Not having a righteousness of my own

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 5: 1-7 and Philippians 3: 4b-14 Sermon title: Not having a righteousness of my own Preached on 10.8.17 A Monday morning can put things in harsh perspective. Last Monday morning Kelly Dewar’s 8-year-old daughter Linley asked her, on the way to elementary school drop off, before Kelly had even had her first cup of coffee, about the difference between irony and sarcasm. Think about that. This is obviously a question that displays Linley’s intelligence, but how did it make Kelly feel? A question like that is a hard way to start your week as a mom. Instead of starting your week with a feeling of “everything is under control and I’m fully equipped for the days ahead,” a question like that is sure to make you wonder if maybe it might be better to crawl back into bed. And this is what happened to me. Sara had been quizzing Lily for a quiz on air pollution. “What are three things we can do to fight air pollution Lily?” she asked, and having just dropped the girls off at school on their bikes, I was riding from the school to the church, while proudly thinking about how we’re setting the example for our kids here. We’re reducing exhaust because we ride our bikes to school. This is great. “In fact,” I say to myself, “really, we’re setting an example for a whole community. People in their cars are probably thinking – look at that nice family, all fighting air pollution on their daily commute.” It was as this self-satisfied thought was passing through my consciousness that I missed a turn, hit a holy bush, and flipped over my handle bars. It was a good thing someone suggested that I start wearing a helmet, so the only real damage done was to my ego. As soon as I got up I scanned the sidewalks to see if there were any witnesses. There was only one, but that was one too many. What would Paul say? Romans 12:3 – “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you out to think.” Or to quote our 2nd Scripture Lesson for this morning: “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.” What does that mean? “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.” In this passage from Philippians Paul may sound like he’s boasting. This morning’s 2nd Scripture Lesson begins with him giving us his resume of accomplishments: -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 -As to zeal, a persecutor of the church -As to righteousness under the law, blameless But he only lists these accomplishments so that we can see them as he does, in the perspective cast by the next to last – he had done everything that would have rendered him blameless and righteous but where did that lead him – to persecute Christ’s church – to hold the coats as the disciple Stephen was stoned. His intent in sharing his testimony is the same as the intent of that great hymn that we sang just last Sunday: When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride. You can see the point he’s making, and he makes this point hoping that we’ll hear it, because like that great church in Philippi that this letter is addressed to, we are like runners who, rather than doing as Paul admonishes us to do, “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,” even while we run this race in faith, we are busy looking back to see who we’re ahead of. We’re like a certain self-satisfied bike rider, busy judging the minivans that pass by for contributing to air pollution not realizing that there’s a holy bush up ahead. There’s a sense in which competition can be good. We all know that. We want to win, but think of the lady in the restaurant moving her arm back and forth, trying to trick her fit bit into thinking that she really did get all her steps in. Think of the athlete so set on winning that he sacrifices his body to drugs. Consider the football player who sees himself, not as a boy in high school, but as a god among boys, walking the hall with an air of self-importance because he can throw a football further than anyone else. Is he not also a vineyard of wild grapes? That image of the wild grapes growing in the tended vineyard comes both from our Call to Worship (based on Psalm 80) and on Isaiah’s point in the 5th chapter that we read as our First Scripture Lesson. The claim is that while we were created by God, redeemed from slavery in Egypt and from slavery to sin, were planted in this fertile valley by a God who removed the stones and tilled the land, despite all this preparation, all these blessings, rather than yield a bountiful harvest, we are a vineyard of wild grapes. But we think of ourselves as Chardonnay. A man named Roy Brown told me a story once. He played on the Presbyterian College tennis team after serving in World War 2, and after that he always sent in a contribution through the alumni association to the tennis program at Presbyterian College. In his 80’s he received a special invitation to the ribbon cutting of the new tennis courts, and as we sometimes do, he began wondering why he received this invitation to this particular event, “What if they’ve named the courts after me?” he imagined. I would have encouraged him to think this way. After all, he was a veteran, a member of the tennis team, and a long-time contributor, but when they called him down on the court during the ceremony it was to present him with a coffee mug. “Most expensive coffee mug I’ve ever had,” he told me. Why is it that rather than run this race in faith, we want to be first in line? Why is it that rather than confess our struggles to our neighbors, we’re more interested in bragging to them about our European vacations? Why is it that while we are all in this life together, all imperfect people just doing the best that we can – that while not a single one of us has righteousness within her enough to save herself from sin – that while we are all sinners, redeemed, not by our own work, but only by the grace of God, we all still love to imagine that we are winning all on our won while looking back and to see who’s doing worse? Back in Tennessee, the Methodist Church across the street had this pastor who would fall asleep during the choir anthem. Everybody was talking about him and I was enjoying it, egging this on really, until Sara says, “You be careful Joe, because you know how this will hurt when it’s you they’re talking about.” Sara was right. She nearly always is. There’s a log in this eye, and for too long preachers and Christians alike have been walking around, one-upping each other, when really, if Paul says that he has no righteousness of his own I don’t know who we think we are. No matter how much time I spend in prayer. No matter how much more mature I am now than when I was in High School. No matter how low my emissions thanks to my bicycle, I’m still just a vineyard of wild grapes, who by the grace of God has been given the honor of running this race with you. That’s the difference between a Monday and a Sunday morning. On a Monday we feel like we are supposed to have it all together, but on a Sunday we don’t have to pretend. We don’t have to look back. Because again, we’ve all done it together – publically said it out loud: “You taught us peace, but we wage war. You forgive us, while we withhold forgiveness from our neighbor. You seek us out, while we hide our face from you. Forgive us Lord – for when you expected grapes, we yielded while grapes – but by the Grace of God – there is something wonderful happening in here. When I think of this church and all that we’ve been through in the past few years I think of that Psalm that made up our Call to Worship. We are a vine, brought out of Egypt. Planted in fertile soil. God cleared the ground, and the mountains were covered by our shade. You remember it all as I do – there were so many of us at the Montreat Youth Conference that we nearly took the whole thing over. We were one of the largest Presbyterian Churches in the South. But then our walls were broken down, so that those who passed along could just pluck our fruit, and I was up in Tennessee wondering why, as I know all of you were. I don’t know exactly why God would permit such a thing to happen. Some have called it pruning, and I like that. But regardless, I know that God has heard our cry. That our God looked down from heaven to see, and has renewed His regard for this vine, and now I can’t walk in our doors without feeling that the Holy Spirit fills this place, but here’s what we all must remember - that’s why the Holy Spirit fills this place. That’s why there is joy and laughter within these walls. It’s not me, and I know that. Listen – I’m still just the kid who skipped out of Sunday School to run the halls and steal cookies out of the preschool cupboards. Like Paul and like you, “It’s not that I have already obtained [anything] or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” That’s what we must always be about. Sometimes we are so desperate to see something good in ourselves that we only look for bad in our neighbor, and sometimes we are so practiced in celebrating ourselves that we take credit for what only God can do. And what has God done – revived us again. Let us forget what lies behind, staring forward to what lies ahead – the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Amen.