Philippians
3:17-4:1
17
Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live
according to the example you have in us. 18 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. 19 Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is
in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship
is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be
conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make
all things subject to himself.
4:1
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.
According
to the commercials on television, the people dressed up like the Statue of
Liberty swinging cardboard signs out by the highway, and the innumerable pieces
of junk mail we all start to get around this time of year, it is “tax season.” For
some of us, that’s a welcome time of year: we’ve paid our taxes throughout the
previous year; we’ve given to charity and even qualified for some tax credits,
so we’ll get a sizeable refund this year, which we can use to pay off some
bills, repaint the house, or put money down on a new car. For others of us,
“tax season” is a time of year we’d rather didn’t come around, mostly because
we know we didn’t pay enough last year; we put off paying the final quarter of
last year because we needed to see how the chips would fall and the way they
fell was good, but not in terms of paying taxes. Those of us in such a
predicament usually wait until sometime around, I don’t know, April 14th
to file taxes, somehow believing that a pain delayed is a pain softened. Well,
for those of you in that particular boat, those who are not looking forward to
paying your taxes this year, I may have a solution for you, an example you
might find helpful.
His
name is Kent Hovind, though he prefers to be called “Dr. Hovind” or “Dr. Dino.”
He is a so-called “creation scientist”: one who believes in a young earth, a
literal interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis (in the King Kames
only), and that all other theories concerning the creation of the world are
conspiracies created in an attempt to deceive people and lead them away from
God. Kent has actually been rather successful in his “work” of spreading his
particular brand of creationism: he has spoken in many fundamentalist
congregations, sold many copies of his talks on VHS, and he even has a line of
products (things like fossil replicas) all based around his teachings. Kent did
pretty well speaking in these churches, selling his wares to them and at his
Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola; he reportedly earned as much a two
million dollars a year—maybe even more. The truth is, no one is entirely sure
just how much money he made, because Kent never reported it.
That’s
right; Kent Hovind didn’t pay taxes on his income as “Dr. Dino,” as the
“creation scientist” touring the country (or at least the Deep South) promoting
his fundamentalist views, and do you want to know why? Would you like to hear
his reasoning (I think it’s a pretty good one)? Hovind told the IRS to stop
harassing him (he even tried to sue them for harassment) about his taxes
because he was not a citizen of the United States. That’s right; Kent Hovind
told the IRS he wasn’t going to pay his taxes because he was a citizen of
heaven, and all of his possession belonged to God, so he didn’t have to pay
taxes to the United States. You can ask him how successful such a reason was
now that he’s out of prison for tax evasion.[1]
It’s
a silly thing, really, to claim citizenship in heaven as a way to avoid one’s
responsibilities in this world. Quite frankly, I find it a perversion of the
words of the Apostle Paul before us this morning; words I’m quite sure folks
like Hovind have used to justify their ridiculous actions.
Paul
is urging his friends at Philippi to imitate him and others like him who are
striving to live in the example of Christ, because there are those in and
around Philippi who would rather live as they wish, using Paul’s teachings and
Christ’s example as cherry-picked excuses for their selfish ways. Paul even
goes so far as to call them “enemies of the cross of Christ”
because of how they have chosen to live their lives. They are the kind of folks
who go around toting bible verses in their back pockets in order to justify the
things they do; fully knowing that what they are doing is contrary to the way
of the cross, but believing they are justified if they can back it up with a
word or two from Scripture or a quote from some influential Christian or if
they can call to mind some Platonism they learned in Sunday School.
You know these kinds of
folks, don’t you? They’re the kind of folks who brush off any notion of helping
those who are hungry with a quick quote of 2 Thessalonians 3:10: "If
a man will not work, he shall not eat” (I once remember hearing a very
famous preacher scream from his pulpit in Texas that a person deserved to
starve if they couldn’t work!). These “enemies of the cross of Christ” to whom
Paul is referring are the kind of folks who say things like, “Well, if someone
ever hurt me I’d get even, because the Bible says, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth
for a tooth.’” They are the kinds of people who warp the words of Scripture in
order to justify their pre-established notions of what is right and what is
wrong. They validate themselves by scouring the pages of Scripture or looking
for some loose thread they can pull in order to pad their arguments, to justify
what they know deep-down is little more than an attempt to remain unchanged and
selfishly tied to comfort. They are the folks who say, “I’ve got my ticket to
heaven, because I’ve asked Jesus into my heart with the ‘sinner’s prayer,’ I’ve
been baptized, my name is on the church role, and I’ve been saved at least
once, Thank God I’m ‘once saved—always saved!’”
