| Straining
Forward |
| If anyone else 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, in order that I may gain Christ
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my
own that comes from the law, but one that comes through
faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection
and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him
in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection
from the dead. |
| Not that I have already obtained
this or have already reached the goal; but I press on
to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his
own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my
own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind
and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward
the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in
Christ Jesus. |
|
| Philippians 3:4b-14 |
| There’s a Lutheran minister in the Bronx named Heidi
Newmark who lives her ministry straining forward day by day
with her congregation. She finds creative ways for her disenfranchised
and oppressed congregation to know themselves as beloved children
of God. Creativity allows three troubled youth to be transformed
into the three kings in the Epiphany pageant. Recovering addicts
give testimony to God breaking into their lives and seizing
them, giving them new life and another chance. Heidi longs for
a new city for her congregation in the Bronx, one not so full
of grace mixed with disappointment over and over, again and
again. At the same time she proclaims good news in the dynamic
tension of the world her congregation welcomes her into as an
outsider. Life at Transfiguration Lutheran in the Bronx is not
stagnant. It moves and breathes and heaves forward and back,
lurching toward a promise of peace and God’s eternal reign.
(1) |
| When Paul talks about straining forward, he’s not talking
about progress as we think of it in today’s world. He
means living into the dynamic and moving life of a disciple
of Jesus Christ. Pressing on into the upward call of God, is
a calling each believer must live out in our own way. |
| Paul was leaning into the vision God had called him to in
our Philippians passage. In God’s self-revelation in Jesus,
Paul had realized his call must be of the same pattern as Jesus’
ministry. The gospel gave Paul no answers to problems, but instead
it disturbed his answers and set him in search of a new “solution,”
a new understanding—it thrust a new understanding on him,
an understanding that required radical reassessment of past,
present, and future. (2) Peter and many other Jews
were called to proclaim the gospel to Israel, but Paul’s
call was to preach the good news of God in Jesus in a way that
allowed the news to remain “good” to non-Jews. |
| Many of us who read Paul’s letters today are tempted
to label Paul’s arguments as being against the law, against
Judaism. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have to
remember the context in which Paul wrote. That the whole early
church community was grappling with how to live in the good
news as Gentiles came into their worship with no understanding
of the God of Israel. Paul’s calling was to help Jewish
followers of Christ to be more inclusive to outsiders and less
of an old school club. He proclaimed a way of grace and peace
in the midst of heated debates between himself and other church
members. |
| The early church was straining forward to live into Christ’s
call as they discerned the good news for converts—the
Gentiles. Other evangelists had come through the Philippian
community and told new gentile believers that they weren’t
free to be Christians until they adhered to certain Jewish laws,
primarily circumcision which was the mark of God’s covenant
with Israel. But this notion made the good news, law bound.
The good news of Jesus Christ is a free gift of grace, not contingent
on its receivers’ adherence to Jewish law first. Besides,
when God gave the 10 Commandments to Israel God’s love
and grace were already with the people, not contingent on their
fulfillment of these commands. The commands were to help them
live into God’s ways as response. Now, righteousness from
faith in Christ meant being found as one who professes the good
news through actions stemming from belief. This was straining
forward! |
| Christians are constantly challenged to lean into a vision
which is not our own, but God’s. God’s peace is
at the same time realized and yet unrealized. “Depart
from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.” (Ps.
34:14) People who strain forward into the holy mystery of life
in Christ are called to proclaim the peace of Christ while acknowledging
the turmoil in our own lives and the world. Our call is to security
in the middle of insecurity because we believe God will bring
about the promised peaceable reign where the lion lays down
with the lamb and snakes and babies crawl around together! God’s
promise sounds fantastic considering the state of the world
throughout time. But God does not live in fantasyland. God lives
in each one of us, and our lives are full of disappointment
and hope, joy and suffering, heavy burdens and tearful laughter. |
| The heavenly or upward call of God in Jesus is realized as
we live with eyes open to the atrocities of this world and claim,
in the midst of it all, our call to peace and communion—just
as Jesus did. Remembering and rehearsing the good news changes
us into instruments of peace. Instability abounds and in it
we are upheld by grace! Faith, hope and love enable us to give
plow making priority over sword making, not because such a strategy
is more successful but because believers are called to be peacemakers
even in the presence of enemies, following the example of Jesus.
(3) In Christ we find the strength for peacemaking
in brokenness. So we strain forward for peace motivated not
by fear, but by the Spirit who has set us free to buy into and
testify to God’s world order instead of the ways of the
world. |
| The heavenly or upward call of God in Jesus is realized as
we live with eyes open to the atrocities of this world and claim,
in the midst of it all, our call to peace and communion—just
as Jesus did. Remembering and rehearsing the good news changes
us into instruments of peace. Instability abounds and in it
we are upheld by grace! Faith, hope and love enable us to give
plow making priority over sword making, not because such a strategy
is more successful but because believers are called to be peacemakers
even in the presence of enemies, following the example of Jesus.
In Christ we find the strength for peacemaking in brokenness.
So we strain forward for peace motivated not by fear, but by
the Spirit who has set us free to buy into and testify to God’s
world order instead of the ways of the world. |
| We cannot remain the church if we lose our identity, that
we were found and taken over by the Prince of Peace just as
Paul was. Peacemaking means entering the struggle! The struggle
to accept God’s love for us, to live in peace ourselves
and to work for it in our relationships with our closest neighbors
and our enemies. Teresa of Avila, a mystic and nun who lived
in the middle ages, wrote these words, “Christ has no
body on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s
compassion is to look out to the world. Yours are the feet with
which he is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with
which he is to bless us now.” (4) We are a body
seeking to testify to God’s peace. Sometimes this means
leaving abusive situations at home or work. Sometimes this means
fighting for the rights of those who are oppressed. Sometimes
it means protesting policies that are unjust. Sometimes it means
admitting we need help to clean up our addictions so we and
those who love us can know inner peace again. |
| Those who know our righteousness in God find strength for
our journeys in the story of this table and all that happened
afterwards. At the table, Jesus invited betrayers, the self-righteous,
the unclean—all sorts of sinners whom he loved—to
dine with him. Afterwards, they deserted him and he died with
just a few women and the beloved disciple possibly standing
nearby. Then God raised Jesus in triumph over all evil. A new
Way rose in the midst of this world and changed it even as things
appear to stay the same. Every time we claim our call as peacemakers
and as those in communion with God and the world, the power
of the resurrection is as work in us and we glimpse, even if
only for a moment God’s promised future. |
| Come and be fed by Jesus’ grace and dare to be examples
of what it means to know righteousness through faith and to
live for God’s peace. |
| Amen |
| Beth E. Godfrey - October 2, 2005 |
| Central Presbyterian Church, Geneseo, New
York |
| (1) For more on Transfiguration Lutheran see - Heidi Newmark,
Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx,
(Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2003). |
| (2) Walter Brueggemann, Charles B. Cousar, Beverly R. Gaventa,
James D. Newsome, eds., Texts for Preaching: a lectionary
commentary based on the NRSV—year A, (Westminster
John Knox Press: Louisville, 1995) 513 |
| (3) http://www.pcusa.org/peacemaking/believers.pdf.
Page 18. |
| (4) Morna D. Hooker, “The Letter to the Philippians”
in The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve
Volumes, Vol. XI, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000) 537. |
|
| Top |
|
|
