We Are Witnesses (Acts 10: 34-43) Easter Sunday 3/31/13

There are many great writings. The Bible is thought by most, both religious and secular, to be the most influential book ever written. Of course, the Bible is not really a book as much as it is a collection of writings that form one bound version. It is generally accepted by Christians to be the written Word of God.

Once in a while, a document comes along, like the Bible, that seems to capture reality and destiny and humanity in just the right way at just the right time. The Creeds and Confessions of the Christian Church possess that kind of importance. So does the Magna Carta (1215), the Declaration of Independence (1776), and the Emancipation Proclamation (1863), to name a few.

Sometimes, a speech, or even a sentence, can incite great things from people. Think of some of those famous one-liners that even now can stir our blood and incite us to action, such as:

Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask instead what you can do for your country. [John Kennedy]

Choose this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. [Joshua]

          Today, as we look as this short passage from the apostle Peter in the tenth chapter of Acts, we see just a few words, just a summary of what the Gospel is all about. But for the gathering of Gentiles in the house of Cornelius, a Roman Centurion, they were all the words that were needed to change their lives forever. One could argue that this is the pronouncement of the greatest, most far-reaching news in history, for here Peter announces that if you believe in Christ, you are “in”, you are saved. Of course, we are gathered here today to celebrate our risen Savior, and that is truly the greatest news of all time. But Peter’s announcement in the house of Cornelius is the result of that very sacrifice.

          Peter has been a busy man. Since Pentecost, he has gone to Samaria with John, then began to witness in the Coastal Towns outside Jerusalem. While in Joppa, he is asked to come north to Caesarea to the house of a Roman Centurion named Cornelius. Peter has gone far outside his comfort zone. The lines are already blurred for this simple Jewish fisherman from Galilee. He has become an Evangelist. Now he is asked to come to the home of a Gentile. Before he is done, he will not only stay there, but also eat there in Gentile fashion, all forbidden actions to a pious Jew. He will end up making another speech that opens the doors of Christianity to the world. This simple fisherman is articulating the Great Commission and inviting everyone to hear the story of Jesus.

          “So Peter opened his mouth…” Luke uses this phrase twice in Acts, the other time speaking of Philip, as a way to introduce something of great importance. And what Peter says next tears down hundreds of years of racial prejudice.  “God shows no partiality.” No matter who you are, no matter what your lineage, if you fear him and do what is right, he will find you acceptable.

          The Gentiles gathered at the Centurion’s house are sitting up and paying attention now. And Peter goes on. God anointed Jesus. God was with Jesus. God raised him on the third day. God made him to appear to those chosen as witnesses. It’s all there. That’s the story of Jesus.

          Well, not quite. There is the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey used to say. The Gentiles are standing and sitting and leaning forward. They don’t want to miss a word that Peter is saying. He said every nation, not just the Jews. What will he say next?

          What Peter said next was the good news that we celebrate today. Jesus “commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.” Every one who believes in him is forgiven.

What are the qualifications? Jewish? No. Circumcision? No. The Law? No. You must believe in Jesus as God’s Son, who came for us, died for us, arose in body and spirit and ascended in glory.  Those are the only qualifications.

          As Peter was giving witness, the Holy Spirit came upon all who heard. The Jews with Peter were amazed. Here was God’s Spirit coming into these Gentiles, these pagans. What is amazing to us now is that those Jews found it amazing. How could it not! It happened in Nineveh when Jonah brought God’s Word to the Assyrians. It happened to the Samarian woman at the well when she met Jesus.  It happened to an Ethiopian eunuch on the road to Gaza when he encountered God through Philip’s witness.

          The Holy Spirit continues to come on all who hear the Word. As surely as the story of Jesus became Peter’s story to tell, it also became Peter’s story. His was the story of a simple fisherman called to fish for men. His was the story of faith strangled by fear…and of courage released by the Spirit. Peter was just like you and me, until the Holy Spirit came into him. Then he became a force, a force so powerful that he was thought of as the head of the early church. Peter had a story to tell, the greatest story ever told.

In the house of Cornelius that day, those Gentiles were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and they became part of the seeds of the harvest of believers that continues to this very day.

That story is history. Someone has pointed out that the word “History” looks an awful lot like a compound word. You know, two words that make up one new word. History: His story. That’s what Peter told that day, and many other days after that. “His story” became the telling of the story of Jesus, for once the Holy Spirit had entered him, in spite of his earthly failing, he was never the same man again. He belonged to his Savior, and he told His Story for the rest of his life.

