The Witness of the Stars--September 28, 2020

 The Witness of the Stars--September 28, 2020

"Do nothing from selfish ambition or 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...." [Philippians 2:3-5]

Do you know the difference between a star and a black hole?

A star, like our own Sun, spends its lifespan giving itself away--giving off light and warmth and energy as it literally spends its fuel in the fires of nuclear fusion.  A black hole can no longer shine.  It has collapsed in on itself and its gravity only pulls more and more "stuff" into it bottomless maw.  It is always consuming, never shining.

A star like ours is pure Einstein in motion: every second (yes, you read that right--every SECOND) the sun converts something like 4,000,000 tons of matter into energy as it smashes hydrogen atoms into helium, with the lost mass becoming pure energy, right out of the E-equals-m-c-squared equation of the Theory of Relativity.  That energy is what makes life possible here on our little blue planet.  Our lives are possible, in other words, because the sun is constantly spending itself.

A black hole, by contrast, literally just sucks--everything in its path, all the time, forever.  Life can't survive inside its event horizon, and anything in the path of its appetite is lost.

The difference is obvious, but we should be clear about it: the reason a star like ours can host life is that it does more than feed itself.  Life is possible where you give yourself away.  I know that stars aren't rational, conscious beings; they can't "choose" to give or not give, like we can. But the contrast seems helpful for us, beings who can and do make choices in our lives.  Over against all the voices around us that think the point of life is to grab as much as you can for yourself forever, the witness of the stars insists just the opposite: life springs up where we are oriented outward toward others, rather than inward only to the interests of Me-and-My-Group-First.  The stars tell us the truth, that "Me-and-My-Group-First" is a recipe for death--your own and everyone else around.  It is the philosophy of the Void, and the campaign slogan of hell.

Now, of course, the apostle Paul hasn't got a clue about all of that astronomy.  He had no conception of what makes a star shine, much less about the existence of insatiably hungry black holes.  But even without a telescope he knows that the meaning of our existence--especially for anybody who claims to follow Jesus--is not to live your life seeking your own interests.  Paul teaches his dear friends in Philippi to reorient their lives outward, rather than inward--to put others first, and even to regard others as better than themselves.  And why?  He is convinced that this is the way of Jesus.  He see that the heart of the Christian faith is about giving yourself away in such a way that life springs out all around.

Now, Paul had to know that this was a pretty counter-cultural thing to say. It certainly was in his day, but my goodness, in our day how much more radical it is.  In Paul's day, no one knew about black holes, but they certainly saw how the empire worked:  It was basically a geopolitical black-hole, constantly hungry, sucking in the people, the wealth, and the lands of everyone around, always to feed the capital, in an endless death-spiral from which there was no return.  Empires are like that: they seem to run efficiently, but at the price of endless consuming that grows and grows until it collapses on itself.  In Paul's day, there was evidence of the decadence of the empire all around. Rome even bragged about how it devoured everything it touched to feed its own greatness, and the empire was sure it was going to last forever that way.  For Paul to come along and say that it was all going to collapse under the weight of its own voracious appetite, well, that was radical.  No wonder Paul kept getting himself in trouble.

We still live in a world full of voices in favor of black-hole thinking.  The conventional wisdom is that you have to seek your own greatness, and that the goal of life is--for individuals, for families, for churches, for communities, and for nations--is to be better than everyone else around you, always acquiring more, never giving yourself away.  Whether it's money or power or pleasure or stuff, or some imaginary substance called "greatness," the world's voices think the key is to get more and more and more... and that's how you'll know who "wins."  They think it is a point of pride how little they can get away with giving to the needs of others; they brag about how much they have, or even lie about how much they want you to think they have in order to puff up their image.  They try to convince us, like many a Caesar did in the days of the Empire in which Paul lived, that endless consumption and endless "winning" at the expense of others is not only possible, but good!  And we are so used to hearing those voices and calling them conventional wisdom that we start getting defensive any time someone suggests that may not be the real meaning of life.  We get antsy and fidgety when someone suggests (as Paul is clearly doing here) that the way of Christ puts others first, rather than myself, my group, or my nation first.  This is the sort of message that makes us want to pick up rocks to throw at people who say them.  Like I say, no wonder Paul kept getting himself in trouble for saying it.

But really, Paul is simply calling us into a fuller way of life.  He says that for people claim to follow Jesus, his pattern of self-giving life is going to be our way of life as well.  Paul is basically saying it is is anti-Christ (literally, opposed to the way of Christ) to orient your life around securing your own greatness, rather than to orient your life around lifting others up and putting their interests before your own.  In Paul's mind, we do this in community for each other, so nobody ever runs dry--we keep filling each other up as we keep pouring ourselves out for others.  But that runs totally counter to the black-hole thinking of empires ancient and new--all they can ever see is the next thing to swallow up in their decadent pursuit of some gluttony they imagine is "greatness."

But you and I can be free from that terrible way of life.  In fact, we already are.  To be a follower of Jesus is to be turned right-side out again, like a shirt from the dryer, instead of being tangled up inside ourselves.  To follow Jesus is to be given the freedom of shining like a star that gives itself away (which is actually the image Paul uses a little bit later in this same chapter of Philippians) rather than a pitiable black hole that is always feeding and never full.

Today, dear ones, let us be free of the anti-Christ way of thinking that is all around us.  Let us be free of the dead-end trajectory of decadent empires and devouring black-holes.  Let us learn from the witness of the stars today, which show us with every moment's gift of light how life springs up when you give yourself away.

Lord God, make us more fully like Jesus today, in the ways we put others' interests before our own, so that we and they together may be more fully alive.