Lent 5C am
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5th Sunday in Lent, Year C
5th Sunday in Lent, Year C
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in Your Sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Until I went to seminary, I was not a regular student of God’s Word. I simply did not read the Scriptures much on my own. I felt like I needed to wait until Sunday morning so that it could be explained to me. So much of it didn’t really make sense, and I was afraid to ask.
But then I went to seminary, and they gave me tools to help me to understand, and to figure out that which I might not understand. Learning the ancient languages was a huge help in that regard. I’ve always had an interest in foreign languages anyway, so this was a very intriguing tool for me…and I’ve used it quite a bit.
Of all the lessons I learned in those language classes, there are a few that stick out to me. And one of those lessons regards a passage we’ve read this morning - that from Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi, in the section we now designate as chapter 3. In this section, Paul is putting to rest any arguments they may have been hearing that are based on being faithful, obedient, law-abiding Jews.
From very early in Paul’s ministry, he had been plagued by Jews - much like he used to be - who made his job very difficult. While Paul was preaching “Christ and him crucified” as all that is needed for the forgiveness of sins, these “Judaizers” as he calls them, were very much stuck in the teachings of the Pharisees - the very people who were at the center of Jesus’ arrest and prosecution. They looked only to what they were familiar with when it came to God’s Law. They were not ready to hear God’s Son tell them that their understanding was wrong…that their approach to the life of faith was wrong.
The only reason Paul can even begin to argue this is because before he was a Christian, Paul himself was a zealous Jew. His very life (until Christ revealed himself to Paul) was grounded in obedience to God’s Law - from when he was only 8 days old. He has been a Hebrew’s Hebrew…even a Pharisee himself.
For Jews who were faithful to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, life was about obeying God’s Law. It drove their every action and motivation. And that was how Paul conducted himself, believing that his actions - all that Paul did with his flesh - gained God’s favor, because he was obedient. And no one - not even these current Pharisees - could claim to have been more obedient that Paul was. “If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more...”
In the earlier verses in this chapter, Paul has described what these “Judaizers” consider to be at the center of God’s love for them - their physical circumcision, which was the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham. And many of these Judaizers believed that if you had that covenant sign, you were then one of “God’s Chosen People” and therefore were the automatic recipient of God’s favor, love, and mercy. They believed this covenant sign to be all important…that it was essential to their relationship with God. And now Paul is turning that understanding on its ear.
When we think that God’s love is something for us to “earn” somehow, that’s when we know we’ve gotten it wrong. If we think that God loves us *because* we come to church on Sunday morning, or *because* we read our Bible, or strive to obey the commandments....we’ve gotten it wrong. If we walk around saying “I’m a Christian, so God loves me...” - we’re thinking about it wrong. That statement should sound like this: “God loves me, so I’m a Christian.” We didn’t chose Him; He chose us.
So Paul is telling these Pharisees to do what he did - to throw away all that old stuff that he thought was “right”. He tells them that he “counts them as rubbish”. And that’s the sentence I was referring to from my Greek class. That word that’s translated here as “rubbish” - it really doesn’t get the point across very well. And this Greek word is found only one time in all of the New Testament - right here in Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi.
The translators have chosen to use “rubbish” because what it really means is not a word to be used in polite company. A better word to put here in English would be “dung” but even that is a bit too polite for the meaning Paul is trying to convey. I won’t take it any farther than that, but I think you see where I’m going. Listen to this explanation:
“The intensification lies in the element of resolute turning aside from something worthless and abhorrent, with which one will have nothing more to do. The choice of the vulgar term stresses the force and totality of this renunciation… But the striving for self-righteousness by one’s own achievement is unmasked as … a carnal and worldly enterprise, the complete antithesis of faith… To the degree that the Law is used in self-justification, it serves the flesh and is not just worthless but noxious and even abhorrent. The two elements in σκύβαλον, namely, worthlessness and filth, are best expressed by a term like “dung.”[Friedrich Lang, “Σκύβαλον,” ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 446–447.]
Striving for self-righteousness by one’s own achievement is unmasked as the complete antithesis of faith…the exact opposite of faith. Put another way - if what *I* do is what determines my salvation, then why do I need a savior?
