All things to all people - breaking down the barriers to Jesus - 1 Corinthians 9:19-23

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Paul devotes much of his first letter to the Corinthians answering questions and addressing issues that have arisen within the Corinthian church. These issues run the gambit from problems with personal morality, division in the church, suing fellow Christians in court, abuses in worship, sexual immorality, etc. It appears as if we can boil many if not all of these problems down to one root cause – a misunderstanding and misuse of Christian freedom. Thus, Christian freedom is a major theme that is scattered throughout the entire epistle. For example, in chapter 6, Paul argues that while all things are lawful (6:12) not all things are beneficial. A key principle, Paul further explains, is that the Christian’s body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and that therefore we are not our own – that we have been set free so that we might glorify God with our bodies (6:19-20). Similarly, chapters 7 (marital and sexual ethics) and 8 (food sacrificed to idols) also address questions regarding the proper use of Christian freedom.

As we move to chapter 9, Paul uses his own personal example to lay out his basic attitude toward Christian freedom. In a nut shell, Christian freedom does not mean that we insist on exercising our freedoms and our rights. Rather, Christian freedom means that we have been freed from the slavery to sin and selfishness and enabled to renounce the exercise of our freedoms and rights for the good of the community. So, though Paul is free with respect to all, he has made himself a slave to all that he might win them (9:19).

Paul then describes what this looks like by appealing to three different categories of people. To the Jew he became as a Jew in order to win the Jew. To those outside the law he became as one outside the law in order to win those outside the law. Finally, to the weak, he became weak, so that he might win the weak. In other words, Paul’s basic approach to Christian freedom is that his freedom enables him to do whatever is necessary to either win people to Christ (Jew and outsider) or help them to a deeper and more meaningful relationship with God in Christ than they have already (weak). It is not the exercise of the individual’s freedoms and liberties in Christ that is important, but rather the benefit that comes to the kingdom because of them.

So what does this passage have to do with us?

When asked, most Christians place a high value on evangelism and conversion. Most Christians believe that it is an important Christian honor and duty to bring others to Christ. However, there is a large gap between professed belief and church or individual practice.

What is it that accounts for this gap? I believe it is not that people are not sincere in their desire for conversion; it is rather that, in general, we want evangelism and conversion to happen on our terms and in ways that make us feel comfortable. For a large majority of Christians, evangelism and conversion will happen only if it does not take us out of our comfort zone and only if it does not get us too involved in the mess and the muck of humanity and sin.

Jesus, however, became the Christ – God incarnate – precisely so that he could meet us on our terms; he did everything he could to remove the barrier between us and God so that we might enjoy a renewed relationship with God. I believe that Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 9 is that he did and would do everything in his power to remove the barriers that stood between people and a relationship with God in Christ – he would meet people on their terms so that they might experience the good news of the kingdom.

Our church vision for 2009, expressed by the elders, is to reach out to the families of the North Birmingham kids and to young adults, professionals, and families in North Shelby County. Our vision is that we would be a church that spreads the good news of the kingdom and experiences growth. In order to achieve this goal, are we willing to meet other people on their terms, and not expect them to meet Jesus and come to faith on ours? In other words, do we in our church practice, albeit unknowingly, place barriers that people find it difficult to cross to come to Jesus? If so, are we willing to break them down so that others might experience the freedom in Christ that we do? Are there things in our church practice and worship that we will have to change in order to accomplish and implement our vision, and if so, do we have the collective will to make these changes?

Let us decide as we move forward with our vision to set tradition, preference, and personal desires aside and join with Paul in becoming all things to all people for the sake of the gospel.

A Reflection on God's Holy Fire: The Nature and Function of Scripture

Today, our adult Bible class began a study of God’s Holy Fire: The Nature and Function of Scripture, by Ken Cukrowski, Mark Hamilton, and James Thompson.

The authors state that “people live by stories that locate their lives in the larger picture of the world. Stories express a way of viewing reality. From these stories, we can discover how to answer our most basic questions: who are we, where are we, what is wrong and what is the solution? A community without a narrative explaining where it came from and where it is going will lose its purpose and die” (3). These foundational stories or community narratives are very powerful and they are largely responsible not only for giving us our purpose and meaning, but also for our continued survival. Christianity is a religion that is founded upon a story and that story is found in the Bible. Churches will survive and continue to be the Kingdom of God to our world, therefore, only inasmuch as we are connected to our foundational story in the Bible.

Unfortunately, the authors claim, the church is facing an increasing biblical illiteracy rate in America. In other words, we are rapidly becoming out of touch with our story. While there are several reasons that could be given to account for declining biblical literacy, the authors offer three. First, past experiences in Bible class have immunized people from wanting to study the Bible. Many of us grew up in Bible classes that did not show us how the Bible is relevant to our lives and were boring. These experiences served to take away our motivation for good Bible study when we got older. Second, our culture has prepared us to do our reading and get our information in short bursts and sound bites. It is difficult for us to devote the time that is necessary to do good Bible study. Third, Bible study appears to be a daunting task because of the large gap in time, distance, language, and culture that stands between us and the biblical text. There are many other reasons that could be named, but each of them only supports the authors’ position that biblical illiteracy is reaching an all time high.

God’s Holy Fire, then, is their attempt to curb this lack of Bible reading, study, and knowledge. “We write this book because we are convinced this decline in biblical literacy will result in the loss of the church’s memory – a devastating form of amnesia. Therefore, we challenge Christians to rediscover the Word that has sustained God’s people for generations. We hope to encourage the love of scripture, to lead the church toward the knowledge of scripture, to equip the church for the proper use of scripture, and to clear away misunderstandings of scripture…to encourage Christians to reclaim the central place of the Bible in their lives” (ix-x).

If we would stave off the rising tide of biblical illiteracy that threatens the health and stability of the church, then we must rediscover the Bible and its relevance for our lives today, even though it was written so long ago. It cannot be, for us, simply a history book; it is not simply a book full of good stories; nor is it some kind of blueprint that when followed will get God to like us more. The Bible is a book which defies categorization. Ultimately, it is the story of God’s quest to restore a relationship with humanity.

I highly reccomend this book to any and all who want to recapture a zest and passion for good Bible study and the use of scripture in the church of today.

The Power of the Word - Mark 1:21-28

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Freedom through discipleship - 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

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In Warner Sallman’s painting, “Christ at the door,” Jesus is depicted as standing at a door with no doorknob, knocking. This painting has captured the imaginations of thousands who have seen it. People are drawn to a Jesus who came from heaven to invite us to be a part of a new way of life in the kingdom of God.

In Mark 1:15 we read where Jesus began his ministry by issuing a call to repentance and faith – to a life of discipleship. This call to discipleship is not simply a message of hell-avoidance. Jesus believes that his preaching is “good news” for people, and that living the life of discipleship will make a difference in peoples’ lives right now. That difference is freedom (Romans 8:2 – “set free from the law of sin and death”; Gal. 5:1 – “For freedom Christ has set us free”).

Obviously, Mark has condensed his story for our benefit. He describes the disciples’ response to Jesus’ call as immediate and life-altering – Peter, Andrew, James, and John all immediately left everything – careers and family – to follow Jesus.

But in what sense did they leave everything to follow Jesus? If we look down at Mark 1:29, we are told that after leaving the synagogue, Jesus and the disciples went to Simon and Andrew’s house, where Jesus cured Simon’s mother-in-law. Obviously they did not become complete ascetics and completely divorce themselves from their families and previous lives. So in what sense did they leave everything to follow Jesus?

I think we get a glimpse of an answer in the epistolary reading from 1 Corinthians 7:29-31. These verses are basically an apostolic aside inserted into a discussion regarding sex and marriage, but they have serious implications regarding Christian ethics and the Christian way of life.

Paul begins by saying that “time has grown short,” which is to provide the motivation for the discussion which is going to follow. There is no universal agreement about what Paul means by saying time has grown short. However, I believe that Paul is referring to the end of the ages that was inaugurated by the resurrection of Christ. This event signified that a new world order had begun, and that Christians now live as a part of the kingdom of God, while at the same time waiting for a greater manifestation of the kingdom when Jesus returned. In this sense, it is an eschatological, or end-time, hope that colors how one lives, even if Jesus’ return is not as immanent as was once thought.

