What's On Your Ledger Sheet? by The Rev. Donald L. Hamer, Rector
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Trinity Episcopal Church
5th Sunday of Lent
March 15, 2016
Isaiah 43:16-21 Philippians 3:4b-14 John 12:1-8
When last I preached from this pulpit we were in the middle of the final season of the PBS Masterpiece Theatre Series Downton Abbey. For those of you who were not here that Sunday or who have never seen it, the series depicts the lives of the aristocratic Crawley Family, headed by Robert Crawley, also known as the Earl of Grantham. They all live in a grand Yorkshire country estate known as Downton Abbey, along with their crew of servants. It is set in early 20th Century England and over its six seasons the viewer has lived with the family and their servants through personal tragedies and triumphs, trials and intrigues even as we witness the changing social landscape in aristocratic England and the rest of the world. The final episode of the series was last Sunday, and it was a fitting finale to a wonderful series. SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN IT YET: Everything was tied up ever so nicely at the end – those who were in danger of getting fired have retained their jobs, those who had been jilted get happily married, those who were sick or dying are restored to health and vigor, those who suffered from hardness of heart discover the ability to express emotion and empathy. And everyone seems ready to enter the remainder of the 20th century still clinging to some vestiges of Edwardian England even as they begin to spread their wings with some of the new-found freedom of the late 1920s. Ahh, if life were only so simple and predictable.
Political, social, and spiritual change is at the heart of each of one today’s passages from Scripture. Second Isaiah assures the people of Jerusalem and those exiled in Babylon that the rise of King Cyrus of Persia portends the end of their period of exile and the promise of a return home. In our Gospel passage from John’s Gospel, Jesus’ interpretation of Mary’s act of anointing him with expensive oil is forward-looking, anticipating his impending trial, passion and death and the life-changing consequence that will occasion. And in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he writes of how the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus has transformed his life. And it is this passage that I would like to explore a bit with you this morning.
When my daughter Katie was applying to graduate schools, I remember that she had four schools in which she was particularly interested: Brown, New York University, Johns Hopkins and Carnegie-Mellon. Being a city girl, she really had her heart set on NYU. As she was trying to decide which one to attend, she developed a sheet for each one: On the left was a list of the “pros” for that institution and on the right were the “cons.” I remember that the NYU, Johns Hopkins and Carnegie-Mellon sheets all had a really long list of “pros” on the left side and few “cons” on the right, but one of the cons was consistent: $75,000 to $85,000 in debt following graduation. Brown, on the other hand, had a long list of “cons” – who besides Dante Tavolaro wants to be in Providence? – and a relatively short list of positive qualities. But one of the “pros” was: $24,000 in debt, because they gave her a very generous financial aid package. Guess where she went? She went to Brown.
Saint Paul in today’s passage from the letter to the Philippians creates a similar ledger sheet as he takes stock of his life: Both a devout Jew and a Roman citizen, he seemingly had it all –
- Circumcised on the 8th day
- A member of the People of Israel and the Tribe of Benjamin
- A Hebrew born of Hebrews
- As to the law, a Pharisee
- As to zeal, a persecutor of the early church
- As to righteousness under the Law, blameless.
As a 1st century Jew, what’s not to like? By the very circumstances of his birth, not unlike our Downton Abbey friends, Paul was born into privilege and had every reason to rely on things of “the flesh” and those social and religious “percs” he received by reason of who his parents were. AND YET, as Paul looks back on his life, he now places these seemingly positive qualities on the negative side of the ledger sheet. Much like Katie’s lonely positive quality at Brown, Paul has but one item on his “pro” side, and that single qualityhe identifies in verse 8 outweighs all of the others: “The surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.” The life and teachings of Jesus alone reversed all of the conventional wisdom about what is valuable and worthy.
To better understand this passage, we need to look at the context in the beginning of the chapter at verse 2, where Paul writes, Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God, and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh – even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.” Paul is not just writing about Jewish persecutors of the Christian faith – he is also writing about those who are teaching a gospel that is not grounded in the fullness of the life, the teachings, the death and resurrection of Jesus. So Paul is not simply writing about Christians versus Jews; this is Paul exhorting his own followers in the start-up church not to be afraid to trust their whole lives to Jesus. And he does it by taking stock of his own personal experience in faith.
St. Paul is telling us that we find security for our past, present and future by paying attention to, and following, the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, and not by our own personal attributes or that which we can accomplish on our own. And as I have noted probably a hundred or more times, that is not something we Americans, and especially we New Englanders, are particularly good at. We don’t even have a taste for it. Throughout this Lent, starting with the temptations of Jesus following his baptism, we have seen the pattern of Jesus life: how he gave up heaven to come to earth; how he gave up certainty and safety in favor of a future hope.
And that is what St. Paul is talking about here. As did Jesus, St. Paul takes that ledger sheet and reverses it, giving up that which is certain and comfortable and embracing that which is unknown, going into places he has never been before, embracing an uncertain future because of “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.”
Paul knew that if we stay in places we know well, where we are comfortable, then we have no need to trust in Jesus, or in anyone but ourselves for that matter. And lets face it, we like being comfortable. It is against our nature – and against the nature of the world – to take risks. We naturally fear and resist change. That was one of the recurring themes of the Downton Abbey series – how one engages a rapidly changing world with beliefs and practices that have been molded by a prior age. As Maggie Smith, in the role of the Dowager Countess of Grantham in the Downton Abbey series observed a few weeks ago, “An aristocrat embracing change is like a turkey looking forward to Christmas.” And yet change is what Paul is calling us to.
It is said that there can be no Easter Sunday without passing through Good Friday. As we reach this 5th Sunday in Lent, Paul is reminding us today that we cannot participate in the resurrection unless we have journeyed with Jesus into the places of our hearts and our lives where there is no light or life, but only uncertainty.
Next Sunday is Palm Sunday; we have two more weeks to reflect on our own journey of faith before it will be time to celebrate the Resurrection at our Easter Vigil and on Easter Sunday. In the spirit of Paul’s example today, I challenge each of us to do what Paul did and look at our personal ledger sheet. I’m talking about you as a member of the Body of Christ. I mean examining the ways in which perhaps you have become a little too comfortable, a little complacent in your faith. How do we perhaps take the life and teachings of Jesus for granted? In what aspects of our lives do we trust only in ourselves or our position, or our abilities? How do we use those to advance the Jesus Movement, which has morphed into an institution called, “The Church?” Let’s each ask ourselves, “How often do I choose the “safe” path? Is that the path that Paul or Jesus might have followed in the same circumstances?
And then on the other side of the ledger, let’s write down those times when we have taken a personal risk, ventured into uncharted territory, or done some good work in the name of Jesus that we have never done before. Try on a ministry you might not have thought about before. My guess is that – for all of us – this side of the ledger will be a lot shorter than the first one. St. Paul this morning invites us to make it our task for the rest of Lent to ponder ways in which we can grow the “Jesus” side of the ledger. Amen.