Now I’m a bit reluctant to start out with the story I’m going to.  Let me preface it by simply saying that I am not a gambler and I think there are a whole lot of reasons, both Biblical and otherwise, why it’s not a great idea.  That being said, one day, a bunch of us decided that what we needed was a poker night.  But, we all agreed, gambling wasn’t a great idea so it was going to be a penny-ante poker night.  That’s right, we all showed up with about $2 in pennies to start out with.  Then, we set down to a serious game of Texas Hold ‘Em.  It all started out fairly well.  The first couple of hands went okay.  I don’t recollect winning but since the sum total of the win would’ve been about .40 cents, I don’t know that I would.  That’s when one player figured something out.  When you’re playing with pennies and the most you were ever going to lose was $2, going all in is a fairly risk-free proposition.  I mean, if I think I have a good hand, what’s to stop me from emptying out my kitty and gambling it all?  Well, as it would turn out, not so much.  After that, the game got pretty dull, fairly fast.  Any time someone would get a good hand, they’d go all in.  We ended up stopping fairly quickly after that.  The thing that makes going all-in so hair raising is, of course, that the outcome might not entirely turn out the way you think it would.  There might be, in fact, a loss ahead instead of a win.  In that case, going all in, emptying out what you’ve got to take a chance on what will be is a much, much more hair-raising endeavor.

  Today’s reading from the New Testament from Philippians is, without question, one of the most cited by me of all the Scriptures.  No kidding, if you were to go back and do like a meta-analysis of my sermons, I’m fairly certain you would find portions of this particular reading in at least 40 percent of the sermons I preach.  I think that this is such foundational theology on Jesus that every Christian, when asked about Jesus, ought to be literally or metaphorically turning the pages of their Bible to this very passage.

  I think this passage so foundational about Jesus and thusly about ourselves because to talks of a divine act of will that seems, well, ODD to us.  What do I mean?  Simply put, Jesus doesn’t use the power of God to amass more, he uses it to make a choice to empty himself.  To let go of the privileges of divinity.  He empties HIMSELF instead of filling Himself.  When you and I get power, we typically use it to ensure our own comfort.  Take, for example, first class airline tickets.  As you make more and more money, you have the power, for example, to section yourself off from the hoi-polloi.  For vast sums of money, you can secure your own private sleeping lounge on longer flight.  You’re taking a portion of your power (money) to ensure removal from some of the more mundane hassles of being cramped and crowded together with hundreds of complete strangers. 

  But the point of this morning, New Testament passage is that Jesus didn’t do that.  He, through his emptying, did the opposite.  Paul tells us about this emptying in a joyful context.  Paul’s letter to the Church at Philippi is one of his most irenic, peaceful and joyful in our entire canon.  Scholars think that there’s a reason for this, interestingly.  First of all, the church seems to be doing well.  Unlike other letters, Paul isn’t so primarily concerned with putting out fires from where the congregation has gone astray.  Philippians is no First Corinthians or Galatians where the churches Paul has planted have taken some seriously wrong turns.  No, Philippians is much more like an update letter written to an old friend.  And what do you most want to do with old friends?  Reminisce and celebrate and that’s exactly what Paul does for the bulk of the letter.  Here, in chapter two, he writes what is known as a kenotic hymn.

  Let me explain that that means.  Kenosis is the Greek word for the act of emptying.  Here in Philippians 2, what we see is Jesus willfully detaching from the privileges of divinity.  He gives us freedom from the passing of time or even having just one physical location.  HE forgoes the ability to be free of a human body.  It would be like going from the penthouse suite at the Waldorf Astoria to being homeless in a snowstorm.  That’s the kind of emptying of privilege that Jesus undertakes.