Jesus is that. He went to that cross for you and for me and he did it forgiving us all the way. And today, he is Risen. He conquered death and sin and holds out his hand and says to us right where we are and no matter who we are or where we have been, I forgive you. That is His Story.

Peter was convinced. When he saw God at work, that was enough for him. When he saw the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out upon people not his own, it didn’t matter any more, for they belonged to God. It was God’s Spirit in them. And he said, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit?”

This is the message of Easter. Today, we have again witnessed the telling of His Story. Now that we have witnessed, let us, like Peter, become witnesses. What is your story? Have you been to the Cross? Have you had a visit from Him? If you haven’t, then right now is your time and right here is your place. If you have, then tell His Story. Make the telling of it your story. Don’t worry about the words. If a simple fisherman can tell the story, so can you. God will give you the words, the same way he gave you your life. What has God done for you? That’s the story you need to tell. God will do the rest. If you love him, then spread that love. That’s the way we will make…History.

The New Covenant (1 Cor 11: 23-26) 3/29/13

          In the New Testament, there are several recitations of the events  surrounding the last supper. Although all of the Synoptic Gospels record it, the very first of which we have a written record comes in First Corinthians. Paul writes to a fractured church that is struggling with divisive behavior. They are having trouble even eating together. So Paul reminds them of the meaning and purpose of the meal that he calls the Lord’s Supper.

          It was the Passover Meal, a huge event in the religious life of Israel. It was the annual remembrance of the Passover, the last of the Plagues to strike the kingdom of Egypt as God delivered his people from bondage. It was the watershed event in the history of the nation of Israel.

           The similarities are striking. As Paul retells the event, the words of Jesus are remarkably similar to those in the Gospels, especially the passage narrated in Luke. How could Paul have known so closely what Jesus said on that night in the Upper Room? We can only surmise that the oral tradition which had so well preserved the tradition of Torah over hundreds of years had been equally well applied to the sayings of Jesus over some 25-30 years following his death and resurrection until the writing of First Corinthians.

          Paul says Jesus “took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said: ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’” Some of the ancient texts read Jesus’ body as “broken for” instead of just “for,” an even more graphic reference to coming events. Of course, Jesus was sitting there with his disciples, so the bread was symbolic of things which were to come. It was not his actual body.

          Paul goes on. “In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’”

          Think back to the Exodus, to the giving of the Law by God through Moses. Moses builds an altar and offers a sacrifice of oxen. Moses reads the law to the people. Each person promises to keep that law. Then Moses memorializes the event by throwing some of the ox blood on the people, saying “Behold, the blood of the covenant that the Lord had made with you…(Exo. 24: 8). Thus the Mosaic Covenant was sealed with blood. The blood symbolically bound God’s people to Him in covenant. God brought freedom from the bondage of slavery to Egypt and sealed it with the blood of animal sacrifice. God gave his people the Law to define that which was wrong; that which was disobedient in his sight.

          Flash forward about 700-900 years to the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah lived through both a time of revival under King Josiah and also witnessed the fall of Israel to Babylon. He saw his beloved people in a downward spiral away from God. But Jeremiah also envisioned a return from exile and a future filled with God. He foretold of a “New Covenant,” where God would declare: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people…for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest…For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31: 33-35).

          And Jesus says, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” The blood of bulls of the old covenant is replaced with the true sacrifice: the blood of God’s Son. As surely as the blood of animals sealed the covenant of old, the sacrificial blood of our Savior sealed the new covenant for all who believe. His disciples did not understand the significance of his words that night. Indeed, they didn’t truly understand for some time. But in time, they came to understand and witness to the Gospel, the good news that Christ came and substituted himself for us, that we might be sealed in freedom from the bondage of sin. The Law had been fulfilled by the coming of God in the form of his Son and by his life, death and resurrection. The Law had done its job. It had kept us within some sort of containment for its time. But the Law could not save us, for we could not keep it. Only God could do that.

          When we eat the bread and drink from the cup, do we eat the body of Christ and drink his blood? No. But we do, in some high mystery that belongs to God, partake. We partake in the suffering. We partake in the presence. We partake in the promise. We may not understand how it works, but we may take comfort in the fact that it does. We do this in remembrance, and we do it in proclamation.

Paul tells us that Jesus went on to say that “for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” We don’t just remember. We proclaim! Jesus is the new covenant. He is the way, the truth and the life. He is the door through which we enter the gates of heaven. Yes, we mourn that he had to die to save us. But we shout the victory that he claimed for us. When we come to the foot of the Cross with belief and faith in Jesus, we are forgiven.

