(Please read this Scripture passage first, before the homily.)
We have always had divisions in the Church it seems. In our larger history we have seen the division between the East and the West, between Churches we call Orthodox and Churches we call Catholic. In the West we have the great division between Catholic and Protestant. In our own time we see tension between those who prefer life with the Second Vatican Council to life before that council. In 2021, we have the division between Catholic Democrats and Catholic Republicans, in which each side considers the other disloyal to the Catholic faith.
The Church in Philippi knew of divisions. In the face of this division between people he loved and about whom he cared, St Paul put forward the example of God. God, in one sense, had the perfect right to be separated from the human race because of all the arrogance, pride and sinfulness of people. On the other hand, what did God do? God showed solidarity with us sinful humans. God did not consider being God something to be held onto at all costs. As a result, God was humble. God came down to earth, which is the root meaning of humility. God came to earth, took on the form of a slave with all that being a slave meant in history when slaves had no rights, no dignity as human and were subject to the whim and caprice of their owners.
This God, whom we call Christ Jesus , emptied himself, became subject to death as all people are, and even became subject to a cruel death, as many a slave has been, dying on a cross the death of the despised, the unwanted and the throwaways of society.
This God, divided from us by glory, became united to us by the gory. This God who could have claimed exception and exclusion from all contamination, desired to be included among all those contaminated by division. By this union of God with our sinfulness, God broke down the walls of division between God and us.
When this God had given up life on a cross for us, the God Father raised this Christ Jesus from the dead and brought him home to the glory God has always had. In this act of raising from the dead, God has also raised us up to the same glory that God has.
This is the example of ending divisions that St Paul proposes to the Philippians and to us: that we give up the mind of superiority and prestige and take up the mind of Christ, who gave himself for all of us and who is raised in high to the fullness of God’s glory.
Our pettiness in negative political campaigning, our pettiness in our pretending to be better people than others, our pettiness in treating some people with scorn, and our pettiness in priding ourselves on our accomplishments, has to give way to the largess and generosity of a God who has become one of us so as to make us one with God. This, I think, is the lesson of this passage from the letter to the Philippians. This the challenge we have to accept and face.