Work, Fear and Trembling – A Reflection on Philippians 2:1-14

Written by Hugh Rushing...

I liked, as a child, to jump on my bed. What child doesn’t? Of course, my mother didn’t allow me to do this. Therefore, I took to jumping on the bed when my mother was out of the house—at the clothesline for instance. From my second floor bedroom window, I could see my mother, a hamper full of wet laundry on her hip, headed to the clothes line. I leaped on the bed and jumped and jumped and jumped. Since I could see my mother as she was returning I was able to tidy up the spread and occupy myself doing something else as she returned to the house.
She came upstairs, armed with her favorite weapon, a paint stirrer which had been dipped hundreds of times in paint, so the end of it was heavy, coated with dried enamel. After the requisite punishment, I sobbed, “But how did you know I was jumping on the bed?” “A little bird told me,” Mother said. I never did figure that one out.

Someone observed that character is what you are, how you act, when no one is watching you. Isn’t it much easier to do what we should do if we are under a watchful eye? I believe it would be much easier to walk my Christian walk if I could hire JJ or one of you to watch me all of my waking hours. Even my wife has a restraining influence over me.

In fact, we rely on our support systems more than we know. When Emily is out of town, I don’t put the toilet seat down; I’m likely to stand with the ‘fridge door open, looking for something to snack on; I’m liable even to drive over to KFC and eat an entire eight piece bucket of original all by myself. I do not however jump on the bed any more.

This is the situation we find in the epistolary reading from the lectionary this past Sunday, taken from Phil. 2:12-13. Paul credits the church at Philippi with always obeying when he was around; but now, some 12 years after its founding and about six years since they’ve seen Paul, he writes to ask that they obey even when he is not there (being held under house arrest clear across the Roman Empire at the time).

From his absent and jailed position, what does Paul ask the church at Philippi to do? – “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”

What does Paul mean by this?

For many years, I understood this passage to be a direct command and proof text for the living of a holy and--so far as possible--blameless life. That only by “acting” correctly could one possibly merit the salvation delivered by Christ’s sacrifice. It was an ideal statement for a legalistic, deterministic and judgmental form of Christianity. It also made it easier to just “give up”, since I felt I could never, ever, measure up.

Historically and traditionally, there were other Christians who thought that a sinner must be “convicted” of his sin, and, through a highly emotional experience, “come through” or be “prayed through” in order to reach a sanctified state. This was “working one’s salvation with fear and trembling” for certain…the weeping sinner in the mourner’s corner.

Now we certainly know the first idea—that Paul is commanding his friends to make certain they tow the line so that they can merit their salvation – is certainly not true. At very nearly the same time he writes to Philippi, Paul has also sent a letter to the church at Ephesus where he says in chapter 2:8-10, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the results of works, so that no one may boast. (Listen carefully here): For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for Good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Some believe this passage provides sponsorship for an individual road map to salvation, that everyone has to somehow “figure out,” on their own, what they must do to achieve their salvation. Again, this can hardly be the case, because Paul has some very definite ideas about how Christians should live. In fact, the verses just preceding these contain that great hymn in which Paul commands the Christians at Philippi to take the form of Christ, in humility, and be obedient unto death.

What I believe Paul is saying when he asks that their salvation be worked out is this: God has planted his salvation within the Philippians and within us as well. With that planting, we need to allow his grace to affect every area of our lives—our minds and our relationships with others.

And what about the phrase “with Fear and Trembling?” Paul uses the same phrase to describe how servants ought to relate to their masters in Ephesians 6:5, and how Titus was respectfully received by the church in Corinth as we read in 2 Cor. 7:15. The point is that Paul asks not for a quaking in the boots kind of fear, but rather a respectful awe which flows out of the reverence that we have for the salvation imparted to us by God.

Furthermore, Paul continues in vs. 13 – “For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”

Surely, left to our own devices, the law of the jungle kicks in – the biggest, meanest and cruelest person wins all the marbles. Whatever good we have within us and however it comes out is because of God and his Spirit working within us. God’s indwelling gives us the power to do what we ought and to act according to his good purpose.