God remembers our sin no more. This is the New Covenant. We proclaim his death because in that death came victory over death and victory over evil. In that death came life…and life eternal.

Nothing Is Everything (Philippians 2: 5-11) 3/24/13

          Heroes. We love heroes. We all have heroes, although it seems like they’re harder to find these days. I think it depends on where you look for your heroes. If you’re looking in the sports or entertainment world, you will find plenty of bright stars.  But you won’t find many who can stand the test of time very well.

          Here are some heroes for you. Mother Theresa. Gandhi. Nelson Mandela. Albert Schweitzer. Dietrich Bonheoffer. What do these people have in common? Well, for one thing, they certainly didn’t plan to be heroes. They didn’t direct their lives in order to become famous or even loved. These are lives which were filled with actions based upon principle and ethics of the highest order. These are men and women who lived in poverty, were subjected to ridicule, even put to death. They saw nothing particularly unusual about the way they lived their lives. Their path was laid out in front of them and they took it. I suspect if we interviewed them, we might find them surprised that so many others chose paths that would take them away from the Promised Land.

          And yet, that is the story of mankind. The great majority of us spend our lives getting and spending, with little regard for the appetite we have for consumption. We consume everything at voracious rates. That is not the way of heroes. They consume little. They are in the giving business.

          We get it honestly, this desire for consuming everything. Adam and Eve got the ball rolling in the Garden of Eden. They had it all. But then Satan came along and got their greed going. There are a lot of ways to explain the story of Adam and Eve. One simple way is that they wanted to know what God knew. They wanted to be their own Gods. Their appetite to have more, to be autonomous even in the face of their Creator, changed the world. Those who would be God instead became creatures subject to pain, to hardship, to doubt, to selfishness and greed. They lost their chance to be hero and heroine because they wanted to be God.  

          Today’s Scripture passage is often referred to as the “hymn of Christ.” It traces in these few very poetic verses Jesus’ preexistence, incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God. It points us to a model of humility, selflessness, servanthood and love.

          Here is the only time in history that a human being actually can aspire to know what God knows, to do what God does. He is Jesus, the God-Man. For once there stood a man who could calm storms, tame the wind, heal the lame and feed multitudes with a few loaves of bread. For once, there came into our midst a man who was also divine.

He did all those mighty acts. No one should rightly deny the many miracles performed by Jesus. And yet, he did nothing…that’s right…nothing for himself or for his personal gain.  Paul says that Jesus was in the form of God. Most certainly he was, for he was with God in the beginning. He was the God, the Son, the second person of the Trinity.  Although the divine part of Jesus, the part that was fully God, was certainly equal with God, the Father, the human part of Jesus, the part that was fully Man, refused to use that divinity to gain some advantage on earth. Paul says that Jesus “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.” In a sense, this is the most miraculous characteristic of Jesus. He was obedient to his…and our, Heavenly Father from the beginning to the end of his life here on earth. Not once did he reach for himself. It was always about us, about his love for us…and about obeying the Will of God. He allowed himself to be treated as the least among us, while he treated each of us as if we were ourselves kings and queens.

          Let’s talk about Jesus. He was the greatest of all time. He could have KO’d Mohammed Ali. He could have won American Idol. He would never have lost on Jeopardy. He could have taken every gold medal at the Olympics. Instead, he washed his disciples’ feet. He could have been King, or Emperor. Instead he owned but one garment and one pair of sandals.

          He is the most powerful figure in all history, and yet he frames his kingship in the form of a donkey ride. Although influential people like Nichodemus look for ways to bring him into the limelight, he chooses to dine with sinners and tax collectors. Paul says he “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant.”

          He made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant. I know what Paul means and I couldn’t agree more. But I need to rephrase Paul so that I can grasp the significance of those words. I think Paul is pointing out to the Philippians that the vocation of servanthood is part and parcel of what it means to understand Jesus’ love for us,  that the practice of unselfishness is the path that Jesus chose not only for himself, but for those who would follow him. 

          The Greek word for servant is douloj (doulos). Not surprisingly, it also means “slave.” He made himself nothing, taking the form of…a slave. What could be lower? A slave was a piece of property. And yet, that is what Paul represents—accurately—to us, as what Jesus, the Son of God, became. He became nothing. Isn’t that something!

          In the 1940’s, the comedy team of Abbott and Costello did this great routine about baseball. The base runners consisted of a fella named “Who” on First Base, another fella named “What” on second, and a third guy called “I Don’t Know” on third.  Even if you’ve never heard the gag, you can imagine how confusing it was to describe the base runners to someone. Costello asks “Who’s on first” and Abbott answers “Absolutely.” You get the idea.

