Lent 5C, am, 2025

5th Sunday in Lent, Year C

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

This morning I want to focus on our second lesson, Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi. Let’s begin by looking at a couple of phrases and terms that Paul uses. I want to make sure we’re all using the same definitions. And one definition just for fun.

The first phrase I want to look at is “confidence in the flesh”. Paul uses this 2 times in verse 4 and once in verse 3. There are several parts to what Paul means by “flesh” in this section… he doesn’t mean just one thing. The first thing our minds are likely drawn to here is circumcision. This is obvious, and it is certainly part of what Paul means. To be circumcised is to be marked as one of God’s “chosen people” - the Jews, living under the covenant of Abraham. It was circumcision that many Jews believed would gain them divine favor with God. Even if they did nothing else that was expected of a Jew, if they did this much, they would have God’s favor… or so they thought.

Paul lists circumcision first on his list of his own personal qualities, because it was the primary accusation of the ones he calls “Judaizers” [Lenski, 833] - these are the people who insist that before you can become a Christian, you must become a Jew - something Paul fought and taught against through much of his ministry. And this section right here in his letter is addressed directly at them.

In addition to circumcision, Paul also brings up his lineage. He is “of the people of Israel” - meaning that “he was of genuine Israelite stock, namely of Benjamin’s tribe, which tribe, together with that of Juda, constituted the real Jews after the loss of the ten tribes and after the Babylonian captivity.” [Ibid.] During the years of the divided kingdoms of the Hebrew people, the 2 tribes closest to Jerusalem were Benjamin and Judah (called the kingdom of Judah) and the 10 northern tribes were called the kingdom of Israel). Paul’s claim as a Benjaminite was that his people remained true to their lineage. He is a truly a Hebrew.

And that brings up Paul’s 3rd point - “Hebrew of Hebrews”.

The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, and to the Philippians Paul Adds a Warning against Judaizers and Points to His Own Example

Paul was a pure-blooded Hebrew, “a Hebrew out of Hebrews,” no ancestor on either side being of other blood. The word Hebrew means “one from beyond the river (Euphrates)” who returned to Palestine from there after the Babylonian captivity; then it also means one who speaks the Aramaic dialect. Paul’s Hebraic [roots were] the genuinely purest and best in Jewish eyes.

And these were the 3 things that Paul had no control over. He didn’t choose his lineage, or the purity of his family tree. And he didn’t choose to be circumcised (like some of the Judaizers did who were converts as adults). He was circumcised according to the Torah - as an 8-day-old baby. Of these 3 qualities, even though he had no say in them or control over them, no one could claim to be a better Jew in these 3 areas than Paul. This is the “confidence in the flesh” that Paul is claiming here.

To these 3 qualities, Paul adds 3 more: knowledge of the law, zeal for the faith, and righteousness under the law. Now these 3 things, he *did* have control over. He was first a “Pharisee”. The Pharisees were the strictest sect of Jews “that stood for [the most complete] observance of law (Acts 26:5) and was revered as such by all.” [Ibid., 834] The Pharisees get a bad reputation in the Gospels because they are the ones most often questioning Jesus, challenging him, or accusing him. But they were truly very respected in their society for having the most knowledge of God’s Law, teaching it, and living it. If any Jew was going to keep all 613 of God’s Laws, it would likely be a Pharisee. And Paul was one of them. No one, no Judaizer or anyone else, knew the Law of Moses better than Paul.

He lists “zeal” next. The Greek word translated here as “zeal” means “the capacity or state of passionate committal to a person or cause.” [Kittel, 877]. Paul was so passionate about his faith and obedience to God that he was persecuting Christians. He hunted them, arrested them, and had them incarcerated or executed. How many Jews who agreed with Jesus’ execution did anything except yell from the safety of a crowd? Paul *did* something about it. He went out to root out the remains of what he considered a fanatic and heretical sect of Jews. They had blasphemed God, and Paul (or Saul as he was called at that time) was carrying out the justice called for by God’s Law. He acted on his faith.

And #6 - righteousness under the law. Again, as a Pharisee, he was likely to be one of the few Jews in his society to actually keep all 613 laws of the Torah. He calls himself here “blameless” - no one could accuse him of not following God’s Law. For Paul, this quality seems most important on this list. The Judaizers were judging people based on their “righteousness”, but as they measured it - could you keep God’s law? For Judaizers, likely no one actually measured up to the standard they were trying to enforce. Unfortunately for them, Paul actually does measure up. He was that upright in his conduct as a Jew. He was blameless. They had nothing on him. In fact, most of them, when compared with Paul, would probably be shamed by their failure to be as righteous in the law as Paul was.

