I Regard Everything as Loss

“I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Philippians 3. 8

Sermon for Proper 22 Year A

Exodus 20. 1-20 ‘Ten Commandments’

Philippians 3.4b-14 – I count as Loss

Matthew 21. 33-46 – Parable of the Tenants of the Vineyard

In 2004, the then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw participated in a debate about the inclusion or otherwise of the Judeo-Christian roots in the new constitution of the EU. The constitution, drafted by former French president Giscard d’Estaing referred only in passing to cultural, religious and humanist inheritances. At a meeting of foreign ministers, Straw told reporters, aware of the feeling of Muslims that it would be insensitive to make reference to one religious tradition at the exclusion of another.  The inclusion of ‘God’ and ‘Christianity’ never came, even with the intervention of the philosopher pope Saint John Paul II. Could it be that at that moment something of a new quasi-religion, a secular faith found a new stage in its gestation? It feels to me like a chilling moment!

 So here is a controversial statement. Religion is not the product of civilization.
Civilization is a by-product of religion. 

Western Civilisation did not adopt Christianity as one of many possible religions – like a shopper looking at the best deal for meat the marketplace. Europe happened because of Christianity, because of Jesus and then his followers Paul, centuries later Augustine and then Benedict, and so on.  It is a culture formed by the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Beatitudes, the Nicene Creed, and the hope derived from the Gospels themselves. This statement is not so different from what I mentioned some weeks back, that we as a congregation are not a community who happen to have a religion, we are a religious experience who form a community. This is why I think the EU and much of the West is now traveling down a dark path away from the light of Christ. (This is irrespective of Brexit.) Things have gone topsy-turvy. Here, will be an attempt to create a synthetic version of Christianity without Christ, a sort of mish-mash of media-driven sentimentality and competing human rights legislation. In this new world order those who cry the loudest win. This kind of civilization then has little to do with natural law or absolute moral standards, its no story beyond its own narcissistic needs. 

Paul in writing to the Philippians speaks of everything that made him a cultured religious man as a loss in comparison to Christ. I wonder if his parents lived to hear him say that. Would they, if they were not favourable to Jesus, thought he was mad? He had everything to be confident before his Damascus experience. And, in some ways much of this was positive. On the surface, he is a good Jews and good Roman citizen. We easily forget what he rejected. It is not that he jettisoned his Bible, what we call the Old Testament, it is just that he saw the following of Torah in comparison to Jesus of Nazareth as a loss.

For me, and I realize I can only speak personally on this issue, this is a bit of what it feels like today with this new secular belief system. I increasingly feel like an alien in the land of my fathers. A Europe that it is politically neutral on God might tick along nicely for a bit. My children might have okay-ish lives in it. I could keep my head down and in a nice part of the world enjoy the seaside. BUT, if I may be so presumption as to paraphrase the apostle to the Gentiles ‘Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as a loss.. because of the surpassing knowledge of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.’ I may be sort of happy if I do not rock the boat. Indeed my life might be filled with success.  Will I know joy as expressed in the Bible? ‘I want to know Christ and the power of resurrection.’ (Verse 10.) I cannot simply shut up about this because that would be to deny the whole basis of my life.

If this is your story. If this where you find yourself. Then God bless! Those who know Christ, know also his suffering Paul says. There is, I suspect already a cost to being a faithful Christian. This is nothing in comparison to persecuted Christians in the Middle East.  Yet, I think the price is that we are longer wanted or seen as relevant and are therefore pushed to the edge.

To the chief priests and the elders, Jesus says at the end his parable these most cutting of criticism to the cultural and religious leaders of the time. ‘The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produce the fruits of the kingdom.’ (Matthew 21.43) Will this be our fate if we continue the path of secularisation? If you like me believe that God's grace has been instrumental in founding our Christian heritage, then what will be like when that grace is removed. I am mindful of Canon Edward Norman, theologian, and one time Chancellor of York Minister who foresaw that demise of Christianity in the West as akin to the extinguishing of its greatest lamp. Darkness is a terrible thing indeed. 

For us who count the loss, counting the loss is important but we must also remain loving and generous. Our radicalism cannot be based on disdain but must be moved love, mercy, pity. For in this way people, increasingly non-religious people, will see that religion is not about violence against society but is about drawing out the best from our communities and working towards the common good. 

In this way they will see that our goal is theirs too. Or, to quote Paul ‘ I press towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.’