So, in view of the time in which we now live, let those who are married live as if they were not; let those who are joyful live as if they are not; let those who mourn live as if they are not; let those who buy and sell possessions live as if they are not; and let those who deal with the world live as if they had no dealings with the world, because the present form of this world is passing away. (JJ’s paraphrase)

I think the last phrase of the passage – “For the present form of this world is passing away” – is the key to understanding the passage. It is not only our conviction of faith, but our own observations and experiences about this life that sees the truth in Paul’s claim about the impermanence of this world. The forms, structures, institutions, forces, powers, etc. of this world were not built to last. Our own experience of the end of 2008 reminds us of the impermanence and fragility of the forms of this world. To live as a Christian, in view of our eschatological hope for Christ’s return and a fuller experience of the kingdom of God, means we recognize that this world is temporal, temporary, and is fading away as we speak. Therefore, discipleship means that we experience a radical reorientation of our perspective.

As Christians, we should no longer regard what happens in this world and in this life as what is ultimately important, because it is going to pass away. It is not that we don’t engage this world – we marry, we experience joy and sorrow, we buy and sell possessions, we accumulate wealth – but we do it recognizing that these things are not of ultimate importance. Rather, they are less important than our relationship with God in Christ.

However, Paul is not just calling for a change in our perspective. He is calling for a change in our lifestyle because of our changed perspective. It is not enough to simply say that the forms of this world are not of ultimate value and importance and to keep living as if they are. Discipleship means that we adjust our lifestyle to reflect this confession of faith. All of the lectionary passages from this week reflect this same focus. Paul calls this lifestyle a change in our relationship with the forms of this world. Mark 1 describes this radical lifestyle adjustment as “leaving nets” and leaving career and father. Jonah 3 says that Ninevah made this lifestyle adjustment by declaring a city-wide fast and a city-wide dress code of sackcloth (adjustments that were so wide-spread that they were to include the livestock as well).

Changing our relationship with the forms of this world will look different for everyone – we all have the responsibility for making the life of discipleship concrete in our lives. For example: many Christians, despite the conviction to follow Jesus alone, still live as if the accumulation of wealth is what is ultimately important. How can we find ways to view money, wealth, and possessions, as tools in our hands to carry out our service to God and not as ends in themselves? How can we participate in the structures of this world, for example, the stock market, or the housing market, without placing our ultimate trust for our well being in them? How can we live in America without succumbing to the rampant wave of civic religion that has been sweeping across the country, believing that America holds the solution to the world’s problems? How can we work in our careers and yet not place our personal identity in what we do for a living? Or does our anxiety and stress about our jobs suggest that we have been looking to them as a source of satisfaction that can only leave us wanting something deeper and more fulfilling?
Jesus lived and died so that we might be free. Why then do so many of us still seem to be in slavery? Why do we still seem bogged down with the weight and care of this world? Why do so many of us still live as if the things of this world have ultimate meaning?

I often use words like obedience, holiness, and discipleship to describe the Christian life. These words can sometimes invoke negative images in our heads because they remind many of us of the church that we came from – a church that sought to earn salvation through a legalistic approach to faith and that used these words to beat us up and only increased our feelings of guilt and unworthiness. Therefore, after much theological discussion, it is our conviction as a church that salvation comes by God’s grace and mercy and that there is nothing that we can do to merit God’s favor or earn our salvation, a position that I whole-heartedly agree with and fully support and believe in.

So many might wonder why I still use these words. I use them because it is also my conviction that the freedom that Christ offers comes to us in a very counter-intuitive way. We experience God’s freedom through our practice of repentance, faith, and discipleship. Isn’t that what Jesus calls us to in Mark 1? “Repent, believe in the good news, and come follow me.” Isn’t that the message of Paul in 1 Corinthians 7? “…let those who deal with the world live as if they had no dealings with the world …”, as if God is the source of ultimate value and the source of our life and well-being.

Jesus is there, standing at the door knocking. And it is only through a full-bodied embrace of the life of discipleship to which we are called that we can find the true freedom that he offers, and live out the good news of the gospel that he came to proclaim.

Listening For God's Call - 1 Samuel 3:1-10

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We live in a time where everyone, it seems, claims to speak for or have special insight into God – secular leaders, religious leaders, ordinary people, even Oprah. It is always difficult for a church to discern God’s will, but when everyone claims to have it, who do we listen to? Put differently: when are the words of disciples, especially leaders, the words of God? When do we hear God and think it’s someone else? When do we think someone is speaking for God when they are not?

I believe our lectionary passage from 1 Samuel 3 touches on these questions.

The collected book of Samuel (1 & 2) begins at the end of the period of the judges in Israel. As it opens, Eli is the current reigning judge over the tribes of Israel. Though we don’t know it at the beginning of Samuel, Eli is destined to be the last judge in Israel. In fact, though they certainly didn’t know it at the time, Israel was poised for a period of great transition. They were getting ready to transition from a tribal state to a nation; from rule by judges to rule by kings; and from Eli to Samuel. One of the first things that God told Samuel was that he was going to do something new, something that would make the ears of those who heard about it tingle (vs. 11).

I am sure that on a macro, geo-political level, there were many reasons for Israel to make these transitions. However, there are some clues in 1 Samuel 3 that give us at least one perspective for the transition. The chapter opens by telling us that a time had arisen when hearing the Word of the Lord and visions were rare. This is probably due in no small part to the situation at the end of the book of Judges, where we are told that everyone did right in their own sight (the evil ways of Eli’s sons, who were also priests, probably didn’t help things either, and were the specific reason for Eli’s downfall). Additionally, we are told in chapter 3 that Eli was losing his vision. Now while this is a physical condition, its placement in the text dramatically symbolizes the fact that the word of the Lord and visions were rare. Furthermore, the story takes place at night, a dramatic effect that only enhances our understanding of the bleak spiritual landscape in Israel.

As chapter 3 begins, we are told that Samuel, who at this time appears to be a young boy serving as a mere functionary in the temple at Shiloh, received a call from a nameless, faceless voice while he was sleeping. Three times he heard this voice and three times he believed it was the voice of Eli, calling from another room. We, the readers, know that it is God calling Samuel, but Samuel doesn’t know it. (The fact that Samuel doesn’t recognize the call of God is no bad reflection on him, in fact the text even tells us that he had not yet received God’s call and did not yet know the Lord (vs. 7). I suppose if I had been Samuel hearing this voice in the middle of the night, I might be tempted to seek out psychiatric care.) It was only after the 3rd time that he heard this voice that Eli, perhaps due to his diminishing ability to discern God’s voice, recognized the possibility that it was God calling. So, on the fourth visit by the voice of God, Samuel responds and begins his prophetic career.

On its face, the story marks the beginning of Samuel’s call to be a prophet, and as such there is little surprising to it – Samuel joins a long list of people in scripture who are also called to be God’s witnesses and prophets. What is surprising to me in the story, however, is that God called Samuel. I mean, if I were God and needed to get my message out and disseminated to the people, I would probably operate through the hierarchical structures that I had already established. I would probably start talking to Eli again, or maybe go through one of his sons who were priests and leaders of the people themselves (I know they were reprobates, but so were a number of people that God called to work with). If I didn’t like either of those options, I might even go to another recognized leader among the people, someone with some standing and credibility. I certainly would not choose a mere boy serving as a functionary in the temple. It is to Eli’s credit that he not only recognized that God might be calling Samuel, but accepted that God was calling Samuel and not him. Eli seems to have been able to accept the fact that God was acting in an unexpected way, calling an unexpected person, to do something new in Israel.

It is at this point that Samuel 3 intersects with the questions that I posed a few paragraphs ago. Sometimes we grow comfortable in the temple - grow comfortable with our worship services, comfortable with our lives, comfortable with our ministries. But maybe it is precisely because of our comfort in the temple, so to speak, that we forget that God does not always do what we expect; that the voice of the Lord can be found in unexpected people from unexpected places. Isn’t this the challenge of our gospel reading from John 1? When Philip told Nathaniel that the Messiah had come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, what was Nathaniel’s response? “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

I do not believe that the challenge of the church is to follow God. I think that if we collectively figured out what God wanted us to do and where God wanted us to go then we would show up in our millions. I believe the challenge of the church is to remember that God does not come to us in expected ways from expected people and expected places. God’s will is not always disseminated to us through the expected channels. Therefore, we must find ways to intentionally look for where God is speaking, acting, and calling. It will require wiser heads than mine to figure out the process for how to engage this process. But I believe that remembering to look and listen is a good first step.

