In this Season of Lent, as we mark and follow Christ’s journey to the cross, our Epistle reading this morning, the Second Sunday in Lent, confronts us once more with that persistent question:
What, exactly, is the Christian distinctive? How are we different, if at all, from the broad milieu in which we live, and in which we move; a milieu which relentlessly attempts to define our very being relative to its constantly shifting norms? What is the compass if any, that guides our steps through the perils of this complex world, this milieu that seems to be constantly seeking to disengage us from the Christian distinctive?
Following the course of the reading, I would like for us to frame our approach in two categories: the “enemies of the cross of Christ” and the implicit, unmentioned opposite, the “not-enemies of the cross of Christ”, the target audience of this letter, the Christ-followers at Philippi.
I would also like for us to keep track of an interesting word and phrase in this snippet as read to us today from the Jerusalem Bible: “homeland” in chapter 3 verse 20 and the phrase “do not give way” in chapter 4 verse 1. These two in their original language in the context of the era are key, pregnant with imagery and meaning.
To fully seize the rhetoric of Paul’s letter, let me take you to ancient Philippi.
Rome settled its veterans of two historic wars in Phillippi: the battle of Philippi in 42 BC, when Octavian and Mark Antony defeated Brutus and Cassius; and second, the battle of Actium in 31 BC when Octavian (later, Augustus) defeated Mark Antony.
Rome’s primary artery to the empire’s east, the Via Egnatia, cut across Philippi, a main road heavily used by the Roman army.
Thus, Philippi was a city well aware of Roman military power by virtue of its heritage and its geographical location.
Octavian granted Philippi the legal status of Roman soil itself. It was exempt from taxation, as was Italy itself. The city itself was modeled after Rome in its layout and architecture. Its society was highly and rigidly stratified vertically. At the top were Roman citizens, privileged, wealthy, landed, and the minority. They spoke the official language, Latin, wielding that language as a tool of power and authority over the lower-class Greek-speaking majority of non-citizen inhabitants.
In brief, the Roman citizens of Philippi, the minority, were privileged and wealthy and very well-steeped in their military heritage. They were the top bananas of ancient Philippi. And then there was everyone else — the not-citizens non-elites, the lesser beings, the riff-raff.
Thus, it does not surprise that in his letter to the Philippians, Paul’s rhetoric has thick layers of military and citizenship imagery, designed to evoke pathos in his target audience who treasured and coveted the elevated status of Roman citizenship.
Some of us here would be uneasy with Paul’s allusions to military action and the physical violence that goes with it. And yet, Paul in his text used this unlikely paradigm to bring across to the Philippians, and by extension to us, the nature of life in Christ — the Christian distinctive. How?
As I proposed to you at the beginning, let us frame our approach to the question taking the path of the dichotomy Paul highlighted: the “enemies of the cross of Christ”, in contrast to the unmentioned implicit “not-enemies of the cross of Christ” — the Christians in Philippi.
Who then are the “enemies of the cross of Christ” according to Paul?
Paul’s answer is maddeningly ambiguous. This ambiguity has for centuries till now fed a continuous stream of debate on who they were exactly. (The positive offshoot of this ambiguity is that it provides limitless research and publishing potential to theologians in academia.)
We heard the Jerusalem Bible translation of the original text, that one of the traits of the enemies of the cross of Christ is that “they make their foods into their God.” Who were these people? Were they hedonistic gourmands? Or were they who have placed the observance of religiously strict dietary laws on par with God? Quite real but opposite meanings, wouldn’t you agree? The original text is more expansive. It reads: “Their god is their belly.” What does this even mean? Would it apply to people who so slavishly try to diminish the size of their bellies, or, does it apply to the Renaissance ideals of heft portrayed in Rubens artwork? The very same phrase can refer to the occult — the story in Acts 16:16 of the slave girl in Philippi with a gift of divination called the “python spirit” wherein the state of divination or fortune-telling was called “belly-talking.”
The short answer: we can’t really know from what was written.
Paul goes on with his characterization of the enemies of the cross of Christ as people who are “proudest of something they ought to think shameful” as the Jerusalem Bible renders it. Paul never defines in this letter what he meant by that which is shameful, although it is tempting to connect this to verse 2 beyond the limits of our reading. There he warns his readers to beware of the dogs.
