A homily by Fr. Gene
Tucker, given at Trinity
Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, March 17, 2013.
“LOSING IT ALL, IN ORDER TO GAIN IT ALL”
(Homily text: Philippians 3:4b– 4)
(Homily text: Philippians 3:4b– 4)
In our epistle reading for this morning, St. Paul lays out his Jewish pedigree, his curriculum vitae:[1] He says that he “was circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin; a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”
The list
piles up like a stack of blocks. As Paul
adds each block, each credit to his name, he seems to be placing himself on top
of each new addition. And as the stack of
blocks grows higher and higher, the implication seems to be that he is getting
closer and closer to God.
Notice the
list more closely….it proceeds from his birth forward, through the rites which
make him a child of the covenant of Abraham (circumcision), to the pedigree of
his blood lines and ancestry (of the tribe of Benjamin), to his life under the Law, to his high office as a Pharisee, to
his carrying out of that office (a persecutor of the church in pursuit of the
goal of keeping Judaism pure), and to his righteous behavior under the Law of
Moses, a righteousness that is so correct and complete that his righteousness
is (in his own estimation) completely blameless.
Wow!
As we look
at Paul’s list again, we see that he was given extraordinary gifts (being born
a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, a Jew who was initiated into the covenant of
Abraham through circumcision). We then
see that he says that he took those gifts and made something out of them (being
a Pharisee, a persecutor of the church, having a righteousness under the Law
that is perfect).
Paul seems
to be saying, “I was a self-made man!”
“I was the
very best of all,” that is a fair summary of Paul’s statement.
But then
Paul says that he’s lost all that stuff from his former life. He also says that it didn’t/doesn’t mean a
thing, not anymore.
It is as if
the Lord has knocked that stack of blocks out from under him. The pieces come crashing down, and Paul’s
carefully constructed tower of self-worth collapses under the power of Christ’s
call.
If we
remember Paul’s conversion experience, we can see this process at work. Turning to Acts 9:3–6, we see that he is
on his way to Damascus, in order to bring Christians to Jerusalem for
imprisonment and trial. Suddenly, a
bright light shines from heaven, and Paul falls to the ground. A voice says, “Saul, Saul,[3]
why are you persecuting me?” And Saul
(Paul) answers, “Who are you, Lord?” The
voice responds, “I am Jesus, who you are persecuting; but rise and enter the city, and you will be
told what you are to do.” Once he has
come to Damascus, a disciple named Ananias is told by the Lord that Saul (Paul)
is His chosen instrument to carry His name to the Gentiles, and that, in doing
so, Saul (Paul) will suffer many things.
So, as
Paul’s ministry unfolds, he does, indeed, suffer the loss of all things: His former life and work, his former
associations and friends, his wellbeing, and eventually, his life.[4] All of these losses come about as a result of
the call of Christ.
The call of
Christ, or, as Paul puts it, “The upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
The power
of God’s call in Christ compels Paul (and us) to acknowledge that we have no
power of our own to bring about that upward call of God. Earlier on in today’s reading, Paul says that
he doesn’t “Have a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is
through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.”
We human beings
are blessed to be made in the “image and likeness of God”.[5] We are blessed with the abilities to think,
to remember, to solve problems, to create.
But there
is a downside to all these gifts and abilities:
We think that we can build ourselves up in God’s sight, building
ourselves up by our own abilities and gifts.
Think back
to the image of the stack of blocks that represents Paul’s biography and
accomplishments. He seems to be ticking
off his personal list of achievements, implying that all these things add up to
a life that ascends into the heavens of God’s righteousness.
It is a
reality of the human condition that is as old as the human race itself, almost.
Think back to the account of the building of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9). There, we read that the builders of that tower said, “Come, let us build
ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a
name for ourselves….” The point of the account is that the builders thought
they could reach God by building themselves a tower.
The early
Church wrestled with this issue in the fourth and fifth centuries…A monk named
Pelagius maintained that human beings had no need of God’s grace in order to
bring themselves into a saving relationship with God. Pelagius’ ideas might be characterized this
way: “We can do this on our own, by our
own power.”
The Church
of that time rightly declared that Pelagius, and the ideas that bear his name,
Pelagianism, were heresies. Heresies are
selective, partial understandings of the truth, selective understandings which
distort God’s intent.
St.
Augustine of Hippo, the great bishop and theologian, spent much of his ministry
combating the idea of Pelagianism. It is
Augustine that we must thank for articulating clearly the doctrine of Original
Sin, which is the idea that each of us is born with the traits that we see in
our first father and mother, Adam and Eve.
It was these two who tried to “be like God, knowing good and evil”[6] as
they ate of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Their motivation was to improve their station
and abilities by disobeying God’s commands.
Such a motivation lies at the heart of much of the human race’s attempts
to build structures to God.
“We are all
‘fully-trained sinners’,” I am fond of saying.
That saying is designed to remind us that we all know how to do things
that are unpleasing to God.
If we
remember that if we depend on building our own foundations of righteousness,
that self-made structure is based on a faulty foundation, the foundation of
Original Sin. We are easily fooled by
our own inability to see the ways in which we fall short of God’s desires for
us.
And so we
come back to Paul’s “upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” In God’s call to us, true righteousness and a
right relationship to God is found in the upward call of Christ Jesus.
That upward
call may very well involve the loss of all things, as Paul says. At the very least, that upward call will
involve a changed relationship with many of the things we previously thought
were important to our identity and to our claims of self-importance and
self-righteousness.
And this
theme, of course, is one of the great themes of the holy season of Lent….Lent
calls us to be willing to abandon all that we hold dear, and to allow God to
sort through our lives and our expectations to show us by the bright light of
His presence what must be lost, in order that we may gain a new and closer
relationship with the Father through the righteousness of the Son.
AMEN.
[1] Webster’s dictionary defines a curriculum vitae as “1. A brief biographical resume of one’s career
and training, as prepared by a person applying for a job; 2. The course of one’s life or career.”
[2] Paul’s use of the word “flesh” often refers
to the physical aspects of one’s life:
In the text before us this morning, the use of this word would pertain
to Paul’s ancestry, his compliance with the Law, being being a Pharisee, a
persecutor of the church, and his blameless lifestyle under the Law.
[4] Tradition tells us that Paul was martyred in
the reign of the Emperor Nero, about the year 64 AD.
[6] The serpent’s suggestion to Adam and Eve as
he tries to get them to eat of the fruit.
See Genesis 3: 5.