Mark 1:4-11 - The baptism of the Lord

Virtually every Christian denomination affords baptism a very important place in its theology. We don’t all approach it in the same way – some do it as a response to salvation, some for salvation; some sprinkle while others immerse; for some baptism is done at infancy by parents and for others it is chosen by the individual. Regardless of our differences about reason, method, and time, however, we all believe that it is an important event early in the life of a Christian. For all of us it is an occasion where, in a unique way, the human interacts with God.

This meeting between the human and divine is no where more visible than in Jesus’ own baptism. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all include the story of Jesus’ baptism, and though John does not, he alludes to it in chapter 1:29-34. Interestingly, none of the gospels ever really settle the question of why Jesus decided to have John baptize him – Mark and Luke offer no reason at all, and Matthew’s reason (“it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness”) is sufficiently vague so as to leave one still guessing.

The question of why Jesus got baptized is not merely an academic question; it posed a real problem for some early Christians and still continues to be a source of puzzlement for us today. A major tenet of the Christian faith is that Jesus lived a sinless life from birth until death. In fact, one could argue that Jesus’ sacrifice was good for all humanity precisely because he was sinless – an unspotted lamb brought to the sacrificial altar for the sins of the world. Paul even said it in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that “for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The problem is that Mark 1:4 very clearly says that John proclaimed a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Therefore, if Jesus submitted to John’s baptism, then does that mean that he was a sinner just like the rest of us? You can see where some might have a potential theological problem.

Obviously I believe, like Paul, that Jesus was sinless. Therefore, I am forced to conclude that Jesus was baptized for some other reason about which thousands of people throughout history have only been able to speculate. I don’t claim to suggest that I have solved the answer to this riddle…quite the contrary. But let me list a few reasons why Jesus might have decided to submit to John’s baptism.

First, his baptism is the occasion to announce his special status as God’s son. Remember that before John the Baptist arrived on the scene, the voice of God in Israel had gone quiet. Suddenly, John arrives and people believe that God is once again speaking to God’s people. And John points not to himself, but to the one who is coming after him, the one who would be the Messiah, the one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit. God was ready to do something new! But this time, God demonstrated that the new thing was going to happen in the person of the Son of God.

Second, through baptism, Jesus identifies with the sinners that he came to save, and therefore leads us in the way to a new relationship with God. Jesus came to bring about the kingdom of God. It was the most prominent theme of his teaching ministry. He called people to repent, to prepare for life in the kingdom. One way to speak of baptism is to speak of it as the door through which we enter the kingdom. It is not just an act that results in salvation or the forgiveness of sins, but it also prepares us for a new way of being in God’s kingdom. Jesus’ baptism signified that God was doing something new. It was the act at the beginning of his ministry which signified a new possibility – living in the kingdom of God. Our baptism serves the same function. We follow Jesus through the door to the kingdom. Baptism prepares us for a life lived in the kingdom, for this new and exciting possibility.

Third, Jesus’ baptism marks the kind of ministry that he would have. Christians have always associated baptism with the death of Jesus. Symbolically, at baptism we die, are buried, and resurrected as Christ was. Baptism can only function as a symbol of new life if it first leads us into death. So, for example, Paul wrote in Romans 6:3-4: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” If we look at Jesus’ baptism through the lens of our own understanding of baptism, then we can see how it prefigures the kind of life he would lead. Jesus’ ministry was going to be a ministry of radical self-denial that would lead him ultimately to his death on a cross. Jesus would be killed, buried, and then resurrected, conquering death. The end of his ministry is foreshadowed by the beginning of it.

Obviously I have not finally and completely answered the question of why Jesus was baptized. This is a question for the ages. Perhaps the question is never definitively answered because such an answer might encourage us to stop thinking about Jesus’ baptism, and thus stop thinking about how we are intimately connected with Jesus through our own baptism. That would be a tragedy!

A Reflection on Epiphany

This past Tuesday, January 6, a major Christian feast day slipped by, almost unnoticed. Tuesday was Epiphany, known in other places around the world as Three Kings’ Day, the day when the twelve drummers started drumming. In the West, the importance of Epiphany as a day has been lost in favor of an entire Epiphany season, which typically lasts until Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.

Epiphany is the climax of the Advent/Christmas Season. Quite literally, it means “to show” or “to make known” or even “to reveal.” In Western churches, it remembers the coming of the wise men bringing gifts to visit the Christ child, who by so doing "reveal" Jesus to the world as Lord and King. The Wise Men or Magi who brought gifts to the young Jesus were the first Gentiles to acknowledge Jesus as "King" and so were the first to "show" or "reveal" Jesus to a wider world as the incarnate Christ. This act of worship by the Magi, which corresponded to Simeon’s blessing that this child Jesus would be "a light for revelation to the Gentiles" (Luke 2:32), was one of the first indications that Jesus came for all people, of all nations, of all races, and that the work of God in the world would not be limited to only a few.

Epiphany, as a season, is a time not simply to focus on the mission and work of Jesus which led to his death, burial, resurrection, but is also a time for us as a church to reflect on our mission to the world in light of Jesus’ work. So as we begin to think about how our service to God and the world will play out in 2009, let us remember the mission that we believe God has called us to, expressed in the Cahaba Valley Church Mission statement.

In love and faith, by grace, we seek to do God’s will, both as individuals and as part of a fellowship of believers known as Cahaba Valley Church, an Ecumenical Church of Christ. We believe God calls us to know and to be known by God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and to love all humans as God loves us.

To accomplish this mission we commit ourselves:

• To serve the poor and the poor in spirit
• To build relationships with those who seem separated from us by country, language, community, economy, race, age, gender, and creed
• To be with those who suffer and to share our burdens in prayer, that we may comfort and be comforted
• To seek simplicity and honesty in the face of the world’s temptation
• To celebrate the abundance of God’s blessings in worship and generosity
• To hunger after God’s word and seek the guidance of the Spirit in prayer and fasting
• To nurture the young and the young in Christ, sharing the Good News in word and deed
• To praise and worship God in unity with brothers and sisters throughout creation
• To cherish and encourage the intimacy of membership in God’s family, to gather in God’s house and in our homes for meals, prayer, play, work, and worship
• To encourage and equip one another to use the gifts God gives us for service
• To leave our hearts and purposes open to God’s surprising actions
• To experience the joy and peace that comes from being a child of God

In all this, we ask God to send us forth in boldness, filled with grace and love.

Isaiah 40:1-11 and Mark 1:1-8 - What are we waiting for?

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Advent is a time of hope and expectation for the church; a time when we look forward to the incarnation of Christ, celebrated at Christmas. But Advent also looks forward toward the 2nd Advent of Christ. Advent is the ultimate period of time in which, collectively, the church begins to wait, and see.

But what are we waiting for? Advent can be reduced to simply a prep time for waiting for the birth of Jesus to the exclusion of its expectation of the 2nd Advent of Christ. That is certainly the dominant message that gets proclaimed at Advent – Jesus is coming! But are we really waiting? Do we really want something to happen? Do we really want the something different that Advent promises us? This is the challenge of Sunday’s lectionary readings from Isaiah 40 and Mark 1.

As chapter Isaiah 40 begins, Israel has experienced the tragedy of massive defeat, endured the agony of exile in Babylon, and suffered the unthinkable – God has let the people, and even God’s own house, be destroyed. And so during the time between Isaiah 39 and 40, Israel experienced a period of divine silence.

Divine silence is hard to deal with. We know God is out there, we know God is ruling and is continuing to be sovereign and work out God’s plan. What we don’t know, when faced with divine silence, is whether or not God continues to care for and love us as God’s people, especially when God is silent while we experience severe hardship and pain, as Israel experienced the degradation of their religion, holy places, faith community, and way of life.

