SCRIPTURE: Philippians 3:4b-14
TEXT: 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, THEME: A paradigm shift creates different actions. INTRODUCTION For Lent, I am taking verbs as titles of the sermons about Living what we believe: the first was beloving, then imitating, followed by imagining, creating and today Doing or Becoming. We don’t always do what we have discover as the best way to be. Will Smith seems to aspire to high standards, but at the Academy Awards, he fell short of being his best. To garner laughter, jokes can cross boundaries of truth and strike raw nerves at the expense of others. The difficulties the Smith family has been dealing with alopecia is a hurtful subject. Chris Rock’s words were hurtful, and Will Smith took his power, fame, position, to hurt back. Primal but not the best self he is trying to aspire to be. He took to violence instead of words. He crossed a line. He testified to violence and a righteous anger that upon reflection was vengeful, blind to the setting he was in, and displayed an example he wouldn’t want anyone to copy. He also poorly represented two of the most notable black actors in the worst possible light. After thinking about what he had done, he apologized to the Academy, the audience, and his fellow actors. It took a few more day before he apologized to Chris Rock. And now he has decided to resign as a member of the academy and is willing to accept any disciplinary action the academy might take. If he had thought about all of these things before, he acted, he would have chosen to do things differently. We know this, because we don’t always behave the way we wished we had. After we have had time to think about what we have done, the damage we have caused and how all of this could have been avoided if we had self-control and thought about how we chose to respond instead of reacting. The very simplest of Christian values to turn the other cheek and to forgive were buried deep instead of on the surface. We are all in process. SCRIPTURE This is what Paul seems to be addressing in this passage. For the first part of his life, he understood himself and God through the lens of his Heritage, ancestors, wrathful God and the Law. He became a Parasitic Lawyer. He took on the role of prosecutor, judge, jury, and sheriff against these proponents of a false Christ. Until he had a theological paradigm shift, the resurrected Jesus appeared to him, on his way to Damascus. Jesus’ resurrection is real. This made all of the other statements Jesus made true, including being the Christ, the son of God and the forgiveness of sin. Righteousness then is not self-achieved but given lovingly just by God loving us. And how do we win God’s love? We don’t, it is already freely given, as God values us and wants us to live in relationship with God as displayed in the loving act of having Jesus incarnate in flesh and blood. What Paul has learned about God through Jesus has shifted his paradigm. He used to think about a wrathful God who punished us when we broke the Law. But now he sees a God who takes on our good flesh and our good blood and shows us a righteousness that is found in a love that draws us into relationship with God’s self, where forgiveness is found. He used to think that we had to be good enough for God to accept us and so we had to earn God’s approval though acts of righteousness. Paul now sees through Jesus that righteousness is a gracious gift given so we can fellowship with God. Paul is in process contrary to the notion that one had to check all of the religious boxes to become good enough. Our relationships with God begin with faith and is a journey not a final destination. APPLICATION A relationship is not passive but is always moving. What do we do when how we act is not how we would like to be? The Bible is a really interesting book because, it is not a record of one success to accomplishment to victory to Nirvana. But it is more like the “I Love Lucy Show” where any possible mishap, misconception, embarrassment, under and over estimation could takes place, causing a strain on the Ricardo’s relationship, giving birth to live, laughter, joy and love. We the viewer are like the audience of the Bible, watching this wonderful creation live out their lives. We are invested emotionally and spiritually into the characters as we hope, dream and wish the best for them. Sometimes their ego, selfishness and poor communication skills get in the way. But somehow, they always work through their problems and come out on the other side with each other. Certainly, their relationship was in process. We begin with an inkling of faith that God or Jesus is real and this launches our relationship with God. We discover, learn, test, pray, worship and check and balance what rings true to our heart. We wrestle with God’s ways over our own. We try both and find wisdom and maturity in God’s ways. We want to be like Jesus but find it impossible to live like that all of the time, because our pride, hurt, ego, selfishness, fear and humanness get in the way. We are better at it now than when we first began but we are not done yet. Perfection is not a thing but living engaged with Jesus is. CONCLUSION I don’t condone Will Smith slapping Chris Rock for something he said about his wife at the Oscars. I think Chris Rock also took it too far for a joke. But just because we feel offended and hurt it doesn’t mean that we go out and hurt someone back. There have been times when I have felt so frustrated and angry at those who want to control and regulate a process instead of do what is right. I have not hit anyone, although I have felt like it. I realize I still have to work with these people, and not being able to be in the room as part of the decision-making process would be worst. We are all in process of becoming better version of ourselves with God, and there are times, for whatever reason when we are not at our best. All we can do is to admit our contribution to the problem. Ask for forgiveness for what we have done and take actions to correct the situation and change our behavior so we don’t find ourselves in that situation again. We may have to do this several times before we get it right. That is part of the process of how we can take what we know about God and be it, by doing.
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