Do You Know Who I Am?

Sermon at St John The Baptist Felixstowe 

Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity –  8 October 2023

Text:  …whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸ More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. (from Philippians 3.4-14)

God give you peace my sisters and brothers.

One of our sons used to work as the Manager of the Cedar’s Hotel in Stowmarket, which like most hotels, had a very busy service on a Sunday.  One particularly busy Sunday the manager of a local professional football clubs (who shall remain nameless) came for lunch and, after he placed his order, Johnathan said to him, ‘Thank you very much sir, I’d just like to let you know that there is a 45-minute wait on food.’  At which the customer drew himself up to his full height and said, ‘Do you know who I am?’  Now our Johnathan is more a fan of the oval ball than the round ball, so this may have influenced his reply, which was, ‘Yes I do sir, and your team isn’t doing very well at the moment is it?  By the way there is still a 45-minute wait on food!’

Appealing to status, wealth, and celebrity is something that people are often tempted to do but it doesn’t often get people very far.  Much better the backwards approach demonstrated by Archbishop Rowan Williams when attending one of our Diocesan Clergy conferences.  Having been told that he had to be the first to sit down for supper at the top table he went to the back of the long queue of vicar waiting to eat and worked his way forward greeting every single one of us on the way.

In our bible readings today we see a similar contrast. 

Like the Football manager demanding preferential service, the tenants in the vineyard felt they deserved to have more of the fruits of their labours.  After all they had worked through the whole season tending the vineyard, pruning the branches, harvesting the grapes, bearing the heat of the day.  ‘How dare this absentee landlord steal so much of us’, we can hear them say, ‘Doesn’t he know who we are?’

Then like a caring Archbishop we see the apostle Paul who definitely does know who he is:

⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. (Philippians 3v5-6)

But refuses to claim any of the benefit and deference which his heritage and pedigree could bring him.  Instead he throws all the advantage he might have had away and own only this:

…whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸ More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. (from Philippians 3.7-8)

Paul, who had everything going for him, had learnt the lesson that the grasping, scheming, murderous tenants of the vineyard could not grasp.  When we choose to hold on to things that brings the praise of others and success in this world we loose any chance of a future joy.

Look around at the sad state of the world in which we live.  So, so much of the suffering and hunger, death and destruction all around the world is caused by, as the verse in the hymn ‘For The Healing of the Nations’ says:

We have forgotten that the land (and this was the problem of the tenants in the vineyard who represented those who had distorted the covenant with Israel) and everything within in it belongs to God who made it and put us upon it to ‘help it grow and keep it safe’ (Genesis 2v15).

This is the Good News;  

Nobody owns anything but in the end Everybody gets everything.

The problem is that not everyone wants to give anything away!

There is an antidote but it may hurt a little…

Paul puts it this way:

¹⁰ I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (from Philippians 3.10-11)

But this is the only way to life!

After didn’t Jesus command this of us?

³⁸ ‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” ³⁹ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; ⁴⁰ and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; ⁴¹ and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. ⁴² Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. (Matthew 5v38-42)

Ouch!

A long time ago, in a 6th Form Common Room at a Boarding School just across the Orwell Estuary a young boy struggling to put his faith at the centre of his life heard a group of Cambridge undergraduates sing.  One of their songs transformed his life and led him on a path of trying to give up many things so that he might hold on to the most important thing. 

Listen to the song now and perhaps ask yourself if this is a journey you want to begin.

Stranger in the World  (Water into Wine Band)

‘Cos I’m a stranger in the world….

‘Cos I’m a stranger in the world….

Maybe not for long….

This blog ‘Do You Know Who I Am?’ is copyright © Andrew Dotchin 2023.  It may be reproduced free of charge on condition that the source is acknowledged.

Philippians 3v4b-14 – Pressing towards the Goal

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.⁷ Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸ More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. ¹⁰ I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. ¹² Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³ Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly^[f] call of God in Christ Jesus.

Matthew 21v33-46 The Parable of the Wicked Tenants

³³Jesus said ‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. ³⁴ When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. ³⁵ But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. ³⁶ Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. ³⁷ Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” ³⁸ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” ³⁹ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. ⁴⁰ Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ ⁴¹ They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’  ⁴² Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures:

“The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,

and it is amazing in our eyes”?

⁴³ Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. ⁴⁴ The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.’

⁴⁵ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. ⁴⁶ They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.