Jesus is Lord

 

Sermon based on Phillipians 2: 1-14

Preached at Germantown Mennonite Church

This week, Reba and I were talking about a song that is important in our family–My life flows on.  It’s a song I would often sing to the kids at bedtime, when they were little.  It’s a song that makes me a little weepy, because it’s full of meaning and embedded with so many stories from my life.  

Reba asked, “What is it about this song?  Why is it so special?”  

We talked about the power of this song–of singing despite life’s difficulty because “since love is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?”

Since love is Lord of heaven and earth.  That’s the most powerful line in this song.  The song doesn’t say “IF love is Lord”–I often mistakenly sing it that way–but the song is “SINCE love is Lord.”  It’s a given, not a possibility.  Love IS Lord.

Love is Lord of Heaven and Earth.

Paul had a loving, tender relationship with the church in Philippi, so this text today reads as a bit of a love letter.  He’s reminding his Christian friends of their need to love, to be united in love, with a common purpose and a common mind.  Paul here gives a model of leadership that is oriented not towards self-interest and ego, but to humility and service.  

And then Paul moves into this piece of poetry that BIblical scholars believe is actually an early Christian hymn.  Paul says, Your attitude towards each other should be like that of Jesus:  

who, though he was in the form of God, 

   did not regard equality with God

   as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

   taking the form of a servant,

   being born in human likeness,

And being found in the form of oppressed humanity,

   he humbled himself

   and became obedient to the point of death—

   even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him

   and gave him the name

   that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus

   every knee should bend,

   in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every mouth should confess

   that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Paul described Jesus in this text as the average Roman citizen would describe Caesar.  Because at the name of Caesar, every knee should bow, and every mouth confess that Caesar is Lord.  But Paul turns Lordship upside down.  The Lordship of Jesus is not like the leadership of a ruler–it is humble, it is obedient to a God that doesn’t promise to make our life easier, and it is a life of service to others.  

The Lordship of Caesar is one of control, of empire, of enforcement.  Paul says that the Lordship of Jesus is love.  

And more than even the contrast between Jesus and Caesar’s leadership style, Paul is saying Jesus is Lord.  Which means, Caesar is not.  Jesus is in charge, and Caesar is not.  

To declare that Love is Lord or Jesus is Lord is a strong statement.  It’s a political statement.  In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he is making a dangerous political claim when he says Jesus is Lord.  Jesus is in charge.  

Lord was a term used only for Caesar only.  To call anyone else Lord was a radical and dangerous assertion.  It was to declare that Caesar had no power.  Claiming another Lord was treason.

To claim that Jesus is Lord is also a preposterous proposal.  It meant that Jesus–who died a public and gruesome death, was in charge of the world.  That’s not just treasonous, it’s impossible to those who don’t understand the power of Jesus’ story, and of his resurrection.  

It sounds pretty silly to claim that Jesus is Lord.  No wonder the early Christians were so misunderstood.  They were claiming that Jesus–a Palestinian Jew murdered by the Roman Empire–was actually the most powerful being in the known world.

I believe that Paul, if he had a word for us today would say to the Church in Germantown, “Jesus is still Lord.” As treasonous and ridiculous as it sounds–Jesus is Lord.

It seems like an important season for us to remember that Jesus is Lord, that love is Lord of Heaven and Earth.  Because I’ve been doing a pretty bad job of remembering that lately.  We’ve been whipped into a collective froth around this election.  I’m scared, friends.  My kids are worried.  Charlie has suggested alternative countries we might move to if this doesn’t go well.

This season is a test of our belief that Jesus is Lord, that Love is Lord of heaven and earth.  Because, while we follow in the way of Jesus, we are humans, living in the American empire, with concerns about our children, our retirement, our housing value, our wages.  We are also concerned about those who don’t have access to basic human needs.  There are things our Ceasars can do to make lives in this country better, if only they would.  

And yet, Caesar is not Lord.  Jesus is Lord.  Love is Lord of heaven and earth.  

Here’s something you may not know–historically Mennonites have dealt with this Jesus is Lord idea by refusing to participate in government.  Mennonites have traditionally not voted, or held public office–that was pretty common until the mid-20th’s century.  It was the Mennonite way of saying, “Do whatever you want, Caesar, because Jesus is Lord, Love is Lord of Heaven and Earth.”  

But, like most things, it’s more complicated than all that.  I’ve heard many Mennonites express that while Love is Lord of heaven and earth, voting is also an important personal choice for them, especially when so many disenfranchised people in this country–like the undocumented, the incarcerated, or those with a criminal record–cannot vote.  So while we do not believe that Caesar is Lord, we do have an opportunity to make lives better in this country with our vote.  And we have the opportunity to assert a morality of love into our government systems with our votes, our letters to leaders and our protests.   

More than anything this election season, I’ve wanted to find ways to express the Lordship of Jesus, the power of love.  The election feels very high stakes, but so does forgetting how to love each other.  Caesar is not Lord, our nation does not have the power to cut the lordship of love from our lives.  

When I hear about folk being afraid to come to polling places for fear of bullying, I do not want to fall into the trap of Caesar being Lord, but find ways to express the Lordship of Jesus, the Lordship of Love over heaven and earth.  And since this Mennonite church is a polling place, I will express the Lordship of Love on November 8th, by offering coffee or tea to everyone that enters this building, by introducing myself to every neighbor that comes through these doors.  

When I read about how starkly divided this country is in this election season, I am committed to not gloat should my chosen candidate win.  Instead, I want to express the Lordship of love in ways that keep us united in purpose and with a common orientation of love.

And maybe the best way to elevate the Lordship of Jesus is turn off the news, to stop franticly checking fivethirtyeight.com, and other election predictors.  Every bit of drama from the news cycle serves to elevate Caesar, not Jesus.  

When this election is over in a few short weeks, the issues that concern us will still exist.  They don’t go away because our chosen candidate is in office.  The Lordship of Christ needs to be asserted again and again.  

We live in strange times, friends.  There has never been an election like this, and it fills me with fear and terror.  And yet, through all the tumult and the strive, I know that Jesus is Lord, that Love is Lord of heaven and earth.  Let us orient ourselves towards this way of love, taught to us by Jesus, and amplified by Paul as he navigated life in the Roman Empire. AMEN.