Finally, at long last, a message came from God – Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God... At long last, our captivity is over and God is going to act. Isaiah describes a time when God will restore the people and reveal God’s glory, but first the way must be prepared. This preparation will be like a road carved out of the wilderness…valleys will be filled in, mountains will be brought down…the very earth will be leveled so that God’s restoration will have a way and God’s glory can come forth. And so Isaiah was to preach that though life is impermanent and fleeting, God’s word is permanent, and will last forever. God will come and restore the people. God will be a great and mighty warrior to rescue the people, but will treat them like a shepherd tends to his flock; God will act like a mother sheep, leading her children to safety. Isaiah 40 ends in expectant hope.

Our passage from Mark 1 combines Malachi 3 and Isaiah 40 to tell us that John is the one the prophets spoke of, that John is the one who is going to prepare the way and proclaim the salvation of God. And so we read that “John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” and that Jesus is coming.

I have been guilty of making the anticipated mystery of God a wholly spiritual one. I have been guilty of making Jesus’ message and the message of the New Testament simply and exclusively about redemption from sin. But we mustn’t forget that the comfort of Isaiah 40, in fact the anticipation of the coming of the Messiah throughout the Old Testament, was not primarily about salvation from sin, but about salvation from oppression and injustice. The people longed for a day when the evil forces of this world would be defeated. Salvation would be from the systemic evil of the world expressed in evil empires and tyrants, from one class of society oppressing another, from one group of people going hungry while another ate their fill, from systems that are designed to keep one group poor so that another can get rich. Yes salvation was for the forgiveness of sins, but it is not limited to that…the anticipated salvation from God was for a new world order to begin. And onto this expectant scene for a new world order marches the voice crying out in the wilderness saying the kingdom is coming, the new manifestation of God’s reign is coming – and the way to prepare for it is to repent.

Advent is not just about waiting for Jesus so we can have our sins forgiven. Advent has always been about waiting for God to act redemptively in the world to bring shalom, or peace, or health, or wholeness to it. Peace between us and God; peace or shalom between us; and there can be no peace or shalom until there is equity and justice – until there is reconciliation. We are waiting for the very manifestation of God’s reign that the people of Israel in Egypt and the captive Jews in Babylon were waiting for. We are waiting for the manifestation of the very kingdom of God that the 1st century Jews and Christians were waiting for.

The people of God, on both sides of the cross, have always been looking for God to move and act redemptively in the world. I think this is why John’s message was a message of repentance. John tells us that repentance is primarily a relational event. Repentance is a way to restore relationships with other people and repentance is a way to be reconciled or restored to God. This message is brought out best in Luke 3, which contains a fuller version of John’s preaching and call to repentance in anticipation of the coming salvation of the Lord.

Repentance is acting out the new kind of life made possible by the redemptive act of God. Repentance is living out the life of the kingdom that we are waiting for. Repentance is about turning around and actively working against the forces of evil that seek to build barriers between people and between people and God. It is about restoring equity and justice in our relationships with other people. And it is about recognizing when we are participating in systems of injustice and inequity and seeking to right that wrong. Repentance is about acting now in a way that honors the one who is coming who will act finally and redemptively at the end to bring about final and complete shalom, to and for all people. And if Isaiah and John are to be believed, when the people of God repent in preparation for the coming redemptive action of God, a new world is born.

Sunday was the 2nd Sunday of Advent. Originally, Advent was a time of penitence and fasting, much as the Season of Lent. But in recent times, the penitential nature of Advent has been replaced with a more positive message of hope and anticipation. However, the readings for the 2nd Sunday in Advent put the two together. They proclaim to us a message of comfort that salvation is coming, but call on us to repent because salvation is coming.

The challenge of Advent is to see that God is always a God of Advent. God is always doing something new. God is always working to bring peace and reconciliation. This is who God is. Our task is to look for those places where God is working; and I think that we will find some extraordinary things. God works through a baby in a manger in an insignificant town in a tiny country to change the world. God works through the shame of a cross, a death that robs one of dignity and significance in order to bring dignity and significance to the world. Could it also be that God works through a small and seemingly insignificant church to change the world again? I think that is what we are waiting for. May it be so!

Psalm 80: A Cry for God's Salvation

(Click on the above title to hear JJ's sermon from Psalm 80)

The lectionary asked us to consider Psalm 80 as a part of the readings for the 1^st Sunday in Advent. Despite the difficulty presented by the Psalms as a resource for preaching (their liturgical purpose, the difficulty in determining their historical context, and the communal nature of the Psalms), it seemed appropriate to begin the Christian year with a Psalm that has the Lord’s people crying out for the Lord’s salvation and deliverance.

Psalm 80 is a psalm of lament. Lament Psalms can have a hard time connecting with contemporary American Christian audiences, perhaps because so much of the American Christian experience over the last few decades has been largely a triumphant experience. The dominant theme of American Christianity is the goodness of God. We tend to equate material wealth and economic prosperity as signs of the blessing of God, which while true, tends to create a fairly skewed view of Christianity. However, psalms of lament insert a mournful and angry tone into worship, inviting believers to confess their own disillusionments and disappointments with life and with God. So for a church that has been nurtured consistently on messages of God’s goodness and grace and mercy, a Psalm that is angry with God and accuses God of abandoning God’s people and being responsible for their pain and suffering has a difficult time connecting. We are largely uncomfortable with such accusatory expressions directed at God, and even more uncomfortable with their public expression in worship, where we tend to favor messages that have a more positive spin.

But back to Psalm 80. It starts off rather bleak. We are not told of the situation, but the community is crying out for God to save them. The cry of verse 2 – “Stir up your might and come and save us!” becomes the refrain of the entire Psalm, found in vs. 3, 7, and 19 – “Restore us, O God of hosts, let your face shine, that we may be saved.”

The actual situation that gives birth to the cry for salvation is difficult to establish. Some have suggested that the psalm was written in the aftermath of the Babylonian exile by a people who have had to come to grips with the ultimate challenge to their faith – abandonment by God that led to a loss of their home country. Others have suggested that the cry of salvation arose as the intense cry of pain from a community that has been torn in two by the division of the kingdom between Rehoboam and Jeroboam after Solomon died. Regardless of the situation, the cry for restoration is a communal cry for God to restore the kingdom, to right the wrong that they believe has been done to them by God.

Their experience is apparently one of pain. The people are afraid, and feel abandoned and frustrated because of it. All the while God appears to them to be unmoved by their plight. God seems strangely absent. And so the Psalm moves from a cry for restoration to a tone of accusation. God has fed them the bread of tears, God has made them the scorn of their neighbors and God has caused their enemies to laugh at them. Finally, after cries of pain and accusation, the Psalm ends with a plea for God to send his righteous servant to restore the people back to God.

How do we connect with such a Psalm of lament?

Many people never question their relationship with God. They know God is present and in some cases are keenly aware of that presence most of the time. But for others, such a relationship with God is not easy. For these people, faith is a challenge, especially when confronted with difficult circumstances and situations in life that just make no sense and have no real solution. For some, they just can’t seem to find their place in life. For others, they just can’t seem to get ahead and can’t seem to get over the lumps that everyday life keeps sending them. We all have either experienced or known people who have experienced the feelings of fear, uncertainty, abandonment, and anger toward God that are engendered in Psalm 80. For these people, it is comforting to know that God can handle our lamentations…God can handle our questions and God can handle our accusations. However challenging and discouraging and discombobulating we might find the dark night of the soul, it can be a vehicle toward greater faith, if we have but the courage to lay our feelings and emotions honestly before God.

But the Psalm is a communal lament. In the Psalm, the community is afraid because the kingdom that they once knew is no longer. Whether the Psalm is about the divided kingdom or the Babylonian exile, the situation for the kingdom looks bleak. It went from a thriving, growing, powerful kingdom to a small and seemingly insignificant kingdom, threatened by its larger, richer, and more powerful neighbors. The faith community, finally and at long last, has realized that there is nothing for it to do but cry to God for salvation, and wait expectantly for God’s deliverance. And their expectant hope took concrete shape in the form of a person who is at God’s right hand, the one whom God made strong, and this person will restore the people to faithfulness, life, and worship – waiting for the advent of God’s divine action for God’s people.

