Sunday Homily - April 7th, 2019 - It's All About Jesus

Saint Paul of Tarsus Icon

I.

It's all about Jesus,
 not about me.

I want to preface that this morning,
 because I felt that the Spirit was calling me
  to share a part of my personal story with you this morning.

And I would wager that we've all heard pastors or have known pastors
 who talk too much about themselves
  and you wonder when its going to end.
   My prayer is that I don't fall into that category this morning.

Rather, perhaps my story can give you an insight
 into Jesus's sacrificial love for us,
  and perhaps can also help you hear the inspired words
   of Paul's words in Philippians
    in a different manner than before.

And it has to do with a creeping issue
 that I've always had to face:
  the tendency to perfectionism.

Ever since I've been really little,
 I seem to have struggled with this.

As a kid, you always have new experiences
 and you learn and you grow.
  But, I distinctly remember that even as a kid,
   when I would go through new experiences
    when I would fail at something,
     I would get so mad at myself for messing up.

I routinely got mad at myself for not knowing how to do something,
 even when I had NEVER done it before.

When I sent a letter for the first time
 and I wrote one wrong number on the address line,
  I got so frustrated with myself
   that I decided right then and there
    that I would never write a letter again.
     I was, like, 5 at the time, so the reaction maybe is a little bit understandable.

In junior high, I got mad at not being able to throw a football correctly,
 even though I had NEVER played football before,
  never thrown in football pads before and a helmet.
   I would spend literal HOURS throwing footballs,
    entire 4 hour afternoons throwing and throwing and thowing
     because I couldn't stand the fact that I couldn't do it right.

In academics,
 junior high and high school,
  I got so frustrated that I couldn't get straight A's.
   I graduated high school with a 3.96 GPA and was DISAPPOINTED
    because I could remember every A- and B+ on my transcript.
     Just to prove a point, I had two B's and one A-,
      The B's were in 9th grade science and 10th grade English
       and the A- was in 11th grade Pre-Calculus.

I was the same in my relationships.
 I tried so hard to be absolutely perfect
  to not mess up anything
   to be good at everything I did,
    to be the best in comparison to others.

I had to be the best in school
 the best in sports
  the best in my romantic relationships
   to be the perfect person
    because to fail to be perfect
     meant for me
      that I was worthless.

I already had a creeping feeling in my interior
 that if I messed up,
  people would find out that I was a fraud.
   That I was fake.
    And worst of all,
     that I was worthless.

And that's where the perils of perfectionism,
 which, by the way, is a real mental health disorder,
  started to clamp down into my own head.

While I would never have said that I had this disorder,
 nonetheless, I have had characteristic tendencies
  that sometimes manifest.
  [https://www.apa.org/monitor/nov03/manyfaces]

I would NEVER tell people when I was imperfect
 and would actively avoid situations
  when honest self-disclosure was necessary.

But not just that,
 I would actively punish myself for my own imperfections
  that I knew I had.

I would run extra laps at practice
 for that bad grade I got on a test.
  I would store all the frustration inside of me
   and let it all out at football practice
    so that it wouldn't crush me internally
     when I walked away from school.

My worth was completely determined
 on whether I was perfect.
  Everything that I was worth boiled down
   to doing everything possible to avoid error
    and to extinguish my perceived weaknesses.

And if I had continued living like that
 with all of my past failures IMMEDIATELY accessible by my brain,
  the quiet voice in the back of my head
   that says, "You messed up, and you know it."
    Living like that would have killed me.

It would have killed me,
 if it wasn't for Jesus.

It would have killed me,
 if it wasn't for the writings of one of the children of God
  named Saul.

II.

If it wasn't for blessed St. Saul, enlivened with the speech of the Holy Spirit,
 I wouldn't have made it.

Because God saved Saul from the same thing
 that I needed to be saved from.

What does Saul say this morning?

"If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh,
 I have more:

circumcised on the eighth day,
 a member of the people of Israel,
  of the tribe of Benjamin,
   a Hebrew born of Hebrews;

as to the law, a Pharisee;
 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church;
  as to righteousness under the law, blameless."
  [Philippians 3:4b-6 NRSV]

Saul is laying out his reasons to be confident
 in his own outward identity
  as a Hebrew, part of the chosen people of God,
   part of the tribe of Benjamin, where the first king of Israel
    King Saul,
     descended from.
     [c.f. 1 Samuel 10]

In a fledgling church in Philippi,
 Saul's teaching about how the Gentiles do not need to observe circumcision
  was under heavy criticism.
   And often, the Hebrews and Gentiles had conflicts
    in the early church, and over areas of theological import
     that were JUST being confronted in this weird new assembly
      empowered and brought together in the name of Jesus Christ.

