Sermon preached at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Delray Beach, Florida on February 24, 2013
2 Lent – Year C
Philippians 3:17 – 4:1; Ps. 27; Luke 13:31-35
Preacher: The Reverend Canon
William H. Stokes, Rector
For many
live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now
I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly;
and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. But
our citizenship is in heaven...
(Philippians
3:18-30)
There is a great deal of talk about
immigration reform in Washington today, and not only in Washington, but
throughout much of the country. Almost everybody, from both parties,
recognizes that something needs to be done to address the challenge of the
millions of undocumented workers that live in the United States but, coming up
with a satisfactory solution is a real problem, especially with the political
parties as polarized as they are.
It will
be interesting to see if the two parties can work something out. Needless to say, it is imperative for us to
remember that behind the issue are very real people, human beings, whose
dignity our baptismal covenant demands we respect. It is also important to recognize that many
of the undocumented persons in this country came here as young children and
have not known any other country but this.
It is a very difficult and complicated issue. Citizenship, United States citizenship, is a
precious thing, a precious thing too many of us who have it take for granted. We should have some compassion and sympathy
for those who so desperately long for it.
After all, it is by grace that many of us were born here. We won what Warren Buffet famously refers to
as “the great ovarian lottery.”[1]
While we, as a nation, debate about immigration
reform and citizenship in this country, as people of faith, this season of Lent
invites us to reflect upon a different kind of citizenship that we also too
often take for granted: our citizenship
in heaven. St. Paul introduced the idea in the
reading we heard today from his letter to the Philippians.[2]
Paul
loved the church in Philippi. It was the
westernmost of the churches he had founded, and was located in the Roman colony
of Macedonia.[3] Philippi was a port city. The letter Paul wrote to the Philippians is,
perhaps, the most joyful and personal of all his letters.
As the
introduction to Philippians in The Oxford
Annotated Bible notes, “The mutual affection between Paul and the Philippians
is evident in the letter and stands in contrast to the problems he had with
some other churches.”[4] That introduction goes on to state, “Paul
writes from prison and is uncertain of the outcome for himself. The themes of opposition and the possibility of
death are therefore prominent. Yet, in
the midst of the suffering and uncertainty, the theme of joy emerges quite
clearly and quite remarkably.”[5]
How you might ask, could Paul be
joyful in those circumstances, as he sat in prison, not knowing what the future
held in store for him? Well Paul knew
something, something vitally important.
Paul knew his citizenship was in heaven….and because he knew this, was
confident in this, he could handle anything….And he did…
Paul was
beaten and imprisoned over and over again as he carried out his ministry, but
he remained faithful to the gospel….Faithful, and often joyful, even when
things seemed at their darkest. He knew
who he was and what he was about. He
knew whose he was and to whom he owed his true pledge of allegiance…Yes, his
citizenship, his true citizenship was in heaven.
Now, to be clear, Paul was also a
citizen of the Roman Empire, at
least according to the author of Acts of the Apostles.[6] This was no small thing. It came with status and privileges, with
rights such as the right to a legal trial.
As Acts portrays it, Paul was not shy about declaring his Roman
citizenship when he needed to. He did so in Acts 25, after he had been
arrested for stirring up trouble in Jerusalem.
In Acts
25, verse 10, Paul appears before Festus, the Procurator of Judea and says, “If
I am in the wrong and have done something for which I deserve to die, I am not
trying to escape death; but if there is nothing to the charges against me, no
one can turn me over to them [meaning the Jewish authorities]. “I
appeal to the Emperor” (Acts 25:11).
Acts tells us, that Festus
conferred with his council and replied, “You have appealed to the Emperor; to
the Emperor you shall go”(Acts 25:12). This meant he
was to be brought to Rome to the Emperor’s tribunal, and trial according to
Roman law. Yes, Paul appealed to his
Roman citizenship when it was useful, but we need to be clear. Paul’s
identity as a Roman citizen was very much secondary to him. In fact, in his own
letters, he never makes reference to it.
Paul’s primary identity was in Christ. As he wrote to the church in Philippi, “for me
to live is Christ, and to die is gain”(Philippians 1:21). Clearly his citizenship was
in heaven.
In a
particularly fine book, In Search of
Paul: How Jesus’ Apostle Opposed Rome’s
Empire with God’s Kingdom,[7]
well-known biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan and archaeologist Jonathan L.
