Getting Me Out of the Way
Though he was in the form of God,
he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit.
But he emptied himself
by taking the form of a slave
and by becoming like human beings.
When he found himself in the form of a human,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Therefore, God highly honored him
and gave him a name above all names,
so that at the name of Jesus everyone
in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow
and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:6-11, CEB Translation)
The billboard caught my eye, almost after I had already passed it, which is a little late for a billboard. But it was on my drive to work, and we forget to pay attention to things we think we see every day, and so we can miss when they have changed. Anyway, the sign for the local sewing machine store (yes, that’s still a thing) had this headline across it: “Come see Billie Jo…” It was followed (I think – like I said, I almost missed it) by an “and” and then a list of some of the products they carry.
But all I could think was, “Billie Jo clearly doesn’t have an editor. Or a supervisor.”
My reaction was related to a couple of experiences I have had lately, experiences that could give a girl a complex. The first happened when my editor for Gospel Discipleship, a man I very much appreciate and admire for his insight and publishing knowledge, told me that when we film the DVD for my books, that they really didn’t want me to be in the video. Ouch. And there went my plans. I had in mind videos that involved me teaching on each of the discipleship types, making clear for people how this understanding would result in renewed energy around their faith journey. But now, that plan was effectively getting pushed out the window. And mind you, this followed on the heels of my editor explaining that the chief edits to the manuscript were removing me from my own book. It took me three days to get up the nerve to actually open the revisions to do my approvals.
Then, in my work I build online courses for various entities across the Arkansas Conference of the UMC. One of those upcoming courses is an Advent devotional written by lay women and clergywomen from across our state. I am one of those writers. We are planning to video some of the writers reading what they wrote to vary up the content delivery. In the planning for that series, my supervisor, a woman I very much appreciate and admire for her communication expertise, made it clear that I should not be one of the people who is videoed. Again, ouch.
It will help some of you to understand that I am a one on the enneagram. I don’t need to be the star necessarily, but let’s just say I have a healthy ego. Or at least I did until I got the message that basically no one wants to see me on video.
But what’s wrong with seeing me? After all, aren’t we in a culture that validates us by our exposure? Who am I if I am not a well-liked social media presence? What purpose do I have if my image is not out there, getting shared and drawing in new friends? Why should I even bother writing a book if I can’t tell my own story?
Lucky Billie Jo. She owns her own business and can just splash her name and face across any old billboard she wants.
My reaction got me reflecting on other things. Like how for years if you asked my son what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would say, “A YouTube star.” He also didn’t see a need to wait until he grew up, when it could happen any day at any age. Now, on one level that is not so different than when I was a kid and so many of us said we wanted to be movie stars. But on another level it is completely different, because becoming a movie star basically meant moving to California and getting an agent and then being one of the 1% or less of actors who actually made it into a film. Many of us may have said that was our dream, but few of us actually tried it. To be a YouTube star, however, you don’t even have to leave your bedroom, and you don’t need much more than a Smart Phone and an internet connection for it to be a possibility. And lots of people try it. Still, only a few become stars, especially when you put it in comparison with the amount of material loaded up on YouTube every day (estimates state 300-500 hours of content get loaded to YouTube every minute!). So I wonder if the pain of not being seen is more potent when it is possible than when it was impossible. Is that what is now driving our fame hunger and self-centeredness to unhealthy levels? Is it that it actually could happen now, and yet it still doesn’t, that makes us feel so hurt by our insignificance?
Pastors are no less susceptible to this temptation. We are in a field, after all, that to some extent gives us a captive audience on Sunday mornings. Of course, that is not actually true either, because as all pastors know, we are competing for the attention of our people in light of an onslaught of a thousand things available on Sunday mornings now (including, apparently, up to 30,000 hours of new YouTube content that gets loaded in the time we are in an average worship service). Is it any wonder that pastors too guard our significance, holding on to those pieces of worship that we misrepresent as something only the ordained can do, even when opening up those spaces to laity would help us all draw closer to God? (Something James Kjorlaug points out powerfully this week in his blog on sharing the communion table with laity).
And that is just it. We are all desperate for significance, which we think comes from a life of a video of millions of views. And we are exhausted by it. Frustrated by it. Humiliated by it. Devalued by it. If only we had another example for how to live…
The passage from Philippians 2 above is referred to as the Christ hymn. It is believed to be one of the early hymns sung by the church about Jesus, and then captured in this letter of Paul for us to continue to have it. And look what it lifts up about Jesus: that Jesus emptied himself. He became a slave. He made himself obedient enough to face death on a cross. Death on a cross, by the way, was a deep shame in the ancient world. It was almost a guarantee that you would not be remembered. You did not deserve attention. You were not worthy of the slightest notation in the annals of history.
And yet, here we are, all these years later, still talking about Jesus. Talking about him even though he effectively worked to wipe his own desires out and serve us instead. To humble himself. To love with such depth as to give himself over. And that is a compelling story.
In transforming God into someone accessible, someone who struggled and suffered and wept and laughed, someone who ate and slept and died, he removed the barrier between us and God. He allowed us to see our story in God’s story. He flattened the world out. There was no longer slave or free, or rich or poor, or famous or infamous, but we were all one in Christ Jesus. And our significance doesn’t come from the specialness of our story. Our significance comes in our ordinariness. Because it was for all of us, not a few of us, that God so loved the world that God dwelt among us and made us whole.
When I finally got up the nerve to read the edits on my book, when I read it with me removed from it, I loved it. I loved it because I saw that it got me out of the way. That inspired me to design a video narrative where others shared their story with another person who was trying to figure out what her next step in discipleship needed to be for the DVD. Both changes will hopefully allow people to see their own story in God’s story, instead of having to read and hear my story. The connection we all long for was there when I exited the pages. And I also found, in relinquishing myself, that I felt closer to God through it too. I found my story in giving over myself to God’s narrative instead.
If you are interested in signing up for the Advent devotional mentioned here, it will be available on December 1 at arumc.myabsorb.com. You can send an email request to be reminded to sign up to course@arumc.org. If you want to know more about Gospel Discipleship, visit gospeldiscipleship.net or email info@gospeldiscipleship.net.
