October 15, 2023
William G. Carter
If anyone else has reason to be
confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a
member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of
Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the
church; as to righteousness under the law, 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 rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him,
not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes
through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want
to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his
sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the
resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have
already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ
Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it
my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining
forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of
the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Back in junior high school, the English teacher offered advice about writing. She said, "When you compose a paragraph, never use the word 'I' more than once." It's bad form. It leads to sloppy syntax. Most of all, it puts you in the center of attention, which is a problematic place to be. These days, this is counter-cultural counsel. In so many places around the neighborhood, there is an overemphasis on me, myself, and I.
The advice about writing paragraphs was amplified when it came to personal correspondence. "When you write a letter,” she said, “never use the word 'I' more than once in the entire letter." You are corresponding. It’s two-sided communication, and your side must not come off as overbearing. When people open a letter from you, they don’t want to read, "I did this, I did that, I vacationed here, I ate a fabulous meal there.” This might be good advice if any of us compose a letter for the holidays, namely, “Don’t write the kind of Christmas letter that you wouldn’t want to receive. Me, myself, and I. It’s bad form.
The Apostle Paul didn't have Mrs. Davis for 8th grade English class. If he did, he wouldn't have written the paragraph we have heard today. Every sentence begins with the word "I. "I have confidence. I have more. I have gains. I have losses. I have suffered. I want to know. I press on." Every sentence, the I’s have it. If we didn't know better, Paul wants the spotlight on him.
Like the story that a preaching professor tells. After visiting a church to preach a sermon, he was chatting in the back of the sanctuary with a few people. A deacon was tidying up the pews. Her son was playing around her. He ran up and down the aisles, then around the chancel. Then he climbed up in the pulpit and - BOOM - discovered the microphone was still on. "Hey everybody!" he yelled. "I'm the preacher! Look at me! Look at me!" Somebody murmured to my friend, "I think we’ve heard that sermon before."
Paul says, "I have confidence. I have gains. I have losses." Look at me! And what do we see? Three things.
We see a man born with a lot of privileges, first off. He has been born into the chosen people of God. He didn’t choose his birthright. It was given to him as a gift. “Let me tell you about them,” he said. Born into the twelfth tribe of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin. His blood is one hundred percent Hebrew. Circumcised on the eighth day, received into the covenant as every Jewish son. He didn’t choose that, either. It was a gift, as any of us who are born with privileges.
Second, he has plenty of accomplishments. “Let me tell you about all the things I’ve gotten done in my life.” Went to the academy to study Scripture, memorized all the parts that a faithful believer needs to know. Taught to interpret the Bible, and defend the truth, and teach others how to live by the Word of God. “I spent a lot of time engraving the commandments of God onto my soul. I expended even more energy getting those commandments embodied in the way I live.” Paul says, “In every conceivable way, I have lived by the Book.”
He has privileges, first, and accomplishments, second. And third, do you know what those privileges and accomplishments are worth? Absolutely nothing. “Look at my garbage can,” he tells us. “I’ve thrown my privileges away. My accomplishments smell like the stuff you scrape from the bottom of your shoes.” It’s all gone. It has no value. Paul says, “I’ve thrown it all away”.
Now, pause here a second and ask with me, what’s going on in this man? Perhaps it’s the fact he currently resides in a prison. Paul the Privileged Achiever is now the grizzled old man in Cell Block C. Stripped of his scholar’s robe, he wears the striped tunic of a convict. In addition to that Star of David he wore so proudly around his neck, there are shackles on his legs that are chained to the wall. What do all the privileges and accomplishments matter when you are a guest in the emperor’s dungeon? Not very much.
…Except he says he threw it all away. He regards his assets as “rubbish.” Hmm. Perhaps you noticed that I skipped over a description of one of his “accomplishments.” He puts it this way, “as to my zeal, I was a persecutor of the church.” That is, “I thought I was doing the right thing, and I was wrong.”
This is the terrible truth of the man which lies close to all his bravado. Paul the Over Achiever and Super Believer had grown furious with some of his fellow Jews. They said the Messiah had come; he did not believe it. They said this man Jesus had been crucified; Paul knew what it says in his Bible, that anyone hung up on a tree is cursed by God. They said this cursed Jesus was alive again, and Paul said that cannot happen. With the conviction that came from his privileges and accomplishments, he decided to get rid of these Jesus Believers once and for all. Wipe them off the face of the earth!
