"The Chosen"

Philippians 3:4b-14
(Part One: esp. vv 4b-7)

We all have this in our traditions - some of us embrace it now, but even if we don't it is still there, lurking. We believe we are chosen because of some fact about us. We are "American," and America is Chosen. We are in the one true church, so we are Chosen. We are white, and white people Rule. We are men, and men are the heads of families and states. We are wealthy, therefore we must deserve comfort and security. We are Christian, and Christians are God's people... so no matter what, we are God's people.

But here, Paul lays that all to rest. It doesn't matter. None of it matters. If anyone ought to be consoled by the facts of his existence in this world, it should be Paul: a sanctified Jew of the chosen tribe, a zealous follower of the law, righteous, and even in the Roman Empire Paul was a citizen and could call on that defense as well. I'm sure he could have added things like a three-car garage and two and-a-half baths, a solid portfolio and 401k, a walk-in closet filled with Armani suits and patent-leather shoes, an advanced degree from an Ivy League school, and a secure job working for the prosecutor's office--or the first-century Palestinian equivalents. Paul has it made, if you go by the world's standards! He has every reason to stick to the normal way of looking at things. Except one.

And that one reason opens up a world of difference, such that everything he thought was in his favor comes to nothing (and, if anything, actually counts against him).

God, as revealed through Jesus, brings Paul to a different understanding, and all of a sudden all of those values and prizes and marks of success according to the world are foolishness and vainglory, worthless and distracting. And in the place of those prizes is picked up values that seem absurd to the world: suffering, and a faith whose merit cannot be demonstrated or delineated by a code of conduct.

(I wonder what this implies about the issue of homosexuality in the church--whether this is an issue that the world concerns itself with for reasons of power and prestige, and whether or not a new life in Christ would lift our eyes above those kinds of distinctions [distinctions between people worthy of certain kinds of love and those unworthy, between love that deserves dignity and love that does not]. Could Paul have added to his list of worldly accolades above the title "heterosexual?")

Whatever the qualifications you come up with--even ecclesiastical ones like piety and faithfulness and years in mission work, etc.--Paul has more than anyone. This isn't boasting (although it's close), it is Paul saying how much he stands to gain by not making the choice he has: to find a new world-view in Jesus. Paul is trying to highlight the extent of his sacrifice (though it is only a sacrifice in the worldly perspective--once one adopts a Godly world-view, one's priorities change and all those worldly prizes are like "rubbish"). He is trying to frame his decision to follow Jesus as not a strategic one, not one to gain prestige or influence, not one to gain a public image of purity or "chosen-ness." Paul had all those things at his finger-tips in the world before Jesus. He is making the case for his sincerity, as well as building the distinction between worldly values and the nearly-inverse values of a world in Jesus.

No longer can we appeal to the law as a guide to righteousness, or birth as a guide to God's favor. These are things "of the flesh," "of this world." (The word "flesh" here [Gk: "sarx"] can mean the body [as opposed to the spirit], or as a symbol of what is external, or as the means of kindred, as well as implying human nature and its frailties. The connection with kindred and birth and "tribe" and provinciality is compelling.)

We must look to the life, love and revelation of Jesus--an act that inverts many of our previously-held assumptions about favor in God's sight, an act that breathes afresh the prophetic voice. As disciples of Christ, we must be prepared for this inversion, for this radical change in values, to give up worldly means of evaluating or assessing people. There are no more purity laws. There is only the transforming love of God as expressed in Jesus.