I submit that our church situation is the situation of the community in Psalm 80. We were once larger than we are, but over time have gotten smaller. We are surrounded by larger and richer churches who are competing (probably not the right word) for the same new members that we are. We are struggling to find our way; to discern the will of God; to figure out a way to survive and thrive and grow when it seems as if the deck is stacked against us. We too are afraid of what is going to happen to our church in the future. I would even bet that there might be those among us who have a hard time deciding what God can possibly be doing to let things get to this point. We have done everything as faithfully as we knew how. We made decisions and congregational moves that we believed were the best for the church, and because we believed them to be the leading of the Holy Spirit, and yet now we are not sure what to do or where to go.

Psalm 80 is a psalm in which the community of faith acknowledges that on the one hand God is in control, but on the other hand laments because of the uncertainty of its present circumstance and is clearly waiting for God to come and save us. Today is the 1^st Sunday in Advent, and lament is appropriate language for Advent. If Advent were only about heart-warming stories of a baby in a manger, then Advent might fail to connect with us in our times of darkness and discontent. To own our fear and lament our circumstance and the challenges it brings us is to profess and deepen our own faith in God. Let us not forget that Psalm 80 – a psalm of lament, moves from despair and accusation, fear and abandonment to a renewed hope that God will act and see that God’s will is done. So perhaps our proper response to our circumstances, as Advent begins, is to mimic the act of faith and hope in Psalm 80 – to cry out to God and dare to see and expect a greater manifestation of the reign of God where others might see and expect nothing. Like the people in Psalm 80, we address God when God seems absent. We expect and hope that in spite of our fears, we will see God in the most surprising places – in a manger – or the most God-forsaken places – on a cross.

Advent is the time where we cry out – “Restore us, O Lord God of hosts, let your face shine that we may be saved.”

Mark 4:35-41 - Jesus is in the boat

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

This sermon was recorded at the Rosedale Fellowship gathering, of which Cahaba Valley is a part. Rosedale is the only African American neighborhood in Homewood, and Cahaba Valley got involved with the Rosedale churches as a part of a social justice effort to keep Rosedale from being taken over and developed for business and commercial use. This is a gathering held every 5th Sunday, and JJ preached at the last one held this year.

Mark 4:35-41
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’

A Paralyzing Fear - A Reflection on Matthew 25:14-30

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

For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away…

One has to wonder about the wisdom of putting the parable of the talents right next to the parable of the ten virgins. They both are part of a private conversation between Jesus and the disciples (ch. 24) and both are about the general theme of the final judgment. However, their placement together might send a mixed message. Maybe the third slave in the ‘talent’ parable had heard the story of the 5 foolish virgins who ran out of oil and took it to heart. He did not want to be the one let without ‘oil’ or without ‘talents’ at the master’s return. Therefore, he did the most natural and fiscally responsible thing – he buried the money, so that he would have the master’s money when the master returned. Yet instead of rewarding the servant for prudence and preparedness, he had him thrown into outer darkness, a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. That seems totally unfair.

Any reading on the parable of the talents would likely lead to a conclusion that it has something to do with being faithful with what God has entrusted to us. This message is established through allegory, the dominant way that parables used to be interpreted, in which the master represents Jesus, his return represents the 2nd coming and the final judgment, and the servants are Jesus’ disciples, today represented by the church. So, many of these writings on the parable would argue that the central issue of the parable is this: what does Jesus entrust us with? Or, to put it a different way, what do the talents represent?

What are the options? Augustine thought that the talents represented salvation; others believe that the talents represent the Law, and still others the Word of God. Some people don’t think the talents mean anything – they are just a way to demonstrate the unfaithfulness of the third servant. But the number one option for the meaning of the talents, put forward by John Chrysostym, is this – they symbolize personal gifts and abilities to be used in the service of the Son of Man. So the talents represent talent.

To make the correlation between the talent and talent is a legitimate reading of the story. But it does come with a couple of problems. If I’m reading the story correctly, the first two servants double their 'talents'; this implies that using one's gifts and abilities will result in the gaining of more gifts and abilities. The issue is further clouded by verse 28 where the one talent of the third servant is taken away and given to the first servant. How this could be said to apply to gifts and abilities is not exactly clear. A further complication is that the gaining of new talents/abilities happens after the return of the master, or after the return of Jesus, which further clouds the issue. Additionally, at face value, one critique of this reading is that it espouses a work-centered theology that most of us simply cannot agree with. Perhaps I’m reading way too much into the story and taking the allegory too far, but it certainly does make you wonder whether the talents are really meant to be talent.

What if the major issue in the text, thought, doesn’t have to do with trying to identify what the talents represent at all?

Maybe a better question is this – what is the difference between the servants that led to such different outcomes upon the master’s return?

The answer is fear. The third servant was afraid. Maybe he did know the story of the virgins and didn’t want to be the one left empty-handed when the master returned…burying the money until that time was the safe thing to do.

Given our country’s current financial situation, his plan sounds good. Think about the incredible audacity of the first two servants to put their master’s fortune at risk. The story moves through the investment and return so quickly that we are tempted to think it is almost a given that the servant’s investment of the master’s money will automatically pay off – but that is not necessarily the case. These guys possessed some kind of nerve to take a fortune that they neither earned nor could pay back and put it completely at risk, enduring the possibility that they would be left to greet the master upon his return with nothing.

I can totally relate to the third servant. I grew up believing that “it is better to be safe than sorry.” I have lived significant portions of my life in fear…fear of dieing, fear of the unknown, fear of failure…even fear of success. Fear can be absolutely and totally paralyzing, prompting us to see burying money (and even our heads in the sand) as an example of sound, fiscally responsive policy. Fear is a totally merciless and demanding master that can take over and run our lives into the ground.

Many of us have recently been talking about trying to grow our church. Telling people about Jesus can make us afraid. I think probably the number one reason that people don’t engage in evangelism is because they are afraid. What if people say no? What if people think we’re stupid? The challenge to grow and be evangelistic and engage people in conversations about faith and salvation challenge us and our faith on its deepest level – do we have the faith to conquer our fear and take the risks to win people to Christ? Or perhaps our fear takes us in a different direction. What happens if we fail? What happens if we make a mistake? What happens if we totally blow it and instead of growing we lose more members? What happens if we go broke? What happens if we die? Or, maybe worse…what happens if we are successful and actually grow? You cannot grow a church and not experience at least minimal, but more likely, significant change. As we all know, change is an occasion for fear as well.

I think the message of this parable for us is this: there is no responsible use of the gifts of God, there is no responsible work in God’s service that does not involve taking risks. Stasis is impossible. There is no standing still, no burying of capital allowed. Responsible discharge of our calling as Christians and our calling as a church requires us to take risks for the Kingdom, risks we would rather avoid. The parable pushes us beyond the apparent issues of industriousness and using our talents to a harder truth – service for the king is a dangerous affair that calls for us to risk everything for the sake of the reward that stands before us. I can’t help but think back to Jesus' words to the disciples, "Those who want to save their lives will lose them and those who lose their lives for my sake will find them."

So I guess it makes sense, after all, to put this parable next to the parable of the ten virgins. “Be ready for a long delay as you wait for my return,” says Jesus, “but don’t let fear keep you from serving me with all you have in the meantime.”

A Reflection on Matt. 25:1-13 - The Parable of the Ten Virgins

(Click on the title above to hear this sermon)

A Reflection about All Saints/All Souls Day

(Click on the above title to hear the sermon from Nov. 2, 2008)

This past Sunday we celebrated All Saints and All Souls Day. From the first century, the Church has always honored those who have died in the Lord. During the church’s first three centuries, Christians often encountered severe persecution, suffering torture and bloody death because they refused to deny Christ, even when this denial might have saved their own lives, or the lives of their children and families. The stories of these martyrs provide models for how Christians throughout the centuries should live as Christ’s disciples. Even today we know the importance of remembering people of extraordinary achievement and exemplary character. We celebrate President’s day (honoring Lincoln and Washington as exemplary presidents), Columbus day, July 4th, Veteran’s day, Memorial day, Martin Luther King Day, etc.

