SERMON FOR OCTOBER 4, 2020       TEXT: PHILIPPIANS 3:4b-14
    
     Today’s text from Philippians makes it clear — the Apostle Paul is on a mission. The Greek verb that is translated as “press on” in verse 12 was originally associated with the hunting of animals; it conveys the idea of the chase. Paul is tracking Christ Jesus. He is determined to catch up with his quarry, who moves ahead of him and draws him on. “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 . . . .” (vv. 10-12a). 
     
     In contrast to the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, the earlier Revised Standard Version translates this verse: “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect . . . .” The literal translation of the Greek verb would be “not that I have been made perfect”; Paul’s audience would have recognized its connotation of marital union, of consummation and completeness. Paul is in hot pursuit of the Lord. He is driven by his desire to know Christ and be found in him. He is determined to claim the union which Jesus has prepared for him: “. . . but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (v. 12b). The New Testament scholar David Frederickson points out that modern translations have confused our understanding of the perfection Paul seeks. They have replaced the desire for mystical union with Christ with an individual’s effort towards moral improvement.
      
     Paul has already traveled that route. He rightly claims distinction both by birth and personal accomplishment. “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” (vv. 4b-6). Quite the pedigree! It sounds like boasting; it is for Paul a simple statement of fact. And it belongs to the past. That was then; this is now. Now he has eyes only for Christ Jesus; what he used to value fades to nothing in comparison. “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss, as rubbish,” he declares (vv. 7, 8). Paul lives in the between-times: between the first coming of Jesus and the second; between Part 1 of the Apostle’s own history and its ending in Christ. The only thing he knows for sure now is that his life began anew when Christ called him and that he is making his way through this world to come home to his beloved Lord. His journey is full of wonder.

     There is a striking similarity between Paul’s story and Luther’s. In Brother Martin’s day the church made heavy demands on the faithful. God’s grace was given as a kind of matching grant to their prescribed good works, and they had to continue in this discipline to sustain the saving relationship with God. When they sinned, confession brought them the needed forgiveness through the word of absolution spoken by the priest, but they were also expected to work their way back into a state of grace by acts of penance, and this applied on both sides of the grave. People needed the church to forgive the debts of sin and simultaneously to help pay them off. Luther’s reformation was rooted in a total rejection of this complex system that combined divine grace with human merits. As a monk, Luther could make claim to the same kind of excellence as St. Paul does on the basis of his life as a Pharisee. The devotion to the religious life of both the apostle and the reformer was complete. Yet these accomplishments matter not at all once Christ opens to them the way of grace.
 
     As Paul charts this new territory, he does not go it alone. He has companions and co-workers in various places. He visits them; he writes them. He never ceases to comfort and exhort them with the good news about Jesus, and he turns to them for encouragement and support as well. Paul tells the Philippians that even though his desire is to depart and be with Christ, he knows that to remain in this world is the better option now, because there is important work for him to do on their behalf. “. . . I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith,” he writes, “so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again” (1:25-26). The upward call of God in Christ Jesus takes Paul in two directions: into union with the Lord and into unity with other members of the community. Or as Luther puts it, we live in Christ by faith and in our neighbor by love. Paul presses on to gain Christ and he longs for his brothers and sisters. “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved” (4:1). Paul cannot love the Lord and leave them behind.

     Last week we heard the great Christ hymn from the second chapter of Philippians:  “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness” (2:5-7). To be united with Christ is to be joined to the One who emptied himself to take on our nature, who makes our need his own, who counts us better than himself and never turns away. To be made Christ’s own is to share in the gifts of the Spirit that empower us to be little Christs one to another in this time and place. God is at work in us as we make our journey of grace through this life, in hot pursuit of the Lord who first loved us.  
     Paul’s combination of longing, wonder, determination and confidence made me think of this lovely poem by William Butler Yeats, The Song of Wandering Aengus.
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

     Someone has called us by our name and calls us still. We cannot forget him. He is always just ahead, leading, enticing us to follow. Though we grow old with wandering through the hollows and hills of life, we will find out where he has gone. He will take us by the hand and greet us with a holy kiss and make us his own forever. Amen.