"Your citizenship is in heaven"

Philippians 3:17-4:1 

17 Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. 18 For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. 19 Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. 

4:1 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.

Luke 13:31-35

31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” 32 He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. 33 Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ 

34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35 See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ”

Some Pharisees came to Jesus to tell him to go away because Herod wanted to kill him.  It’s unclear if this is a warning or a threat.  Do they care for Jesus’ welfare, or do they too just want him to disappear?  In any case, they seem to assume that Jesus would heed their words, that he’d lower his profile, that he’d cease and desist his messianic activities.  Instead, Jesus made emphatically clear that he had no intention of changing course.  '“Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.’  That Jesus tells them to relay the message to Herod suggests that Jesus sees them as in league with one another, and that he calls Herod a fox suggests not only what he thinks about Herod, but also that he does not fear him.   In fact, though Jesus matter-of-factly accepts his impending death, he’s confident that it will not happen unless and until he’s goes to Jerusalem, to the place where the prophets are killed, and indeed it is to Jerusalem he’s resolved to go.  

Whereas he longs to arrive in Jerusalem like a mother hen gathering scattered chicks under her wings, instead he laments that he will be rejected by the very ones whom he desires to provide shelter.  They will be on their own.  And he ends by foreshadowing his arrival in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, when he will be hailed as a conquering king only to be crucified a few days later. 

Last week we saw Jesus tempted in the desert, at the outset of his ministry apparently struggling against the path of suffering laid out before him, and then at the very end we will see him struggling against the reality of the cross, desiring an alternative, though ultimately declaring, “Yet not my will but yours be done”.  That Jesus did not always rest easy with the thought of suffering and death indicates he was indeed human like us.  And yet, there are other times when, like in today’s passage, rather than reluctance, we see assurance, even eagerness for the fate that awaits him.  There is a tension here, but it is merely the tension that exists in every human person between what we feel like doing and what faithfulness demands we do, that there is always a struggle within ourselves against the easy path and the righteous one, that this conflict is essential to the human experience, even for Jesus.  We see his resolve most clearly in his public declaration, while his vulnerability is revealed when he’s alone.  Could it be any other way?  

We too might find ourselves outwardly expressing confidence in the way of Jesus even as we inwardly wonder if this really is the path we want to be walking.   I take such questioning, such doubt, to be a sign of basic sanity, evidence that one’s eyes are wide open.   The way of the cross is not obviously appealing; any human naturally resists.  And we might take some comfort from the fact that Jesus himself wrestled against the path laid before him, so it should be no surprise that sometimes we’re not so sure ourselves.  

The essence of Christianity is that the path Jesus walked is the way that leads to life, that his faithfulness even unto death overcomes death itself, that exactly because the Father vindicates Jesus’ life and lifts him up, we too can put our trust in Jesus, we too can follow him, in the confidence that this is the path to life, first for him, then for the rest of us.   And faith - or, better, faithfulness - means following Jesus even when we’re not sure about where it leads or if the cost will be worth it.   Faith doesn’t mean eliminating doubt but persisting in spite of it.  

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul spoke of those who, “live as enemies of the cross of Christ”, which calls to mind people actively antagonistic to everything revealed in Jesus.  Perhaps there were some such people then as now, but I think Paul is given to a bit hyperbole in order to draw a stark contrast, to highlight the fork in the road that’s always before us.  Of these enemies, Pauls says, “Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.”  Rather than the way of sacrifice, they choose self-indulgence, rather than the way of humility they choose self-exaltation, rather than eternal things, they choose the ephemeral.  Which is to say that these “enemies of the cross” sound a lot like most people; they sound a lot like us.  Paul speaks of these people “in tears”because they are - or maybe were -  Christians, insiders not outsiders.  That the world would reject the way of Jesus comes as no surprise, but that ostensible Christians would, in their manner of life, reject the way of Jesus causes Paul no little distress. Especially in this season of Lent, a season of self-reflection and repentance, we ought to ask ourselves if we, despite our professed beliefs actually live as enemies of the cross of Christ.  

In this passage Paul also provides a simple but profound metaphor for Christian life; he says that “our citizenship is in heaven”.  We in Luxembourg know better than most what it means to live in a place where you do not hold citizenship, to have been formed in another place with a different culture and customs, to feel the tension between where you are where you’re from.   Of course, the analogy is imperfect because the nations we come from - not least mine - are not exactly heaven.  That’s why we’re here instead.   But none of us chose earth over heaven; it’s where we find ourselves, it’s where we’re born and where we die, and in between we are shaped and influenced for for both good and for ill  

What Paul calls us here is to realize that, if we are in Christ, if we claim as Lord the one who came from heaven and the one through whom we shall go to heaven, then heaven is our true home and we are to live here and now according to its customs and culture, to live like foreigners in this world, to maintain allegiance to another king and another kingdom.  It is to be an incarnation of the prayer that the kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven.

The notion that this world is not our home is, on the surface, counterintuitive - obviously this is the only home we’re ever known - and yet, at some deeper level, most of us have intuited that things here are not as they ought to be, that we were made for something else, and we long for a home we’ve never really known, to belong.  When we speak of heaven, though, we do not so much mean a different place, but rather another time, another age, when all is as it should be.  We don’t go to heaven, heaven comes to earth, when the rightful king returns to assert his reign.  

To be Christian in any age, but perhaps this age especially, is to be called to a countercultural way of living, moving, and having your being - not merely to be countercultural for its own sake, but because faithfulness to Jesus will necessarily put us out of step with others.  Like Jesus who faced hostility, we too might find ourselves tempted to save our lives rather than losing it, passively to conform rather than actively seek seek transformation.  But I’m convinced if we really did live like citizens of heaven that, rather than leading to persecution, we’re more likely to gain the esteem and trust of our neighbors, for then we would be those who give ourselves for others.  

One of my hopes for this community is that coming here will be something like visiting a foreign country, an experience of a different culture and customs which feels strange but also somehow authentic, even true.   The church should be an embassy of the kingdom of God.  And coming participating in worship should form us into citizens of heaven, people who live in the world like the way of Jesus is actually true.