Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32
Sermon
When is the last time you were given a pop quiz?
A completely unexpected test to determine what you know, or who you are, or what your values are?
Aren’t surprise tests terrible? Actually, why stop with a surprise. I don’t know anyone who likes to be tested, surprise or not. A friend of mine told me recently about her terrible experience of spending months reading and studying and cramming her head with information so that she might be able to let loose all that knowledge on the one day in which she had to take a bar exam. I like to see the good in everything, but when it comes to tests, I think they are just plain evil.
In today’s Gospel lesson, we see Jesus and the temple authorities engaged in a series of dueling pop quizzes. It doesn’t take long to see that the chief priests and elders have a singular motivation behind their questions to Jesus- they hope to trip him up; discredit him; to make a fool of him so that he might go away. But, if there is one thing we know about our savior, its that he always manages to reverse human expectations so that we can experience the last truly coming in first. And so Jesus turns the situation around and asks his own gotcha question- a question that puts the authorities in such a bind that they have to abandon their entire plan so they might retreat and regroup. When they are on the receiving end of a searing, off putting question, they do what we humans always do- they try to squirm their way out of it! They pull the Pharisee equivalent of –“Gotta go, I think my mom’s calling!”
So, if we can draw one thing from the Gospel lesson, its that tests can be used in all kinds of nefarious ways to trip people up. But when we turn to Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, we find what on the surface might be the announcement of the single largest test we could ever take- Phillipians 2:12 reads-
“Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”Wait, is this an essay question?
I didn’t see this on the syllabus!
Did you get the company memo?
Since when are our performance reviews based on this?
Someone call the union- I thought my contract said that salvation was a gift, not something I had to work out. There must have been some kind of fine print on the contract- darn those lawyers!
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling? What on earth can Paul mean here. In theological circles, I though it was James who seemed to emphasize that we are saved by our works, not Paul! Is our salvation really a product of things we do; or of finding and being able to spit out a really good answer to some test at the pearly gates?
First, let’s affirm that salvation is indeed a gift of God. The founder of Methodism, John Wesley- explained it in this way: Long before we were ever conscious of God, God was working in our lives. That is what we recognize at baptism- that God is already at work in a little child even though that child has no way of understanding God or describing God. In fact, if we read Paul a bit further, he says “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you” And so, it is God that acts first (we call this prevenient grace), and it is through that grace that we might respond.
But, isn’t that still kind of scary? Well, yes, it is. If we have some input here, if we have free will, we do have some responsibility. That can be scary. But let me mitigate some of that fear- when we talk salvation, I think we tend to immediately think we are talking about heaven and hell. Now of course, the state of our eternal souls is part of this concept of salvation. However, if we affirm that God is good and faithful, and acknowledge that our understanding of the next life is limited while God’s knowledge is vast, we can trust that the God who is faithful in this life will take care of us in the next.
But salvation is about far, far more than heaven and hell. It is about something far more important then what might happen in the future- its about what is going on in your life now! Salvation is actually a much bigger concept than I think we realize. As always, when we translate Greek into English, we can lose things. The Greek word that is often translated as salvation is “soteria.” Though we translate it as saves, it can also be translated as to heal, to preserve, or to make whole.
I think that last translation of soteria- to make whole- is the crucial one. At some deep level, I think we all recognize that we are imperfect, incomplete people. We recognize that there is something missing in our lives. For some of us, that might be love. For others, its the need for some deep scar to be healed. For even others, its a struggle with addition to alcohol, drugs, pornography, greed, or any other sin we might name. Salvation is God’s way of helping us to fill in that gap in our lives so that we might indeed overcome the many hurts that eat away at our soul. Though Jesus Christ is the one who makes each and every one of us whole, the nature of that hole in our life varies according to the individual. In fact, in his notes on this passage, John Wesley comments that working out our own salvation is about letting each individual aim at their own things. In other words, we have to concentrate and work out our own salvation because what we need God to save us from is unique to each and every one of us. The nature of someone else’s salvation will necessarily look and feel different.
Confronting those holes in our lives, though, is a terrifying process. Indeed, in that sense, let us affirm the truth that confronting those imperfections, that sin, that emptiness that we try to keep under wraps, will always be done with fear and trembling.
I don’t believe in asking you to do anything that I won’t do. So before I ask you to confront your own salvation with fear and trembling, let me share with you a bit of testimony about the frightening way that I continue to ask God to help me work on mine. I’ve stated before that prayer is at times a struggle for me. But I’m not sure that I have always said why. I tend to be someone who operates out of my head. When confronted with a situation, my tendency is to analyze and try to respond logically to the problem at hand rather than responding emotionally. Thus, when someone approaches me with a crisis, in my mind I go into problem solving mode and think about how I can best help, rather than immediately respond emotionally to the person in crisis. Others would probably tend to the emotional needs first and problem solve later. One response is probably not fundamentally superior to the other so long as eventually, both needs are met.
The problem I often struggle with is that I get stuck in my head. I continue to respond to things logically because I’m not always sure how to respond to them emotionally. Part of this is just how God created me- God creates each one of us with strengths and weaknesses- this is part of the uniqueness of who we are. But when we can’t balance our dominant side with our shadow side, it can create a hole in our lives that is difficult to fill. For me, it can translate into a failure to develop authentic, emotionally engaged relationships.
Where this connects to prayer is that at a fundamental level, prayer is about relationship with God. It is less a logical connection than an emotional one. Through work with a spiritual director and several close friends, I have come to see that my problem with relationships in general leads to a problematic relationship with God. I have trouble loving and accepting God’s love, because I struggle with accepting and giving love in many aspects of my life. Again, through the work I’ve been doing on this issue, I’ve discovered that at the heart of this issue is a fear of being hurt; of being rejected; a fear of giving love without ever receiving it. Since this is my fear, opening myself up to that process of risking love, and there for risking rejection, is something that I indeed approach with fear and trembling.
That is, in part, the shape of the hole that is often persistent in my life. That is the salvation that God is indeed helping me to work out. Though it may always be a bit of a struggle for me, the spiritual direction I have received and the healing that God continues in my life has allowed me to see signs of a continued journey toward wholeness on this issue.
My brothers and sisters in Christ, what is the hole in your life?
Where is the place that God needs to bring healing?
What wounds are in need of healing?
What addiction must be tamed?
Our Lord Jesus Christ loves us enough to guide us and to be with us as we confront the issues that tear at our souls. Our creator God knows us intimately in all our glories and flaws, and divine grace enfolds us so that we might be steady as we confront the terror that is the empty spots in our lives. Know this my friends, should we be willing to confront our brokenness, should we seek God to bring us wholeness by helping us to fill the holes in our own lives, we can be assured that God will be present, and God will pass the test. Amen.
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