God’s salvation was given to the Israelites in Egypt, but when there was no water the people quarreled. After grumbling to Moses, which he labeled a “testing” of the Lord, God provided the water, just as God also provided the manna and quail. But the people had to consider specific actions which enabled them to collect the manna and the quail and to drink the water. When the Israelites came to the parting of the waters, they still had to walk, just as we have to walk our walk of salvation.

Likewise, this is the situation which Jesus exhibits in our Gospel Lesson for the day: The unwashed of the day…the tax collectors, collaborators with hated Rome, and the prostitutes entered the Kingdom of Heaven ahead of the chief priests and the elders of the people. These were the people who believed in John’s authority and his baptism. They had been granted salvation and they had chosen to walk in their belief, working out their salvation, while the religious authorities neither believed nor repented.

The Western World’s firm grip on individualism has tainted, I believe, our understanding about much of what we find in Chapter Two of Philippians. We have elevated individual rational thought, the express seeking of individual happiness to the expected norm. We work mightily to build up self-esteem; to assure everyone that everyone is a winner in something, to instill pride and boastfulness in home, business and church activities.

What Paul is attempts to do is to convince the Philippians they should be, as he says in 2:2, likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord and of one mind. And with that one-mindedness, seek with all seriousness to embrace fully the love and grace of God that has delivered them from judgment. And that single mindedness works as that support system which enables Philippi’s Christians as well as us today to magnify the grace of God and make it a rich source of joyful living.

Our new minister, JJ Martin, speaks a lot about the image of Christ, and how a congregation of God’s people can be the image of Christ…not each one being necessarily a clone of the other, but in what matters, love, devotion, friendship, support, being of ONE MIND. We cannot individually do everything that our brothers and sisters need, and that the world needs. Paul recognized that we are of many differing talents and abilities; that Christians within the church can have differing roles and attributes. This is the work of salvation—figuring out as a body, with fear and trembling, where our role is in the world. What we can do, whether large or small, to support and minister to each other and the world we come into contact with.

But we can all look forward to that great day, when time is no more, where every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. May that day come quickly and may we, I pray, be prepared for it. May God’s will be that we are of one mind at Cahaba Valley and that we strive every day to live in thankfulness for the gift of Jesus and his salvation for us. Amen.

A Reflection on Philippians 1:21-30

(Click on the title to hear JJ's sermon)

The lectionary from last week asked us to consider two seemingly unrelated paragraphs from the first chapter of Paul’s epistle to the Philippians as one unified section in the letter.

In the first paragraph, vv. 21-26, Paul reflects about his current circumstance in prison – “for to me, living is Christ and dieing is gain.”

What does Paul mean that for him, living is Christ? Does Paul envision it to mean the mystical union between Christ and the Christian that he often talks about, ala Galatians 2:20? In other words, is the implication that the entire identity of the Christian is subsumed into the life of Christ, so that as we go about our lives it is not we who work, play, socialize, etc., but rather Christ within us – we take on the identity of Christ? Or does the phrase mean that the ministry of Christ and his mission to spread the gospel and reconcile all peoples back to God became the sole object of his devotion, to the exclusion of everything else?

Regardless of how you understand Paul when he says that for him living is Christ, the one thing that I can say for certain that living for me has not always been about or in Christ. Rather, living for me has been primarily for JJ. I have been too busy with my agenda, my desires, my wants, my needs that at the end of the day, there is precious little left to give to Jesus. “I will live for Jesus tomorrow,” I vow, only to have tomorrow turn out just like today.

