Homily for Tuesday, November 3, 2026
Philippians 2:5-11
Christian humility is one of those concepts that the modern Church seems to find so much difficulty in defining correctly and living out properly. Our Lord and his meekness is not the watered-down doormat religion that contemporary culture would feed us; and yet he does not teach us the domineering tyranny of other world religions, either.
The key to figuring out how to understand our God is to bring together a deep and personal heartfelt love with an obedience that is utterly dedicated to the One who is loved in that way. Today’s Epistle reading requires both of these to understand correctly: love and obedience, or, loving obedience, or an obedience borne out of love.
Christ “emptied” himself – in the original Greek it is “kenosis”, from which we can derive the word “kenotic”. And the reason why I point this out is because it is so important for us since, as the Apostle teaches, we are to have this same mind. A “kenotic” mind is a mind that empties itself of all its pride and self-satisfaction. Everything about ourselves that we like to bring out and look at: chuck it out. Christ himself, even though he is God, did not consider his Godhood something to be grasped or snatched at, but emptied himself.
It is all about love, in the end. What do we love more? The things about ourselves to be “grasped” or “snatched at”? Or the God who has given them to us? The emptying of Christ which we are to imitate is the pursuit of the God whom we love. The Son loves the Father, and emptied himself of any self-granduer because his love for the Father was more important than his love for himself. So too we must decide, who do we love more? Ourselves? Or our heavenly Father?
If we love our heavenly Father more than ourselves, than let us empty ourselves of our self-love. In so doing, there will be more room for the love of the Father. And as our love for him grows, so too will our desire to obey him. And if we are obedient to him, imagine what kind of wonders he will work through us! Christ was perfectly loving, and perfectly obedient, and through him the punishment for sin for all his people was worked out, and he was raised from the dead, leading his saints to everlasting life and joy. What kind of amazing works might our Father work through us if we had but a pinch of that love and obedience?
Christian humility is not about becoming a doormat and doing whatever anyone tells us to do. It is about humbling ourselves before only one person: God, and doing whatever he tells us to do. It requires an emptying of our own self-love so that we may have more of the love of the Father, and in so doing, becoming more obedient. And if we are obedient to God, who knows what amazing things he will work through us!