Empty Like Us
In the hilariously over-competitive world of muscle cars, the Dodge gang found something to nitpick during Ford’s release of the Shelby GT500 Mustang. Not its lack of pushrods, or its relatively small-displacement V8. It was nothing terribly relevant like that. Shared parts over at Ford Motor Company meant that the king Mustang’s automatic transmission’s rotary gear selector could also be found on rental Ford Fusions.
Of course, Dodge’s cars use shared parts too (Dodge itself is shared parts these days), but that isn’t the most important takeaway here: That dorky rotary gear selector is a lesson in Christology. It’s a “type” of Jesus. It emulates Jesus.
When people in the early church in Philippi needed encouragement on how to handle the complicated interplay of reputation, self-worth, arrogance, self-hatred, and humility, Paul pointed them to Jesus. “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:5-8)
Jesus operated like a gear selector in a Ford Fusion or a 750-horsepower Mustang, or turn signal stalks in Hellcats and Journeys, or hood prop brackets in diesel Fiats with double-digit horsepower ratings scooting around rural Italy. Jesus perfectly did his job. He was not arrogant, taking advantage of his Godly glory to fulfill personal vendettas or win admiration from people he liked. He also wasn’t self-loathing, pitying himself for the brutal rejection and betrayal and physical pain he would have to go through. He did his job.
He wasn’t arrogant like a flow-through headlight on a Challenger, or over-yielding like spent exhaust gas molecules, whose only purpose is to leave the car as quickly as possible. Jesus did his job like an important car part in an important car, yet without the air of importance.
Our challenge is to do the same, and this begins with a healthy image of ourselves. Think of a gear set in a manual gearbox (oops, sorry GT500s). First gear is pretty important, and in some cases, will take you from zero to sixty. Sixth gear is essential on the highway – or the Texas Mile, in a different way – and everything in between is useful for circuit racing. If we think of ourselves as one of these gears, how should we esteem ourselves? How should we think of ourselves the way God wants us to, and in a way that emulates Jesus’ example?
Just as Dodge has placed that gear where it needs to be, God puts people in situations where we can be faithful to him like Jesus was. God is glorified when we dutifully glorify him, and we do this best by bringing God’s goodness into the lives of people around us.
Leaders and other people who are important by cultural standards have the same option Jesus did: to empty themselves of pride and see how God can use that role to reach someone in need. As author and theologian Henri J. M. Nouwen said, “The leader of the future will be the one who dares to claim his irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation that allows him or her to enter into a deep solidarity with the anguish underlying all the glitter of success, and to bring the light of Jesus there.” Because broken and empty people need good news that God loves them – and we can surely relate – Jesus’ brokenness was pure magnetism. If God’s plan for us involves us going through some brokenness, God may be using that setting to attract broken people to us.
In a way, any shared Chrysler/Fiat part that winds up in a Dodge Challenger is special in its own way. Once it’s bolted into a machine with a thundering V8 and a fat torque curve, it is no longer a Chrysler part. It’s a Dodge Challenger part, and it’s important because the Dodge Challenger is important.