But Paul also says that dieing is gain. How should we read this in light of Paul’s other comments about the end of time and the bodily resurrection? Are we to assume that there is a place where the Spirit goes upon death to wait and be with Christ, only to return and participate in the bodily resurrection? Or does Paul mean that his martyrdom would give him special privileges so that he can skip the bodily resurrection and go straight to God, as early Catholic theology thought? Or does Paul mean that since God is in control of the space/time continuum, he can work it so that death, for each individual, is the time of the resurrection for that individual? Or does he simply mean that death is gain because it is a cessation of all of the suffering that he has had to endure as an apostle?

Everyone has their own opinion about what Paul means, but here is the real truth…I have no idea. Any speculation about the implications of this passage relative to the experience of life after death is just that – speculation. I really wish Paul were answering the question that I want him to answer, which is what specifically and in great detail happens when we die. However, it is going to have to be enough for us to know that Paul considers dieing to be far better than living, regardless of the exact details of death.

But what is really interesting to me about this paragraph is that Paul’s angst about his situation gives the clear impression that he has a choice whether he will continue to live or to die – “I don’t know which to choose,” says Paul. “My desire is death. Death is advantageous to me, it is to my benefit. Death is my best option.” On the other hand, living is to the gain, benefit, advantage of the Philippian church. Does Paul really have a choice, does he really have control over whether he lives or dies? And is that really the issue here? Let’s table that one for a moment.

In the second half of the passage, Paul encourages the Philippians to “live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel…” What doe you suppose Paul means to live a life worth of the gospel?

I think he answers this question in the clause which follows “so that” in verse 27. In other words, a worthy walk is one in which the people of God walk together in like-mindedness. They live together in one spirit. We live together in one faith, in one gospel, sharing the same love. It can be said that we walk worthy of the gospel when we are united in Christ. It is a foundational principle of the gospel call that disparate and diverse people are called out of the various lives into one glorious kingdom of Heaven, inaugurated by a savior who had room in his kingdom for all people. The gospel unites people. It breaks down the barriers between people; and if there are divisions, ill-will, bad feelings, backbiting and such like among us then we dishonor the gospel.

So what do these two seemingly unrelated paragraphs have to do with each other, and why is the lectionary asking us to consider them together?

Paul’s overarching concern for the church, as he stipulated in the thanksgiving earlier in chapter 1, is that the church be pure, holy, and blameless, and that they walk together in unity; and there is no way that the church can be pure, holy, and blameless when its members are acting impure, unholy, and trying to assign blame. Furthermore, such behaviors lead to division within the church; such behaviors threaten the stability of the church, dishonor the gospel, and threaten the success of the gospel. Therefore, Paul uses his own story to demonstrate to the Philippians what it looks like to look out for the interests of others ahead of your own. Paul says that even though dieing is to my benefit, advantage, and gain, I choose to stay in this life because it is what you need me to do. It is exactly what the Christ hymn of Philippians 2 is all about. This is what it means to die to self, take up the cross, and follow Christ. Paul’s story provides the Philippians with a model of love determining action on which to pattern their own lives.

In other words, if the church is going to have a walk worthy of the gospel, if the church is going to be unified, like-minded, sharing the same spirit and love, then its members are going to have to make it a priority to set personal gain aside and intentionally pursue congregational unity.

This is tough, isn’t it? In a society that values the rights of the individual over the needs and rights of the group, this is especially hard. We just don’t have this kind of group think encoded in our DNA. We are taught from the beginning that we have to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We are encoded with the messages of self-sufficiency, self-gratification, and self-aggrandizement. Setting aside my need to be right and to win simply does not sit well with us, but that is exactly what is needed if we are going to be successful or even survive as a church.

I know that we face some uncertain times in the years ahead. That uncertainty is going to bring with it the great temptation to pursue our individual agendas, to get our individual ways, and to lobby for our individual plans. Let us firmly resolve, with Paul, that we will intentionally choose not that which is to our personal advantage, our personal benefit, our personal gain, but rather that which is most edifying, most encouraging, and most conducive to peace and unity in the church.

