Sermon for October 4, 2020 Pentecost 18A House of Prayer Lutheran Church
Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
About a year and a half ago, I decided to take up jogging. This was after a good 20 years of actively avoiding running as much as possible. I slowly worked my way up to being able to run a mile without stopping, and then my wife challenged me to run a 5k. The first thing I said was, “what are you, crazy?” But she kept after me until I relented, and then she promptly signed me up for a 5k race so I couldn’t back out! Ha!
So I trained, and gradually worked my way up to running 5 kilometers--3.1 miles. I ran the race and I thought, “that wasn’t so bad, but now I’ve got to improve my time.” So I signed up for another 5k race, the annual Turkey Trot in Racine last Thanksgiving. It just so happens that my chiropractor, who is an experienced distance runner, also signed up for the Turkey Trot. He ran quite a bit faster than me, so I was pleasantly surprised that as I huffed and puffed my way across the finish line, he was standing on the sideline cheering me on.
The next time I saw him he said, “I noticed that you didn’t have good posture as you were running. If you keep doing that, eventually you’ll hurt yourself. But if you improve your form, you’ll have an easier time running further and faster.” So he taught me proper running posture, and let me tell you, it has made a big difference. I used to run kind of hunched over with my body and fists clenched tight, but now I run with my head up and my hands, arms, and shoulders loose. This allows my lungs to fill with more air, which makes running easier. I’m still the same person, but my running produces different results depending on the posture I take.
As I read over the passage from Philippians 3 today, and St. Paul’s transformation from the greatest persecutor of Christians to the greatest missionary of the risen Christ, I thought of what a difference posture can make. What is our posture towards God? Can it change? St. Paul teaches us that it can. And that I can, through faith, move from looking inward in a self-centered way, to looking outward at Christ to guide me in a humble and life-giving way And then what is God’s posture toward us? Again, St. Paul teaches that God’s posture is to have his hands stretched out toward us in love. Sometimes we need God to use his hands to give us something; other times we need God to use his hands to take something away from us. But either way, it’s for the purpose of leading us to follow Jesus. Either way, it’s so that a person can change their posture to produce different results; to produce the fruits of the Spirit in the kingdom of God.
This work of God giving and taking away is what we see in the story of St. Paul himself. As Paul describes himself, he came from a proud tradition of Pharisees, and among the Pharisees he was the “best of the best”--he knew it, and he was proud of it. And where did this get him? His accomplishments and talent allowed him to be trusted by his peers as a persecutor of Christians. With this career path, he thought he had “arrived” at a successful life. And in the circles he ran with, he had respect and admiration because of it. But the success he arrived at came at the cost of dehumanizing and oppressing people just for being who they are.
When the risen Christ met him, and temporarily blinded him on the road to Damascus, God took that feeling of accomplishment away from Paul. And the prestige he thought he had earned? He came to regard that as “rubbish”. Worthless. Garbage. He realized that his posture was all wrong towards the people he was persecuting--that it was hurting both them and him--and that meant his posture towards God was all wrong, too.
And by taking his former certainties away from him, God also gave Paul something very valuable--the faith to know that “Christ Jesus has made me his own.” Paul did nothing to earn this. By embracing this promise in faith, he lost the respect and admiration of the people in the circles he used to run with. But he was now at peace, because he found his true self and his true purpose in life. Through faith in Christ, St. Paul got in touch with his true humanity--and with the common humanity of the people he used to persecute. Paul was still in many ways the same person, but now with a different posture--a posture that allowed him to put his head up and look to God; a posture that allowed him to loosen the sins that caused him to hurt others and himself, and instead to open up his soul to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, with Christ living inside of him, he was able to grow in his ability to produce the fruits of the Spirit.
St. Paul describes these fruits of the Spirit in Galations 5:22-23. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are the values that Paul was able to grow in by surrendering himself to Christ. Maybe he didn’t have the respect and admiration of the people in his former way of life, but he gained a whole new posture that changed his life for the better--by changing his relationship with God and other people. He gained the ability to share the joy that now lived inside of him, and the hope of forgiveness, new life, and salvation that come from knowing the love of Jesus in your life.
We heard Jesus tell a parable in today’s gospel that describes a similar situation to what St. Paul was once stuck in. Just as Paul once thought he could get ahead by holding others down, in this parable the tenants in the vineyard think they are going to get ahead and make a name for themselves by resorting to more and more violence; by persecuting their fellow human beings. As Jesus tells this story, the people he is talking to realize the absurdity of this posture--and I think we can see the absurdity, too, as the tenants in the parable say “Here comes the heir to owner of the vineyard we’re working in. Let’s kill him and get his inheritance!” How, exactly, did they figure that was going to work? Like, will the vineyard owner just give up the inheritance that once belonged to his son, and give it to the tenants who killed that son?
No one can truly get ahead by holding other people down. Instead we get ahead when we pray for God to increase in us, and in everyone, the fruits of the Spirit--the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control that we grow into by staying connected to Jesus. This is why Jesus willingly gave his life on the cross--to become the sacrifice to end all sacrifices--so that we would see there’s no need to be like Paul used to be, holding others down or ignoring the dignity God has created in each person by making each person to be created in the image of God. Jesus went to the cross, and rose again from the tomb, so that through faith everyone would have access to his Spirit living within them and producing the fruits of the kingdom.
And baptism is God’s gift and promise to us, that “Christ Jesus has made me his own.” Every day, through faith, you can come back to that promise: Christ Jesus has made me his own. No one can take it away. Every day, you can die to sin and rise to newness of life in Christ. Every day you can turn to God with a humble heart and be forgiven; to take away the hurt you hold onto or that you’ve caused someone else,and start anew. Every day you can learn the new posture of the kingdom of God, and pray for the Holy Spirit to keep your head up looking toward God, and your soul open so you grow in the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control--for ourselves and towards others, in Jesus’ name. Amen.