These
“enemies of the cross of Christ” Paul mentions here are not those we’ve
conjured in our minds or find on the pages of one of Jack Chick’s tracts. They
are not those calling for the heads of Christians just because they are
believers; they are not those who we’ve painted as villains because their
beliefs are different than ours. No, in many ways they may be difficult to
distinguish from those who are genuinely seeking to live the life of faith
found in Christ; they can talk the talk, and at times it even seems they can
walk the walk, but when the rubber meets the road, when faith is tested, when
difficulties arise, when others come with needs only we can meet, then the
chaff is burned away in the fire of God’s love. You see, there are a lot of
folks who act like Christians—that’s not our problem. No, our problem is that
there seems to be a shortage of Christians willing to act like Christ!
That’s
why Paul encourages the Philippians to join in imitating him and those who they
have witnessed living a true life of discipleship—not that they have it all
right or that they’ve got it figured out to a science, a list of “ten things to
do in order to be a perfect Christian.” Just like Paul, those of us who are
genuinely seeking to follow Jesus aren’t always going to do the right things,
say the right things, think the right things. We’re going to mess up; we’re
going to stumble and fail. No one ever said that being a Christian was some
instantaneous transformation from a sick sinner to a slick saint (and if they
did they are only fooling themselves). This life of following Jesus is one of
constant and continuing transformation; we are not meant to simply stay in one
frame of mind, never growing, never changing, never moving from where we are in
what we believe and what we do.
That’s
what it means to have “our citizenship in heaven.” It’s
not some excuse to get out of earthly responsibilities. If anything, it is a
call to take on more responsibilities, to realize that we are ambassadors of
the kingdom of God, a kingdom of compassion and reconciliation. It means we are
no longer free to justify our inactions with our concerns of comfort and
safety. It means we are no longer allowed to sit idly by while people are hurt,
hungry, displaced, or threatened. It means we cannot go on believing that we’ve
done enough, that the problems of other people are not our problems, that the
world is going to “hell in a handbasket” and there’s nothing we can do about. Being
a citizen of heaven is about bringing heaven to this world through the presence
of the Holy Spirit in each of us. It’s about showing compassion in the simplest
ways to those who need it. It’s about striving for justice in a world that seem
blind to the realities of those who suffer. It isn’t about having some address
on a future street of gold; it is about being transformed into the likeness of
Jesus by the very Spirit of God, “by the power that also enables [Christ] to
make all things subject to himself.”
This transformation isn’t
immediate; in fact, it isn’t fulfilled until “He will transform the body of our
humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory,” that
is, on the day of resurrection. But that does not mean that we are not already
being changed, for even now Christ is working in this world, seeking to change
it, to save it. Even now, Jesus is calling each of us to be transformed more
and more into the full citizens of heaven we are called to be, because you see,
being a citizen of heaven is about being someone who engages this world with
the love that Christ has for it. Being a citizen of heaven means every decision
we make in this world holds the potential to bring a bit more of God’s kingdom
on earth as it is in heaven. Whether it’s the decision to give a few more
dollars to a mission offering, to volunteer a few hours at the food pantry, to
spend an hour reading to a classroom full of second-graders, to visit a
homebound widow, we can bring Jesus’ transforming love into the lives of
others.
This transformative
citizenship is calling us out of comfort zones, away from the protection of
proof-texts, Christian clichés, and tired traditions. This transformative
citizenship is calling us to reexamine why we believe what we believe, to
examine more aspects of our lives each day to see how they fit with the gospel
we proclaim. Do we believe Christ died for all?
Then why do we think there are those more worthy than us to receive him? Do we believe
that Christ calls us to love our neighbor? Then why do we refuse to even
acknowledge the existence of our neighbors in other parts of the world? Do we
really believe that Jesus has commanded us all to help the least of these? Then
why do we so arrogantly shut our doors to those needing refuge? Do we really
believe that we were once lost, sin-sick souls, who are only rescued from our
own torment because of the endless, boundless love of God in Christ? Then what
makes us think that others are not worthy of that same love? If we are being
transformed by our heavenly citizenship more into the likeness of Jesus our
Lord, then who are we to say that others are not being equally transformed?
Amen.
[1]
You can read all about Kent Hovind on his Wikipedia page here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Hovind
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