Priority Review

Philippians 3:4b-14

Sermon by Dan Schrock

January 22, 2012

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised 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; ⁶as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

⁷ Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸More 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 ⁹and 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. ¹⁰I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

 ¹²Not 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. ¹³Beloved, 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, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. (NRSV)

I

In order to apply for a job, most of us have probably written a résumé. On this résumé we might first list our degrees:  perhaps a B.A. in history with a minor in computer programming, a M.S. in library science, plus a three-month internship in appreciative inquiry. In the next section of the résumé we might list our work experience:  perhaps three years of working at the Goshen Public Library and five years as assistant to the director of the institute for medieval manuscripts at the University of Notre Dame library. In the final section of the résumé, we might list our competencies:  familiarity with C++ programming and database management, and the preservation of rare books and manuscripts. If we’re shrewd, we might also find a way to write our résumé in such a way that people reading it will know our stellar grade point average, the awards we won, and the production goals we successfully achieved at work. A résumé is a chance to boast of our successes, accomplishments, and achievements.

If you were to write a résumé right now, what would you put on it? What academic degrees do you hold? What kind of work experience have you had? In what areas are you accomplished? What can you legitimately brag about?

II

Our culture puts a high value on excellence and achievement, and those who excel at the game of achievement then get to boast. I was valedictorian of my class. I was a national merit semi-finalist. I received a scholarship to pay for all my tuition and expenses. I won the award for being the most valuable employee of the year. I sold more alarm systems than anyone else in the company. I was chosen to lead a new division with its own separate building. My clients have the lowest rate of recidivism in the entire counseling center. My students scored highest on the ISTEPs. My courses have the highest registration in the department.

The church also puts a high value on excellence and achievement. I recently listened to several pastors describe the great pressure they feel to produce tangible results. Some of these pastors go to missional church workshops where they hear a subtle yet very real expectation that truly good pastors will turn lifeless churches around and make them into powerhouses of mission. Other pastors attend leadership seminars where they are taught how to measure their competencies in specific areas. In many denominations, pastors are expected to grow the membership, increase the budget, and set vision for mission.

Accomplishment and achievement can affect the way we think about the spiritual life too. God, look at all the stuff I’ve done for you. I give the church 14% of my pre-tax income. I treat people fairly. I did not just one but two terms of voluntary service. I read a chapter from the Bible every night before bed. I serve on 4 committees. What a fine spiritual life I have! What wonderful things I do for Jesus!

III

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul also brags. Other people may have lots of reasons to brag about their heritage and accomplishments, he writes, but I have even more reasons to brag. I was circumcised on the 8^th day of my life. I was born into the people of Israel and into the wonderfully faithful tribe of Benjamin. I am a Hebrew among Hebrews. Nobody has ethnic credentials better than mine.

Furthermore, look at my personal religious achievements. I was a Pharisee, which means I paid scrupulous attention to the finer details of the law. I was so zealous for God that I persecuted the followers of Jesus. I was so accomplished that I was able to satisfy all of the law’s requirements. And I discovered, he continues, that it’s all crap.

The Greek word Paul uses in verse 8 is skybala, which the NRSV translates as “rubbish.” However, the word “rubbish” is not nearly strong enough. The word refers to excrement, so one English word we might use is crap. All my accomplishments and achievements, says Paul, are crap in comparison to knowing Jesus Christ.

For Paul, knowing Christ is not just knowing about Christ. Paul is not referring here to knowing facts and figures about Christ—that Jesus was born to Mary early in the first century, that Nazareth was his hometown, and so on. Nor is Paul referring here to knowing theology about Christ—that Christ is a distinct person of the Trinity, sent from the Godhead to reveal God’s purposes for the world. Paul values of theological knowledge, but it doesn’t seem to be the kind of knowledge he’s talking about here in Philippians 3.

Instead Paul is referring to a much deeper and more intimate knowledge. Essentially Paul is talking about a kind of mystical knowledge. This is the knowledge of experience, of sensing himself so close to Christ that he becomes like Christ. In my own life, says Paul, I want to know intimately the sufferings of Christ, the crucifixion of Christ, the death of Christ. Why? So I can also know the powerful resurrection of Christ. I don’t want to experience only the crucifixion or only the resurrection. Instead I want to experience both because they come as a package deal.

Paul is right about this, of course. Crucifixion and resurrection are a package deal. Dying and rising are a package deal. By itself, crucifixion is nothing more than pointless, dead-end suffering. It has no purpose by itself. It has no ultimate meaning. Christianity is not about dead-end suffering that curls in on itself and spiral downward to nothing.

Suffering only makes sense if it blossoms into new life. Christian faith travels along a road to resurrection, and we, the disciples of Jesus, follow him to that resurrection via the cross. Crucifixion and resurrection only make sense when they inform and shape each other.

When Paul wrote Philippians, he was sitting in a Roman jail; and given the realities of first century prisons, he realized the chances of getting out of jail alive were slim. Paul recognized that his life might be almost over. In fact, circumstantial evidence suggests that this particular imprisonment may well have been Paul’s last, that he never was set free but was killed. The reality of imminent death brings priorities into focus. At the end of life when we peer into the face of death, most of us will no longer be paying much attention to our degrees, our life accomplishments, our achievements at work, or our awards and recognitions. More likely most of us will be thinking at the end of life about the quality of our relationships, preeminently the quality of our relationship with Christ. What else could possibly be more important than that? Surely not the size of your bank account. Surely not that degree hanging on your wall. Surely not your production record way back when you were 26 years old. What your thoughts will mostly arc toward is the person of Jesus Christ.

IV

And so we come to the ultimate point of this passage. Press on!, urges Paul. We have not yet achieved our goal of knowing the full power of Christ’s resurrection. Press on through our sufferings, because those sufferings will help us better understand the dynamics of crucifixion. Press on, because Christian suffering mysteriously binds us closer to the person of Christ. Press on, because suffering is not a dead-end. It will not curl in on itself. In God’s time and in God’s manner it will be resurrected into something beautiful for God—into something that resembles Christ’s own self. We will be delivered. We will be vindicated. We will be transfigured into the very likeness of Christ, intimate friends with God for eternity.