Philippians 3:17-21
March 15
David A. Davis
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A few weeks ago, I led a webinar for Presbyterian pastors in Ohio and Michigan on preaching on the occasion of the celebration of baptism and communion. The title was Preaching Between Font and Table. You can guess that the content was designed to encourage preachers to engage the imagery and theology of the sacraments in their sermons. To see the sermon as an opportunity for teaching the congregation more about the sacraments and to see the sacraments as a means of deepening the congregation’s engagement and participation in the proclamation of the word. At one point during some questions and answers, an older pastor shared that he was serving a small congregation in farm country about an hour from Columbus, OH. “Dave, I appreciate your invitation and challenge to us to use the sacraments more as a tool for preaching. But it is a real challenge in my context.” He went on to share that he couldn’t remember the last time they celebrated a baptism. As I thought with gratitude about how often we gather at the fount here at Nassau Church, I tried to offer a word of encouragement and suggested a baby-less baptismal sermon or a “remember your baptism and rejoice” sermon because the sacrament of baptism is such an important sign for us, a gift of grace, in our life in Christ.

April’s baptism this morning is indeed a celebration for Shawn and Allegra and their entire family. But it is a celebration, a sign, and a seal, for all of us. A sign and seal for all of us every time we gather here. In the Reformed theological tradition, we believe that at our baptism we are ordained to the priesthood of all believers. St. Augustine wrote that the sacraments are “a visible sign of an invisible grace.” The Reformer John Calvin wrote that the sacraments are “an outward sign by which the Lord seals on our consciences the promises of God’s good will toward us.” A visible, outward sign of God’s unending grace poured out. Baptism is a visible mark that we belong body and soul forever to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. A sign that drips with the love of God that nothing and no one will ever be able to take away from us. Baptism is a sign that God will walk with April all the days of her life, that the invisible grace and the presence of the Holy Spirit will go with her. It is a once and future sign for all the baptized that leans into the very resurrection promise of God. The waters of baptism. A sign that our citizenship is in heaven.

Philippians 3:17-21

New Testament scholar Matt Novenson, teaching Philippians 3 here this morning, shared with me over lunch this week that the use of the Greek word for “citizenship” is unique to Paul here in Philippians. Paul uses the word earlier in the first chapter: “Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ”.  Live your life as a citizen worthy of the gospel of Christ. Citizenship. An uncommon word in the Greek New Testament and an uncommon word in the letter of Paul. Matt suggested that, as Philippi was a colony of Rome, the use of the term, the contrast, the play on words would not have been lost on the Philippian Christians in receipt of Paul’s letter. Perhaps, akin to the question of the psalmist, “how could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Ps 137). Or the priestly prayer of Jesus in the Gospel of John. “I have given them your word”, Jesus prayed, “and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world” (Jn 17:14). Or Paul in Romans 12. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what the will of God is- what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom 12:2). “Our citizenship is heaven”, Paul writes to the church in Philippi.

If you grew up in a church, or were in a youth group, or went to a retreat where the common practice was to underline important verses, verses that struck you, verses emphasized by the preacher or keynote speaker, verses to memorize, pretty much all of chapter 3 would be underlined in your bible. Paul on his yearning “to know Christ and the power of his resurrection”. Paul on the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Paul on pressing on and forgetting what lies behind. Paul on the prize of the heavenly call of God in Jesus Christ and being of the same mind and holding on to what we have attained in and through Jesus Christ, who has made us his own! And as the glorious rhetoric that sings of the tremendous, unmerited gift of our life in Christ echoes off the walls of Philippians, chapter 3, Paul reminds the Philippian Christians, those who take the name of Christian, the church, and you and me that the tremendous, unmeritied gift of the Risen Christ making us his own makes a difference in how we live our lives. Paul exhorts the Philippian Christians, those who take the name of Christian, the church, and you and me,  to believe and so live because our citizenship is in heaven.