And so Paul takes these 6 qualities - the very basis for “confidence in the flesh”, and calls them “gains”. Paul had seen them as “gains” (which can also be translated as “advantage” or “profit”) when he was a Jew. And remember: 3 he had no control over, and the other 3 he worked hard to achieve. But “they were, as Paul at last discovered, [false] gains, gains which robbed him and only damaged his soul.” His realization is of the truth. The only gain worth having is Christ himself. Everything else is so insignificant, it is more of a loss than a gain by comparison. [Lenski, 835]

Then we come to Philippians 3:8 “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” One of Paul’s points here - and yes, he’s repeating himself - is that none of these Judaizers are going to change his mind. There’s nothing they can say that is going to get him to revert to what he used to believe, or to put effort into what he used to work for. Paul gave his audience 6 “measures” by which to measure his Jewish-ness. And using that standard, Paul surpassed everyone else. No other Jew could come close to him...by those measures. But Paul’s message is that those measures are false. You cannot “earn” anything from God, no matter how obedient you are… no matter how knowledgeable you are, no matter how zealous you are.

Paul - in his new walk of faith, following Christ - “has found a far different ‘surpassingness,’ the true one, one that bestows upon him ‘the surpassingness of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord.’” [Lenski, 836] To know Christ surpasses everything else, making all the rest look worthless by comparison. Now, our translation says “For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish.” Some scholars have another word in the translation. It should read “I have suffered the loss of all *these* things and count them as rubbish.” I like that because it points directly to all the 6 qualities Paul talked about in the first part of this passage. Those things in particular are lost...worthless… rubbish.

Now, here’s the “just for fun” translation. That word for rubbish is much stronger in the Greek. If you look up older English translations, you’ll see it translated as “dung”. That’s getting close. So here’s your Greek word for the day: scubalon/Σκύβαλον. We’ll stick with “dung” for now, to keep things rated “G”, but Paul chose this vulgar word on purpose. Interestingly, this is the only place in the New Testament that Paul uses this word. He uses it to describe his “turning aside from something worthless and abhorrent, with which one will have nothing more to do. The choice of the vulgar term stresses the force and totality” of his turning away from trying to achieve his own righteousness. [Kittel, 446]

Paul has learned that all that effort he put in as a Jew and especially as a Pharisee to earn or achieve his own righteousness was a complete waste. By the time he writes this letter, he has learned that the only righteousness worth having … the only true righteousness is that which comes through faith in Christ. It comes from God, and it depends on faith as verse 9 tells us. It’s a gift. Like the most important things that we get from God - it’s given to us freely. NOT because we earned it. This one, in fact, is given specifically because we *can’t* earn it, because none of us is truly righteous on our own… even someone as “blameless” as Paul.

And there’s one more phrase I want to consider, and Paul uses it a couple of different ways here… but the meaning is the same: “knowing Christ Jesus my Lord”. To “know” Christ is more than just book knowledge. That’s just knowing “about” Jesus. To know Jesus is in a personal, saving way. You might say: “relationship”. Remember how Paul was converted into a Christ-follower in Acts Chapter 9: “Jesus appeared to him; that is how Paul ‘got to know him.’ Jesus appeared to him in the blinding glory of heaven; that is how Paul ‘got to know his resurrection and the power of it.’ Jesus said: ‘I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake’ (Acts 9:16); that is how Paul ‘got to know the fellowship of his sufferings’.” [Lenski, 841]

To know *about* Jesus is one thing, but that is not enough for Jesus. Jesus wants you to *know* him. To do that requires connection, and that means relationship. Think about how you build relationships in your life. Are you building that with Christ? One of the easiest ways to connect with Jesus is in His Word. You can have that at your fingertips anytime you pick up a Bible or open your Bible app on your phone. He speaks to us in His Word. And there’s plenty for us to hear. Today we also have another opportunity to connect to Christ - in His Holy Supper. You’ve heard me say that there is no way for us to be closer to Christ than in the Eucharist… until Judgment Day. And we have that opportunity in a few minutes - to taste the salvation He earned for us. He is in, with, and under the elements of that meal, and we can connect with Him in that way as well.

Brothers and sisters: Christ Jesus *has* made us His own. He has already done what needed to be done to ensure our eternity with God. He gives us His righteousness, because our own is just, well, Σκύβαλον. We can trust in that, which is good because we don’t have to earn it… we don’t have to work for it. We need simply to receive it in faith. And the first thing that faith says is “thank you.” So let us all be thankful to God for the gift of His Son, and lets us look forward, or maybe even follow Paul’s lead in “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead”… watching and listening for God’s call. I pray that we hear His Call when it comes… and that He would give us the courage to follow it and respond.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.