April 4, 2001

"I've never been in a situation like this," said Carolyn Johnson, a 73 year old widow looking at what remained of her house, her home: the foundation slab covered with the mud and the muck of the receding waters of a most devasting flood. Shaking her head she finished her thought: "Everything I had in the world was in that house. I don't have anything but Jesus now." (1)

Saul of Tarsus was in the same spot as he picked himself up off the road to Damascus. Everything he had in the whole world was wiped out in the flood of the love of Jesus that knocked him down on the road. All he had was Jesus when he got himself up. As he was led into Damascus, as he was healed of his blindness, as he learned of the great gift he had been given, he discovered just how much it meant to have nothing but Jesus.

Travel back almost 2000 years. Paul, the Apostle is writing his letter to the Philippians from his jail cell. There he is, over there. Yes, they've locked him up. He's on his way to Rome, to appeal his death sentence to Ceaser (yes, he's an odd combination, a Jew who is a Roman citizen). You heard part of his letter this morning. You heard that with his experiences since his conversion he views things differently. Here is what he wrote just before the verses we heard this morning:

We put no confidence in human effort. Instead, we boast about what Christ Jesus has done for us.

Yet I could have confidence in myself if anyone could. If others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more! For I was circumcised when I was eight days old, having been born into a pure-blooded Jewish family that is a branch of the tribe of Benjamin. So I am a real Jew if there ever was one! What's more, I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. And zealous? Yes, in fact, I harshly persecuted the church. And I obeyed the Jewish law so carefully that I was never accused of any fault.

I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. (Phil 3:3b-7, New Living Translation)

And Paul concludes: More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. (Phil 3:8, NRSV)

Nearer to home, nearer to now, let me share a poem from 1985. As you will hear it is a poem about knowing and not knowing Jesus. To clue you in a little, it is a poem written by the parents of a child going to Vacation Bible School.

At the Smithville Methodist Church

It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week, but when she came home with the "Jesus Saves" button, we knew what art was up, what ancient craft.

She liked her little friends. She liked the songs they sang when they weren't twisting and folding paper into dolls. What could be so bad?

Jesus had been a good man, and putting faith in good men was what we had to do to stay this side of cynicism, that other sadness.

OK, we said. One week. But when she came home singing "Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so," it was time to talk.

Could we say Jesus doesn't love you? Could I tell her the Bible is a great book certain people use to make you feel bad? We sent her back without a word.

It had been so long since we believed, so long since we needed Jesus as our nemesis and friend, that we thought he was sufficiently dead,

that our children would think of him like Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson. Soon it became clear to us: you can't teach disbelief to a child,

only wonderful stories, and we hadn't a story nearly as good. On parents night there were the Arts & Crafts all spread out

like appetizers. Then we took our seats in the church and the children sang a song about the Ark, and Hallelujah

and one in which they had to jump up and down for Jesus. I can't remember ever feeling so uncertain about what's comic, what's serious.

Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes. You can't say to your child "Evolution loves you." The story stinks of extinction and nothing

exciting happens for centuries. I didn't have a wonderful story for my child and she was beaming. All the way home in the car she sang the songs,

occasionally standing up for Jesus. There was nothing to do but drive, ride it out, sing along in silence. (3)

An old woman, a proud man (battered and imprisoned and filled with joy), a child and her parents, knowing Christ. It is a rich tapestry in front of us this morning. Overlay the Gospel story, the season of Lent as it rapidly approaches Holy Week, betrayal, passion, and death and we are given much to consider in the coming week.

If you take the words of Paul and the parable of Jesus they can also be the end points of a continuum of knowing God's love and God's desire to enter into covenant with us. On the one end, violence and destruction as a son is killed for property, the covenant is rejected and there is a foolish gloating. On the other end, a passionate assertion that "everything . . . is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus. . . ." (Phil 3:8, New Living Translation)

Knowing Christ, for Paul, was about experiencing Christ, about feeling salvation from the inside out, about encountering Christ—both in his suffering and in his glory—in the world, it was never limited to some intellectual enterprise or exercise. Carefully note that Paul boasts in knowing Christ; he does not boast in knowing about Christ. It is an important distinction. Our parish mission is, in its first part, "To know Christ . . . ," rather than to know about Christ. We want to know Christ as Paul did, with the intimacy of a friend; knowing about Christ, as a historian might, is interesting, but not life-changing. We want to know Christ as Paul did.

What's the difference—to know about or to know? Imagine yourself singing the hymn Amazing Grace composed by John Newton. You can know about grace and you can read the words of the hymn and follow the melody and it will sound like the hymn and you may be pleased, but you won't be moved. On the other hand, if you have tasted that grace, if you have experienced that grace, if you know that grace, as did John Newton, the song carries you to places of pain and joy, places of discomfort and comfort, your tears are of both sadness and joy. That is the difference between knowing about grace, and knowing grace; or knowing about Jesus, and knowing Jesus.

We want this to be a place where you can know Jesus. We want our various ministries to create ways to encounter Christ. We want to be a people who, with Paul, can take the best and the worst moments of life in stride in the calm assurance that nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God come to us in Christ Jesus. We want to be a people who, with Paul, count everything else as worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus.

Wow. To count everything as worthless, everything else as garbage and easily discarded because you know Christ Jesus. Wow. Believe me when I say that I am still making the transition from knowing about Jesus to knowing Jesus. I haven't yet acquired the passion of Paul for knowing Christ and making him known, but I'm on my way. I am not quite as innocent and wholehearted in my faith as that little girl, standing up for Jesus, but I'm on my way. And, as I make this transition, I look around me and I see—you. I see you are making the journey with me. You and I are pilgrims together, I love having company.

Continue with me on the journey to know, to really know Christ. Continue with me on the journey and help me make Christ known and invite others to join us in knowing Christ, and making Christ known. Continue with me to let go of the things of this world that weigh us down and slow us down and distract us. Discover with me the joy that Paul knew. Discover with me the profound and life changing joy that comes in knowing Christ Jesus. Let us together journey to what is priceless. Amen.

The Rev. Daniel Rondeau
drondeau@stmargarets.org
1 April 2001

References

(1) As quoted by Jerelyn Eddings, "Finding Shelter From the Storm in Georgia," U.S. News & World Report, 25 July1994, 8 and shared on the internet at: http://www.homileticsonline.com/Installments/apr0295.htm

(2) From the internet: http://www.homileticsonline.com/Installments/apr0295.htm

(3) Stephen Dunn from The Bread Loaf Anthology of Contemporary Poetry (University Press of New England, 1985) as quoted in Synthesis June 21, 1992