Do Nothing Out Of Selfishness, Philippians 2:3

“Do nothing out of selfishness.” This message goes against the grain in a world where the self is preeminent, indeed, the central focus of all reality. We live in an age that defines itself as the age of the self, and that boldly declares, without any sense of irony, “My truth is my truth and your truth is your truth.” It is an age of “entitlement” in which everything is understood and judged through the lens of the self. In such an age, divine wisdom, expressed through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in scripture, is all too often met with defiance, ridicule, or indifference and falls on deaf ears.

Christians are not immune to this either. As the English poet, William Wordsworth, wrote, “The world is too much with us…We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!” This appeal to the ego, this siren call of the things of the world, is not new. We see it brought out with powerful clarity when Jesus, after his baptism in the Jordan, goes into the desert for 40 days and is tempted by the devil three times with three worldly appeals to his human appetites and his ego. Each temptation is rooted in the things of the world. Each is a temptation to live according to his will, rather than the will of the Father. These are our temptations as well.

Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians: “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; humbly regard others as more important than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3). Clearly, the people of Paul’s time needed to hear this message just as much as we do today. Selfishness and pride are universal human frailties that have plagued us from the Fall of Adam and Eve to the present. They are the source of all of our suffering, yet we continue to fall prey to these subtle, worldly lures. But God is love, a love that is expressed in total self-giving. We see this in his act of creation, and, most profoundly, in Jesus’ total sacrifice of love on the cross to free us from our enslavement to the prideful “Self” that gives rise to all of our sins.

The author, Peter Kreeft, in his book The Two Greatest Novels Ever Written: The Lord of the Rings and The Brothers Karamazov, writes, “God created all the matter in the universe, but we can create something greater than matter, greater than the universe, something that is eternal. Love is stronger than death, the universe is not.” Love is the exact opposite of selfishness. It knows nothing of pride and vainglory. It is always a matter of self-giving, an emptying of the self for the good of the other. Jesus is the prime example of this. He challenges us to be the person that God made us to be, that is, persons made in the image and likeness of God, not in the manifold images of the world. He says to us without guile: “Love as I have loved you” (Jn. 13:34). This love is stronger, more life-giving, than all of the selfish “loves” of the world.

Kreeft, going off the premise that “God is Love” from 1 John 4:8, continues: “Love’s second triumph, salvation, was greater than Love’s first triumph, creation, because unlike the creation, it was also a war, and had an enemy, and demanded sacrifice and suffering. There were no casualties in creation. God paid no price or effort in creating us. But God himself was the casualty in salvation. It cost God nothing to make everything out of nothing, but look at what it cost him to make saints out of sinners. Look at the crucifix.” As Christians, we are in a war against all of the devilish temptations of the world. Our weapon is the weapon of God, the power of love, a love that heals, forgives, that stands bravely against the powers of the world.

We are in the world, but we are not to be of the world. Jesus calls on us to bravely stand with the armor of faith against the assaults of worldly temptations. He alone is the way, the truth, and the life that leads us out of the darkness of sin into the eternal light of the kingdom of God. He reminds us that, “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first…” (Jn 15: 18). But we must also remember this: “If God is on our side, who can be against” (Rm 8: 31).

Let us pray for the graceful strength to turn away from the ways of the ego and the temptations of this world. Let us pray also for an increase in the virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity, that we may know, love, and serve Him and our neighbors more in our daily lives, so that, when we come to our own death, we may hear Jesus say to us: “Truly I tell you, this day you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk. 23: 43). In Jesus’ name. Amen.