then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.
Philippians 2:2 (NIV)
A Favor He Asked For
The first cold morning of the fall sorts everyone out. At seven the people coming in are dressed for four different days. One of them has a parka on, another came in scrubs with nothing over them, and every one of them looked outside an hour earlier and made the call.
then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. The man asking wants this for himself, and he puts it as a favor. Finish my joy for me. Then he spells out the practice he has in mind: in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
He wants each of them looking at the other one’s business before their own. You go first, without waiting to see whether anybody else starts.
Two nurses on the same unit can disagree about the schedule and the thermostat and be of one mind by this description, as long as each of them knows what the other one has on her that day. At the start of the shift one of them says she will take the room at the end of the hall, and the other one, who had that room all last week, tells her to go ahead. Agreement about the thermostat was never the request.
Nothing in the request comes with a promise that it will be returned. He asks a whole church to go first, all of them at once, and he has no way to make any of it happen from where he sits.
The people coming in this morning did not agree about the weather. They were standing in the same weather.
He asked for it as a favor, from people who could still tell him no.
A Prayer to Remember
It is cold this morning and I am already counting what other people owe me. The list is accurate and it is doing me no good at all. Stop the counting, and put one person in front of me whose day I can make lighter without mentioning it to them. There is one name already in my head.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
