God’s Love Is Not Lent, It’s Given

God’s Love Is Not Lent, It’s Given Philippians 3:17 - 4:1 For many people, Lent is a time to pause and reflect and consider their ways and to walk closer with the Lord and to be found pleasing in His sight. With that definition, Lent is an everyday practice that lasts all year long, year after year. Lent gives us a different way of looking at who we really are. So, who are you, and what defines your core? John Smith was the only Protestant to move into a large Catholic neighborhood. On the first Friday of Lent, John was outside grilling a big juicy steak on his grill. Meanwhile, all of his neighbors were eating cold tuna fish for supper. This went on each Friday of Lent. On the last Friday of Lent, the neighborhood men got together and decided that something had to be done about John. He was tempting them to eat beef instead of fish each Friday of Lent, and they couldn’t take it anymore. They decided to try and convert John to Catholicism. They went over and talked to him. John decided to join all of his neighbors and become a Catholic, which made them all very happy. They took him to church, and the priest sprinkled some water over him, and said, “You were born a Baptist, you were raised a Baptist, and now you are a Catholic.” The men were so relieved, now their biggest Lenten temptation was resolved. Then the next year’s Lenten season rolled around. The first Friday of Lent came, and, just at supper time, when the neighborhood was settling down to their cold tuna fish dinner, the smell of steak cooking on a grill came wafting into their homes. The neighborhood men could not believe their noses! What was going on?! They called each other up and decided to meet over in John’s yard to see if he had forgotten it was the first Friday of Lent. The group arrived just in time to see John standing over his grill with a small pitcher of water. He was sprinkling some water over his steak on the grill, saying, “You were born a cow, you were raised a cow, and now you are a fish.” It’s not so much what we eat or don’t eat that is important, it is who we are that matters and how we give ourselves to Christ. If you really want to give something up for Lent, try not watching your favorite TV show for 40 days and use that time to pray and meditate on the Bible. You will be all the richer for the experience. Lent is a time to remember who we are and who we might better be. There is nothing wrong with observing 2 Lent by observing certain practices and disciplines - even those that may involve eating one thing and not another. What’s critical, however, is that we remember where we come from. Paul’s letter to the Philippians is a word of encouragement to very young Christians living out in the world. In 42 B.C., about 100 years before Paul wrote his letters, Roman generals Antony and Octavian (who became known later as Augustus, the emperor at the time of Jesus’ birth) had won a great battle near Philippi during the Roman civil war, which occurred after the death of Julius Caesar. Having won the battle and with no further fighting necessary, the two generals found themselves feeding a large army which had nothing to do. Rather than risk taking that many soldiers back to Rome in the midst of a politically unstable environment where loyalties could easily shift, the generals gave the soldiers the land in and around Philippi as a reward for their service. They were essentially making new homes away from their homeland. Years later, Paul had planted the Christian church in Philippi and understood the dynamics of different peoples living together. Acts 16 tells the story of the conflict that Paul and Silas had with city officials over the introduction of the gospel into an unfamiliar culture. It caused a conflict that landed them in jail, from which the two missionaries were miraculously sprung by an earthquake. To make a long story short, Paul and Silas refused to leave; they claimed the right to a fair trial as Roman citizens which caused the magistrates to change their tune very quickly. The missionaries were quickly escorted away from the prison (Acts 16:16-39). It was salvation by citizenship! They knew who they were. When the Philippians opened this letter from Paul, they would have understood that he was indeed one of them, be they Roman citizens, Jewish converts or oppressed people. Paul was all of those, which made it possible for him to make the case, that his example of discipleship and devotion was worthy of following - a model of purpose and perseverance. While Paul’s words here may sound a bit self-important to us, we have to remember that Paul himself is trying to imitate Christ, who is the primary model for the life of faith (2:5-11). For Paul, imitation wasn’t about flattery, but about faithfulness. Apparently, though, some of the Philippians had skipped the lesson Paul was trying to teach. Rather than embrace the example of Christ, they became “enemies of the cross” through their self-indulgence, gluttony and by “setting their mind on earthly things” (3:18-19). Paul