And Saul, before his life as an apostle of Jesus Christ,
 was the perfect example of a good Jew.

He took his Jewish life seriously.
 So seriously, that he dedicated his life to the study of God's law
  even as a Pharisee.

He took his relationship as a chosen son of God so seriously
 that he couldn't stand anything that seemed to distort the revelation of God
  as he understood the Holy Scripture's to be revealing.

And yet, Saul, in all of these qualifications as an expert in the Law
 as a zealot in protection of the Holy Scriptures
  and as a blameless observer of those Holy Scriptures,
   he still got something about the Lord Most High
    extremely wrong.

It took Jesus himself to intervene
 on the road to Damascus, probably with the intent
  to stamp out once and for all the church of Jesus Christ,
   and Saul was rendered blind.

Saul was healed of his blindness through a follower of Jesus named Ananias,
 and Saul through the appearance of Jesus Christ on the way to Damascus,
  becomes a follower of Jesus,
   and becomes the apostle to the Gentiles.

This is where Saul becomes Paul.
 Saul is his Hebrew name.
  Paul is his Greek name.

And Paul, writing to the faithful in Philippi
 who were being torn apart through arguments about circumcision,
  writes the following,
   which may be some of the most beautiful lines
    in all of our New Testament.

He writes,
 "Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.

More than that, I regard everything as loss
 because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord...

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection
 and the sharing of his sufferings
  by becoming like him in his death,
   if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

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.

Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own;
 but this one thing I do:
  forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
   I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus."
   [Philippians 3:7-14 NRSV]

For Paul,
 he desperately needs the church to hear
  that all of the qualifications, though impressive,
   all of the work, though strenuous,
    all of the striving, though sincere,
     was, in the end, not nearly as important
      as Paul's revelation that Jesus Christ had already made Paul his own son.

The Lord Most High had already been moving toward Paul,
 not the other way around,
  for even while Paul was still an enemy of Christ,
   even while Paul was hunting down followers
    to put them to death,
     Christ died for Paul first,
      so that Paul might come to the fullness of life
       in Jesus
        regardless of qualification, heredity, or effort.

Paul was God's own son already.
 Regardless of Paul's outward worthiness.

III.

Friends in Christ,
 if you struggle with trying to make yourself perfect,
  whether that drive be because of your own anxiety,
   or fear of what others think about you,
    or fear of whether God approves of you,
     if you don't hear anything else I say this morning,
      please hear this:

No matter what you have done in your past,
 no matter how much pressure you put on yourself to be perfect,
  no matter how much blood and sweat you have spent in trying to attain worthiness...

Jesus Christ has already made you his
 through his sacrificial death on the cross: for you.
  His resurrection of the dead: for your eternal life.
   And Jesus did this for you
    before you ever even knew his name.

I think there are so many people today
 who only see their worth as what they make of themselves.
  How many times does our culture tell you that you are only worth
   how much you work?
    Or only worth how much you contribute?

You need to hear,
 whether it be from me,
  or from St. Paul
   of from Jesus Christ,
    you need to hear this:

You are made in the imago Dei
  the image of God
   and life in Christ is freely, un-earnedly, open to you who joyfully choose to follow
    regardless of how perfect or imperfect you are.

That is why we practice repentance and return in Lent.
 Not because Lenten disciplines make us worthy,
  but because our Lenten disciplines are meant to help us remember
   that we are ALREADY sons and daughters of God
    that are called to joyfully running our races in this life
     in the joy of knowing that we will one day see Our Loving God
      in the resurrection of the dead.

And we run and train,
 not because we have to prove ourselves to God,
  but rather that we are transformed into the image of Christ
   for the good of the world
    and for the salvation of our souls.

God saves people every day who are like Saul,
 zealot of his understanding of the Holy Scriptures
  and persecutor of the Church of Jesus Christ.

God saves people everyday who are like me,
 the kid whose worth was completely determined
  by how perfect I could make myself seem,
   even while my imperfections ate me from the inside.

God saves people.
 Everyday.
  Regardless of what we do,
   of who we think we are,
    or of how much we think we are worth.

Even when we didn't even know Jesus's name
 he had already made us,
  ALL of us,
   his own sons and daughters already.

Because it's all about Jesus, y'all.
 It's all about Jesus.

In the name of the +Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.