Philippians
3:4b-12
I
read a story accredited to preacher and teacher, Fred Craddock. He told about a
family of Christian missionaries living in China
on the eve of Communism. They were told by the military that they would have to
leave the country, and they could bring no more than 200 pounds worth of their
belongings with them. They were given only a few hours to gather their things.
The mother and father spent the next hours frantically going through their
household trying to determine what they should take and what they shouldn’t.
Should they take great-grandmother’s vase? It was a family heirloom. What about
this item or that piece of clothing? Finally, they had packed everything they
could take. They had weighed everything they packed. They met the 200 pound
weight limit on the money. When the military returned to take them out of the
country, they asked,
“Do
your belongings weigh no more than 200 pounds?”
The
parents answered with a determined affirmative. Then they were asked,
“But
did you weigh your children?”
What?!
Weigh the children?! The children were considered part of the belongings?!
Forget everything else they were going to bring! If they have to include the
children in the 200 pound weight limit, then the children must come first and
foremost. Nothing else matters. Nothing else is as precious. There are no
family heirlooms that are more important, more valuable. If all they could take
out of China
was their children, then so be it; the rest was just rubbish.
How true or
colorfully embellished this story may be, Craddock described the missionaries
as having a “wake up moment.” They woke up to what really mattered. They woke
up to what was most vital, most important. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else
was important. It was their wake up moment.
Paul seems to be
describing his wake up moment in these verses from his letter to the church in Philippi .
Paul was reminding the folks there of who he used to be, of his pedigree of
righteousness if you will.
“If anyone 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.”
Rubbish is
a nice, gentle word. It sounds like something said by the Dowager Countess on
Downton Abbey. But rubbish is an extremely cleaned up translation of the
Greek. It is a word that is only found in this verse, and essentially means the
stuff you don’t want to step in out in the barnyard. It is excrement. Paul was
not mincing his words or trying to be delicate. What he had before, everything
he was before – not only a good Jew, a righteous Jew, but a Pharisee;
everything he held dear before under the Law, all of that he now understood to
be RUBBISH!!!
This was Paul’s
wake up moment. His righteousness did not come from the Law, but only through
faith in Christ. It was not a righteousness that he could manufacture on his
own, but one that came from God based on faith.
On faith; sola
fide or faith alone is the emphasis of our worship this morning. It reminded
the reformers – and us – that our salvation is not something we can earn, but
something that is given through love and grace. Because that is the emphasis, I
understand why this passage was suggested as the scripture for this particular
sola. Paul made it clear to the Philippians that he woke up to the reality that
his adherence to the Law could not save him; that nothing he did saved him. It
was only faith given to him by God that saved him. And through that faith he
grew in his knowledge, in his relationship with Christ Jesus. I don’t think it
is far-fetched of me to claim that Paul was smug in his former self and
identity. He was smug in his confidence in the flesh. He was smug in his zeal
and in the status his birth into the tribe of Benjamin gave him. His confidence
in all of those things was high, but when he came to know Jesus, he awoke to
what really mattered. He awoke to the truth that salvation was through faith
alone; sola fide.
So I get the
choice of this passage. It is through faith alone – faith given to us as a gift
by our gracious God – that we are saved. Everything else is rubbish. Yet, if I
were to choose a passage, I probably would have looked to Hebrews.
“Now faith is the
assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
I would have
looked more for a definition of faith, for examples of faith. It’s not that
this passage from Philippians doesn’t make its point about sola fide, it’s that
if I am preaching this sermon to me, I need encouragement for a faith that
often falters. I need reminders of those who have gone before, on those who
stepped out in faith, trusting that God would be there with them. I need
examples of those who have taken it on faith that God keeps God’s promises. I
crave stories of people who through faith have done wondrous things, who have
refused to give up or give in. I need stories and examples and reminders that
utilize all the prepositions that go with faith: on faith, in
faith, through faith, because of faith, etc. To be
honest, I’m not so interested in discussions of justification by faith alone,
as I am in finding reasons to keep on going, to stay faithful.
This isn’t because
of any particular personal crisis of faith that I am having. It’s just that
everyday there seems to be another reason to lose hope. The world and its
sorrows batter our faith. There is suffering that cannot be explained away by
saying “there is a reason for everything” or that “God has a plan.” What
reason?! What plan?!
The suffering of
the world is overwhelming to say the least; and for me – and I know for you –
part of being faithful is feeling the call to address that suffering, to help
alleviate it, to reach out to those who are hurting and alone and afraid, and
embody the love of Christ to them.
Yet it is so hard,
so difficult. I find that my prayer most days is “I believe, help my unbelief.”
As many times as my faith seems strong enough to move mountains, there are
equally as many times as it seems to teeter on the edge of disappearing
altogether. So, as much as I affirm sola fide, I also want, need, long for,
crave examples of faith embodied, faith in action.
I received a
strange, unexpected example of this from a completely unlikely source: a sitcom
called “Mom.” For those of you who have not seen it, it is a funny, real,
sometimes risqué, show about a mother and daughter who are both recovering
alcoholics. Much of the show centers on going to AA meetings and dealing with
life sober, of dysfunctional families, and the patterns – good and bad – that
are repeated and passed down from one generation to the next. But it also talks
about forgiveness and letting go of what you cannot control and prayer. In one
episode, the older mom, played by Allison Janney, has a relapse. She hurt her
back, had to go on painkillers, and they became too much for her. She not only
abused them, she started drinking again. Confronted by her daughter and her
friends, she has to get sober all over again. Her friends stay with her as she
detoxes. But detoxing is rubbish. In one scene, she is imagining or
hallucinating that the two sides of herself are talking to her. The devilish,
bad girl side is trying to convince her to drink again. She’ll be fine. She can
handle it this time. No problem. The good girl side, who looks more like Glynda
the Good Witch than an angel, argues for her to stay sober. It was this side of
her that worked to repair her relationship with her daughter and her family,
etc. Bonnie, the character Janney plays, is arguing aloud with both of them,
and finally she cries out,
“Somebody please
just help me. God, please just help me.”
And God does.
Jesus, or a man who looks remarkably like what Hollywood and American
Christianity thinks Jesus looks like with long hair, a beard and a robe, shows
up. He sends the two warring sides of her away, and just sits with her. No
words are spoken. No judgments are made. He is just there with here, meeting
her where she is, staying with her through the worst of the night.
I know, it is a
silly example. But in the midst of this show where you would not expect to see
Jesus show up, Jesus does. I admit that when I watched that episode, my eyes
started to water. That moment did not restore my faith in humanity; there are
far better examples of people caring for other people that would do that. But
it reminded me that faith is not about believing that God waves a wand and
makes everything perfect. Faith is about believing and trusting that God shows
up.
Through faith, we
can do more than we ever thought we could. In faith, we step out into the world
every day, trying to live as God calls us to live, and we take it on faith that
God shows up. God shows up for us and calls us to show up for others. This
isn’t something we can prove or chart or systematically analyze. It takes faith
alone to live in the trust and hope that God shows up.
Let all of God’s
children say, “Alleluia!” Amen.
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