Furthermore, there are at least two places in the New Testament that hint at such a practice. The first is in Hebrews 12:1-2, which says since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses (referring back to the heroes of faith in chapter 11)…let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us. The second place is in Revelation 7, our New Testament lectionary passage for this week.

I confess that I am intimidated by the book of Revelation. I just don’t understand apocalyptic literature. It has been helpful for me, however, to understand that Revelation was written to address a specific historical context. The emperor, in this case Domitian, claimed to be God and everyone was expected to acknowledge his deity. Rome was seen as the ultimate power in this world and that it bestowed the blessings of peace and prosperity on those who were loyal. Therefore, all patriotic citizens would support the state as the ultimate source of blessing. However, to the first century Christian, such claims could only be heard as a blasphemous usurpation of God’s sole authority as the Almighty – Jesus is Lord, and not Caesar.

The Asian Christians claimed that God is the Almighty ruler, and that Jesus is Lord, but their life experience was one of pain and frustration, suffered at the hands of pagans. How were they to make sense of this paradox?

John gives their experience meaning by telling a story in which the power of God is contrasted with the power of the emperor and empire. The story assures the reader that those forces currently at work against God, forces of oppression and injustice, will be overthrown by the liberating act of God. The Christ, the agent of God’s liberating act, appeared, confronted the kingdom of this world established on violence and oppression, and conquered.

But instead of conquering through violence and oppression, he conquered through suffering and death. The king is also the lamb, and the suffering and death of the Christ represents the very power of God to overthrow the dark forces of this world. Therefore, as suffering and death was Christ’s ultimate victory, so death and suffering is to be the Christian’s ultimate victory.

So at last we come to Revelation 7 where we are transported to the heavenly throne room. There are the four living creatures surrounding the throne, and the angelic host, and the 24 elders, all singing – “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.” There is an innumerable group of people from every nation, tribe, and tongue, dressed in white robes, holding palm branches and crying out “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
An elder comes and tells us that “these are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb…” These are the people whose faith stayed strong in the face of the might of the empire, who never wavered from their conviction that Jesus is Lord, and who ultimately gave their lives for that confession of faith. These are the martyrs.

This vision was given to give us hope regarding the outcome of our difficult, threatened, persecuted existence in the world of the empire. “Stay strong in the faith,” says John’s apocalypse, “because you will join this group, in a place where the physical trials of this life will be gone, the injustices of this world will be put to right, and where you can enjoy being in the presence of the king.” "Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses," says Hebrews 12:1, "let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us..." Jesus put it this way - "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven..."

We no longer suffer under the tyrannical rule of an emperor and empire that persecutes us because we do not recognize it as lord of our lives. I think, though, that we would have to admit that the rule of the empire is alive and well. It doesn’t threaten us with torture and death…it tempts us with prosperity and an easy life-style. Our ordeal is trying to resist buying into the way that this world works. In our day and age, the great ordeal is not the threat of death, but the grim conflict of loyalties in which a Christian may well be in genuine doubt about where his or her duty lies. Common sense says: The true power in the world to save is the United States, or capitalism, or democracy. The Revelation says: the true power is the Lamb of God, whose power is made manifest, not in the weapons of violence, but in the intentional submission of life to death for others. The problem we face today is the same as in the past…how do we not cave in to a common sense that defines reality as the power of wealth, violence, and exploitation of the environment, rather than defining reality as the Lamb of God who conquered and achieved victory through service, selflessness, suffering, and death on the cross?

Today is All Saints/All Souls Day. It is a day where we are challenged to remember the martyrs who gave themselves for the cause of Christ and to be encouraged in our faith because of their example. They remind us that church is not just a social club where we go to get our social needs met; Christianity is not simply where we come to suck the blood from Jesus in an exercise of cheap grace while we ignore his call to radical discipleship where there is no compromise to be brokered between the power of God and the power of the empire. Those people in white robes, those who put their lives on the altar of faith in Christ believed that Christianity was irreconcilable with “good citizenship” in the empire of this world. The martyrs remind us that the call of Christ is to radical discipleship, where we are asked to leave father and mother, leave the comfort and security of the promised prosperity from the modern empire and asked instead to follow Jesus down Calvary’s road.

Therefore, let us raise our voices and cry with that great host of martyrs in heaven “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Let us join with those who are now enduring the great tribulation, those oppressed by poverty, or war, or natural disaster. Let us unite ourselves with those holy martyrs robed in white before the throne, those of every nation and tribe and people and language: Men and women, all races, all ages who through their enduring witness, have taught us what it really means to stand up on proclaim and bear witness that Jesus is Lord.

A Reflection on Leviticus 19

(Click on the title to hear JJ's sermon on Leviticus 19 from October 26, 2008)

In 1861, Harriet Jacobs wrote the first slave narrative composed and published by an African American woman entitled “Incidents in the life of a slave girl.” This is what she wrote about her early childhood mistress:
“After a brief period of suspense, the will of my mistress was read, and we learned that she had bequeathed me to her sister's daughter, a child of five years old. So vanished our hopes. My mistress had taught me the precepts of God's Word: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." But I was her slave, and I supposed she did not recognize me as her neighbor. I would give much to blot out from my memory that one great wrong. As a child, I loved my mistress; and, looking back on the happy days I spent with her, I try to think with less bitterness of this act of injustice. While I was with her, she taught me to read and spell; and for this privilege, which so rarely falls to the lot of a slave, I bless her memory.”

I have no doubt that Ms. Jacobs’ mistress was a deeply religious woman. But like many that we come into contact with everyday, I am not sure she was really Christ’s disciple. For some reason, religion and discipleship are thought to be separate from each other – as if what we do on Sunday has nothing to do with what we do during the week. I suppose that the people of God have always tried to separate them; and I suppose the prophets of God have always tried bringing them back together, as they are brought together in Leviticus 19.
Leviticus 19:2 says – You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. Following this bold declaration is a litany of laws that may seem unreasonably legalistic, authoritarian, and completely foreign to our worldview, but whose purpose, simply put, was to make God’s people holy.

What does it mean to be holy? Ubiquitous in both the Old and New Testaments, holiness sounds like a religious concern, not a discipleship one. The very word ‘holy’ tends to conjure into our minds images of cowled monks huddled in a chapel at the top of a mountain praying day and night.

To be holy is to be separate…it is to be distinct. Leviticus 19 equates holiness with righteous and ethical living. Holiness has a purpose, it is about treating other people the way God would have us treat them and seeing within them the image of God that we believe is in us. Holiness means that the people of God, as part of God’s family, are held to a higher standard of behavior than anyone else because God is holy and we are to reflect this divine attribute.
But what is this higher standard of behavior? Many people believe that Christian life means that we abstain from things. But simple abstention is not what Leviticus 19 or I are talking about. Let me highlight three areas or ethical behaviors which I believe are necessary to be holy that I think are problem areas for us today.

In verses 9 and 10 we are told that as we go about our regular routines of life, in this case harvesting crops, we should be intentional about helping the poor. How many of our regular life practices are designed with the poor in mind? Whole facets of our society have been built to get away from the poor (and others) – we call them suburbs. We rationalize the separation by saying that suburban life is best for our families – crime is lower and schools are better out here. I am sure that we are all possessed of the best of intentions. We likely never intentionally decided that we would live here to be away from certain types of people. However, the truth is that we unwittingly participate in the process of keeping people in poverty by living in the suburbs (much could be said here about the connection between white flight, the culprit behind the ‘burbs, and the poverty of the city). The ease and comfort of the suburbs have lulled us into forgetting the poor (and others), the very people to whom, as Jesus said, belongs the kingdom of God. Do we have to have to move into the city to be holy? No. But we must intentionally engage with those areas that are historically poor and marginalized if we are going to be holy. To be holy means to take care of the poor.

A second area of ethical concern from the text comes from vs. 32, where we are told to rise before the aged and defer to the old. Sometimes, in our society, the elderly are perceived as an unbearable burden. Like the poor, elderly people are put out of our sight (thank you nursing homes), and frequently out of our mind. It is sad to me that even the church, which has received specific instructions from the New Testament writers about honoring our elders, champions the cause of the young over the old. Young people speak of the elders as hampering our new and exciting agenda and holding us back. Church programs are designed to attract youth because there is at least an implied idea that somehow young people are better for church growth than not-so-young people. But as Christians, we are challenged to come up with clear and unwavering commitments to honor our elders—for our holiness sake, and for the Lord's.