reminded the faithful Philippians that their identity 3 was not to be bound up as citizens of a sinful and self-serving world, but to remember that their “citizenship is in heaven” (3:20). They may have settled here, but they were to be faithful to their homeland, or as Paul said to the Corinthians, “we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands” (I Corinthians 5:1). That’s not to say that as the faithful, we’re simply slumming here on earth, biding time until we go back to our true home in heaven. How does that hymn go, “The world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through, my treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me, from heavens open door, and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.” If we understand anything about Paul, he surely means we are to live a more prudent and immediate life. Do we cruise along in this life with no urgency, living with no practice for the eternal, but only for what will get us by for today? I certainly hope not. The Romans who colonized Philippi knew that no matter where they were, they could count on the protection of the emperor. When threats from barbarians or civil war were raised, help would be dispatched from the homeland with salvation assured and peace restored. The same is true for the citizen of heaven. The goal is not to eventually wind up in the clouds somewhere, as the popular notion of heaven seems to be. Rather, as Christians, we are to colonize earth with the culture of heaven. And, as Paul said, it is from heaven that “we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,” who will ultimately defeat the powers of this world that assail us, transforming “the body of our humiliation” to conform to “the body of His glory.” We don’t need to fear the world, nor do we need to become citizens of it, because the world is “subject” to the power of God. Therefore, Paul urges the Philippians (and us) to “stand firm” and continue to live and work out our salvation as citizens of God’s kingdom. Lent is about opportunity. Lent gives us an opportunity to renew our heavenly citizenship papers no matter where we find ourselves on earth. I was privileged to give an invocation for the Naturalization of New Citizens some years back. Although the United States does not strongly enforce it, we do expect new citizens to leave behind old loyalties, as each was obliged to give this oath of loyalty for their new country: “I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen.” When 4 we become members of the church, we also pledge our fidelity to God, through Jesus Christ, with our prayers, presence, gifts and service to the church. Lent is a time for us to put aside those temptations that would come between us and God, and ask God for guidance with our own appetites for all of life’s desires. Fasting and abstinence can be helpful disciplines for doing that, but rather than just thinking about taking things away during Lent, we should also be adding some as well - like prayer and meditation and journaling, serving others intentionally, or committing random acts of kindness or to share a little more of our faith, or ask a friend or family member to church because it is important to you, or giving more of your self and substance as a genuine sacrifice to the needs of the church or to engage other disciplines that get us thinking beyond ourselves. We may not jump into Lent by baptizing some piece of steak, but we should be asking for new perceptions on how we might bring a bit more heavenly culture to our little corners of the world. It’s not a time for splitting hairs about what we can or cannot eat, what we can or cannot do, what we must or must not give up - although we appreciate and understand what our Catholic brothers and sisters are doing. Instead, it is more about a re-examination of what it means to be faithful in a “land” where we’re essentially misplaced citizens. Lent is also an opportunity for Christians to discuss what it is that unites us rather than divides us. We are really good at trying to be different and getting our point of view on the table, or having an agenda that we seek to have adopted by others, but what can we celebrate in common, what can we sing about in song as a congregation, what can we say Amen to in prayer, and what can we unite in doing for the growth of the church? Lent reminds us that what goes into our bodies is less important than what we take into our spirits and that no matter where we find ourselves, we are all part of one kingdom made possible by the sacrifice of our one Lord. After all, as Paul reminds us, we are all looking for a Savior - the One who was, who is, and is to come. Someday, as the communion liturgy says, we will all be sitting down together at a great banquet table with the King as the host. Today, as we stand to come and receive the elements or pray at the altar, to share the bread and the cup, we share His sacrifice that we might be for the world the body of Christ redeemed by His blood. That’s who we are. “God’s love is not Lent, it’s given.”