The epithet “dog” was the nickname for a cynic philosopher. The word cynic came from Latin which came from the Greek meaning “dog-like.” Perhaps the most famous cynic in antiquity was Diogenes who lived naked in a ceramic pot in Athens. The cynic attained virtue by being in agreement with nature. Thus, the cynic dispensed himself of all of society’s polite norms and lived like a dog – publicly performing the naked essentials of life whenever and wherever. We might say perhaps then that the cynic is proudest of a way of life that should instead be thought shameful. The original text reads: “Their glory is in their shame.”
But was Paul really thinking of the cynics, or of pagan philosophers in general consumed with thinking out the ideal way to live on earth — earthly things? Perhaps. We will never know.
Perhaps there is meaning to be found in the ambiguity even today. The enemies of the cross of Christ are with us, but we are really not in a position to categorically say who is and who isn’t. We should not even try to do so as judgment belongs to God alone who knows the end from the beginning.
We may not know precisely who the “enemies of the cross of Christ”, but through Paul’s letter, we can learn how the “not-enemies of the cross of Christ” are to live in the broad heterogeneous milieu of this world.
What differentiates Christ-followers from the ambiguous haze that seeks to obscure our vision of the Christian distinctive?
I had asked us to keep track of an important word and a phrase in the text as read: “homeland” in 3:20 and “do not give way” in 4:1. What do they mean, and how do these aid us in articulating the Christian distinctive?
“Do not give way” translated from the word “to stand firm” is an allusion to soldiering. It draws us all the way back to the same word in Chapter 1 verses 27-28, text that gushes forth metaphorical military imagery that would have instantly been understood by the Philippians thoroughly attuned to Roman military might: “standing firm in one spirit, with one soul contending side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not letting yourselves be intimidated in anything by your opponents.” The text conjures the formidable Roman phalanx, soldiers in tight shoulder-to-shoulder formation, creating a massively cohesive unit of deadly unstoppable force, unintimidated by the foe. In a more non-violent setting, it is the aphorism “united we stand, divided we fall.”
Thus, a key Christian distinctive is a unity of vision, of purpose rooted in Christ. The promise is that ever will we stand against the enemies of the cross of Christ when we set aside matters of taste and practice that work against community and cohesion and focus on the common ground under the banner and dominion of the living God.
The second key is “homeland”, translated from the more expansive original word that roughly corresponds to the idea of citizenship. It also alludes to togetherness in a foreign land whilst recognizing allegiance to a commonwealth whose seat of power is at a distance.
Paul states a reality for those who are in Christ: our citizenship is founded on a seat of power that is heavenly, not earthly; eternal, not temporal; secure, not unstable; under the dominion of God, not Nero nor on any of today’s nation states irrespective of their exaggerated claims to authority.
In Philippi where Roman citizenship was the coveted prize unreachable to the non-citizens, Paul wrote of turning away from the world of Caesar to the ethic of Jesus Christ in the far better citizenship in the commonwealth of God Almighty.
My friends, the universal church of Christ is a cohesive community of resident aliens who belong to and are loyal citizens of the commonwealth of heaven under God through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. That, according to Paul in this letter, is the Christian distinctive.
Sometimes and understandably so in this age of decline of the church many are persuaded to seek to find new ways of attracting adherents. Yet the fundamental Christian distinctive is that we answer to an other-worldly standard that operates in a space far more beautiful and magnificent in all its aspects than what the imperfect world can ever hope to muster. We march to a different tune. We are a peculiar people. The secular may dismiss us as antiquated, awkward, and strange in our ethos, but that is just the point. We follow the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We are bound to his cross that which differentiates us from the thick ambiguously indeterminate fog that is the enemies of the cross of Christ.
We do not live by the myriad of survival schemes of this world; we live and move and have our being in the one God revealed to us in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are citizens of the commonwealth of heaven, and our Sovereign is the One Almighty who loves us with an eternal loyal faithful love sealed on the cross.
And dear friends, let us so live.
To God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be all the glory.
