Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
Philippians 2:3-4 (NIV)
Written to Each of You
A table full of people at the staff meeting, and every one of them is working on what they will say next while the person talking is still talking. Not one of them is being rude, and they are all just waiting for a turn. The meeting ends on time, and not one of them leaves knowing what anybody else came in carrying.
Paul wrote this in a letter that was read to a whole church at one sitting, and he asks before he tells. Make my joy complete, he says, by being of one mind. Then he gets specific, and it turns out to be practical work.
He starts with what to stop. Nothing out of selfish ambition, nothing out of vain conceit. In humility, value others above yourselves. Then he asks them to look to the interests of others, and some of what a person cares about can be found out by asking. It is the paperwork that has not moved since before Christmas. The woman two doors down has an appointment on Friday and no ride to it, and she will know whose car it was. I’ve known people for years without knowing what any of them were trying to finish, and not one of them was hiding it.
If I spend myself on everybody else’s interests, who is left for mine? That is a fair question, and it gets answered by who Paul is writing to.
In most rooms it runs one direction for a long time, and Paul knows what he is asking. Then he sets Jesus in front of them, who held every advantage there was and used none of it for himself, and the people hearing the letter knew how that ended.
Paul writes each of you, so the request lands on everyone at the table, the tired ones included. The letter was read to them in one room, and it arrived at every chair in it.
A Prayer to Remember
God, I sit in meetings rehearsing my own answer while the person across from me hasn’t finished. Show me one thing this week that somebody near me is trying to finish, and let me take a piece of it quietly.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
