Philippians 3: 4b-14; Matthew 21: 33-end
I’ve actually got a text for this sermon! It’s from the Epistle, where Paul is writing to his close friends, the Christians in the Roman City of Philippi. The Text is,
“This is one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus”.
“Forgetting what lies behind and straining to what lies ahead.”
But first, just a brief word about the Gospel, the parable of the vineyard. The vineyard is Israel. The tenants are the leaders of the Jews and the slaves are the prophets who in the past tried to bring the Israelites back to God or show them the right way forward. But they were often persecuted or killed. Jeremiah, for example, was thrown into a pit and left to die, rescued by an Ethiopian. Finally, God sends his son, Jesus and again not only do the leaders reject him but kill him.
So, what happens to Israel? Well, as you know, in AD 70 Jerusalem was sacked by the Romans and their temple torn down. One of the most moving sights when I was in Jerusalem was a huge block of great stones lying in a street that would have been walked by Jesus. It was part of the temple destroyed by the Romans. Not all Jews rejected Jesus, of course, but scribes and many leaders of the Pharisees and Sadducees combined to crucify him so the vineyard was given to the church which contained both Jews and Gentiles.
To go back to Paul. At the beginning of the passage, he is at pains to point out that he truly was a Jew. I find it fascinating that God manages to choose a person who was steeped in the Jewish tradition fulfilling utterly and completely the principles of the Jewish faith. Paul was a member of the elite of the elite tribes, Benjamin. He was a Pharisee, one of the most devoted sects of the Jews. He doesn’t mention this in this passage but does elsewhere, a pupil of Gamaliel, the leading Jewish teacher of the day. Could anyone be more qualified in knowing what it meant to be a Jew.
But that didn’t bring him into a right relationship with God - he simply couldn’t keep the whole of the law no matter how hard he tried. But so great was his devotion to God that he persecuted the Christians thinking they were trying to destroy the Jewish faith. And it was this devotion to God, I believe, that enabled Jesus to bring him into a living faith realising that the only way to come to God, to be in a right relationship with God, was to know Jesus and accept what he has done for all of us on the cross. And so he forsakes all of the past. Heaven knows what that must have meant for him - ostracised by all his former friends, under sentence of death by the Jewish leaders just as Jesus was. A huge sacrifice, the giving up of the past.
But then he goes on to say - and this is where it really gets to us both as a church and as individual Christians, “straining forward to what lies ahead”. The Greek word for “straining forward” together with the Greek word for “prize” are the words used for runners in athletics. Just picture the Olympics 800 metres with a tight finish. The athletes straining forwards, almost clawing the air, bending desperately trying to reach the tape first. That is St. Paul’s attitude to attaining the prize. And the prize is to fulfil God’s call in Christ Jesus. I’ll come back to that in a minute.
So what does forgetting what lies behind and string forward to what lies ahead mean for the church? It doesn’t mean rejecting our heritage of worshipping our Lord Jesus Christ - I love some of the old hymns written by deeply committed Christians of long ago and so joining in their worship. But it does mean rejecting wrong or out of date expressions of Christianity. The Reformation is an example of that where the church had got into the habit of set formulas, indulgences, automatic confessions, a Latin Mass which people could not understand and so on. The Church had to get back to Jesus and his teaching.
And I believe we are going through a similar time now. Many still hang on to old traditions that are not right for today’s Christians. Forgive me for the expression but it drives me up the wall when the Archbishops have a programme entitled “Thy Kingdom come”. To use the word “THY” is theological, historical and sociologically wrong betraying those great Christians in the past who worked hard to put the prayers and language into the kind of English people used at the time. The traditional Lord’s Prayer with its archaic English, is not, today, a translation of what Jesus actually said for he taught his listeners the Lord’s Prayer in their common language, Aramaic, and not the traditional Hebrew. This is just one example - there are others where Church finds it hard to forget “what lies behind.” But, thank God, there are many examples of the church straining to discover and follow what lies ahead. And just to bring it right down to earth in this Benefice, what if the new Rector wants you to adopt new practices. Will you, if they seem to fit in with what Jesus wants, embrace them?
Finally, what about ourselves “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead”. This is really hard. It was alright for Paul, travelling to different places, speaking with great enthusiasm to people in synagogues and market places, proclaiming the new message of the cross and resurrection of Jesus. It was alright for John Wesley, getting up at five in the morning to pray and then speaking to huge audiences. But for us, getting on with the chores at home, dealing with work and family, simply leading just ordinary live? We aren’t St. Paul, we aren’t John Wesley, we are simply humble Christians trying to do as best we can. Can we really strain forward to accept the prize, like athletes, the prize of obeying the call of God in Jesus Christ? What does it really mean for me, for you?
Frankly, I am still trying to work it out for myself. But perhaps I can suggest two things which you probably already do. The first is to realise deep down that Jesus is the only person who makes sense of this world despite all the problems facing us. Realise deep down in your hearts - Jesus is the centre of all things. All acts of love by non-Christians as well as Christians are hugely important but what we do this Sunday is the most important event in the village. We, although only a few, keep alive the worship of God and the adoration of Jesus in this place.
And the second is to realise the huge importance of your prayers. I don’t know if you sometimes think, as I do, are my prayers much good in the face of all that’s going on? But Jesus prayed and taught us to pray so keep at it. And, again I am sure that many of you do, have a short time of silence - or longer if that is your gift - simply remembering that Jesus is with you. And put the silence into his hands for Him to do as he wishes.
Amen.