The Hubris of Man, the Humility of God – Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon

0:00 Peace be with you. Friends, all the readings for this weekend are terrific, but whenever I have the opportunity to preach on our second reading, I take it because it's one of the really master texts in the New Testament. I'm talking about this passage from the second chapter of Paul to the Philippians. Very short text. Could I recommend? Get out your Bible at some point. Find Philippians and find chapter two, and you'll find the text that we're looking at today. And it's one that is very ancient, that is very substantive, because in some ways it lays out the whole of Christianity. And it's a great poetic value. So I want to talk about it. But first, look at the church in Philippi. It's a very important church. Paul, of course, you know, in Jerusalem, they're going to Damascus. We hear he went to Arabia. He went home to Tarsus for a time and then finally begins to preach the Christian gospel, mostly throughout Asia Minor.

0:57 right but then at a key moment and he said it's a person appeared in a dream to him and said come to macedonia and so paul crosses over from asia minor into europe into macedonia or northern greece right well no historian would notice that moment but it was of extraordinary significance when paul the apostle brings the christian faith for the first time to europe and the first church he establishes. It's up north, is in Philippi. You know, almost everybody listens to me right now, not exclusively, because Christianity did move, you know, from the Holy Land East. You have, for example, you know, St. Thomas going to India and throughout the Middle East and so on. But most of the people in the world today who are Christian are either European Christians or spiritual descendants of European Christians, of all those Italians and Germans and Austrians and Hungarians and Poles and French and Spaniards and Portuguese and English and Irish who brought the faith all over the world. So trace it back. Where did European Christianity begin? It began in this little church in Philippi. And Paul had a deep affection for this church. It's very obvious in his letter. It's kind of unique that way. He has great affection for the people here. Maybe at some level he intuited the importance of that church. Anyway, to what he writes this beautiful letter. And here is the segment I want to focus on today. Listen, having you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus. So the Greek there is a little ambiguous how you could translate that word. It's been rendered as have the same mind in you that was in Christ or here attitude.

2:46 be conformed unto Christ. Call that conversion. Call that no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, whatever. Paul wants us aligned to Christ. Now, what does that look like? What does that alignment look like? And here's the part that's so powerful. Listen, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. There's an earthquake in those words. There's a turning upside down of the world. Here's the first thing, everybody. This text, they think, is Paul's adaptation of an ancient hymn. So he's writing this around the early years of the 50s of the first century, let's say 20 years after the death and resurrection.

3:46 But if this is a hymn that was being used in Christian liturgies, and if it took, as indeed it did, a while for things to get around the ancient world, this hymn probably goes back certainly to the 40s of the first century, perhaps even the late 30s. In other words, it's probably one of the oldest texts we have, certainly the oldest liturgical texts we have in Christianity. And what's affirmed at the very heart of it, the divinity of Jesus, though he was in the form of God, he didn't deem equality with God a thing to be grasped, but rather emptied himself. Up and down the centuries, everybody, From ancient times through the whole history of the church till today, there are people that deny the divinity of Jesus. It's fashionable, at least it was.

4:40 I think it's kind of passing, but it was in academic circles, let's say 20, 25 years ago. Very fashionable to say, oh no, the divinity of Jesus, that was invented by Constantine or by some council hundreds of years later. And it's just in service of the imperial power moves of the ancient church. Give me a break. the earliest text we have from the earliest stratum of the Christian tradition is a clear affirmation of the divinity of Jesus. And of course, that claim rings through all the Gospels. But even prior to the Gospels, in the earliest text we have the divinity of Jesus. Even when Paul says at the beginning of his letters, you know, greetings from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Mentioned as equals, God the Father and the Lord, kurios, translating adonai, the term used to describe God, bore me to death with this claim that the divinity of Jesus is some later invention. It's not. From the beginning, we see it. Okay, end of harangue about that.

5:47 But listen, though he was divine, he did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness. Now, here's the thing, everybody, I think that we're meant to hear. You know, biblical people, as I often said, they don't lay things out in terms of, you know, syllogistic argument. They speak in narrative and imagery. And all good poetry is meant to have that kind of echoing, associative quality. You hear something that reminds you of something else. See, who else in the Bible is, so to speak, in the form of God? We'll go right back to the very beginning. Adam made in the image and likeness of God. Now, he's not divine, to be sure, but he's made in the image and likeness of God.

