Scripture- Philippians 3:17-4:1
So this morning I’m
going to get a little nerdy on you. I may or may not have mentioned it but I am
a huge fan of Star Wars. The originals, not the new ones they don’t count. I
used to watch the original trilogy over and over again when I was a child. As I
read the scripture for today, it reminded me of one of the scenes from The
Empire Strikes Back. The hero, Luke Skywalker is on the planet Dagobah,
training with the great Jedi leader, Yoda. He had been training with Yoda for a
while, learning the ways of the force, and now Yoda had led him to a cave. This
cave was a test for Luke, to overcome his fears, and to put what he had learned
to the test. This scene may be one of the strangest scenes in the movie. Luke’s
journey into the cave is like some psychedelic trip, which results in him
imagining that he is fighting with Darth Vader, who is the bad guy of the movie
for those who don’t know. They get into a great lightsaber fight, and Luke
wins, cutting of the head of Darth Vader. Then unexpectedly, the front of Darth
Vader’s helmet explodes, revealing Luke Skywalker’s face behind the mask. This
test in the cave showed to Luke, that his biggest enemy, the one who was
holding him back, the one making him weaker, and the one who would lead to his
destruction was no one else but himself.
Our scripture for this morning suggests that the same can
be true for our lives. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul warns, “For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of
them, and now I tell you even with tears.
Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in
their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.” Enemies of the cross; that is an extremely
harsh term for some group of people that Paul was talking about. So who was
Paul talking about. The term enemies of the cross makes us at first assume that
these people are not Christians. Maybe, Paul is referring to the pagans in the
area, those worshiping false Gods, denying the salvific power of Jesus Christ.
They certainly seem like enemies of the cross. Or maybe, Paul is talking about
the Romans. After all it is the empire that in certain places had been
persecuting Christians; the empire who after all authorized the crucifixion of
Jesus. Paul certainly had every right to be angry at the Romans, after all he
was imprisoned and sentenced for some capital punishment. This letter to the
Philippians is after most likely written from a jail cell in or just outside of
Rome. This is certainly who Paul must be talking about when he says enemies of
the cross.
Except, it’s not. Paul is
not talking about the Romans, he is not talking about the Pagans, he is
actually talking about a small group of
Christians, yes Christians. They are Christians who have misunderstood
what it means to be freed by Christ. The hear Paul say that Christians are no
longer law, and misinterpret it to mean that they are free to do whatever they
please. They indulge themselves in food, in inappropriate sex, they store up
goods and money. They see themselves as now being free from the law, meaning
that they can do what they like. However, this is a misunderstanding of the freedom
of a Christian. They lack the understanding that there is also responsibility
in freedom. The fact that Jesus humbled himself even to the point of death on a
cross, is not an excuse to live however we want, it is an invitation for us to
follow that examples; To be imitators of Christ.
For this reason, Paul
starts of this passage by saying, “Brothers and
sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the
example you have in us. Paul is calling us to imitate his actions. At
first this seems like a very arrogant thing for Paul to say, as if he is some
perfect example, but that is because it is taken out of its context. Before
this passage, Paul has talked about over and over again how he is seeking
perfection but not yet there. How he much continuously humble himself and
follow the example of Christ so that he may grow to be mature in his faith. For
this reason, when Paul is asking for us to imitate him, he is not saying look
at me because I’m such a wonderful Christian, but instead he is saying, join
with me in humbling yourself, join with me striving towards Christian
perfection, join with me as we imitate the example of Christ.
Our freedom requires
action. Our freedom requires us to imitate Christ, to constantly strive towards
walking closer with God. Some may hear this and wonder, how is this freedom; if
we can’t simply do whatever we want, is it really freedom at all? Paul
addresses this question very subtly, and yet in a very poignant and powerful
way. He says, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and it
is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” At first this does not seem to provide any
answers. On the surface, it seems like a simple way to separate those are who
are of this world from those who are of heaven, a way of separating the sheep
from the goats. At first it simply seems
to be a way to create a divide between worldy things and Godly things. At
worst, this line can lead us to believe that we must be purely separated from
anything of this world; that we should not be involved in public affairs, we
should not care for the welfare of those who are not part of “our citizenship.” It can also lead to a
horrible theology that I saved and now I’m going to sit around and wait until I
become a citizen in heaven.
