Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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A few years ago, in America, a toy manufacturer decided to make a Jesus doll - was sure it would "sell big" around Christmas. And it was a pretty doll. Jesus had a halo and a white robe trimmed in gold, and he came in a shiny gold box lined with red velvet. But he didn't sell. With Christmas only a week away, one New York toy store, stuck with several thousand Jesus dolls, panicked and put a sign in the window that said, "Jesus Christ marked down 50%. Get him while you can!"
What a temptation it is to mark down Jesus, especially when he doesn't seem to be selling. What a temptation, for us marketing types, to water down his powerful message! ("If the people want pabulum, sell them pabulum.") Surely Jesus didn't mean his followers had to give up everything…maybe just a few reasonable things. Surely he didn't mean that following him would separate us from friends and family. Sure, it might cause a little tension around the dinner table, but it wouldn't separate us entirely from those we love. Surely he didn't mean we had to carry crosses, and be willing to die. Something less. Something not so harsh. That's what will sell in twenty-first century, post-modern America.
The New Testament, thank God, is a powerful check and balance against the tendency to water down our faith. On its pages, time after time, individuals appear who take Jesus with the utmost seriousness, who understand full well that Jesus called his followers to a radically different kind of life, a life which refused to be compromised, which wouldn't be blended with the life and values of this world. And no where is it clearer than in Paul's letter to Philippi.

The context of our scripture is this. Many, if not most, of the earliest Christians were Jewish by race and by religious heritage (The disciples all were Jewish.). But, in Paul's day, and largely at the result of his work, something enormously important was happening: Gentiles, non-Jews, were flocking to Jesus and to his church, threatening to overwhelm it, which they soon did. In response to this onrush of Gentiles, the earlier Jewish Christians said, "It's fine for Gentiles to join the church, but they must come in through the Jewish door. The men have to be circumcised. They all must know and obey the Ten Commandments, and the dietary laws, and the Sabbath laws, and so forth. (We still have people today who say, "If you didn't come to Jesus the way I came, you're faith's all wrong.") Paul knows better.
He begins by rattling off his credentials as a Jew: "….circumcised on the eighth day…member of the tribe of Benjamin…a Hebrew born to Hebrews…a virtual Pharisee in my obedience to the law, and blameless under that law." What more could anyone ask of a Jew? But, he goes on to say, whatever advantages might be mine because of these impeccable bona fides, "I have come to regard (them) as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.

Charles Wesley: Let us take up the cross,
Till we the crown obtain,
And gladly reckon all things loss,
So we may Jesus gain.

Isaac Watts: When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died.
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Not much compromise here. Paul didn't say, "Naturally I'm proud of my earthly pedigree…." He said, "I count it all as rubbish." We don't boast about our Jewishness (we would if we could), but we have many earthly things which we believe give us worth: I'm proud of my college degree, hanging there on the wall. I'm proud of my bloodline, my family name I'm proud of my title, my responsibility, my power. I'm proud of my wife and children, they're all accomplishers like me: "My son, the doctor." "My daughter, the lawyer." I'm proud of my appearance, proud of the way I dress, I drip with money and success. We all have stuff we offer to the world as evidence of our worthiness. Paul said, "count it all as rubbish…"

And he did, in fact, lose it all. The New Testament story is not a movie, where the actor plays a poor person but, when the cameras are off, goes home and lives in the lap of luxury. Paul was a real flesh and blood person, like you and me. And he gave up everything "…because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." Not long after he wrote this, they cut off his head with a sword. He lost all there was to loose. He gave all there was to give. After the recent flooding in Georgia, Time magazine interviewed Carolyn Johnson, 71 years old, a black woman, a widow whose house had been swept away. She said, "I've never been in a situation like this. Everything I had in the world was in that house. I don't have anything but Jesus now." That's where Paul was. At the end, he didn't have anything but Jesus. And he is tells us in this letter that that is exactly where he wants to be.

A sign in a California restaurant says, "At the feast of ego, everyone leaves hungry." On the other hand, Jesus promised, to those who would lose their egos, forever-bread that would satisfy their hunger, once and for all, and forever-water that would slake their thirst in the same eternal way. Life without ego; everybody eats and is full. That's not Jesus marked down 50%. That's Jesus full-strength. That's the uncompromising Jesus Paul met on the Road to Damascus, and never forgot.

When we see what Jesus taught, and see it clearly, it is obvious immediately that we don't measure up. That's what repentance and forgiveness are all about; that's why they are the front door of our faith, the way in. Paul, for all his saintliness, didn't measure up either, and he knew it: "Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own." Everyone knows I'm not perfect, and (I hate to tell you) everyone knows you're not perfect either. But are we pressing on? Are we growing in Christ? Or could it be that our faith has stalled, and we are trying to live on yesterday's inspiration? Or, perhaps, we are seeking spiritual strength from a Jesus who has been marked down 50%. Woodie Allen's prayer, "Give me a small mountain to climb," is not our prayer. We have the tallest mountain: to live up to the teachings of Jesus. We do not reach the top in this life, but we "press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.".