A Reflection on Romans 14:1-12

The epistolary passage from this past week, Romans 14:1-12, is actually part of a larger section that stretches to chapter 15:7 or 13, depending on who you read. When read as a whole, 14:1-15:13 is a unified statement about the business of judging fellow members of the church. Many believe that Paul’s initial reason for writing the letter to the Romans was to address a growing tension between Jewish and Gentile Christians over the necessity of keeping the Law, embodied in this passage by the issues of eating meat and keeping certain days as holy. The result of this growing tension is that one group of Christians was apparently judging the other, causing Paul to write the letter and put the situation to rights.

Since Paul concedes that there is a stronger Christian, and one who is “weak in faith,” I would expect him to correct the situation by declaring which side is right, and which side is wrong. What is needed is for someone with sufficient pastoral authority to enter into the dispute regarding eating meat and keeping holy days and deliver the truth on the matter. I expect Paul to do this because I am frequently concerned with determining who is right and who is wrong in any given situation; nor do I believe that I am alone in that concern. Indeed, a good doctrinal debate seems, at times, to be the very air which a congregation breathes.

Interestingly, Paul does not appear to be concerned about delivering the truth about this point of doctrine and therefore correcting someone’s supposed error. In fact, he mentions the “correct” position later on in chapter 14, though he issues no apostolic edict to the “weak” to shape up and embrace the right position. Rather, Paul’s words are shaped by his concern for the unity of the church. Put another way, eating meat and keeping one day as a holy day over another are irrelevant in the kingdom - each person must make his or her own decision about that issue. However, what is very relevant in the kingdom is how we get along in the face of our differences of opinion. It is very easy to be a coherent community of faith when everyone agrees about everything (in fact, I believe that the push some churches make toward unanimity is due to their fear about how to handle differences of opinion). What is not easy is to maintain unity in the face of diversity.

Paul handles this situation in two ways. First, he issues a blanket statement that Christians are not to judge their fellow Christians His argument works like this - If we are all servants of Christ, then who are we to sit in judgment over a fellow-servant? As far as I know, Christ has appointed no one to the position of head-servant in the kingdom, and until he does, I am going to continue assuming, with Paul, that we are all equal. But what does Paul mean that we shouldn’t judge? I think vs. 10 gets us close to a definition when Paul asks – “or why do you despise your brother or sister?” Judging does not have to be an active, in your face condemnation of someone’s beliefs or behavior. Judging is a more subtle affair. I think we are judging our fellow Christians when we quietly sit back and bask in the sure knowledge that we have got it right, got it figured out, and they have not. Judgment says “they must be stupid, ignorant, or simply don’t care about the truth if they don’t think like or hold the same positions that I do.” They don’t even have to know that we are judging them. We can sit back and quietly despise them and the only one it affects is us. Unfortunately, sitting in judgment will destroy relationships in the church, and it will tear the unity of the church apart.

In this passage, Paul also handles the situation by appealing to our relationship with Jesus. “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.” Paul has been carefully building this case throughout the book of Romans. There is a fundamental identity change when we take on Christ in baptism. We take on his identity, we become clothed in Christ. Paul encourages the church to be transformed into Christ’s image. The acceptance of Christ in baptism means that we accept not only his lordship, but also his mission, ministry, and very self. So, when we judge our fellow Christians, we are not only rebelling against the image of Christ that we bear, but also denigrating the image of Christ in others.

Jesus and Paul are very concerned about the unity of the church. Church unity is not only threatened by open warfare within the congregation over differences of opinion. It is also threatened when Christians take it upon themselves to sit in the judgment seat over their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. It is very easy to slip into judgment mode. I am certainly guilty of judging others. I know how good it feels to judge. But let us be vigilant to welcome all of our fellow Christians, regardless of how much we disagree with them, for when we welcome them, we welcome Christ in our midst.

