In the last issue of this article, I began sharing thoughts about St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians from the author Marcus Borg. Given that Paul was in prison and uncertain about whether he would be executed, it is remarkable that the letter is so filled with the language of joy and rejoicing. They are among Paul’s favorite words when he speaks of life in Christ and are especially prominent in this letter.

One of the most important and best-known passages in this letter speaks of imitating the life that we see in Jesus. Paul writes:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus who, although he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,    being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

This is an extraordinary passage. It crystallizes Paul’s understanding of the Good News: what we see in Jesus is self-emptying, obedience to God and an acceptance of the challenges that life presents.

Most scholars see this passage as   containing an early Christian hymn that Paul either wrote or quotes in his letter. If it is a hymn that Paul knew his hearers would recognize, it provides a glimpse into how early Christian communities celebrated and remembered Jesus and the significance of his life and death. And if it is not hymn, it still tells us what Paul thought was mot central about Jesus. Follow him; live the life you see in him, for he is Lord, and the lords of this world are not.

I wonder what we would think if we really thought this letter was being written to us. One of the problems I see is that we often listen to these letters of Paul and, because we think they were written to a different group of people, we don’t personalize them. One of the real ways to listen to Paul’s writings and the Gospel is by focusing our attention on them as if they were being addressed directly to us. When we listen to this letter of the Philippians, we must feel as if we were a part of the

Near the end of the letter Paul urges US to follow what we have learned by his sharing of his thought on the necessity to imitate Christ. When he wrote this letter he thought it might be his farewell letter. If, however, we locate this letter during his imprisonment in Ephesus, he was released and lived for several more years. This letter was not his last.