Being a Friend of the Cross
2nd Sunday in Lent year C
Photo: St. Barnabas Church, Glen Ellyn, IL
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus laments over Jerusalem. The basis for this lament is Jerusalem’s persistent resistance to God’s desires for them. They misperceive and ignore the prophets (including Jesus) who show them what God wants for them and from them. Sadly, Jerusalem and God see the world through different lenses. As a result, Jerusalem resists God. In today’s reading from Philippians Paul also tearfully laments the presence in the community of those who are enemies of the cross. These are not people outside the church who might hate, or are repulsed, or are just indifferent to the cross. These are believers who had at some point received the gospel of Christ and Christ’s cross as good news. Now they have become enemies of the cross. Like the people of Jerusalem, they and God see the world through different lenses.
This phenomenon seems worthy of reflection since Lent is precisely the time to become a friend of the cross or to deepen an already existing friendship. In Phil 3 Paul laments the presence of enemies of the cross. He does not directly identify these characters. Presumably the Philippians knew who these folks were. From the way Paul speaks about them it seems clear that they have adopted habits of thinking about and moving through the world in a way that has alienated them from what God wants for them, from what is truly worthy of their love and attention, and what will lead truly to their flourishing.
Because he is speaking about members of the body of Christ, we should assume that these enemies of the cross did not think of themselves that way. We can be confident that none of these folks woke up one morning and decided to become an enemy of the cross. Instead, through a series of seemingly benign decisions, small compromises, and almost indistinct changes in their habits of perception and action, they became, over time, enemies of the cross. This is what Paul seems to mean by saying that they have adopted an “earthly” way of thinking, acting and feeling. It is important for me to remember this. If I cannot imagine how slowly, how subtly, this can happen, I will not recognize how I, too, can become an enemy of the cross.
The contrast with such an earthly mindset is the recognition that “our citizenship is in heaven.” This is not a perfect translation. Paul is really talking about our true commonwealth, a place, rather than a thing like citizenship. The ruler of that commonwealth is Christ, to whom all things will ultimately be subject (3:21). Of course, thinking too strictly of this commonwealth as spatially located somewhere else, can lead to all sorts of problems in terms of our capacity to live faithfully in the world we inhabit, focusing too much on the sweet by and by and not on the here and now. A term like citizenship, then, is helpful in reminding us that although a citizen of one country, one might, for any number of reasons, currently inhabit another country for a time.
Although Paul may well have used this image of heavenly citizenship to offer consolation to the Philippians, I also think reflecting on the notion of our citizenship being in heaven is designed to leave us perpetually uncomfortable. Having lived outside the U.S. for extended periods, I have some sense of the discomfort of not quite fitting in, of always being slightly outside of things. In truth, however, much of that time, I was happy living in a different place. I think the discomfort Paul wants me to know is more closely tied to an unrelenting longing to be back in my true home, yearning to be in that place where I am fully myself because I am fully known and loved without hesitation or reserve. That yearning will help me know and understand how different my current abode is from that home where I long to abide.
Rather than leading me to dislike, disdain, or disparage the places I currently inhabit, the discomfort and yearning of knowing my citizenship is in heaven, seeks to keep me attentive. Such attentiveness is the only way of avoiding that slow, subtle, slide from being a friend to being an enemy of the cross. The cross is not simply a negation of an earthly mindset; it is certainly not a denial of the material embodied world and its goodness. Instead, the cross provides markers for determining a faithful path through the world if only we will attend to them. This is important because those things that might lead us to become enemies of the cross never appear to us as evil, false, or ugly. We are only led astray by things that appear good, true, and beautiful.
Paul wants the Philippians and us here and now to be uncomfortable citizens of heaven so that we can be attentive to the cross. As his letter to the Philippians moves towards its conclusion it becomes clear that attention to the cross will help us know the significant difference between the standards goodness, justice, truthfulness, and excellence integral to life in Christ and the ways those terms are deployed and embodied by those unwitting enemies of the cross.
I doubt that maintaining a friendship with the cross will be a process of unrelenting success. Very much the opposite is likely. That is why I find the Book of Common Prayer’s collect for the second Sunday in Lent so consoling to end with:
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.