Before moving to the third area of ethical concern, let me mention vs. 18 and the familiar command to love neighbor as self. The treatment of the neighbor says more about one's theological commitments than any ecclesial confession. Indeed, how one defines who is one’s neighbor reveals the kind of God in whom one believes. Racism, sexism, and homophobia are theological issues because conforming to such prejudices hinders us from viewing those of other races, genders, and sexual orientations as neighbors. I have highlighted 2 areas of concern for the church today – the poor and aged. But they are only examples of a far-reaching problem within today’s church. Christians have gotten it into our heads that we get to choose who we are going to treat with respect and who we will not; who is worthy of the gospel and who is not; who bears the image of God and who does not. Leviticus 19 and the New Testament which relies upon it do not afford us this luxury. It is no wonder that Jesus, Paul, and James all appropriate this statement from Leviticus 19:18 as being fundamental to what it means to live as a Christian.

This is why many of the commands in chapters 18-20 end with the phrase “I am the Lord,” or “I am the Lord your God.” This phrase recalls to the mind the broader context of Israel's relationship with God. The God who speaks to Israel is the God who has already faithfully and redemptively acted on Israel's behalf: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt" (v. 36). By placing these instructions in the context of deliverance, the writer understands them not as the arbitrary dictates of power for power's sake, but as the practices that will continue and extend the effects of God's redemptive presence among the people.

Finally, perhaps the most incendiary area of concern from Leviticus 19 comes from vs. 33, where we are told to love the aliens who live among us as ourselves. This has obvious relevance in America where a major political battle is being waged regarding what should be done with people who live here illegally. I make no claim to solve the political debate in our country. Let me just say this. How we treat someone or speak about someone must not be determined by that person’s legal or illegal status in our country. We might be tempted to say that this is another time and place and Israel did not have the problem of aliens in the land like we do. However, if you remember your Bible, Israel was not supposed to have any foreigner in the land at all so as to protect the purity of the people. Yet despite that fact, Israel was still told to treat the foreigner, the alien, the illegal alien as fellow citizens of Israel. What can we say about the foreigner who lives among us except this – we were once foreigners who lived in a strange land; we were once sinners, alienated from God, but in God’s love we were welcomed into the kingdom of God’s glory and grace and if we are to be holy then our hospitality must extend to those who are strangers in the land as well. In our time there is perhaps no other issue that will demonstrate what our theological commitments are than this one. The true test of ethics and holiness will be whether or not we can speak of and treat the immigrant among us, legal or otherwise, as neighbor.

There are many other things to be said about Leviticus 19. Let me end with this: holiness demands that we put the injustice perpetrated on Harriet Jacobs by her owner to rights. Let us demonstrate that a holy people will champion the cause of justice and equality because that is the cause of our holy God. If we would be the people that God calls us to be; if we would be followers and disciples of Christ then we must land on the side of justice and holiness for that is where Jesus is. And where Jesus goes, we will follow.

A Reflection on Exodus 33:12-23

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

The episode of the golden calf is a blight on the record of Israel’s history. Because of it, Yahweh threatened to remove the divine presence from leading the people to the Promised Land. But I am not sure the Israelites were as bad as we have been led to believe.

Let’s put ourselves in their shoes. We have been brought out of Egypt, and know that it was only due to the might hand of Yahweh that we got free from Pharaoh’s tyrannical grasp. Yet Yahweh has been closeted away for weeks meeting with Moses, and we have no idea about when they will be done and return. We’re not sure what to do. Fear is beginning to spread amongst the people. And when fear dips its toe into our communal waters, waves begin to ripple. “How are we going to survive as a people without any clear direction on where to go? There is no clear voice that can point us toward existential certainty…we are standing in the shadow of Sinai and are not sure that we are going to survive and make it to the promised land,” we exclaim!

Hoping to calm the growing uncertainty, our leaders call a tribal meeting. And amidst all the standing around and scratching heads wondering what to do now arises a voice from the back of the tent – “I’ve got an idea!” These are four very dangerous words.

This is what fear does, doesn’t it? Anxiety and fear will cause us to look for anything that will provide relief – it doesn’t have to work; it just has to provide us with the illusion of action and progress.

The golden calf is unimportant by itself. The particularity of the idol is not the issue – the golden calf is simply the symbol of a people who are too afraid to wait on the legitimate presence of the LORD to lead them to the Promised Land.

Upon learning of their collective march toward idolatry, God is, understandably, upset. “Get out of my way, Moses, so that I might smite them with my cosmic death ray!” But Moses’ cooler head seems to prevail in the face of God’s wrath, bent toward the annihilation of God’s people, and God relents.

So in Exodus 33:12-23 we might assume that the problem is God’s temper, and the angel a fitting answer to the Israel/Yahweh relational problem. This is a bad assumption. The problem is, rather, that God’s presence has been withdrawn from the people in favor of a surrogate guiding angel, which is not a welcome sign of God’s presence, but a disappointing substitute.

Moses understands exactly the implications of leadership via angel or the divine presence. God’s presence was always to be Israel’s mark as the unique people of God. From the pillar of fire by night and the cloud of darkness during the day, to Paul’s claim that the church is the temple of the living God, the presence of God is the bedrock principle of what it means to be God’s people. And if God refuses to lead the people then the Exodus was all for naught. So Moses successfully argues that God and not the angel should lead the people to the Promised Land.

But how can we know that the presence of God is with us? In this story, God’s temper seems imperfectly trustworthy, even Moses is a bit suspicious of God’s intentions. So he says in verse 18 – “show me your glory, I pray.” Moses knows that seeing the glory of God will be a reassurance of Yahweh’s presence. In the face of fear and uncertainty, opposition and anxiety, we ask God for unambiguous physical and visual symbols of God’s presence.

But today’s theophanies, or encounters with God, are more subtle. God doesn’t light up the sky with personal messages of enduring presence. Sometimes it doesn’t seem as if God is around at all.

The fullness of the Lord’s presence, what Moses in his fear and uncertainty thinks will help, is in and of itself too much for human comprehension. Such presence would be coercive – faith would be turned into sight. There is always some uncertainty with regard to the Lord’s presence, some mystery associated with God. Otherwise, would there be room for faith and trust?
So how can we know that the Lord is with us?

God told Moses that God will be known through proclamation – “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you.” Knowing God – faith, as Paul wrote – comes by hearing the proclamation of the word. Sight, it appears, does not tell us much about either divine or human behavior. What good is it to see some great miracle of power and glory? It tells us nothing about the nature and character of God. Even if it were possible to walk by sight, I am not sure that we would learn to be faithful anyway. Remember the story of the rich man and Lazarus? After his death, the rich man begged to have Lazarus sent back to bring testimony to his family so that they may avoid his fate. And the response? If they did not believe the words of Moses and the prophets; if they did not heed the proclamation, then they would not pay attention to a resurrected poor man come to save them.

I don’t know how to concretely answer the question about how we can experience the presence of God. Moses asked for a visible symbol and received a proclamation of the goodness and mercy of God instead. We cannot go back to a pre-calf existence when the fullness of God can be seen more clearly…we are left instead with the task of knowing God through our obedience. But isn’t this the way it’s always been? We hear the word of God proclaimed; we hear about God’s gracious and merciful nature and respond to it by offering our obedience – and faith says that somewhere in the offering of ourselves through submission, we will see and know God. I like what the Trappist monk Thomas Merton once wrote - “How shall we begin to know who You are if we do not begin ourselves to be something of what you are? We receive enlightenment only in proportion as we give ourselves more and more completely to God by humble submission and love. We do not first see, then act: we act, then see…and that is why the man who wais to see clearly, before he will believe, never starts on the journey.”