Reed use the tools of biblical scholarship and the discoveries and insights of
archaeology to ask a very provocative “new” question. “Where does archaeology uncover most clearly
Rome’s imperial theology, which Paul’s Christian theology confronted
nonviolently but opposed relentlessly?”[8]
They
remind the readers that, at the time of Paul, Roman Emperors were deemed divine. Augustus
was called “Son of God” “God” and “God of God.”[9] He was, they write, “Lord, Redeemer, and
Savior of the World.”[10] As Crossan and Reed observe, “People knew
that both verbally from Latin authors like Virgil, Horace and Ovid and visually
from coins, cups, statues, altars, temples, and forums; from ports, roads and
bridges, and aqueducts; from landscapes transformed and cities established.”[11] “It was,” Crossan and Reed write, “all around
them just like advertising is around us today.”[12]
They
note, quite rightly that “Some scholars of Paul have already emphasized
creatively and accurately the confrontation between Pauline Christianity and
Roman imperialism,”[13]
and state that “that clash” is at the “core” of their book.[14] But they carry it further.
“We see
it incarnating deeper and even more fundamental strains beneath the surface of
human history,”[15] they write. “What is newest about [our] book is its
insistence that Paul opposed Rome with Christ against Caesar, not because the
empire was particularly unjust or oppressive, but because he [Paul] questioned the normalcy of civilization itself, since
every civilization has always been imperial, that is, unjust and oppressive.”[16] Wow! That’s a pretty disquieting thought, but
it is in keeping with the thoughts of later great Christian thinkers such as Reinhold
Niebuhr and his classic work Moral Man
and Immoral Society[17]
In their
book, in Search of Paul, Crossan and
Reed argue that, “Paul’s essential challenge is how to embody communally that
radical vision of a new creation in
way far beyond even our present best hopes for freedom, democracy and human
rights.”[18] “The Roman Empire,” they write, “was based on
the common principle of peace through
victory, or more fully, in faith in the sequence, piety, war, victory and peace.”[19] In contrast, “Paul, they write, “was a Jewish
visionary following in Jesus’ footsteps, and they both claimed that the Kingdom
of God was already present and operative in the world. [Paul] opposed the mantras of Roman normalcy
with faith in the sequence of covenant,
nonviolence, justice and peace.”[20]
Acknowledging
that the United States is now the greatest postindustrial civilization in the
world as Rome was then the greatest preindustrial one, Crossan and Reed state
that a subtext of their book therefore is the question: “To what extent can
America be Christian?”[21] For Crossan and Reed, this question is
what makes Paul’s challenge equally forceful for now as for then, for here as
for there, as they write, for Senatus Populusque
Romanus as for Senatus Populusque
Americanus[22].
To
what extent can America be Christian?
I believe this question is fundamentally unanswerable, especially given
the pluralism of our culture and the diversity of our people. To me, the more significant question is: To what
extent can Americans be Christian? What does this mean, what does it look like?
I believe it requires our
recognition that we hold dual citizenship and that we further recognize that
our first allegiance is with Christ and our primary citizenship is in
heaven. The values that are inherent in Christian
identity, values well articulated in the Baptismal Covenant[23]
-- a dedication to the Apostles Teaching and Fellowship, a recognition of the
reality of evil in the world and sinfulness in our own lives and a commitment
to persevere in resisting these; a duty
to proclaim the Gospel of the love of Jesus Christ over and against all lesser
and false gospels, a responsibility to seek and serve Christ in all other
persons and to strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the
dignity of every human being – these values are our first and primary
obligation. It is through these and our
Baptismal identity as members of the body of Christ, that all other commitments
and obligations are to be measured and met, including our commitment and
obligations as Americans.
This
means that when our nation is at its best, and living in to the values of “life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for all persons, we as Christians are
called to follow St. Paul’s lead as stated in Romans 13, and subject ourselves
willingly and cooperatively with the governing authorities.[24]
But when the sinfulness of our
nation and the evils of society cry out for justice – whether it is because we
have the highest incarceration rate in the world, or the highest number of gun
deaths in the so-called “civilized world,”
or because an enormous number of
our children live in poverty, or are under-educated, or because the middle
class of our nation are being impoverished by an inequitable and unjust health care system…or by any of a host of
other societal ills which mar our common life, then we as Christians must claim
our Christian citizenship and critique our society and act, or “act out” not
only for the nation’s good, but for the sake of Christ, just as Paul did when
he opposed imperialism, and was beaten and arrested so many times.