You may remember what happened. Riding his way to the pogrom, a Bright Light blinded him. And the Bright Light spoke to say, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Suddenly, all that Paul believed that he was, all that Paul had given years to accomplish, all of that did not matter very much. “I regard it all as loss,” he says, “in order that Christ Jesus would find me.” Lost and found.
I don’t know if you’ve ever lost it all. Or ever lost a good bit of what you had. It is not a pleasant experience. Those of us who have been through it say it tastes like chewing on charcoal. Everything you presumed, gone. Everything you worked for, falling through your fingers. Everything you thought was right, interrupted. Everything you believed was your strength, doesn’t count for much anymore. The loss can be traumatic.
Yet for Paul, this was the beginning of wisdom, holy wisdom. In losing everything, he found Christ. Or better stated, Christ found him. This is the truth of the Gospel: when everything you have is swept off the table, Jesus Christ is still there for you. With searing honesty, you can confess it’s not about the blessings and advantages that came from my birth; it’s about the holy and generous life to which Christ calls me. It’s not about the greatness of my personal achievements; it’s about the saving love of Christ who does for us what we cannot. He redeems us, a technical term referring to buying someone out of their slavery. In this case, slavery to themselves.
So, when Paul says to the Philippians, “I – I – I, he’s really saying Christ, Christ, Christ.” The overachiever gives up and lets God forgive him. That’s how can say, “Look at my incredible zeal – I was persecuting the church of God.” He puts it right out there, a continuing confession of how wrong he was, and how gracious God is. He comes to the conviction that what matters is not who we are, nor what we've done. No, what matters is the far-surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus rules over us with hands once punctured by our own nails.
That's the essence of the Gospel, of course, but it's still a tough pill to swallow. This is a high achievement town, full of generally good-hearted people who work hard and reach high. We push our children to do well, to step up, to climb the ladder. If they stumble or fall, we feel embarrassed and suffer in silence. I can’t count how many kids soar out of here, only to have their wax wings melt, perhaps transfer to a much lesser school, slip out of contact for a while, or worse.
Some time back, I reconnected with one of our confirmation graduates and asked, “What have you been up to?” She said, “Got out of rehab about six months ago. Opiates, needles.” Last thing I expected her to say, so I tried to shift gears quickly. She stopped me and said, “No, it’s OK, Rev. Really, it’s OK. I hit bottom, and for the first time in ten years, I got real. Couldn’t have gotten through it without Jesus and his grace.”
I paused, didn’t know what to say. I never do. She touched my arm. “For me, it’s day by day. Every day. And I feel alive like I didn’t before.” Now, there’s somebody who was lost but is found.
Charles Cousar, who taught New Testament at Columbia Seminary, says we are close to the true shape of the Christian life. When Paul says, “I want to know Christ,” Dr. Cousar says this is not a matter of acquiring information or developing a particular mindset. It’s not developing an imaginary friendship, nor engaging in a mystical vision, nor an ability to recount a lot of Bible stories. To “know Christ” is to affirm our whole lives are shaped by death and resurrection.[1] We lose what we once believed was our greatest strength. We gain in Christ what we can never achieve by ourselves. We die to our passions, our urges, our obsessions. We are raised by his grace.
It’s just like the early church and how they practiced the sacrament of baptism. Those baptized went down into the water, literally buried in the water. Then they were lifted up, reborn, renewed, and dressed in a new white gown to show that the powers of death had no dominion over them. Death and resurrection. Knowing Christ. It is the great mystery of our lives, lives that are woven by grace to the eternal life of Jesus.
Last year, we lost Frederick Buechner, the great spiritual writer. Long before his twilight years, he told us about his understanding of Christian experience:
We find by losing. We hold fast by letting go. We become something new by ceasing to be something old. This seems to be close to the heart of the mystery. I know no more now than I ever did about the far side of death as the last letting-go of all, but I begin to know that I do not need to know and that I do not need to be afraid of not knowing. God knows. That is all that matters. Out of Nothing God creates Something. Out of the End (God) creates the Beginning … All's lost. All's found.[2]
“I want to know this,” says Paul. “I have lost what I once treasured and gained even more. I’ve had a taste of all of it, but not quite the whole thing. So, I press on. And the one thing I know: I make Christ Jesus my own because he has claimed me as his own.”
Who
did I think I am? Can’t remember. Now I belong to Christ.
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