, our own like-minded communities? Or do Paul’s words here in Philippians have something more to offer us?
I’ll tell you what—it’s really amazing what happens when you just pay attention, when you just have that. So often, you know, we’re rushing from one thing to the next.
I always have this pause in my morning when I’m out in the car waiting for the kids to come out so I can take them to school. And this happened last week, actually, as I was thinking about this passage and this like-mindedness and this “every knee shall bow,” and I’m thinking, “How am I going to—what am I going to say?”
And two really interesting things happened.
So one was, for some reason—even though 99% of the time I pull into our driveway head first—for whatever reason, and I don’t even remember, it’s like a week ago, I don’t remember why, but I backed into the driveway. So I’m sitting there in the car waiting for a few minutes as the car kind of warms up, and I’m looking outward. Where I would normally be looking toward our backyard, I’m looking out toward the street.
Now, the other thing you need to know is that we live in a neighborhood that has a lot of walkers, a lot of dog walkers, people that walk for exercise, people that run and jog. And so they’re out all the time. And these people—I mean, you can set your watch to them. You know that if you leave at this time of day, I’m going to see this person walking, or I’m going to see this person walking their dog.
And I may know them by name, or I just may recognize them. I may see them every day of the week. That’s how much a part of my life they are. But I don’t really know them. So you get the idea, right?
So I’m there sitting in the driveway, facing out, and this couple walks by. Not unusual, except I don’t recognize them. Never seen them before in my life. So that strikes my curiosity. Who are they? What are these people doing in my neighborhood? No, not really. But, you know, that’s kind of why I paid attention. I’m like, huh.
A couple, I’m going to guess in their sixties. And the remarkable thing is they were walking so in sync. Now, they were walking at a pretty good clip, so I only had about twelve strides that I could see them as they were walking through my view. But this couple, who I assume had been together for a long time, they were walking exactly in sync.
And I’m not exaggerating to say it wasn’t just that the stride of their legs was in sync. I’m talking heel to toe, touching the ground precisely the same.
And I thought to myself—one, I thought, they’ve been together a long time.
And I thought of the long-term couples that I’ve known. I don’t know very many of them that are like-minded. Some that are more like-minded than others, but that’s not what gets them there.
And I realized from this couple that they were in sync in a different way. It wasn’t that they agree on everything, but they’re so used to walking together that, without even thinking about it, their strides just matched up.
And it just hit me. That’s what Paul means. That’s what he’s talking about. That as individuals and communities, our job is to walk with Jesus.
And when we start, we’re not going to be in sync. We’re going to be out of step. But together, the more we do it together, the more in sync we can be.
Not like-minded. Something closer to like-hearted.
As Christians, it is our job to walk in the way of Jesus, who, though he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, humbled himself.
And we walk this way not just as individuals, but as communities of faith. We support one another. We encourage one another. We do not force our way of living and our way of thinking on others.
How little faith in God does that take, to force our way on others? If we truly believe and have faith, force is not necessary.
I think what Paul is calling us to is submitting ourselves to love—God’s love for all people.
Together, we try to walk in sync with our Lord and Savior. As we Presbyterians say, as a sign to the world of what God intends for all humanity.
Friends, that’s what we can do. Not hold huge rallies and try to force other people into our way of thinking, but to be a sign here of what can be, to be a community where love and generosity and compassion rule, not power and force.
Walking step by step with Jesus, we can show the power of humility and the strength of love.
Like-hearted, not like-minded.
Amen.