All of these things
misunderstand what it means to be a citizen. Too many people thank that
citizenship in heaven is like reservations at a restaurant. That citizenship is
a ticket in, a passport showing proof that we belong, but that is not what it
truly means. The word citizen is used very carefully, because of what the word
entails. Think about what it means in terms of citizenship to a country, since
we live in the U.S. let’s examine what it means for us. Yes, citizenship does
mean that we are privileged with certain things. As citizens in the United
States we are protected by the constitution, and are guaranteed the right to a
fair trial. We are protected by the United States military, we have the freedom
of speech. There are certainly benefits of being a citizen. The same is true
with being a citizen of heaven, there are obviously benefits, the most obvious
being of course heaven, but there is also faith, hope, and love. Alongside of the
benefits of being a citizen, we know that there also come responsibilities. The
most obvious is obeying the law, but as citizens we have much more than that.
We have the responsibility to vote, if called upon the responsibility to serve
in the military, the responsibility of jury duty and much more. Yet still there
is more to citizenship than this. As a child as we were being taught what it
means to be a good citizen, we were taught that it was not simply a checklist
list of things to do, but a way of live. That a good citizen helps those in
need, a good citizen is well informed of all of the issues being debated, a
good citizen volunteers for different leadership roles in the community; that
with citizenship there comes a responsibility for how we live. The same is true
for us as citizens of heaven. We have responsibilities. We are called to lift
each other and those in the world up in prayer, we have the responsibility to
study scripture and do other things to learn as much as we can; we have the
responsibility to help those who are in need. Part of our privilege as citizens
of heaven, is the responsibility to be imitators of Christ.
It is a responsibility
that we quite frankly many Christians do not take very seriously. In our modern
context, when we hear the phrase enemy of the cross we are so quick to point
the finger at others, putting this label of enemy of the cross on them. This
far too often leads to forms of discrimination or hate. We see non-Christian
groups as being a threat to us, our beliefs, and our way of life. We see the
actions of a few lunatics in the name of their religion, and grossly
overgeneralize a whole faith tradition as being enemies of the cross. Or we see
people like Richard Dawkins, someone who is antagonistically atheist, and we
label them as the enemy; that atheists are destroying our faith. If we can’t
find individuals or groups to label as the enemy, then we label our society or
our government as being our enemies. This became quite evident in the wake of
the horrible shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.
Countless Christians cried out that it was because prayer wasn’t part of
public school that someone would not have done those horrible acts.
We must remember however
that the “enemies of the cross” that Paul talks about in our scripture are not
the atheists, they are not the pagans, those who worshipped false Gods, it was
not even the society or government, but it was those Christians in the area who
were not living out their responsibility as a citizen of heaven, a citizen of the Kingdom of God. If
we stop to reflect upon this fact and think about it in our own context, then
we will start to see that other faith traditions, atheists, society, or even
the government are not the enemies of the cross, that label belongs to us. When
we truly reflect upon ourselves and our sin, we will find that we are our own
worst enemies. If we took our responsibility as Christians seriously atheists
could have the chance to truly believe in God because they experienced God
through us. If we took our responsibility seriously then we could find ways to
work with other faith traditions to make the world a better place rather than
battle about our differences. If we took our responsibility seriously then we
would realize that it is not society’s or the government’s job to teach our
children about Christ. I mean honestly
that’s absurd and quite frankly lazy. It is our job as the church, as followers
of Christ to teach our children. It is our job as the church to reach out to
those in need, those who are sick. If we are truly citizens of heaven, then
this season of Lent should be a time for us to reflect upon whether we are
fulfilling our civil duties, and by that I don’t mean to our country (though
that can be a good thing as well), but are we fulfilling our duties to our
heavenly citizenship, our duties to our God?
And yet, we must remember that our responsibilities,
our acts of justice, our acts of mercy, our acts of piety and self-development
are done because of faith, hope, and
love. We could give up all that we have to serve others, we could study
scripture daily and pray for hours at a time and yet none of these things
grants us that citizenship. As I said, we do these responsibilities because of
faith, hope, and love. Faith in Jesus Christ, which does not mean simply
believing in him, but means putting trust in him. We serves others, we study
scripture and pray because we trust Jesus to lead our lives, and trust that he
can do the same for others. We do these things with hope, a hope not simply for
our salvation, but a hope that by doing these things Christ can use us to
transform the world and the lives of others. Finally we do these things out of
love, because after all “For God so loved the world” we are able to love
because God first loved us. This morning and throughout this time of Lent I
invite each and everyone one of us to see what it is in our lives that causes
us to be an enemy of the cross, and then to seek to change it through faith,
hope, and love so that we all may become faithful citizens of heaven.
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