If we do not understand that there
is something fundamentally unique in our Christian identity, something that
distinguishes us in the world, distinguishes us in our behavior and our ethics,
then we have to ask if this being Christian means anything at all. I think it does. I think it means a lot!
As
Christians, we are called to be people of love, a people who insist on the
dignity of all other human beings in a world that often degrades and
dehumanizes others. As Christians, we
are called to be a people who insist on forgiveness and reconciliation in a
world that too often insists on retribution and punishment. As Christians, we are called to be a people
who insist on nonviolence and peace in a world where violence and war have
wreaked destruction and havoc time and time again. As Christians, we are called to be a people
who insist on the values of service and sacrifice for the sake of others and
for a common good in a world that is dominated by greed, selfish interest, and
“me-ism.”
This is
a clear distinction and contrast…It is the contrast of so-called “civilization”
with the vision, the dream and the desire of God, for his creation, the vision
and dream that constitutes the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of Heaven of which
we are all called to be citizens. So which
citizenship do you prefer?
It is the season of Lent. This
is a season for us examine our lives, to
turn away from, detach ourselves from, that which harms us, dehumanizes and
destroys us, the seductive idols and idolatries of this world in which we live,
and to turn toward the one who gives us life, who calls us into God’s light and
love, not only for God, but for one another. It is a season for us to remember that our
citizenship is indeed in heaven and our lives are in Christ. It is a time for us to reclaim and accept
that blessed and holy citizenship with joy and to have our passports stamped with
the right country once again!
[1]
Buffett has used this term on many occasions.
See, for example, Buffett, Warren “My Philanthropic Pledge” June 16,
2010 on the CNN Money website found at http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/15/news/newsmakers/Warren_Buffett_Pledge_Letter.fortune/index.htm
[2]
Philippians 3:17
[3]
See the Introduction to the Letter to the Philippians in The New Oxford Annotated Bible – Third Edition – Michael A. Coogan,
editor – (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2001) 328
[4]
The Oxford Annotated Bible, 328
[5]
The Oxford Annotated Bible, 328
[6]
See Acts 25
[7]
Crossan, John Dominic and Reed, Jonathan L In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire
with God’s Kingdom (New York:
HarperSanFrancisco/Harper Collins Publishers, 2004
[8]
Crossan and Reed, “Introduction” p. x
[9]
Crossan and Reed, “Introduction” p. x
[10]
Crossan and Reed, “Introduction” p. x
[11]
Crossan and Reed, “Introduction” p. x
[12]
Crossan and Reed, “Introduction” p. x
[13]
Crossan and Reed, “Introduction” p. x
[14]
Crossan and Reed, “Introduction” p. x
[15]
Crossan and Reed, “Introduction” p. x
[16]
Crossan and Reed, “Introduction” p. x
[17]
Niebuhr, Reinhold Moral Man and Immoral
Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (Louisville,
Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001
– originally published in 1932). In
this renowned work, Niebuhr wrote:
“The
limitations of the human mind and imagination, the inability of human beings to
transcend their own interests sufficiently to envisage the interests of their
fellow men as clearly as they do their own makes force an inevitable part of
the process of social cohesion. But the
same force which guarantees peace also makes for injustice. ‘Power,’ said Henry Adams, ‘is poison:; and
it is a poison which blinds the eye of moral insight and lames the will of
moral purpose. The individual or the
group which organizes any society, however social its intentions or
pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege to itself.”
(pp. 6-7).
A few pages later, Niebuhr
added:
“The
disproportion of power in a complex society which began with the transmutation
of the pastoral to the agrarian economy, and which destroyed the simple
equalitarian and communism of the hunting and nomadic social organization, has
perpetuated social injustice in every form through all the ages.” (p. 9).
[18]
Crossan and Reed, “Introduction” p. xi
[19]
Crossan and Reed, “Introduction” p. xi
[20]
Crossan and Reed, “Introduction” p. xi
[21]
Crossan and Reed, “Introduction” p. xi
[22]
Crossan and Reed, “Introduction” p. x
[23]
See The Book of Common Prayer – 1979 pp.
304-305
[24]
See Romans 13:1ff
