Second Sunday in Lent
Text: Philippians 3:17-4:1
Pastor Jean M. Hansen
No doubt you have heard the adage, “They are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.” In today’s New Testament reading from Philippians, that assertion is flipped, and the message is that we must be heavenly minded if we are to be of any earthly good.
In this portion of the letter to the church in Philippi, the Apostle Paul appealed to his readers to imitate him. While that may sound like vanity, it is important to note that earlier Paul used himself as a negative example of valuing one’s own abilities and accomplishment as the path to righteousness. He wrote that he now regarded these things as rubbish compared to knowing Jesus. His hope was that his readers would set aside all worldly, external measures of success and pursue sharing in Jesus’ suffering - that is in his humility and self-sacrificial serving - and know the power of the resurrection. In this, they should imitate him, or those who follow his example, he wrote.
It seems, though, that Paul knew of people who were not doing so. Of them Commentator Elizabeth Shively notes, “Instead of being guided by self-sacrificial service to others, they are guided by their own desires. These people have not denied Christ by their confession or words, but have denied Christ by their behavior. They are enemies of the cross of Christ because they refuse to conform to the pattern of humility and self-sacrifice that led Jesus there.” (1)
“The point is that the Philippians”, writes commentator Sarah Henrich, “like Jesus and Paul, are to live on earth as citizens whose constitution comes from God, not from other gods or emperors. Their lives, transformed by being caught up into the body of Christ, now have different values, different sources of power, different goals than those who are not living that life,” (2)
It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. We all know, and sometimes are, the people who are not living that life, that is not imitating Paul, who was imitating Jesus. Amid tears, Paul calls them enemies of the cross and offers this description in verse 19, “Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.”
In other words, the cross’ enemies see their lives’ purpose as the ruin of both those around them and of themselves. They devote their whole lives to satisfying nothing but their various cravings – for power, for wealth, for recognition, for enjoyment…. They think of that which is actually disgraceful as glorious and their focus in on the here and now, and how to get what they want.
God’s desire is that this not be the case, which is why we are summoned to both confess our worship of false gods and to live in ways that both honor God and bless our neighbors, which is a focus of the Lenten season. We are, after all, citizens of heaven. It’s interesting that the Greek words translated as “citizenship” is closer to the word “colony”; the church itself is a colony of heaven.
Paul probably used that word intentionally because the city of Philippi was a Roman colony and its people were Roman citizens, which means that they enjoyed freedom and financial benefits as part of the empire. As citizens of God’s holy colony, our primary identity and allegiance needs to be first to that divine kingdom, and not to whatever nation in which we live. Quoting commentator Scott Hoezee, “Paul reminds us that within the church we are a colony of heaven first of all, that the badge of cross-shaped kingdom citizenship must determine our attitudes and actions every where we go. That doesn’t mean you never leave the colony, or withdraw into only the colony, but it does mean that the church determines our view of everything else.” (3)
And, as God’s colony, we are members one of another. We are accountable to one another, responsible to one another and simply part of one another. I remember a story that Pastor Richard Lischer told in his book Open Secrets, (and Commentator Hoezee quotes) which is about his first three years as a pastor in a small rural town. He had been at that congregation for only a week when he was called out to the hospital at 3 a.m. where one of the congregation members was having emergency surgery for a ruptured gall bladder. The patient’s name was Doral, her husband was Ed, and they never missed church, but Pastor Lischer had not gotten to know them yet.
He soon realized that he had forgotten to bring his prayer book or Bible, or anything else that might help him figure out what to say in such a situation. These faithful, but frightened, people were looking at him, expecting him to be helpful. So…Pastor Lischer croaked out the only thing he could think of, a phrase from the traditional litany. “The Lord be with you,” he said. “And also with you,” Ed and Doral replied in unison. “Lift up your hearts,” Pastor Lischer announced. “We lift them up to the Lord,” the couple proclaimed. And suddenly, Lischer writes, “the Lord himself was in the alcove in that sacred moment….” They said a brief prayer together, and Doral went to the O.R. calmer and ready for surgery. (4)
That’s what happens to those who are citizens of God’s heavenly colony; we find strength and comfort in a world that is not our own. That truth became reality for me during the truly challenging days I spent in St. Louis last week.
As many of you know, I went for a long-weekend visit with my long-time friends Ed and Anne before Lent began. On my first evening there, Anne tripped and fell into the wall in such a way that she sustained a serious spinal cord injury and left her paralyzed from mid-chest down. After emergency surgery and the prognosis that the paralysis was not reversable, she decided not to have a permanent breathing tube inserted and entered hospice care.
Anne died on Wednesday, March 12; plans for her Memorial Service are still in process. It was, and is, a sad time for me and all who loved her. What I really wanted to say, though, is that I experienced over and over and over again the blessing of being part of God’s colony, members one of another. People in Akron, in St. Louis, in North Caroline and beyond were praying for us. Choirs of churches of which Anne had been a part sang and recorded her favorite hymn and anthem for her to hear. Pastor Cheryl visited frequently, at all hours, even on Ash Wednesday late in the afternoon when she had a service that evening.
As the sun was setting that day, the last day that Anne was really alert and interacting, Anne and Pastor Cheryl and I shared a sacred moment. Together we said, from memory, the confession that proclaims us as being in bondage to sin and unable to free ourselves. I had the privilege of announcing the forgiveness of all of our sins and Pastor Cheryl marked us with ashes, reminding us that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. It’s one thing to say those words while kneeling in church, it’s another thing to see a cross of ashes on the forehead of someone who has made a choice to die sooner rather than later, and done so with sadness, but also confidence and joy.
Such sadness can only be borne, I think, as part of the colony of heaven and because of the promise that Jesus will transform our mortal bodies to be like his glorious body.
For that eternal hope, and also for the sake of our world in this time, may we rejoice in the opportunity to be heavenly minded, and thus of earthly good. AMEN
(1) “Commentary on Philippians 3:17-4:1” by Elizabeth Shively, www.workingpreacher.org
(2) “Commentary on Philippians 3:17-4:1” by Sarah Henrich, www.workingpreacher.org
(3) “Philippians 3:17-4:1 Commentary” by Doug Bratt, March 16, 2025, www.cepreachingoorg
(4) “Philippians 3:17-4:1 Commentary” by Scott Hoezee, February 21, 2016, www.cepreachingoorg