It might seem to be a gag at first to talk about our Savior as someone who aspires to be no one, as someone who becomes nothing in order to be something. In that life and in that example, we see him humble himself. How far will he go? Paul says, as we now know, “to the point of death, even death on a cross.” In that life, Christ elevates nothingness to the point of greatness. Selflessness becomes the aspiration of those who would follow Jesus, for in his so-called nothingness, he has become everything, certainly everything that really matters to the Christian.

          It is the greatest love. Jesus laid down his life for you and me. He laid down his life for your sons and your daughters. He was obedient even unto the last measure of devotion. And his reward, says Paul, was to be bestowed the name above all names, the name to which every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth…shall bow, the name to which every tongue shall confess…that the name of Jesus Christ…is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

          So I have my hero. I hope he is yours too. Today, on a Sunday not so long ago, he rode on purpose toward a hanging tree. His last corporate act the night before his death was to serve and bathe his friends.

          When it comes to how to act in this life, our Savior shows us the way. Nothing…is everything.

Amen.       

PRESSING ON (Philippians 3: 4b-14) 3/17/13

          I really should have called this “Cindy’s Sermon,” or maybe  “Kathryn’s Sermon.” I have known my wife Cindy almost 20 years now. If there is one phrase by which she could be identified, it would be “Press On.” She gives all the credit to her mother Kathryn. According to Cindy, that was not only her mother’s mantra; it was also her advice to her children whenever they were in a pickle. Look for the answer, but don’t stand still. Press on. Don’t give up. Don’t quit. Keep moving and things will get better.

          Kathryin McCabe Scott had a good idea. It worked well for her daughters and it works well in life. It you’re looking for a creed to live by, you could do a lot worse. Press on. Now that Kathryn is a member of the Church Triumphant, I suspect that she has been able to compare notes with the apostle Paul and that they have had some stories to swap about what happens when you “press on.”  

I’ve gotten and given plenty of that sort of advice in my life. It’s practical and it’s perfect advice for someone who needs to shut down the pity party and get moving again. But here, Paul takes the principle a giant step further. He makes it a mantra by which to live the Christian life. When Paul gives us that advice, he finishes the thought with words that will not only show us the road, but also give us the reason why to take it. They are some of the most famous words ever uttered, certainly some of the most quoted in all of Scripture.

          Paul says: “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”          “Forgetting what lies behind…” Paul had a lot to forget. He was the Jew of Jews, the Pharisee of Pharisees, a persecutor of Christians. He was hardly the stuff of which Christians were made.  If they were giving out awards for the people who most despise Christianity, Paul would have been the grand prize winner. When Paul came to town, Christians hid in their homes.  Yes, Paul had plenty to forget.    

          “Straining forward to what lies ahead…” Paul also had plenty of reason not to strain forward. He wrote these words sitting in prison, most likely in Rome. The days ahead for anyone else but Paul would have been marked by only the certainty that life as he had known it and the freedom that he was used to, were over. His fate would be decided by the powers of Rome. But Paul came to Rome for a purpose. That purpose would cost him his life. He had had his chance at Caesarea to walk away, but chose instead to appeal to Caesar as a Roman citizen. Paul walked to the sound of a different drummer.

So about 32 A.D., Jesus stopped this man Saul in his persecuting tracks, turned him inside out and made him Paul. Three missionary journeys and twenty five years later, Paul sits in prison and writes to his beloved church in Philippi. His message is positive, upbeat. He is still a man in a hurry. His Savior is coming and he wants to be found ready.

Paul had everything. His family tree was pure. He was Jewish through and through. He was an Israelite, with roots all the way back to Jacob. He was of the favored tribe of Benjamin. You will remember Benjamin as  the only child of Rachel actually born in the Promised Land. Saul’s (Paul’s) namesake was of the same tribe and was the first king of Israel. There were only about six thousand Pharisees in Israel and Paul was among the most prominent. His was a rising star.  And then Jesus called.

Isn’t it ironic the way we work so hard, travel so far, piling up credentials, working and climbing to claw out our place in the world, striving to carve our name on the wall, only to find out that that for which we have worked so hard is of little value.  I once knew a fellow who was really driven. He worked hard to educate himself, went to prominent universities. He served in the military. Although he was a small town fella, he took job after job in big cities, moving up the ranks. He went to Law School and started his own law practice. He built a strong law firm. He went to church, became a deacon, then an elder. He joined all the clubs. He did all the right things to move up in the world. He got elected to the school board and was about to become President of the Chamber of Commerce---when it all came to a halt. His wife was beset with mental problems that were out of control. His four children were the silent victims of all that dysfunction.

