Sermon for St. Augustine's, Tempe
Lent 5, Year C
Philippians 3:4b-14
Lent 5, Year C
Philippians 3:4b-14
May only truth be spoken, and only truth be heard. In the name of the holy and undivided trinity, amen.
We’ve all been there.
The party, the gathering, the athletic field, or the meeting where one person turns to you and asks “So, what’s your name? What do you do?”
In essence, you are being asked “who are you? What is your identity?"
And the calculations start. You begin to ask yourself, “How do they expect me to answer?” “After my name, do I lead with my job description? My department? My alma mater? My ordination status? My spouse’s name? My child’s name?”
At least that’s how I see some of these conversations, but I’m an introvert and kind of shy. Extraverts may have less angst over these types of meetings.
I often wonder about these ways of marking our identity. They are descriptive; they help the other person get to know you. But sometimes these identity markers can seem superficial, right? When you are talking about these markers, have you ever noticed that you can tell the difference between the merely descriptive markers of identity and the ones that—in saying them—bring you joy? Even more slippery is telling the difference between the markers that bring joy to speak, borne of a deep connection with the best and truest expression of our own self—as opposed to the ones that show a pride in external achievements we think other people should recognize.
Paul had these issues in mind when he was writing to the Philippians. What we didn’t hear in the reading is that there were folks in the congregation in Philippi who are trying to push for circumcision as a requirement for being in the community. Paul is saying that it is not the case; that the surpassing value of being a child of God is the root of the faith of Christ. Paul here is challenging the externals markers of religion that are a lesser substitute for the greater measure of the faith: one’s relationship to God through Christ.
This text is rooted in a conflict in a church 2,000 years ago, but the principle Paul is showing us is still relevant. In essence, this passage from Paul is asking us what external markers we rely upon as a substitute for the harder work of being in relationship to God.
I did not understand Paul’s goal until I decided to rewrite the passage to match my own circumstance. When I rewrote it, it read something like this:
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the religious Institution, I have more: moved through the Commission on Ministry with some expediency, the safe option for ordination with all placement options on the table by virtue of the societal privileges that come with being white, male, straight, married, and young; as to the canons, a transitional deacon; as to zeal, one who can out-Episcopal the cradle Episcopalians; as to manners and etiquette of the middle class, blameless.
Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as foul water and excrement*, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the markers of religion, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.
This kind of faith sounds difficult—at least it does to me—and this passage uses some difficult words like 'faith' and 'righteousness.' In their current Christian usage, ‘faith’ and ‘righteousness’ sound like a matter of mere belief or mere intellectual assent. But these terms have a depth that goes beyond the mind. They are words meant to penetrate to a more visceral level—words more felt than thought. These terms are better understood as trust and relationship. And like the relationships we have with others in our lives—particularly those relationships through which we find our identity and tap into a deep joy— trust and love are to guide our relationship to God.
But it is so easy to take our performance, our accomplishments, our positions in life as the signs of God’s favor or our deserving of God’s love. Or to think somehow our actions let us earn God’s love. This is not the case. Paul is pleading with to us realize that our identity as people of faith is not simply about what we do. We are not simply fulfilling a checklist. Our identity is ultimately about living into who God made us to be: God’s beloved. And Paul reminds us that there is nothing —nothing!—that can separate us from the extravagant, unearned Love of God (Rom. 8:38-39).
Personally, I sometimes see this as difficult to remember. I am considered a religious professional, and the outward markings of my position—including the odd situation in which I am supposed to be a servant to all and yet I am treated with deference—can quietly displace God, and I can start to think that I’ve somehow done all of this work on my own.
Paul is warning us against this supplanting of our relationship to God, and Paul suggesting to us that the most important marker of our identity—the one relationship of love through which we are enabled to love others—is our relationship to God.
And we are to be wary of any lesser thing in our faith that tries to detract us from this relationship.
Now, a note of caution here. This does not mean our relationships to other people are necessarily weighed less than our relationship to God. Jesus noted that the first commandment is to love God, But the second is like unto it: That we love our neighbors as ourselves. The love we show to others is to be the same as the love and trust we show to God, and the love we show others is our participation in the love of God working through us.
So what? Why does this matter?
Let me suggest two reasons.
Number One:
We are in the latter part of the season of Lent. Perhaps it is time for a check-in. Lent is a time where one can choose a discipline to take up or something to abstain from in one’s life. That is not wrong, but the discipline one chooses can easily become a way of trying to please God through an action that does not necessarily bring us closer to God.
The downside to this way of seeing Lent is that if our attempts in the discipline seem less than perfect, we may think that God is disappointed in us. At the very least we may be disappointed in ourselves. In doing this, we turn religion into a weapon against ourselves, and our own success or failure becomes our measure of our relationship to God. This is not what God has in mind for us!
So I’d like to suggest another way to think about how we may have decided to spend Lent: Let go of any sense of failure —if we have any— and ask how our discipline aids us in developing our relationship to God. What spiritual streams in the desert do we see? Where do we perceive God doing a new thing in our lives? Let those thoughts guide us through the rest of Lent and into whatever God may be laying before us.
Number Two:
I would encourage us to think about how we or other people might mark our identity —as parent, sibling, spouse, friend, director, professor, manager, deacon, priest. What markers of identity are sources of pride that replace or mask the relationship to God that God is calling us to? What relationships are we in that bring to life a deepening of love, and so show us an aspect of the life of God?
In thinking deeply about who we are in relationship to God and to others, we might find those markers which will let us speak with joy about who we are, about who God is to us, and about what really matters in our lives and in our relationships. Imagine how speaking those truths that might change the conversations we find ourselves in at parties!
Amen.
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*Note: The word Paul uses in Philippians is often translated as 'rubbish,' but in the Greek there is a connotation of human waste. In essence, Paul said a naughty word.
