ISAIAH 43:16-21

PSALM 126

PHILIPPIANS 3:8-14

LUKE 20:9-19

Sermon – 4/1/01

We have come to what a member of a track team would call "the last lap" of Lent. In our previous four Sundays we have reflected on sin in the cosmic sense, sins in the particular sense, the sources of calamities in this world and how not to make snap judgments about other peoples’ situations, and finally about the amazing grace of God toward both the prodigal son and the unforgiving son in the parable.

If we have taken in the lessons of these scriptures and built on our determination to change vowed on Ash Wednesday, especially if we have been to church each week and kept a Lenten discipline, we have one more hurdle to leap this week, on "the last lap" of the "race" leading up to Holy Week. This hurdle is one St. Paul knew all too well: spiritual pride.

Just as in a track race, if we start showing off for the crowd before the end and don’t see the hurdle, we will trip and fall on our faces.

In the verses leading up to this morning’s excerpt from his letter to the Philippians, Paul lists the reasons for pride he had during his upbringing as a Jew: his great heritage as a member of the Chosen People, one who had learned all the religious laws and rules and, as a Pharisee, zealously observed them. If religion were scouting, Paul’s whole chest would have been covered by merit badges – and he had looked down on anyone who had fewer than he.

But he had realized that faith is more important than dotting the "I’s" and crossing the "t’s" on every possible list of religious duties – and he recognized that what God in Christ had done for him was far more than what he could possibly "do for God," that no person (no matter how devout) would ever be able to stand before God and say, "You owe me."

If that was (and is) true for St. Paul, it is true for all of us.

Paul, because his embrace of faith in Christ meant ending his life of Pharisaic legalism and (naturally) his persecution of the Church, experienced the loss of his whole previous way of life spiritually. All of his "trophy cases" of spiritual accomplishments he had had to leave behind forever in his spiritual journey.

He does not mourn the loss of his "trophy cases". Rather, he says, "I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus My Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ…"

Paul himself lost not just his old spiritual "trophy cases", but also his old friendships, his old respectable, more secure lifestyle, his old sense of "having it made." For even Paul, who never lacked for self-confidence, reminds his readers that he himself had not reached the goal, but that the fullness of life in Christ still lay ahead for him as it does for us.

Paul had been clearly aligned with "the powers that be" against this upstart Jesus movement: he was a Roman citizen aligned against the followers of a man who had been executed on a charge of leading a would-be guerilla uprising against the Empire, he was a student of the great Rabbi Gameliel who was working to stamp out these subversives who proclaimed that the Messiah had come in the person of an unschooled carpenter from a hick town upcountry.

Paul proclaimed Jesus, executed as a criminal, to be the Savior of the World – which meant that every respectable authority was wrong and a motley bunch of "misfits" were the ones God had chosen to challenge and change the world with the Truth.

Paul proclaimed Jesus to be his Savior, which meant that merely following rules and lording it over others was phony faith, and that the Emperor’s claims to be Lord and Savior were fraudulent.

Paul proclaimed that Christ had broken down the dividing walls between people – the walls between men and women, Jews and Gentiles, masters and slaves, rich and poor – all kinds of walls. Anyone who was (or is) only comfortable with a wall between them and anyone who is "different" wouldn’t like this, and neither would anyone who wouldn’t look at others without trying to look down at them.

Paul proclaimed that with faith in Christ (the outcast, the rebel, the subversive of the status quo) came rigorous standards of behavior. Linking ethics and religion seems obvious to us; it wasn’t to ancient Romans. It isn’t obvious to any people today who go through the motions in church once a year or once a week and the rest of the time listen to those who say that "everybody" lies, cheats, steals, sleeps around, promotes bigotry, steps on other people to get ahead, gets high, or whatever.

The Christian life is demanding; it requires that we take our standards from Scripture, not from the powers-that-be of this or any other age, not from the most popular of our peers, or the richest or most famous people around, or from what seems to be the way to "get ahead." The Christian life requires that we see in a tortured, betrayed, condemned, dying man the fullest embodiment of the love of Almighty God for us – and for all people, whether we like them or not. The Christian life demands that we embrace this radical attitude and not expect a medal for doing so, and if we get one to smile graciously and not get stuck on ourselves, lest we trip during the last lap.

The Christian life demands that we look at the Cross of Christ: planted firmly in the reality of everyday life, pointing upward to God’s infinite glory, and reaching outward to embrace the whole world. We, too, are called to be firmly anchored in this world (but not seduced by it), to point up to God (not to ourselves), and to reach out to embrace all as our fellow children of God.

Let us, with Paul, "press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus."

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church