Years ago, a colleague who was serving at the time as the pastor of the Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church in Annapolis was proud to show a group of us the new sanctuary that had only been finished a year or so before our visit. Being there in Annapolis, one can imagine there were some nautical features to the architecture. There was also a columbarium in the rear wall of the sanctuary, celebrating the presence of the great cloud of witnesses, the communion of saints, the pastor explained. What he was most pleased to show us was the baptismal fount. The rather large fount was in the center of the center aisle, right at the second pew. As we gathered around the fount, he invited us to look down. The fount was bolted to the floor with several very large bolts. That fount isn’t going anywhere. “Now, when a bride and groom ask me to move the fount for their wedding, I can say, ‘Sorry, I really can’t.’” He went on to ask us, “Is there a more important day to remember your baptism than when you are making your solemn vows to one another?” Before God and these witnesses, beginning life together and affirm that our citizenship is in heaven.

It is striking to me that when it comes to this heavenly citizenship, Paul doesn’t go to great lengths to describe the life of discipleship here. There is no list of the fruit of the Spirit. That’s Galatians. No reference to the gifts of the Spirit. That’s Ephesians. No exultation to love. That’s Corinthians. No, bound by the chains of the empire, Paul, writing from prison, chooses to warn the Philippians about the many “who live as the enemy of the cross of Christ.” Paul doesn’t identify the enemies of the cross of Christ. But I am guessing that, sort of like his use of the word “citizenship”, the Philippian Christians living under the reign of the Roman empire know exactly who Paul is referring to. He didn’t have to be specific. “I have told you about them before, many times. Now I tell you through tears.” Paul chooses to point to what must be obvious to the followers of the Risen Christ in Philippi. “Their end is destruction, their god is the belly; and their glory is their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.” But…but no. Not us. Not you. Not the disciples of the Lord Jesus. “Our citizenship is in heaven.” We cling to our heavenly citizenship and press on, wanting to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. Believing that he has the power to make us and this old world a new creation. With that power, he works to bring all things subject not to the whims of the emperor and the evil of the empire, but to himself, the One who sees visions of a kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven.

Baptism is a sign of that kingdom. The kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven. The kingdom Jesus announced in Luke after he stood up to read from the scroll of Isaiah. “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” he said as all the eyes of those who listened were fixed on him. Baptism is an outward sign of the kingdom of God. The coming kingdom, the prophets proclaimed. “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Is 2).  You know it as well as I do. Every time we come to these waters and splash in the waters of the invisible grace of God, every time we look into the face of a beloved child of God, there is an unspoken, yet fervent prayer that the world will be a better place for the one baptized. That Paul’s more excellent way of love will wash over the world, and those whose citizenship is in heaven will, by God’s grace and the gift of the Holy Spirit, be the hands and feet of Christ in making this old, broken world a new one. Standing with one hand in the waters of the matchless grace of Jesus and with the other anointing the creation God called good with the faithfulness of our lives. Our citizenship is in heaven!

That same group of pastors around the fount at Woods Memorial were again around a fount, probably a decade later. This one was in the sanctuary of the Pinnacle Presbyterian Church in Scottsdale, Arizona. The architecture of the Pinnacle Church also reflects its surroundings in the desert landscape of the southwest. The sanctuary organ is to the front and right of the chancel. Floor-to-ceiling windows are behind the chancel, the table, the pulpit, and the lectern. Outside the windows, there is a dry stream bed, a wadi that runs alongside the church. The baptismal fount is on the front left, and the design is intended to provide the sense that the wadi flows into the fount. It doesn’t, of course. The fount is self-contained with water running into the fount. A pump keeps it running most of the time. Think fountain and hot tub kind of arrangement. It is very striking. Though when we were there, the pastor shared that the fount had been leaking despite several attempts to fix it. We could see the water leaking out at the base near our feet onto the stone floor of the nave of the sanctuary, with a little stream forming toward the pews.

It occurred to me then, and it occurs to me now, that it is not a bad image, really. A fount that leaks with the waters of baptism, the waters that are a visible sign of God’s invisible grace. A fount that leaks toward the body of Christ, called by Jesus and sent by Jesus out into the world. That in and through the disciples of Jesus, the baptismal waters leak into the world. Not just with a little stream but with an everflowing stream; the waters of justice and the streams of righteousness. April, you and me. Signed and sealed by the grace, the love, the resurrection promise, and the salvation of our God in and through Jesus Christ.

You whose citizenship is heaven, remember your baptism and rejoice.