A Reflection on Philippians 4:1-9

(Click on the title above to listen to this sermon)

Recently, it seems like the only thing anyone talks about is the financial crisis. Even the election seems to have become solely about the crisis, with each candidate doing what he can to convince voters that he has the very plan to come in and save the day. It also seems like every time I turn on the TV there are news analysts, experts, and journalists up on the screen sounding a lot like Chicken Little running around saying “the sky is falling, the sky is falling.” Maybe they are right? Ask just about anyone and they will tell you how things are – stock, credit, and housing markets all in the toilet, civil and political unrest the world over, and soaring food prices; all of which seems trivial to us in light of the news that we received last week that Oscar has cancer.

This past Sunday the lectionary asked us to consider Philippians 4:1-9, in which Paul issues a list of exhortations that include, among other things, instructions to stand firm, rejoice, be gentle, be thankful and prayerful, to not worry about anything and to be at peace.

Paul clearly has not been paying attention to the news! He is in prison, there is division in the church, the stock-market is falling, retirements are being lost, health is threatened, we’re not sure how we are going to survive as a church, much less grow, the government is borrowing money to save the credit markets, loved ones can’t find a job, people are facing real, painful situations and nobody can say how it is going to turn out, and all Paul has to offer us is platitudes – stand firm, rejoice, be gentle, don’t worry, pray, give thanks, and be at peace? To be frank, it appears as if Chicken Little is right - the sky is falling. We are just one small, insignificant church. How can we, a small voice in a market of competing megaphones, hope to make any difference for Christ?

It is unfortunate that our lectionary passage began at 4:1, and not back in 3:20, where Paul offers us a serious dose of perspective that might make the platitudes of chapter 4 seem possible. Back in 3:20 Paul writes – “our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory…”

It is as if Paul has answered all of my questions – “ok JJ, you want to know how I can have the nerve to ask you to stand firm, rejoice, be gentle, don’t worry, pray, give thanks, and be at peace? It is because you are a citizen of Heaven. You are over there with Chicken Little in the wrong time zone. You are thinking like you belong here on this earth, but you don’t. You are a part of the kingdom of heaven and that is where you live.”

What in the world does it mean to be a citizen of heaven? This is the only use of the word translated ‘citizenship’ in the entire NT, and there appears to be no English word which sums up what Paul appears to be saying to the Philippian church. Under the provisions of the Roman form of government, Philippi was governed as if it were on Italian soil. The concept is perhaps similar to a consulate or embassy – the American embassy in Egypt, for example, though it is technically in Egypt, is American soil and is governed and conducted by American rules and regulations. Thus, Paul tells the Philippians that they are part of a heavenly embassy, their state and constitutive government is in heaven, and as its citizens they are to reflect its life. There is no dual citizenship here.

Trying to maintain dual citizenship means that earthly thinking tends to dominate how I live. And guess what happens when the mind is set on earthly things? I spend a lot of time listening to Chicken Little, and he is right. When viewed from one perspective, the situation is bleak, and maybe even hopeless.

But such is not the way of the Kingdom of Heaven. Paul reminds us that when we put on Christ, we experience a permanent change of address. Our reality is transferred from this world to the world of the Kingdom of heaven. It is as if, in putting on Christ, we have walked through the brick wall and landed in magical, mystical, wonderful Diagon Alley. And once we discover the real world, the world of Christ, the world where we belong, why would we want to go back to Muggle-land?

And in this world of the kingdom we expect a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is transforming our bodies of humiliation – our bodies of flesh and bone and their reliance on all things brick and mortar, invested and saved, medical and dental – so that they may be conformed to the body of his glory. We are part of a system that knows no governments, citizenships, or allegiances other than the one to Christ. This heavenly kingdom is a present reality and determines how we live in this world – we wait patiently for Christ’s return and live by the heavenly character of the commonwealth to which we belong. I am pretty sure that this is what it means to be in the world but not of it.

Therefore, as we live here in America by the rules of the Kingdom of Heaven, it is to be expected that we would be a people who, in the face of adversity, hardship, health crisis, and economic ruin, stand firm, are gentle, aren’t worried about anything, pray, give thanks, and are at peace. Maybe the old song was right? “This world is not my home, I’m just a passin’ through; my treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue; the angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door and I can’t feel at home in this world any more.” I pray that it may be so.

A Reflection on Philippians 3:4b-14

“If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more…” I used to read these verses as a polemic against legalists. Indeed, this seems to be what Paul is after. He apparently intends to contrast those who place their confidence on the things of the flesh, i.e. legalism, with those, represented by Paul, who place their confidence in the righteousness that comes by faith. And so Paul says – “ok, if you want to compare reasons for confidence, then I win! But all of these things which made me confident of my standing before the Lord; whatever I perceived to be to my religious advantage, I count as loss. It does not even come close to the surpassing value that comes from knowing Christ.” Ah, such great rhetorical polemic against those legalists!

But suppose that the application of Paul’s polemic here goes beyond the legalists. Suppose that Paul is talking to anyone who places too much stress on their own spiritual achievements, even those which aren’t classically legalistic?

The current favorite whipping boy of “enlightened” are those whom we believe to be legalists. How fond we are to remind ourselves that after much consideration, we are right and they are wrong. I am sure that we mean it with the best of intentions, but we are quite fond of reminding our congregations how great it is to finally have realized how wrong we were all those years we spent as one of the legalists, and how happy we now are to have discovered grace, and if only all those legalists would just wake up and discover how much better it is to live over here where we are.

I can almost hear Paul saying it. “If anyone has confidence in the flesh, I have more: a preacher of grace; proponent of inclusiveness; purveyor of social justice; and towards those who get it wrong – non-judgmental.”

Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these things. I think that this is truly who I should be and the kind of preacher needed in the church. The problem is that my confidence in my achieved spiritual maturity is just a re-packaged version of the confidence that a legalist feels in claiming to have gotten everything right.

Paul says that all that confidence in the flesh is rubbish, it is garbage, it is putrescence; it is to be left behind so that we 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,” a righteousness that really comes from God, not my own sense of spiritual achievement, and that is really based on faith.

I like the fact that I know that I am right. I am proud of the fact that I am considered a liberal, maverick preacher in my denomination. What’s more, it affords me the privilege of lobbing my smug grenades at any and all who disagree with me. “Oh if only they could figure out how much better it is over here – KA BOOM” “If only those legalists would wake up and smell the grace – KA BLAM!”

And God, through Paul, flies through the smog of my superiority and asks – what are you really willing to give up to know Christ?

No, I can no longer think that Paul is just talking to legalists here in Philippians 3. He is talking to me. He is asking me to give up my confidence not in my legalism, but in my liberalism. He is asking me to rely on actual faith instead of spiritual achievement, regardless of how right I believe that achievement to be.

Instead, Paul calls me to a righteousness that is from God and is based on faith that leads me not to Spiritually Superior Mountain, but to “knowing Christ” and a shared experience of his sufferings and conformation to his death.

In Philippians 3, Paul calls me to realize that what I have done in the past, whatever achievements or strides in maturity or growth in grace I have made do not allow me to simply stop and bask in the glow of my spiritual perfection. Wherever I am on discipleship’s road is merely one point on the journey toward the ultimate union with Christ at the resurrection of the dead. Paul calls me to understand that I am still imperfect in my positions and in my understandings, no matter how confident in them I might be. I never get to the point where I get to proclaim that I have arrived.

What am I willing to give up to know Christ?

Am I willing to give up my own confidence in my spiritual decisions? Am I willing to sacrifice the theological certainty in which I operate for the frightening uncertainty of truly pursuing a righteousness that comes from God through faith? Am I willing to try and intentionally conform to the pattern of Christ’s life so that I might share in his sufferings and be conformed to his death?

I would like to say that I can confidently answer these questions. The truth is that I can’t. Just as my spiritual location is simply a point in time on a journey of ever-increasing discipleship toward the image of Christ; so also is my desire continually in the process of transformation. Perhaps all I can hope for is that I want to know Christ and be conformed to his image more today than I did yesterday; and I that I want to do more in my life to attain to the goal of Christ-likeness today than I did yesterday, that the same will hold true for tomorrow.

Such is the kingdom of God - a world where confidence rests solely, only, singularly, and whole-heartedly in Jesus and not in my own spiritual confidences or achievements.

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.