We were in the Indianapolis Art Museum. A friend brought a group of us into a semi-dark room to tell us about this work of art. It looked like a gray canvass. He told us it reminded him of his teaching, working on a blank canvass. He then invited us to touch the canvass. I thought that it was odd. Normally a museum does not allow you to touch the canvass of the art work but I played along. I tried to touch is and my hand went deeper and deeper until I realized that the canvass was in fact an empty space that appeared to be a blank canvas. Christ is the canvas that is empty. Christ is the canvass that invites us to participate in his emptiness. The world of contingency.

Philippians 2 begins with the Greek word ean which here means "if."

If. Kipling's poem captures the power of framing contingency.

[IF]

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you But make allowance for their doubting too, If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master, If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much, If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

The question is about affections emotion. Psychologist, especially behaviorist psychologist tell us that when afraid we respond out of the reptilian part of the brain. This passage known as the Christ hymn of Philippians suggest a better way, a way to look into the grey empty-ness. And see new emotions listen to the emotions the texts recounts: encouragement, consolation sharing, compassion and sympathy. What David Goleman suggests in his book Emotional Intelligence Paul knew already in his call to the people of Philippi.

The emotions or affections are located in Christ, love and the Spirit. Ancient readers would have noted that as a Trinitarian formula. The ean in Greek, that is "if" leads to a "then." Here the then is about moral exhortation to unity with Christ and unity with one another. Participation in the world for Christians in rooted in the participation in the Triune God revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

Be of the same mind. (2:2b)Is a call to unity with the body of Christ. We can do this not because of the human potential we bring to this but rather because of the work Christ as first done. Christ was willing to be in unity, to relinquish. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ.

The mind of Christ is what we are to be about not only at Annual Conference but everywhere. But Paul wanted to let us know what is the nature of the mind of Christ. I want to note what the mind of Christ is not.

The mind of Christ is not a strategy. On the contrary it is the Big Empty. Jesus Christ who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but rather emptied himself."

Humility is not a strategy. The one who would save their life will lose it. Those who are willing to lose their life will save it. So the Bible says. This means that we cannot use any method as a strategy to control God or our environment.

Much of this season in American Protestantism is charged with the anxious call to action. Action that we think will insure the church we want full of people who think the way we do. Goleman would remind us to against anxious action out of the reptilian part of our brain. Many will talk about this as humility. I want to have us think about this as openness.

The mind of Christ is not a private or party thing. No I don’t mean party as ice cream social. I mean party as religious or political party. If one examines the history of the Church of the Brethren one clearly sees that we continually return to the emphasis not of any one person or party. This stands in stark contrast to the trend in American Protestantism. As early as the eighteenth century, the century when Dunkards first came to the Colonies Alex De Tocqueville wrote in his book Democracy in America about the church in the colonies as religious associations. Now that has turned into a me and Jesus and I go to a congregation that believes like me and Jesus and a denomination that believes like me and Jesus. The important rhetorical element to notice is that typically the me precedes the Jesus.

Before the Texas legislature went mad last year the former Speaker was a man who said "I am a Methodist and I am a Republican. That means I agree with them fifty-one percent of the time." He models for us a piety that is neither private or party.

There is a story from the English Reformation. As is often the case in such movements there were a number of church fights. In the midst of one of this was a particularly acrimonious fights one participant said to another "Brother, consider the possibility that you might be wrong." John Rogers moderator of a conflicted Presbyterian Church used this story as the centerpiece of his book Claiming the Center. During these days of slash and burn politics the church are tempted to forget the mind of Christ and strive for the proper answer.

The mind of Christ is emptying into the larger world of contingency, the "if." The verb that describes Christi activity in Philippians 2 is kenosis, the process of emptying. In fact the reality of incarnation itself is an emptying. Many eucharistic/communion services tell us this in the words "Just as Christ is the body for the world so should we be the Body of Christ for the world." The verb is still the verb of emptying not the verb of imperialism. Paul could have used the metaphor of childbirth here. There is no birth without letting go. If the mother refuses to let go both she and the baby die. Emptying is a type of childbirth.

Instead of childbirth Paul uses the metaphor of the slave. Incarnation is about being a slave. The process of being in a family has this same sort of bondedness. In the Toni Morrison novel Sula the mother allows herself to lose a leg on a train track in order to collect the money to support her children. This sounds like a slavery of affection for one’s children to me.

The emptying is embodied but it is also obedience. Once again the model of emptying is there. Once again the notion of humiliation is there. Death is a humiliation and if that were not enough the writer makes the point that this is death on the cross. A death that was defined to shames more than to kill.

The heart of the take no prisoners politics of the nation and the church is this emphasis on political pride, the ability to demonstrate power in an economy that values power over humility and emptying kenosis. Such power does not demonstrate a great track record. You see the Gospel provides a different scenario. The ability of Christ to be humiliated is the source of his exaltation.

The text is so clear here. We are back in the Indianapolis Art museum looking at the exhibits. We can choose the mind of Christ, as I have choose to re-name the art work. That willingness to participate into the Triune God. That participation which requires the emptying of childbirth and slavery. We have the grey canvass of the big empty. It is awake and alive. Do we choose to reach in?