Philippians 2:19-30
March 8
David A. Davis
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The second half of the second chapter of the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians reads like the announcements in a service of worship. First comes a soaring opening hymn that trumpets the cross of Christ and the divine exaltation of Christ. “In the cross of Christ I glory, towering o’er the wrecks of time, all the light of sacred story, gathers round its head sublime.” The congregation gathers in God’s name and through song and prayer offers praise and adoration to God in and through Jesus Christ, the glorified Son of God, the radiant Savior of the world. The people of God acknowledge and confess who they are, whose they are, and to whom they belong. And right there and then, in the flow of the sacred rhythm of worship on the Lord’s Day, sometime before scripture is read and the word is proclaimed and the sacraments are celebrated, sometime early on in the correspondence that is the Sunday morning liturgy; liturgy understood as the work of the people, sometime after a rousing hymn to Christ that everyone knows and everyone remembers, someone stands up and makes the announcement about the Sunday night potluck supper, or tells of the guest speaker coming in a week or so to share their own faith journey, or introduces a Moment of Mission, or shares the news about birth and death in the community of faith.

“I hope in the Lord Jesus”,  Paul writes, “to send Timothy to you soon, so that I may be cheered by news of you….and I trust in the Lord that I will also come soon…Still, I think it is necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and co-worker and fellow soldier, your messenger and minister to my need.”

Timothy and Epaphroditus. Timothy. It is like a son working with a father in the work of the gospel, Paul says. “No one will be more genuinely concerned for you and your welfare.” Epaphroditus, brother, co-worker, fellow soldier, minister to his need. Paul calls him the messenger of the church at Philippi. Other translations say “representative,” but the Greek word is apostle. Epaphroditus, your apostle. The readers of scripture never learn anything more about Epaphroditus. He leaves the bible stage never to come back. But Paul calls him an apostle. “He wants to see you because he knows you have heard how sick he was. He was so sick he almost died, but he wants to come and let you know he is okay. God had mercy. You can imagine my grief if he died. Like me, he “came close to death for the work of Christ.” “Welcome him then in the Lord with all joy, and honor such people.” Honor such people. Honor people like Epaphroditus. Honor Epaphroditus,

After “let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” After “he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave….being found in human form, he humbled himself  and became obedient to the point of death.” After “God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.’ Not long after THAT, Paul, writing from prison, writing in chains, extoling the glorified Risen Christ, Paul says to the church at Philippi, “let me tell you about Timothy and Epaphroditus. You should honor people like them.

Professor Dan Migliore taught at Princeton Seminary and worshipped in these pews as a part of the Nassau Church community of faith for more than fifty years. Dan died this week, surrounded by those who loved him most. Just a few weeks ago, Dan told me that he taught more than 4,000 students at the seminary in the Introduction to Theology class alone. It is impossible to quantify the impact of Dan Migliore on the church of Jesus Christ through his teaching of generations of pastors, including me. Two weeks ago, as I was working on my sermon, I pulled a commentary on Philemon and Philippians off my shelf. The author of the commentary is Dr. Migliore. To give you a glimpse of the privilege and honor of my ministry here at Nassau, the book is inscribed. “For Dave Davis, dear friend, valued colleague in ministry, and faithful preacher of the Word of God. Dan Migliore September 19, 2014”.

It is indeed fitting this week, as Dan Migliore joins the Church Triumphant, to draw upon his faith to help us seek understanding when it comes to this rather jarring transition in Philippians 2. Here in one chapter, from the glorious rhetoric and poetry that proclaims the self-emptying of Jesus as servant and exalts Christ as Lord of all, to the church newsletter. Yes, a disconnected, even disorienting move that leaves the reader wanting to just read on and pay little attention to Timothy and Epaphroditus.

Allow me to let my friend Dan have the ah-ha moment of the sermon. May his memory be a blessing. To this exact conundrum in the last part the second chapter, offering his take on Paul turning to Timothy and Epaphroditus, Dan writes “As we have emphasized repeatedly, there cannot be the least doubt that, for Paul, what Christ did in emptying himself and becoming obedient even to death on the cross stands far about any acts of humility, love, service, and sacrifice on the part of his disciples. Christ is the supreme example because he is also and exclusively our Savior. Yet the free grace of God in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit enables his followers to participate and bear witness to-sometimes a costly witness to- his work….For Paul, he concludes, “an analogy can be discerned between the way of the Savior and the way of his faithful servants….No more than an analogy! No more than a faint resemblance.”