Paul had done everything right: he was circumcised exactly when he was supposed to. He was from the correct bloodline - not intermixed with any Gentile blood. Under Jewish law, he was exactly what Jewish law expected a man like him to be: strictly obedient…even to a fault - a persecutor of Christians.
At one time, Paul thought that this was how to “gain” favor in God’s eyes. But, Paul’s eyes on all of this were, quite literally, blind. Now that his eyes have been opened to the truth, he knows that these “things” are all only worth of being thrown away. They are “loss”. Everything he had worked for was now worthless. If what he had gained had been money, it would have been worthless money because it had no buying power. It could not pay a thing.
Instead of thinking that all of this that he had “accomplished” might have been worth something, Paul has discovered that what has real worth is knowing Jesus Christ. Paul’s own righteousness, which was pretty good by Jewish standards, was still lacking. And Paul has traded it in for Christ’s righteousness.
This passage always makes me a little uncomfortable. I find myself going back to my own thinking “I’m a pretty good guy. I’m in church every week…I behave myself…I obey the law…I’m the kind of person that God loves.” And that’s where I get caught in the same trap that the Pharisees got caught in. Does God love me? Sure He does.
But He also loves people who commit crime. He also loves people who don’t read Scripture. He also loves people who disobey His Law. God loves all of us. And because we know THAT is true, then I have to admit that God doesn’t love me *because* I come to church on Sunday.
This passage that makes me uneasy only does so because it tells me that I can’t save myself. I am not in control of my own destiny. I am not the one who determines whether or not I get to go to Heaven in the end. And I want to be in control! Everything in the world around me tells me that I have to do things for myself. I have to be the one to make sure things go right in my life. I have to do what needs to be done so I can achieve my goals. That might work for getting into college, or getting the right job, or making that promotion…but this kind of thinking really is rubbish when you start talking about your eternal salvation.
Throw that kind of thinking out, right now. Are we supposed to come to church every Sunday, and obey God’s Law, and treat our neighbors with love and kindness and be good people? Yes, of course we are. But we don’t do that so that we can *earn* God’s love and favor. We are called to do that because we already have God’s love and favor.
This passage should not make any of us feel uncomfortable. Quite the opposite: this passage should make us feel safe and loved. Because we cannot earn God’s love and mercy, we can rest assured that we don’t have to. We already have it because it was earned for us. Jesus himself earned it for all of us on the cross. He broke his own body and spilled his precious blood to ensure that our eternal future with God is safe. And we will be reminded of that very shortly as we come to His Holy Supper.
At that meal, as you put His Body in your mouth, taste the very forgiveness that He promised you. Drink the blood of the New Covenant that He made for all of us to ensure our forgiveness every time we repent of our sins…because even the most obedient among us still have some struggle with sin somewhere in there. And God loves us anyway, and is ready to forgive us…because of His Son, and ONLY because of His Son. We didn’t earn it, and we certainly don’t deserve it.
This message is meant to comfort you. This message is meant to tell you that you are loved and your future is certain, and all you need to do to be assured of that is to believe in Christ. Paul’s comfort here is simply that: to know Christ can only be described with “surpassing worth” - nothing is better. Having that, Paul insists that it’s best to look forward and not back.
“I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” For Paul, it is a prize itself to be called to God’s work. The work itself is a prize…not any worldly payment the work might bring. Just to be a worker in God’s vineyard is a blessing nearly beyond measure.
Brothers and sisters, we are tenant workers in God’s vineyard. We have been called to God’s work. What is that work? Well, that’s different for each of us, but all of us are called to *some* sort of work. And it’s incumbent on everyone of us to discern what that is. Everyone has a part to play in God’s Kingdom. What’s your part? That will likely change over time…but every single one of us *does* have a part.
In the months ahead, we are going to be more intentional about looking at this very question. We will look at it as a church family. I would encourage families and households to ask this question of yourselves: “What’s God calling us to? What’s our part to play?” And every individual must also ask and pray about this question.
We have been given many blessings and gifts by God. What is He calling us to do with them? Let us all pray about that in the weeks ahead and see where He is leading us. I pray that we keep our ears and our hearts open to His call for us. And let us press on toward the goal for that prize.
May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.