That fella realized one thing. He had to protect his children. That decision changed everything. It cost him his marriage, his law partners, his community standing. Even his church began to murmur about who was at fault. He had nowhere to turn, no one to turn to. Like Paul, one decision changed his life.

And Paul tells us the “whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” He goes on to say that all that he gave up, he now counts as rubbish. He counts all the achievements of his life to that point as so much more garbage, because they stood in the way of gaining Christ.

That fella I mentioned, he thought he knew Christ. Paul had a communication straight from Jesus on the road to Damascus. This fella didn’t have that. He just walked around the block a few thousand times and prayed. He would have walked somewhere else but his children were in the house asleep and he needed to stay close. So he walked round his house. He pressed on. He kept on going to church, although it was awkward. He dropped everything else except his job so he could raise his children. He didn’t have an epiphany, like Paul did. He just tried to pray and keep going. Over time, he too got the answers for which he prayed.

Paul tells the Philippians from his jail cell that he wants to be found in him, meaning Christ. Paul wants to be found in Christ. We usually think of Christ, or the Holy Spirit, being found in us. But Paul says he wants to be found in Jesus Christ. Perhaps he is thinking of standing before the judgment seat of God and wanting to be found in Jesus. I don’t know for sure what Paul means, but I am sure that he wants his life to be so wrapped up in Jesus that when you look at the one, you can’t help but see the other.

Paul says his righteousness does not come from him. His righteousness is spun from the threads of faith that life in Jesus has taught him. Faith is Paul’s answer to gaining Christ, and Christ is not only the object of faith; he is also the path to faith. Jesus says it like this in the Gospel of John: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (Jn. 15: 4).  If Paul were living today, he might say “that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

Did Paul get there in this life? Paul certainly didn’t think so. He spent the rest of his life in devotion to Jesus, preaching the good news from the hills of Athens to the prisons of Rome. He preached on riverbanks, in synagogues, on highways and in house churches. He pressed on.

Paul wanted resurrection. He believed in the resurrection of the body and he wanted to obtain that which his Savior had promised. He never took it for granted that he had done enough. He never believed that he had done enough. This is not a “works” doctrine. It is a love doctrine of the highest order. He tells the Philippians that “I press on to make it my own, because Christ has made me his own.” Even in prison, Paul exhorts himself and other Christians to stay in the race, to press on.

I was recently at a lecture series in which Robert Cooley was the featured speaker. Dr. Cooley has a storied fifty year career as a seminary professor and scholar as well as being quite an archeologist. After the lecture we spoke for a moment. I encouraged him not to quit, to which he remarked that the word retirement is not in the Bible.

Certainly retirement never occurred to Paul. He had too much to do, too many people to whom to carry the Gospel. Paul had God’s work to do, not only because it needed doing in other people’s lives, but because it needed doing in his own life.

That fella I mentioned? Twenty five years later, he enrolled in seminary, answering a call that had come in the shape of catastrophe and was formed in the stillness of midnight prayers. He didn’t have an epiphany like Paul, but the call was just as unmistakable. Long ago, he found that shedding baggage is the necessary task of service to the Master. That task still continues for him, too, as he tries to press on. I know that to be true, because I am that fella.

We press on. We press on toward the goal. What is the goal? It’s the prize, of course. So what is the prize? Listen now. Listen. Do you hear? You can hear it in the rustle of leaves in the wind. You can see it in small ripples of water as they make their way upstream. You can touch it in the innocence of a child’s hand. You can taste it in the breath of spring that now knocks on the doors of this community.

What is it? It is Jesus calling. Paul says it is the upward call of God---in Christ Jesus. Do you have something standing in the way of gaining Jesus Christ? Shed that baggage. Count it garbage and get rid of it. Press on toward that upward call.

 Listen. You can hear it and see it and touch it and taste it. Jesus is calling you. He called Paul. He called this messenger. He’s calling you too. He wants to make you “his own.”

Amen.

We Represent (2 Corinthians 5: 16-21) 3/10/13

          In the classic 1939 film by MGM called “The Wizard of Oz,” a teenage girl named Dorothy is plucked from a Kansas farm by a tornado and finds herself in a strange land called Oz. She is an immediate hit with the locals, for her house has landed on, and ended, the wicked witch. She is welcomed by a group of munchkins who serenade her, saying that they represent the Lollipop Guild. They are called upon to officially endorse Dorothy as their new heroine.