In other words, in Timothy’s faithful work of the gospel alongside the Apostle Paul, and in Epaphroditus’ care for the prisoner, his looking not to his own interest but to the interest of others, there is a glimpse, a whiff, an echo of the work of Christ. A Christ-like witness in the mundane, yet holy, in the ordinary, yet extraordinary, in the nitty gritty but actually profound aspects of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, the self-emptied exalted Son of God. That by his grace, his grace alone, you and I are called to be Christ-like to one another. Or as the hymnwriter puts it, “Will you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you? Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too”.

“If, then, there is any comfort in Christ, any consolation from love, any partnership in the Spirit, any tender affection and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty 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”.  You don’t need me or any preacher to tell you how absolutely, positively, literally, how counter-cultural, other-worldly, hard to find anywhere in the public square that such Christ-like behavior is today. What is also of note here in Philippians 2, according to the biblical witness, we’re not talking about Martin Luther, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or Martin Luther King, or Mother Theresa, or some other saint or martyr or giant in the church’s history; the history of the Christian witness. Yes, Timothy is the recipient of a few biblical letters, and Epaphroditus is not mentioned anywhere else. So on the bible’s scale, they are minor characters at best. Epaphroditus and Timothy. “Honor such people.”

During the program year of 2005-06, Nassau Presbyterian Church and Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church joined together to celebrate 250 years of Presbyterianism in Princeton. We had opening and closing worship in McCarter Theater, four banners were made that rotate 2 by 2 between the two congregations, other celebrations took place, and there was a series of academic lectures on the history that were then published in the Journey of Presbyterian History. Professor Jim Moorhead, who was a student of Dr. Migliore, then taught alongside him for decades. Dr. Moorhead’s lecture was about Presbyterians in Princeton and at the Seminary in the 1920’s. One line in that lecture I have carried with me and returned to on more than one occasion. As he spoke about the blistering theological debates of the time and the iron fist of Jim Crow at its height, Professor Moorhead asked what impact it all had on the two congregations. “Part of the charm of congregational life,” he said, “is that through its enduring patterns of worship and devotion, it allows people to look beyond temporary issues and connect them with the rhythms of the eternal.”

My takeaway from Jim’s line, why I carry it with me, is not that congregations ignore the complexities, the challenges, the head-spinning and head-splitting impact the world brings, and stick heads into some kind of naïve religious sand. No, quite the opposite. I take Dr. Moorhead, who, along with Dr. Migliore, spent their careers not just as academics, but as Drs of the church. My takeaway is that when disciples in the Body of Christ face the complexities, the challenges, the head-spinning, head-splitting impact the world brings, as the church raises its prophetic voice and as Christians seek to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God, all in big steps and little steps, the church is still the church. And the ingrained patterns of congregational life by God’s grace and in the power of the Holy Spirit, hold each of us closer to the heart of God. When war is once again unleashed, or maybe better said, when wars never cease, and masked federal agents roam the streets, and our neighbors are frightened, and the lines at food pantries, including the one downstairs, are pretty much out the door, and the idolatry of gun violence and the Second Amendment never lessens, the church still does church. We still take food to a family sitting vigil at the bedside of a dying loved one. We still bury our dear. We still baptize our children and teach them to love their neighbor and to sing about Jesus. We still gather to praise and to pray and to yes, rejoice. We still yearn to look not to our own interests but to the interests of others. We still look, by the grace and power of Christ the Lord of all, to somehow be Christ-like to one another and in the world. “Honor such people”, Paul wrote.

Every now and then, on a Sunday morning, on some occasions, at coffee hour between services, we have what we call around the church office, “an expanded coffee hour.” Jose Cintron prepares special food beyond our normal coffee hour fare. You may not know this, but during the first service, from where I sit here in the chancel, as Jose is cooking, the appetizing, enticing aroma wafts in just a bit. Just a whiff. I might be the only one who can smell it. Just a whiff. Just the slightest resemblance, Dr Migliore wrote, the slightest resemblance in our Christ-like witness to Christ himself, the self-emptied, exalted Savior and Lord. Just a whiff.  Not just every now and then, but every Sunday, every Sunday, I sit there, and I stand here, and I look out at you, and I get just the slightest glimpse, a bit of a wiff, the faintest echo of Jesus himself. And I have to tell you, it is very much a part, you are very much a part of what holds me close to the heart of God.