02.21.2016; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Philippians 3:17-4
Man, it’s a weird year. The endless grind of the American political process is in full swing, as our nation wrassles ferociously with the question: who wants the worst job in America?
Because being the President of the United States of America would be the worst. The worst.
I mean, seriously, it’s the worst. When I was a little boy, I thought, briefly, that it might be cool to be president. You get your own airplane! Whee! But I am no longer a child. Not for a moment in my entire adult life have I thought to myself, gosh, that’d be a great job to have.
Having been a pastor for just a tick over a decade, I think of the presidency in those terms. It’d be like pastoring a congregation where everyone knows you, but you only know the names of one out of every hundred of them. Just under half of the congregation thinks you’re the devil incarnate, and everyone is always fighting about everything. I’ve seen what that looks like, and it ain’t pretty. You don’t want to be there.
I would rather wash dishes in an industrial dishroom than be president. I would rather sit in a phone cubicle as a customer service representative for Comcast than be president. I would rather shovel coal into the furnace of a 19th century state mental hospital than be president. I mean, this goes on and on. How far?
A friend of mine, after graduating with a bachelors of science degree, got his first out of college job working for an environmental firm that checked for regulatory compliance on industrial farms. More specifically, his job was to insure that odors from huge lakes of pig excrement were being adequately contained.
The sensor he was issued to check on these giant swamps of fetid porcine nastiness: his nose. That was his full time job. Smelling pig leavings and filling out forms.
I would rather have that job than be President of the United States.
I wonder, sometimes, at what would drive a person to want such a terrible job.
Paul talks a bit about leadership at Philippi, in this little passage we just heard. This was a church that knew him, and knew him well. The community in Philippi was one that Paul had established himself, one of the earliest gatherings of Christians in the history of our little movement. The short letter he wrote to them was usual, because Philippi was unusual. It didn’t endlessly squabble like the church at Corinth. It didn’t wander off after whatever confident charismatic leader showed up pitching their ego, like Galatia.
Philippi got it. They knew what they were, and who they were, and what it meant to walk in the Way of Jesus. So what we get in this letter is an expression of the love he felt for the community there, particularly as they had supported him through times of challenge. And Paul had, when he wrote this letter, once again gotten himself in trouble. He was writing from Rome, and from jail, in around the year 60.
Generally, that’s a sign that you have a strong relationship with your congregation. Hey, I can’t make worship this Sunday, I’m in jail again.
This whole letter is basically one big thank you to the Philippians. Paul thanks them for both their material support in Paul’s time of imprisonment, but also thanking them for their prayers and care. What makes this sweet little thank you note so interesting theologically is its focus on expressing the nature of Jesus of Nazareth, and particularly the humility and self-giving nature of Christ. That's the focus of the well known hymn to Christ in Philippians 2:5-11, in which Paul encourages his readers to empty themselves of themselves, and be humble even in the face of their newly found connection to God.
The purpose of today's reading is similar, but with a more pointed focus. Paul knew his own gifts and his own weaknesses, and how those things both strengthened and limited his servant leadership.
In this new life, it was not his ego that mattered. It wasn’t his desire to be a disruptive and transformative leader, to be the person in charge. What mattered was the transformative relationship he had with that odd man from Nazareth, a man he’d only ever known in the spirit, and in the grace he encountered in his followers.
Paul’s faith in the justice, grace, mercy, and love of Christ was what defined his life, and what gave him value both as a person and as a leader. It is that relationship that allowed Paul to endure, and to press on through the considerable trials and difficulties of his existence, certain that there was a purpose to his life. It defined his vocation.
The other stuff? It helped. Without question. Paul’s fierce, adaptable intelligence and his remarkable capacity for both intellectual and pastoral connection made him. But what mattered wasn’t what he thought mattered. He found himself forced to adapt to a new reality, the reality of mutual servanthood that Jesus.
And around him, Paul saw the terrible reality of those whose lives were lived in opposition to that reality. “Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and their glory is in their shame, their minds are set on earthly things.”
But that’s true of even what we might think of as the more positive ways we’ve shaped and formed our lives. We train, we learn, we develop, and we grow more and more in a particular field or area.
There’s nothing wrong with all that effort we put into advancing ourselves, or in learning more, or in having a strong sense of yourself and your place in the world. There’s nothing wrong with being in a position to shape the lives of others. It’s good stuff, up until the moment we allow it to be the thing that prevents us from taking a new and God-given direction in our lives. It can also be true for the faithful.
As those experiences come, we need to be open to them. We need to understand that it is grace and love that are our best guides in that place of unexpected trial or unanticipated gift.
Because faith is about teleology, which is a big fancy word for purpose-ology. The purpose of life, Paul would assert, our goal, our end? It’s to do what Jesus asked. Love one another, and do so in such a way that those around you can see it clearly.
If we have the boldness to claim ourselves as followers of Jesus, what defines us is our willingness to be humble, no matter what we know or who we are. What defines us is our willingness to set aside our desire for self promotion, to set aside the hunger for power that has driven the savage mess of human history. What defines us be open to the radical encounter with Christ’s grace that allows us to ever deepen in our servant journey.
It’s that heart and mind that lets us set aside our pride, and turns us to serving both one another and those who are most in need.
That’s our job, the job every one of us who claims to be Christian has. It’s not easy. It’s certainly not easy. But it’s the best job in the world.
Let it be so, for you and for me, AMEN.
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