A Reflection on Matthew 18:15-20

The gospel reading for this past Sunday, Matthew 18:15-20, is special because it is one of only two places where Jesus actually mentions the church (the other is Peter’s confession in Matthew 16).This paragraph appears to be divided into two parts. Part one, vv. 15-17, is often referred to as the justification for the practice of church discipline. It is a three step process detailing how members of the Christian community are to hold each other accountable to the life of holiness and righteous that Jesus calls us to. It begins with first singly confronting a brother or sister in sin, progresses through a group intervention, and ends with a pronouncement before the church, proclaiming that the one in sin is to be as a pagan or tax collector to the church, i.e. to be as one who is outside the community of faith. However uncomfortable I am with this practice, its uniqueness within the gospels makes it stand out.

This passage has been referred to as “The Rule of Christ” for centuries, and has been used as the basis for significant portions of the confessions of faith since the Protestant Reformation. The Belgric Confession (1561) says that the process of church discipline is one of the three markers of the true church, along with “the pure preaching of the gospel” and “the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them;” likewise, the Westminster Confession (one of the most influential statements of faith in modern times, written in 1647) devotes an entire chapter (chapter 30) to the question of church discipline. Rather than being an instrument of punishment for bad behavior, Christians for centuries have recognized that church discipline is a tool of reconciliation, designed to use the influence of the community to restore and repair broken relationships with God and fellow Christians.

Why does Jesus place this very heavy responsibility on the church’s collective shoulders? Despite our individualistic tendencies, the church is not a collection of individuals, but it is one community. Just as there are three persons of the Trinity, but one God; so there are many members of the church, but only one body. Paul makes this argument over and over again. Church is primarily a communal experience. And in the community, what one person does affects the rest of the community. In other words, the sins of one person hurts the entire church.

God apparently sees his people collectively, as well as individually. One person cannot act sinfully with impunity. God is concerned not only with individual salvation, which is where we tend to place our focus, but on the purity of the church. Ephesians 5:26-27 (which appears in the midst of a passage talking about the importance of mutual submission in the church) says that Christ died not only to save individuals, but to have a pure church, holy and blameless, and if that is to happen then we must be concerned as a church with holding each other accountable for living holy and righteous lives.

Part two of the passage, vv. 18-20, is concerned with the business of binding and loosing, a phrase which occurs in both Matthew 16 and 18 (the only two passages in the gospels which mention the church). What does this binding and loosing mean?

As I see it, there are two possibilities. The first, and least likely, is that it refers to the authority of the church to forgive and retain sin. (The church has been given this authority, but it is better established by John 20:22-23 and James 5:13-16.) The most likely meaning of binding and loosing has to do with the practice of determining the application of scriptural commandments for contemporary situations. In other words, final authority rests with the community to identify which behaviors constitute sin and which therefore require repentance. This is consistent with Matthew's understanding of the Great Commission (28:20). In order to fulfill the mission entrusted to us, the church must be able to discern what obedience Jesus’ commands look like, and those entering into discipleship must accept the church’s authority in determining what it means to follow Jesus.

As a church, we instinctively put this grave responsibility into practice. For example, though slavery was once a tolerated if not accepted practice in the church, the church in its wisdom has determined, based on the authority that is granted it by Christ, that slavery is a sinful practice which cannot characterize anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus. Another example comes right here from Cahaba Valley. Though many would say that the Bible clearly prohibits women from holding an eldership role or authoritative teaching role in the church, we have decided, based on everything we understand about God, the equality we all share in Christ, the first century context, our modern context, and good interpretive principles, that there should be no restrictions placed on women and that they should have equal participation with men in the life, worship, and leadership of the church.

Matthew 18:15-20, with its accountability process and weighty authority to bind and loose, can seem to be a heavy burden. However, if we see it for what it is, it does not have to be a passage which elicits a groan every time it is mentioned. If we view it as a passage which encourages mutual submission, patterned after Jesus’ submission to his own father’s will, that seeks to keep the church pure and holy; and if we view it as a passage which grants the church broad authority to negotiate the difficult path of discerning what it looks like to be the church which belongs to Christ in a pluralistic society, then it can become a powerful exercise of grace and love, two ideas which I know we can all get behind.