Philippians 1:21-30
Matthew 20:1-16
For the text of the readings go the end of the sermon.
Years ago a credit card company promoted itself with the slogan, “Membership has its privileges.” Who doesn’t want to enjoy privileges?! Ironically, that credit card required an annual fee, while its primary competitors did not. But of course, who wouldn’t pay a fee for PRIVILEGES? Does anyone remember the honor of getting bathroom privileges for good behavior in elementary school? In my elementary school bathroom privileges meant that, so long as one’s work was done and the teacher wasn’t talking, the beneficiary of bathroom privileges could use a hallway pass to go without having to ask permission. And there is that youthful privilege of all privileges—obtaining a driver’s license. To achieve that privilege one first obtained a learner’s permit, and then was required to take the classes and pass the test. You then had the privilege to DRIVE the car! It didn’t matter that the car was your mother’s big old station wagon. You had achieved the privilege to drive! Did you ever get reminded as a young driver, “Remember: driving is a privilege; not a right”?
We are surely motivated by the promise of privilege. Convince someone that they are within reach of a special privilege and it can be amazing what they will do to get that promised privilege. But, what if you are told that your privilege is to suffer? I wonder how many will line up at the door to get THAT privilege? However, in Paul’s letter to the Philippians today, Paul assures his Philippian followers they have Christly privileges. And those privileges include suffering.
But, before we head into that we should pause and take a look at the background of Paul’s letter to the Philippians since this is our first week of readings from this Letter. Paul is in prison when this letter is written. Apparently he’s been indicted for a capital offense. It’s not yet clear whether he’ll live or die, be exonerated or executed. And his Philippian followers are apparently worried. In their concern they sent Paul financial support (an early, New Testament legal defense fund?). Paul is moved with gratitude for their expression of support.
Philippi was a Roman city in the Province of Macedonia and its population was Greek. Shortly after arriving in Greece from Asia Minor, Paul had been able to establish a predominantly Gentile congregation there, but not without opposition. He and Silas ran into trouble with the authorities because they had disrupted some of the religious financial trade of the city. So, the opposition was from the politico-religious establishment of the town. After a brief time in jail, Paul and Silas were told to leave the city.
Now, sometime later, Paul is in prison and writing to the Philippians. Why is he in prison? We don’t know why. We’re not even sure where. It was an imperial prison to be sure. But Rome was not the only place for imperial prisons. It could have been in Ephesus or one of a number of Roman centers of power. Nevertheless, one doesn’t need to stretch far to surmise a possible reason for the indictment. A couple of decades before Paul’s incarceration, Jesus of Nazareth was arrested on a capital charge of seditious behavior. It too was an indictment arising from the cooperation of the religious and political establishment. Jesus committed provocative acts in the Temple that opposed the temple economy and Roman authority. In a festival season with crowds of pilgrims of all stripes and convictions about Rome and the Jerusalem Temple elite, the “security alert” status was high and the security forces were extra vigilant—and could be unscrupulously ruthless. Jesus was not the first, nor the last, to be arrested and executed for seditious behavior without any semblance of fair trial. Such was the price for maintaining “Pax Romana”—Peace of Rome.
Jesus’ vision of God’s reign landed him on a cross. Now, Paul’s vision of Gospel lands him in prison. One should notice that Paul’s favorite phrase, “Gospel of the Lord Jesus” is in itself provocative! It is a counter imperial slogan. “Gospel” was a term used for an announcement from or information of the Emperor. And Caesar was addressed as Lord. Could it be that boldly proclaiming “the Gospel of the Lord Jesus” was in itself an act like burning an American flag today?
For whatever reason, Paul is in prison because his encounter of the risen Christ was so powerful and dramatic he could never go back to the way things had always been. He was forever changed. The mystery of the courageous prophet who was executed, yet vindicated by God, and who appeared to him quite simply obsessed him. Thus, from his prison cell, facing the possibility of execution like Jesus before him, he announces, “For me living is Christ, dying is gain.”
And in this section of the letter today he announces to the Philippians that they have received Christly privileges. We might think, “Oh, now here comes the good part. Here’s where we hear that being part of the Gospel brings us good stuff like meeting our needs, making us happy. Oh yes, and it brings us riches because God wants us to be RICH! After all, God owns everything.”
Guess again.
The privileges? To believe in him and to suffer from their (religious-political) opponents just like Paul – and Jesus before him. But it’s not just Jesus, Paul, or the Philippians who are “privileged.” We can come closer to home. We remember those privileged souls like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, imprisoned by Nazis, who stood against Hitler and the church that cooperated with the Nazi regime. He too wrote from prison. He announced that often the Gospel must become a secular Gospel, because the church relinquishes its faith, its discipline, and its God. He, too, was executed for a vision of the Gospel that boldly opposed the religious-political cooperation and seditiously undermined the Third Reich.
We remember Martin Luther King, Jr., whose proclamation of freedom upset the religious-political establishment. He was the victim of FBI harassment, and American Justice injustices. He was an agitator who opposed the Pax Americana of the bigoted and oppressive policy, “Separate but equal.” And we remember with him his followers and sympathizers Black and White, men and women; those who were “privileged” to suffer water canons and billy clubs, lynching and murder at the hands of “good Christian” power brokers.
We think of those men and women, straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered who stand together in the passion of the Gospel. They stand against the religious-political forces of our day who have the audacity to presume that love can be legislated. That the covenant of marriage can be defined so as to exclude. That you or I or anyone else can even presume to rule who may and may not fall in love, who can or cannot bear and rear children in a loving home. They who are bequeathed with this Gospel privilege fearlessly stand together and refuse to let the Pax Americana of our day be the final word. No human being, nor human institution has the authority to define what a family is—and more to the point, who cannot make a family. THAT is our family value!
How can this submission to opposition and physical mistreatment be in any way a privilege? Maybe it’s because of the privilege that accompanies the privilege to suffer: to have faith in Christ. For Paul that faith in the risen Christ utterly transformed his life. That faith has continued to transform lives, to reorder our worlds and what is important. And it has power to baptize us into a commitment to pursue a disrupting vision of justice. That vision of justice benefits the least as much as the greatest. It pays the last one on the job as much as the first. It welcomes the illegal alien as warmly as the foreign head of state. It treats all as one family. Why? Because the powers of the religious-political establishment could not destroy the life of our courageous Savior. Because envy could not break the embrace of compassion. Because the burning vision of liberty could not be extinguished by execution.
“For me, living is Christ and dying is gain”; because in the death of one, God’s compassionate reign erupts into the liberating lives of thousands.
This is our Gospel. This is our first priority. This is our privilege.
Amen.
(Both of the Scripture quotations below are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyrighted, 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and are used by permission. All rights reserved.)