Sunday,
October 3, 1999
Rev. James A.
Todhunter
"PRESSING ON"
EXODUS 20:1-4,7-9,12-20 
PHILIPPIANS 3b-14MATTHEW 21:33-36
We have been through a strenuous, inclusive, painstaking process over the last several years to come to terms with our facilities here at Christ Congregational Church. Following worship we will be taking some important votes. Our goal is to create a facility that is accessible, safe, functional, beautiful and with adequate parking. And I believe that we have come to recognize that, at the present moment in our history, this is the most crucial thing we can do to assure the future of this congregation, and to grow and minister as the people of God in this place.
But having said all this, it seems to me that we need to be reminded that a facilities master plan is not the ultimate goal of Christ Congregational Church, nor I hope the ultimate goal of any one person here. Rather, it is the current crucial objective designed to further a more important goal. And what is that?
In the third chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, he tells us what his goal in life is and how to achieve it. What is Paul’s goal? He says, simply and profoundly, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection..." As a Hebrew, when Paul uses the word know, he means to be in a relationship that is not a mere superficial acquaintance, or philosophical flirtation, but a relationship of the profoundest depth and sincerity. And for Paul, knowing Christ is inseparable from experiencing the power of his resurrection (And, as I will say in a moment, it is inseparable from something else). I believe that the absolutely central and ultimate goal of Christ Congregational Church is for every person here know Christ and experience the power of his resurrection, and to share that knowledge and experience with others. Nothing can ever be more important than that.
Now, of course, I appreciate the diversity and independence of mind that characterizes this congregation. I believe that understanding one another is always more important than agreeing with one another. But I believe that our journey together involves helping each other to grow in the knowledge Christ and the power of his resurrection. I will never presume to tell you what that experience will be for you. If you want to de-mythologize, re-mythologize, psychologize, historicize, de-historicize, socialize, politicize, or rationalize; it doesn’t matter to me at all. For example, speaking for myself, knowing Christ cannot be separated from recognizing, welcoming, affirming and embracing the outsider. For that person is the Christ. I cannot tell you how you should know Christ, but I will unashamedly ask you "Do you know Christ and the power of his resurrection?" Answer from your heart, and in language that makes sense to you. Be prepared to tell your story honestly, and listen to the stories of others attentively. But I urge you to embrace that goal for your life.
So, Paul has given us his goal. Next, how does he say to achieve it? How do we get to know Christ? Paul does this is two ways. First, he tells us what doesn’t work. What doesn’t work is doing good deeds, trying to be righteous, being a nice person, working hard, and following the rules. Most of the time we go through life driven by this image of a god up there who wants us to do good things, and every time we do something wonderful, God puts a mark next to our name in the Big Book. Sometimes we even earn extra credit. So we expect that by the time we arrive at the pearly gates, we will have established a strong record, our spiritual GPA will be off the scale, and we will be welcomed into glory. Paul says, it doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work that way. In fact, what happens is that every time we do that wonderful deed, or pridefully follow that rule, or think (in our hearts) "My, what a good boy or girl am I" it is like we throw that good deed into a sack on our back. Over the years, trudging forward, those good deeds accumulate, and the more they accumulate, the heavier that bag gets. We arrive at the pearly gates burdened, exhausted, filled not with righteousness, but self-righteousness, and feeling that nasty mixture of resentment and entitlement. And St. Peter says to us, "I’d love to welcome you in, but first, my friend, you’ve got to shed that baggage!" God wants you, but you can leave your righteousness at the door. If fact, get this, Paul says your righteousness is like garbage. Paul speaks from the heart and uses his own life as an example. Paul was a super righteous person. He says that under the law he was blameless. He had a huge sack of good deeds on his back. And he saw that he had to dump it. He sums up that moment of personal transformation this way:
Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.
What is sinful about wanting to do good deeds and be nice in order to win our way to heaven? That approach works in about every walk of life, doesn’t it? Work hard and be a good person. It doesn’t work with God because it is based on a profound misunderstanding of who God really is. God is a loving and gracious God to whom you don’t have to prove anything or earn anything to impress. Why? Because God created you, God knows you far better than you know yourself, and God gave you a passing grade, in fact God bestowed an A plus on your record the moment you were conceived, and there isn’t any need for extra credit. Now, don’t get me wrong, God doesn’t say, don’t do good or be good. No, God says "Don’t worry. If you know you are loved and accepted as you are, you will do fine. Goodness will flow from your heart. But if you forget that I am a gracious and loving God, if you turn me into some rule-maker and law-enforcer and nit-picker, you will suffer and you will bring suffering to others."
In telling us what doesn’t work, wonderfully, Paul shows us what does work. He says:
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
And that is really the full statement I referred to earlier. "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings..." Note that Paul says that he strives to be like Jesus, not in his good deeds, but in his death. We cannot be like Christ in his goodness and life, unless, first, we are like Christ in his suffering and death. And what is being like Christ in his death? It is that painful act of shedding all the garbage that we are convinced we need to do and need to have and need to be in order to earn God’s love and achieve happiness. Then and only then are we able to meet Christ. And that letting go can be very painful. It is like dying. In a way, it is dying.
We have been listening over the last few weeks to the wonderful story of the mighty acts of God; this God who led the Hebrews out of bondage and sustained them in the wilderness. What is remarkable about that story is the sequence of events: bondage (Hebrews in Egypt); freedom (parting of the waters of the Red Sea); wilderness journey; and then, in the midst of the journey, the receiving of the Commandments at Sinai. Why is the sequence crucial? God first acted to free the Hebrews, and then gave them the law. Not the other way around. The Hebrews came to know God first, as a gracious, loving and liberating God. Then, in the wilderness, in freedom, they yearned to know how to live; and God gave them the law. We don’t gain our freedom through following the law and commandments, that is, thinking we can please God by measuring up. First, comes freedom, then the commandments, which are designed to help us live fruitfully in freedom and in community. As Christians, we would say: first comes the experience of meeting Christ; meeting him through death to ourselves (joining him in his death), that we may rise in the resurrection with him. Our facilities should enable our community to embrace that vision, to embody that vision, and to proclaim that vision.
Here, I think, Paul deserves the last word. As always he can be maddenly honest. For even has he uses himself as an example of faith, so he also uses himself as an example of how hard it is. It is a journey, like the Hebrews in the wilderness. It is a process. You must keep moving. Keep your eyes on the future, not the past. Paul calls us to press on. He must love the phrase because he repeats it. Press on, he says.
Not that I have already attained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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