Philippians
3:4b-14
I’m
at that age now where it seems so many of my mentors, teachers, and elder
exemplars are reaching transitions in their own lives. Many of them are
retiring. Just last month I received an email inviting me to a reception for my
favorite seminary professor, Dr. Lai Li Ngan, after her 23 years of teaching
the Old Testament at Truett. Some of them have moved on to new adventures, like
my pastor and mentor in college, Dennis, who left the church where I served as
his intern to pastor another congregation three states away. Then there are
those who have made the final transition, those whose faces I’ll see and voices
I’ll hear only by way of recollection and recording on this side of eternity. Some
of those were relational influences, people I knew directly, but there are many
who I only knew through their work and words, their influence undeniable in my
life to those who knew them. One that always comes to my mind this time of year
is the late Fred Craddock; I’m sure you’ve heard me mention his name before.
Fred
Craddock single-handedly reshaped the reality of preaching in the twentieth
century, pulled the pulpit out of the dour doldrums of three alliterative
points, corny jokes, and threadbare poems. My shelves are heavy with books by,
for, and about Fred Craddock, and there is a measurable amount of space on my
hard-drive and a collection of thumb-drives and CDs with his sermons, lectures,
and my own papers written about him and his work. Craddock died four years ago,
during Lent, in March of 2015. And what’s interesting about that to me is that
this giant of preaching, this colossus of the pulpit (who was, ironically, a
rather short, whimsical-looking fella), wanted no sermon, no eulogy at his
funeral. He just wanted singing. As it goes with funerals, however, sometimes
the wishes of the living overrule those of the departed, and Dr. Tom Long
(Craddock predecessor at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology) gave a
veiled eulogy in some remarks during the service.
It
wasn’t a long speech (for Fred’s sake, we won’t call it a sermon), but what
struck me most about it was not what Tom Long had said about Fred Craddock; it
was what he didn’t say. There was no
mention of Craddock’s undergraduate work, nothing about his seminary degrees,
or the Ph.D. he earned from Vanderbilt. He didn’t mention the numerous lectures
Craddock had been asked to deliver (not the least of which were the Lyman
Beecher lectures at Yale, considered to be the ultimate achievement in the
field of preaching). Long only mentioned one book of Craddock’s, his
ground-breaking As One Without Authority,
but he never mentioned any of the countless articles, commentaries, or other
works Craddock had published in his life. In fact, the words Long shared at
Craddock’s memorial were the right opposite of the sort of words that might
have been shared during an introduction of Fred Craddock at one of those
important lectures. I suppose that’s because when the time comes, and all the
words you have to say have been said, when all the words you have to write have
been written, when all the degrees, accolades, and honors you can earn have
been earned—when the time comes for somebody to say some words over you in
front of gathered family and friends, you’ll hope they’ll only talk about the
stuff that really mattered, and leave the rest of it to memories.
I
sort of get the idea that this is part of what Paul is driving at in his words
to the Philippians before us this morning: “If anyone else has reason to be
confident in the flesh, I have more:
circumcised on the eighth day [like every good Jewish boy would be],
a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin [one of the
well-known, easily identifiable, dare we say elite? Tribes of Israel], a Hebrew born of Hebrews [which may
indicate that Paul learned and spoke Hebrew in his home, rather than the more
modern Aramaic or the Gentile Greek and Latin] ; as to the law, a
Pharisee [a group of lay leaders who prided themselves on their knowledge
of the written law and the oral traditions that surrounded it]; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church [see
Paul’s history in the early chapters of Acts]; as to righteousness under the law, blameless [given everything
Paul has said so far, this is nothing short of a bold statement to make, yet
one he would not make lightly]. Yet
whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.
More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of
knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”
Paul has an impeccable resume, a
flawless record. When it comes down to it, there were few, if any, who would
have had room to argue with Paul when it came to his deserving of the title of
“most likely to get in,” but when it came down to it, when it was all laid out
before the man himself, Paul says, “I regard everything as loss because of the
surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Absolutely nothing else
mattered to him. Everything Paul had achieved in his life was rendered
worthless in the light of who Christ was for Paul: “For his sake I have suffered the
loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain
Christ and 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. 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.”
Think for a minute about what Paul is
saying here: “I have suffered the loss of all things…regard them as rubbish…I
want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his suffering by becoming like him in his death…” Do
what now? Paul’s words here seem to be a bit contrary to some of the things I
was once taught about what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Yes, you’re
supposed to put your “old ways” behind you (at least those old ways that were
easily identifiable as bad, like drinking, cussing, fighting, etc.), and yes,
you were supposed to regard those ways as garbage while you carry on in
learning more about Jesus and the Scriptures, but “sharing in his suffering?” I
honestly don’t remember too much about that. Faith was always something spun
positively, something that always had a sunny glow surrounding it. The faith I
had been taught was one that was all Easter Sunday and only a hint of Good Friday.
But here’s Paul, wanting to know, wanting to share in the sufferings of Christ,
after casting aside an otherwise blameless past.
But
Paul is no masochist, deriving some sort of pleasure from suffering. Nor does
he seek martyrdom as some sort of super-righteousness. For Paul, sharing in the
suffering of Christ is all about knowing Christ, about sharing in the intimacy
of knowing the way of the One who has died to make himself fully known to us. The
same is true about his longing to attain resurrection from the dead: “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.” Again, for Paul, the longing for
resurrection isn’t simply wanting an antidote to death. It’s about longing to
know Christ, to be close to Jesus in ways that go beyond simply saying his name
or recognizing his stories. It’s Paul’s ultimate goal—to know Christ this
way—and it ought to be every believer’s goal. It is, however, not a goal we
achieve. It is one towards which we are always striving. Hence Paul’s words: “Not
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.” This
life of faith is so much more than a transaction, so much more than a list of
accomplishments or successful prohibitions; it is the ever onward call of
pursuing Christ, of pursuing a deeper, fuller, richer relationship with God in
Christ. It is an ongoing pursuit, not something we accomplish. It’s something
towards which we strive, hopefully growing closer with each day. “Beloved,
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, I press
on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”
As
we are entering the final days of Lent, as Good Friday and Easter Sunday loom
ominous on our horizons, may we be especially mindful of what lies ahead,
choosing to let go of what lies behind. May we let go of those things which we
believe set us apart and above anyone else. May we strive to know Christ more
fully by longing to experience his suffering—suffering at the hands of those we
love, those who may hate us, those whom we are ultimately called to see as
friend, sister, and brother. May we strive towards the goal of resurrection—not
so we may cheat death, but so we may know Jesus all the more, not so we may
escape this life, but so that we may embrace eternal life even now. Above all
else, may we press ever on in this life of faith, striving to be all of who God
calls us to be, pressing on to make it the goals of Christ our own, because
Christ Jesus has made me his own. Amen.
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