More Than A Photo Op--October 4, 2023

More Than A Photo Op--October 4, 2023

"Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ 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 slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross." [Philippians 2:5-8]

Jesus is always committed to more than just the Grand Momentary Gesture.  When any of the rest of us would have given up or bailed out, Jesus sticks it out with us.

You know what I mean by "the Grand Momentary Gesture," I'll bet.  We see them all the time, both in pop culture and on the news.  It's that sort of publicity-stunt that is meant to be dramatic and compelling, to show just how much someone supposedly cares, but which is over in an instant, leaving everything to go back to the way it was before.  You see the Grand Momentary Gesture a lot in romantic comedies, especially the classics of the 1980s and 1990s when it was all the rage to have the romantic lead get up in public and make a Big Speech to the beloved: picture a Billy Crystal or a Tom Hanks or a Hugh Grant.  They get up and do this whole spiel professing their love despite all the ways they've messed it up in the first hour and a half of the movie, and they now just want to settle down with the woman they've been "will-they-or-won't-they"-ing with for the past ninety minutes on screen (say, a Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, or a Drew Barrymore).  It might be in a big New Year's Eve Party, or rushing through gates at the airport (back when you could do that), or holding up a boombox to play a Peter Gabriel tune into the window of the girl, or on a crowded street or airplane with people watching and gawking.  The sheer spectacle of it all is meant to show just how dedicated and crazy-in-love the character is, and in the movies it always melts the heart of the love-interest, paving the way for their happily-ever-after. And because it's on the silver screen, you never have to see how the couple manages through the next ten or twenty years of their relationship--all of that is dismissed with a fade-to-black as the credits roll.  All that matters is the Grand Momentary Gesture... right?

Well, of course, you and I know that in the real world, even when someone attempts something dramatic and romantic like in the movies, it's often a way of dodging the real work of relationships: the washing of dishes and paying of bills, the listening to your partner after a very long day, the willingness to redirect your wishes and dreams to make theirs possible, and the ten thousand ways you come to give yourself away.  Anybody can show up at the door with flowers and a speech and be on their best behavior for five minutes while "In Your Eyes" or "It Had To Be You" plays in the background.  The hard part is the long-haul lifetime choice to keep spending your energy, time, and money for your beloved. That, of course, might not make for a hit movie, but it makes for a genuine love.

Closer to the "real" world, we keep seeing the Grand Momentary Gesture just about every time there's a natural disaster or act of violence, and politicians all swoop in like birds of prey eyeing their chance for a photo op.  We've all seen presidents, senators, governors, and the like jetting into a relief camp or FEMA site, shaking hands with volunteers in front of the cameras, meaninglessly tossing paper products out at photogenic citizens, or posing with rolled up shirt-sleeves to appear to be doing hands-on labor.  And we've all seen those same people disappear when the next public relations opportunity appears in some other place, leaving the unglamorous rebuilding for the locals to keep doing when no one is watching.  It's all a bit of theater to get a bit of good or a sound-byte to share on the evening news (forgive my cynicism, it's just that I've been alive and paying attention for the past four decades or so).  And it's all one more variation on the Grand Momentary Gesture strategy.

But Jesus isn't like that.  Paul the apostle points out here in this passage from Philippians, which many of us heard this past Sunday, that Jesus is different, because his presence among us to save and to serve wasn't just a flash in the pan.  Jesus' sort of love endures, just as much as Jesus spent his whole life giving himself away for our sake.  Jesus offers us the opposite of the Grand Momentary Gesture: the Persistent Choice of Self-Giving.  

In other words, all of Jesus' life was part of his commitment to love and care for the world. Sometimes we church folks forget that, and we make it sound like all Jesus "needed" to do was zip down to earth on Palm Sunday, die on the cross by Friday, and vanish up into the skies again on Easter Sunday.  We turn the death and resurrection of Christ into one more variation of the Grand Momentary Gesture.  But that's not how Paul talks about Jesus.  No, as he unpacks what "the mind of Christ" looks like, and what it means to love like Jesus, Paul points to Jesus' constant ongoing choice to give himself away, not only in actions, but in his very being.  Likely quoting from an even earlier hymn (which would make it REALLY REALLY early to Christianity, if Paul and his readers are already familiar with it!), Paul emphasizes that Jesus' whole life is an continuous act of pouring himself out and giving himself away in love.  His willingness to enter our humanity, to take on the lowliness of Judean peasant life in the imperial backwater, and then, yes, his willingness to go to a cross--all of that is a lifetime of enduring love, not just a photo op to be preserved in stained glass.  That is how Jesus loves--not just appearing among us while the reporters were around for the sake of getting headlines, but in quiet and ordinary humanity, listening to people, healing their hurts, bearing their burdens, filling their hunger, restoring them to life.  Jesus' kind of love keeps with us for the long haul; that is what makes it different from all the publicity stunts and Big Speeches in the movies.  

And that is precisely what we need.

And beyond that, it is precisely what the world around us needs, too.  Look, we still live in a culture that is obsessed with the Grand Momentary Gesture.  We are still suckers for the Big Speech in the romantic comedy, we still look for our preferred politicians to make empty shallow appearances after the next natural disaster, and we can all remember the fifteen minutes in 2020 when everyone briefly said they cared about racial justice after George Floyd's murder, and then promptly changed the subject when we realized that the deeper work of healing and restoration would be difficult and uncomfortable.  Some part of us would always rather slide back into settling for the Grand Momentary Gesture rather than love that endures, persists, and sticks with us. But deeper down, we are all aching for something more than a PR stunt or a press conference.  We need the kind of love we have met in Jesus that pours itself out through life, even to death on a cross, and then into resurrection.

That's the news we are sent to bring to the world: we have been met with the Love that abides with us all the way in Jesus, and it is his love for us that enables us to love with endurance both one another and the world around us.

Someone you know this week needs to hear that.  May we be ready.

Lord Jesus, don't let us settle today for empty gestures, but open us up to receive your enduring love, and then to share it.