          “We represent” or “I represent” is a common phrase in Hip Hop and other musical genres. It is a stock phrase for comedians. They say they represent a particular ethnic group or sub-culture. They speak for someone else.

           We elect people to Congress and then we call them our representatives. They “represent” us in government. They speak for us, advocate for us, stand up for us. At least, that’s the theory.

           In 2^nd Corinthians, the apostle Paul is talking to the church he helped start in Corinth. He is speaking to a troubled group and he is telling them about what it means to be a Christian. He tells them a story about newness, re-formation, reconciliation and representation. Paul is telling the Corinthian church that something fundamental has changed and he calls upon them to give the proper response to that change.

          Paul was the ultimate Pharisee. Although he was raised in Tarsus, a Greco-Roman city in the Diaspora where he would have been exposed to many cultures and customs, he also studied under the great teacher Gamaliel, probably in Jerusalem. He was at the head of his class. He was by far the most vocal and famous Jewish persecutor of Christians. He went looking for believers and wanted to stamp out this new belief.

          One day on the road to Damascus to persecute more Christians, Paul had a date with destiny. He was confronted by Jesus himself. His sight left him as he was blinded by the very truth that had eluded him. When his eyes reopened as a believer, he wasn’t the same man. His vision had improved. Now he could see the truth of the gospel. Paul was never the same. He was a changed man. The rest of his life was a testimony to the truth he saw and the task he undertook. His zeal remained. He went after the evangelization of the Gentiles with the same fervor with which he had previously gone after the persecution of Christians.  Paul was a new creation.

          Paul’s letters to the Corinthians show that zeal. In this passage, he has several things to say to the young and troubled church in Corinth and to us as well as we continue to act as God’s church  here on earth until he returns. In these verses, we can begin to see as Paul saw, to find the work that he found, to claim the newness and the righteousness that God has promised us.

          Paul starts out by saying “From now on.” He signals us that something has changed. From now on—something will be different. Paul says from now on we will not regard anyone according to the flesh. In other words, we will not judge based on appearance. We will have to look deeper. We will have to inquire. We will have to find out the belief system of those with whom we would engage. Jew and Greek is not important. Male and female is not important. Are you Christian? If you are, says Paul, then you are my brother. Forget gender. Forget color. Forget nationality. We are either brothers in Christ or we are separated by that chasm between belief and non-belief. Christian or not is the dividing line.

          Paul says “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” This is a continuation of the theme introduced by Jesus to Nicodemus in John’s gospel. The great leader of the Sanhedrin comes to Jesus, He is more than curious. He thinks Jesus has come from God and he doesn’t really know what to do with this information. Jesus tells him that he must be born again to enter the kingdom of God. Nicodemus acts about as confused as the members of the church in Corinth. Born again? New creation? What does it all mean?

          Paul answers. He says “we once regarded Christ according to the flesh.” But no more. Is Christ a new creation? I suppose people could argue about that since he was God, became man, died and was resurrected. That does sound a lot like a new creation, but I don’t think so. I think the essence of Jesus never changed. For me that is part of his glory. The Son of Man took it all, did it all, bore it all without so much as a demerit. That gives you and me Hope, don’t you think.

          I think that what Paul is saying is that we were wrong to ever regard Christ as just flesh, as just a man. He was so much more. He was also the Son of God. His life, death and resurrection were all part of the divine plan of redemption.  The Cross changed nothing for Jesus, but everything for us. It gave us a path, the path of reconciliation.

          “The new has come,” says Paul. In Christ, God reconciled us to himself. We were separated. We couldn’t get to God. No matter how hard we tried, we could not keep our selfishness from building a wall between ourselves and our Creator. That problem was solved by Christ. He was fully man and therefore he could set an example that was real and worth following. He could feel all the pain, experience all the temptation, feel all the desires we feel. He was fully God and therefore when he chose to go to that Cross, the sacrifice he was willing to take on could save not only this man, but every man, woman and child of all time.

Paul says that “for our sake he [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin.” And Jesus never shrank from the task to which he had been called. For that reason and that reason alone, we are reconciled to God. We can become his children. We believe and we are reconciled because the debt has been paid. And Paul reminds the Corinthian church that it can take no credit. The new has come and the sin debt has all been paid in advance. Paul says that “all this is from God.” It is the world’s greatest lottery payoff and you don’t even need to buy a ticket. In fact, you can’t. All the tickets are free, a gift from your heavenly father through Christ. Reconciliation is God’s great umbrella of Christ covering all who believe in the greatest act of love ever known.

