(Philippians 2:1-13)

If it seems a little odd to you to put Mark 11 and Philippians 2 together, you might find it interesting that the folks who put the lectionary together would agree with you.  The fact is, I’m playing mix-and-match with the lectionary this morning.  Today is Palm Sunday, but it’s also called Passion Sunday, especially in churches which don’t have services for Maundy Thursday or Good Friday.  The lectionary deals with this by offering two tracks:  the “Liturgy of the Palms,” with Psalm 118 and Mark 11, and the “Liturgy of the Passion,” with Mark 14 and Philippians 2.  There’s a tension here, and the lectionary opts to avoid it with this separation.  I believe—and this is very much in keeping with what this congregation has always been—we need to lean into the tension and see what it has to teach us.

To do that, we need to pay careful attention to the context.  Strictly speaking, the lectionary passage from Philippians 2 is just verses 5-11, but it’s dangerous to take those verses in isolation.  It’s very easy to treat them as a pure abstraction, and then to spiritualize and theologize away to our heart’s content (and many have done just that over the years).  Thing is, Paul didn’t write this because he got up one day and felt like saying something pretty about Jesus—he’s going somewhere in this letter, and our passage this morning is a piece of his argument.

So, OK, we’ve included verses 1-4 as the immediate context for the next seven; but then 2:1 begins, “Therefore . . .”  There’s a piece of wisdom I heard many times growing up, and maybe you’ve heard this, too:  “When you see a ‘therefore,’ you need to see what it’s there for.”  It’s good advice, and one of the things that has anchored me in understanding the Bible; therefore tells us this is because of that, and thus where that sends us.  Back up a few more verses, then, and, we can see the church in Philippi is going through tough times.  They’re facing opposition, and they’re struggling.  Paul compares their situation to his own—and he’s in prison, facing possible execution and contemplating his mortality.  But while that possibility, to borrow from Samuel Johnson, has concentrated his mind wonderfully, it’s having the opposite effect on the Christians in Philippi:  their community is fracturing and dividing under the stress.

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(Ephesians 2:1-10)

One of the small disappointments of my time in seminary at Regent College—there weren’t many, but there were a few—was that Larry Crabb did not succeed Eugene Peterson as professor of spiritual theology when Eugene retired.  That might seem odd, but it was announced in chapel that Larry would be taking Eugene’s position, and then it just . . . never happened.  One of the joys of our time here at VSF was getting a second chance to learn from Larry and his wife, both here and at the School of Spiritual Direction.  I learned much from his teaching, both his content and his method; as we’re talking about detachment in this season, it’s worth noting that a particular sort of detachment lay at the heart of his approach to teaching, counseling, and leadership.  It’s not one I’ve ever been able to manage, alas, which may be why I was blessed most of all by Larry’s honesty about his failures in life and ministry and his frustrations with God.

At the top of that list is a comment that still sticks with me for how powerfully it resonated with my own experience.  I can’t tell you the context, but I remember Larry expressing his exasperation at God for not being as concerned about Larry’s holiness as Larry was and thus not giving him victory over his sinful behaviors on Larry’s preferred schedule.  That wasn’t a new thought for me; I’ve been wrestling with that issue for many years now; but his clarity and forcefulness spoke of a man who had been wrestling with it for many, many more.  Does it seem strange to you that I found that, and still find it, comforting and encouraging?  True, it suggests strongly that I won’t find an end to that struggle in this life; but more importantly, it tells me this struggle doesn’t mean I’m on the wrong road.

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(1 Corinthians 8)

I’d like to tell y’all a story.  Once upon a time, there were three good Jewish boys named Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.  Their homeland, the kingdom of Judah, had been conquered by the Babylonian Empire; along with their good friend Daniel, they were among the thousands of Jews who were taken from their homeland and dragged back to Babylon as spoils of war.  Like Daniel, they had stayed faithful to God, and God had blessed them; the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, had given them positions of authority among the administrators and bureaucrats of his realm.  And as usually happens eventually, staying faithful to God got them in trouble.

You see, one day, King Nebuchadnezzar decided it would be a really swell idea to have everyone in his government worship a huge golden statue.  He had it made and erected outside the city, where there was room for the Babylon Symphony Orchestra to set up nearby, then summoned all his administrators, bureaucrats, and officials to gather before the statue.  His herald gave them the king’s command:  “When the orchestra starts playing, bow down and worship the king’s statue!  If you don’t, you will immediately be thrown into the fire in that huge furnace over there.”  And the orchestra played, and everyone fell flat on their faces and worshiped . . . except for Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, who stayed standing.

I didn’t make up this story, of course; as I’m sure many of you recognized, it’s from the book of Daniel, chapters 1 and 3.  The story of those three young men—mostly known by their Babylonian names, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—has been told many ways for many reasons, but I’m not sure it’s ever been used as a commentary on American political and cultural polarization, so this morning might be a first.  Read more→