6:43 And what does Adam do? He grasps at divinity. He does exactly what Jesus doesn't do. right? He grasped at equality with God. That's the whole point of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The devil, you know, oh, no, no. God is just jealous, and he knows that you'll be like him if you eat from this tree. And so Adam grasps at divinity. Here's the poetry, everybody, and it's the heart of Christianity. The fall of man, right? The fall of humanity consists precisely in a grasping at equality with God. So what's the solution?

7:28 God letting go of equality with God. God emptying himself of divinity so as to meet fallen humanity. If this really is a hymn that goes back to the very beginning, it's like they got it right away. They understood the essential element right away. It's the divine answer to the human hubris that resulted in the fall is the divine humility. Let me say it again. Human hubris is the problem, grasping at divinity. The solution? God's humility, emptying himself of divinity, becoming human. You get that, you get the whole poetry of Christianity. More to it, you get the doctrinal heart of Christianity.

8:24 Now listen now, as Paul goes on. Emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. found human in appearance. He humbled himself. So think of God the Father, God the Son, co-equal with the Father. We say God from God, light from light, true God from true God. But he doesn't deem equality with God something to be held onto. Rather, he willingly empties himself in humility, taking on human form, human appearance. becoming obedient, so he's coming down to human form, but now becoming obedient even unto death, he goes all the way down. His humility doesn't stop just becoming human and then reigning as some glorious emperor.

9:20 No, no, it continues. The downward trajectory of the incarnation continues down to death. And then these words that always strike me as extraordinarily powerful because they knew about crosses, these people. The cross was not a vague symbol. It was not an abstraction for them. They saw people dying on crosses. So he became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

9:52 They couldn't imagine a worse way to die. They couldn't imagine something more humiliating than that, lower than that. As I've said to you before, you know, at the limit of physical suffering, but also stripped naked on this instrument of torture, exposed to public ridicule, your friends having abandoned you, your life having come to a disastrous end, any trajectory of your aspirations, frustrated, all of it. It's all the negativity of humanity. though he was in the form of God, he didn't deem equality with God, but he emptied himself, took the form of a slave, and then obediently accepting even death, death on a cross. And as I do that, look, why am I wearing this weird symbol? I'm wearing this because of this text, right?

10:50 What this text is describing is that I'm holding up as this beautiful religious symbol. the humility of God, even to the point of death on the cross. Why? So as to counteract the hubris of man, expressed in grasping at divinity. That's Christianity. There's Christianity. How does Jesus save us? By going all the way down. See, look again. The self-emptying is not arbitrary. It's not just as a display. He's going down, down, down, down to meet all forms of human degradation, all forms of human humiliation and pain, frustration, failure, sin. Yes, doesn't Paul say he became sin on the cross? Down, down, down, down, down, all the way down to the point where on this cross, he says, God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

11:58 That's the limit of, I'll use Paul's Greek here, his kenosis. That's Greek for self-emptying. Now, why? Why? So as to bring from the heights the divine grace to every stop along the way. and bringing it all the way into God-forsakenness, into death itself. Okay, and you say, all right, well, what did that accomplish? Well, now listen as Paul goes on. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name above every other name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

12:57 Watch again. Having come all the way down, having brought the divine grace even to the furthest, darkest, and lowest places, he now, in the resurrection, brings back to the Father all that he has grasped. Think of Jesus now as the great fisher of men, if you want. This is how he did it. By the downward trajectory of the incarnation, he goes to the limits of God-forsakenness, so is now in the resurrection to return all of us sinners if we but hang on. Not negating free will. You got to hang on to the Lord. You got to say, all right, Lord, I'll accept. Okay, it's possible to reject even this acrobatic act of love. But see, having come all the way down, all he needs to do is to grasp onto him, say, yes, Lord, I accept.

13:58 And then he brings us back up to the Father. They got this, everybody. They got this right away. They understood the dynamics of Christianity. If you want to understand them, Philippians chapter 2. take a look at this great hymn of God's self-emptying love and God bless you