          And now that we are God’s new creation, now that we are reconciled to him, we have a ministry and a message. We have the ministry and message of reconciliation. When Jesus walked among us for those three years of ministry, he concentrated on the disciples, readying them for ministry. His last words to them were to go and teach and make new disciples. Paul reiterates this here. He says that Christ “gave us the ministry of reconciliation,” and that further, he entrusted its message to us. Paul doesn’t say that the message was entrusted to him or even to the apostles, but to us.  The context of the passage would seem to say that “us” is not just the apostles, but all who would believe. For once we believe, we, too, take up the Cross. We too are entrusted with the Good News and we are charged to carry it for Christ as his ambassadors.

           Ambassador is one of those great words. It comes from the Greek presbeutej (presbeutes). William Barclay tells us that it was used in conjunction with the Latin word legatus. A legatus presbeutes was the man who administered an imperial province on behalf of the Emperor. In other words, he represented the Emperor. He had a direct commission from the highest authority. The same principle applies today in large part. The United States has ambassadors all over the world. They speak for the United States and it current administration in whatever country they are assigned. They have a direct commission from the President.

          Paul claimed such a status for himself, the apostles and for everyone who called him or herself a Christian. Paul says that we are ambassadors for Christ, that “God makes his appeal though us.” We are charged with a commission. To those with whom we come in contact, we are given the ministry of witnessing to them about how through Jesus Christ, God has reconciled himself to us. As Paul puts it, in him (Christ), we become the righteousness of God.

The church is called to the glorious task of representing God until he comes again. Paul saw this as his one glory. His task was the same as ours; to be ambassadors for Christ, to tell the Good News of Jesus Christ to everyone we meet. We proclaim that message of reconciliation because it saves our lives and because it will save the lives of all who believe. We are truly the King’s men. We stand in his place and we represent.

So remember this lesson from the great apostle. He gives us the three “R’s” of the Christian life. All of them are Christ sponsored and initiated, but that still leaves us with a glorious task as the body of believers that is the Church. We must carry the torch until he comes again. Here are those three “R’s:”

In Christ, we are re-formed as new creations.

In Christ, we are reconciled to God as righteous.

In Christ, we represent his saving power and proclaim the Good News of salvation.

This is our act of love, that we can represent, that we can be God’s ambassadors. Pass it forward.

 Amen and amen.                  

Feeding The Dog (Philippians 3: 17-4:1) 3/3/13

          Over a life spent in the practice of law, I have had occasion to work with many fine individuals, for which I am most grateful. Unfortunately, one cannot spend so many years in one area without also being exposed to another sort of practitioner. There are also those who can’t handle the power, who can’t stay away from the limelight or the back room drama. There is an old saying that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Power is intoxicating. You must handle it with great care or it will handle you. Power comes in all shapes and sizes. It can be just as addicting to be the lead teacher at it is to be superintendent, just as heady to be mayor as it is to be governor.  It all ends the same way. The misuse of power destroys those who wield it. Many fall during life, some from great and public pedestals and some in the silence of their own overwhelming guilt. But sooner or later, all fall from grace.

          A curious phrase: “falling from grace.”  We see sports figures and entertainment superstars and government officials engaged in scandalous behavior. Eventually they are marred so deeply that they fall from the public eye, having risen like meteors only to fall the same way. We call that falling from grace, in the sense that they are no longer our heroes and heroines.

          The apostle Paul talked to the Philippians about others who had fallen from grace. He warned his new church of those who would mislead them. But for Paul, those unnamed people were much more dangerous than the modern day sports hero or errant congressman. He called them “enemies of the cross of Christ,” a label that Paul pinned upon them with his own tears. He realized the great damage of which they were capable and he cried for the fledgling church for which he felt personally responsible. He called the members of the Philippian church his brothers, not just once, but twice. He feared for them because he understood what was at stake. To believe in anything other than the cross and all that it represented was to reject the only path to salvation.

          Who were the enemies of the Cross? Paul does not identify them specifically, except to say that they were espousing the wrong message. There are as least two possibilities. We have talked before about Judaizers, those who wanted the Gentile Christians to observe the rituals of the Jewish law, including circumcision. Paul rightly identified this as a salvation that wrongly mixed works with faith. This emphasis on legalism undermined the Cross.

Another possibility is that Paul was combating Gnosticism, a branch of which believed that salvation is only for the soul, that the body is inherently evil and separate from the soul. This was antinomianism, a belief that resulted in throwing off all moral restraints. Whatever was done or not done with the body was unimportant. Immorality reigned under the mask of legitimate religious practice. This too alienated those trying to follow the Cross.

