Sunday, October 1, 2023
/Proper 21
Exodus 17: 1-7, Psalm 78: 1-4, 12-16; Philippians 2: 1-13; Matthew 21: 23-32
The Rev. James M.L. Grace
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
Worst sermon introduction ever – are you ready? I have two sermons to give today. Even worse, the first sermon is on stewardship! Good news is that it is short. Sermon #2 today will be on our reading from Philippians.
Sermon #1 – Stewardship (this sermon has four points): today is the kick-off of our six week stewardship campaign “Come Together.” Jennifer Perry, this years stewardship chair, will have more to say about that in a few moments.
1. Our pledge goal this year is $815,000 – that’s a 5% increase over last year. Why the increase? As previous treasurer and Sr. Warden Greg Caudell often said, “nothing is getting cheaper.” Here are two examples:
Our annual Diocesan assessment St. Andrew’s pays (that’s the money St. Andrew’s and all other parishes pay to keep the Diocese running) will be $51,550 – that is a 16% increase of 16% over what was paid last year by this parish.
Our church property, casualty, and liability insurance premiums will increase 23% next year. Nothing is getting cheaper!
2. Here is the good news: As of this morning, we have received 15 pledges for next year already. My family – we have made our pledge this year, and we have increased it by 5% for 2024
3. I am asking each of you to prayerfully consider doing the same: increasing your pledge by 5% this year. Some of you may be able to do more, perhaps some less.
4. Last year our pledge goal was $775,000. We exceeded that goal last year, by the way, receiving $798,000 in pledges. We know how to do hard things at St. Andrew’s. We have demonstrated our strength and resilience year over year. I believe we will demonstrate that yet again. End of my stewardship sermon, now onto Philippians.
Today we hear part of a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to a church he had founded in Phillipi, a rather small city of 10,000 people, about the size of Fort Stockton, Texas. Paul established this church in Philippi around the year 50 CE, about twenty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Paul likely wrote this letter to the Philippian church some five to ten years after its founding. If you read the first chapter of this letter, it is obvious that Paul is writing from prison, he is in jail. Scholars aren’t sure exactly which prison Paul was writing from - was it Harris County, LA County, Rome, Ephesus? Sadly, the data from the ankle monitor Paul wore two thousand years is a little spotty. Ephesus (in modern day Turkey) or (my belief) Rome are the most likely places where Paul might have written Philippians.
Wherever Paul wrote this letter from, his language is strong, direct, provocative: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” It should not be lost on any of us, that Paul wrote those words within a prison cell. If it were you or me in prison, would we have the spiritual depth to be able to write the same?
Within the reading from Philippians today Paul inserts a hymn or poem of some sort (you can see this in the part of the reading that looks like a poem). Whether this poem or hymn was authored by Paul or someone else is – again – open to debate, though Biblical scholars do agree that Paul is not quoting Taylor Swift here.
The words of this poem or hymn are some of the most well known by Paul and they are arguably the most influential. In sum, these verses paint the story of Christ’s voluntary humiliation, as he “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness…he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.” Powerful words here. Jesus reveals himself through his gracious action – in his refusal to exploit his divine status and instead totally emptying himself in self-humiliation and obedience to the point of death.
It is this willingness of Jesus, this emptying of himself on our behalf, that exalts him above every other name so that at his name, and his alone, every knee should bend. How many of us, when we pray, bend our knees, kneeling on the ground? I’m not talking about Sundays in church. I am talking about every other day of the week. How often do you get on your knees? Kneeling when you pray is humbling, and if your knees are wobbly or older, it might hurt a little. Not necessarily a bad thing – perhaps our prayers should hurt a little. Because pain, humiliation, and obedience are some of the ingredients that not only made Jesus and Paul holy, they will make you holy, as well. AMEN.