its all garbage, I tell you!

The following lessons is for Sunday coming and is the New Testament Lesson - the words of St. Paul that wrote to the Church at Philippi:

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:4b-14)

What have you given up and what has been taken away from you, so that you can hold on to Christ? I find it exciting and discombobulating at the same time. I have lived all over the country and I have people that are not only friends but some as close as blood. I lament occasionally that I have not been closer to family because of the call in my life to be who and what I am. There are things in my life that I know that are my trophies. I use them to feel better about things only to realize that they can take me away from God and what God has for me. Trophies can become personal idols which make me think that its all about me. Paul points out that whatever it is that he hung onto, to make great and powerful in his own eyes and that of others, it gone down the toilet. It has been relegated to the sewers because of the hold the Christ Jesus had on him.

Paul also reminds us that there are things and people that will hang on to us, try to keep us from moving on, going forward. There is going to be pain and suffering in taking the time and energy to proclaim the Gospel Gaining momentum in living a faithful Christian life, is going to create and multiply the things in your life that are wanting to take you away from the one thing that we need to hold onto. Moreover, we are called to move into the pain and sufferings of Jesus and move through them with him. Knowing Jesus means that we need to understand what it is that he has done for us by showing us himself in the lives of other people and what he is doing in and for them.

Proclaiming a message that is unpopular is not a career move we might make currently. Telling the people something they do not want to hear is hazardous to the messenger’s health – always has been. It will get you mistreated, beaten, stoned, and even killed. Fortunately, where Jesus is concerned, our mistakes are not fatal and our deaths are not final. Death is not the final word in the Gospel.

We are God’s people, on the move into God’s mission. We move by God’s power into that mission. The question God asks each of us and all of us is, “Who will go for us? Whom shall I send?”

It cannot be “business as usual” anymore. Our society needs to see the Church at work under a divine commission and power, doing and saying the things that God wants done and said. Let us move forward into all that God calls us to do and do so in Jesus” name all the while letting go of our trophies and all that would slow us down and keep us back.

Let us consider the glorious Saint Paul: it seems that no other name fell from his lips than that of Jesus, because the name of Jesus was fixed and embedded in his heart. -   Saint Teresa of Avila

Jason+