Whether Paul was dealing with Judaizers or Gnostics or both, he had his hands full. These people were persuasive. Like so many others that you have met in your own lives, they had all the answers. The answers contained more than just a grain of truth in them. They were close enough to sound like the truth, but they were just far enough from it to miss the Cross completely. A little heresy can go a long way.  So Paul gave these new believers some practical advice. He said: Follow my example and the example of others who are like minded. Paul was not bragging. He lived his life so that his was an example to be trusted, and he also recommended others whose lives and example were similar in the faith.

Who do you worship? We all say that we worship God, but we need to pay close attention to whether our actions reflect our words. There is a new series on television called Golden Boy.  A young, smart, ambitious detective is climbing quickly through the ranks of the New York City Police Department. His partner, much older, becomes his mentor. The first piece of advice our hero receives is a caution: There are two dogs living in the pit of every man. One is good and one is evil. Which one will dominate? The one you feed the most!

That sounds dangerously close to the life that I have experienced. I’m never been that far from that hungry dog of selfishness, growling in the pit of my stomach. Have you had similar experiences? It would seem that life never changes, wouldn’t it? Essentially it doesn’t…unless you allow Jesus Christ to be your most important relationship. Jesus makes the difference in our lives. In the words of Paul, “the Lord Jesus Christ…will transform our lowly body to be like his body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” Paraphrased in the words of the older and wiser detective, Christ is the dog we need to feed the most.

Our world is little different from that of the first century. Our church is the same in many ways as that of the early church. Today we have great roads and large powerful armies. So did Rome. Today we have small groups and house churches. So did Asia Minor and even Jerusalem in post Temple Israel. But today we have technology and smart phones. We have hospitals and automobiles. Today we have many advantages and life for many of us is much easier than it was for those of Paul’s day. And yet, today we also still have the poor and the disadvantaged. Nations still vie against nations for power. Our world is still worldly. Today, we are still misled by leaders in every arena of life from government to business to church itself.

Paul has the answer. We must be transformed. We await a coming Savior. Our god cannot be our belly or our job or even our family, for that would make us just like the Judaizers and the Gnostics of old and, incidentally, those old problems are alive and well today. The labels may have changed, but the problems persist.

Paul’s answer is about that dog that wants to be fed. Which dog gets your attention? Will you feed the god of selfishness? Will you spend your time and your energy worrying about whether you have enough? Enough money? Enough life insurance? Enough friends? What is enough? To spend your time chasing those shadows is to play right into the hands of those who miss the cross, who miss salvation itself.

Will you follow those who walk as enemies of the cross of Christ? Or will you find those who walk according to the Christian example? Paul’s answer is to have the right allegiance. He says “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await our Savior…”

Listen to these words from Julia Ward Howe, penned in 1861.

She was watching a public review of Union troops outside Washington and a minister friend suggested that she write a new fighting men’s song. Staying at the Willard Hotel, she awoke before dawn with the words spinning through her mind. While she wrote six verses originally, four have traditionally survived in the printed version. What she wrote is laced with biblical passages from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Revelation and others.  Some have said it should be renamed “The Bible Hymn of the Republic.” These words speak to a citizenship that transcends the bonds of earth and reaches within us to something more noble, more lasting. Listen to how the hymn ends and think about Paul’s message to the Philippians That message resonates as much today as it did in the first century.

In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;

As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free,

While God is marching on.

Paul ends his appeal in the beginning of Chapter 4. He again calls upon his brothers. Gone is the trumpeting of the evangelist to his congregation. Gone is the ordering of the father to his children. What remains is the kind entreaty of a man who reaches out lovingly for his brothers. Paul has seen these people come to a belief in Christ and that makes them equal with him and brothers in Christ. He calls them his joy and crown.

To whom do you answer? To whom lies your allegiance? Where is your citizenship? The Apostle Paul’s words sing out to us as strongly as that Battle Hymn from yesterday’s war. Paul speaks to us today as strongly as if he were here.  He warns us to act with discernment, to beware of false teaching and faulty leaders, within and without the church. He reaches out to us to gather us back into the fold. He encourages, even pleads with us. “Stand firm in the Lord.” Keep your eyes on those who walk according to the right example.

Our power comes not from our armor. Our courage comes not from ourselves. Our salvation comes not from our works. It comes only from the saving grace of our Lord. Stand firm in the Lord, and only the Lord. Acknowledge, and cling to, your heavenly citizenship.