Second Sunday in Lent (Year C), February 28, 2010
BCP: Gen. 15:1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27 or 27:10-18; Philip. 3:17–4:1; Luke 13:(22-30) 31-35
RCL: Gen. 15:1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Philip. 3:17–4:1; Luke 13:31-35
Modern Americans are a wandering people. Our education and jobs often lead us far away from where we grew up. The sentimental idea of a hometown is a fairly vague one for many of us, as we move, on average, 11.7 times in our lives.
Our Scripture lessons today remind us that we are in good company. Abraham too, was a wanderer. God had promised that he would be the father of a great people, and that they would live in a special land. He has begun to doubt the promise, an old and childless man, still living in his tents.
But in a dream God’s purposes are revealed to him. There will be a child and a homeland for his descendants, “from the river of Egypt to the great river.” He belongs to that land, even though it doesn’t yet belong to him. He was, as Hebrews says, “sojourning in the land of promise.”
The Philippians too, were in much the same situation. They were inhabitants of a Roman colonia, a settlement designed for retired soldiers. They had come from all over the empire, and now were settled together in a place where they enjoyed, by special dispensation, all the rights and privileges of citizens of Rome.
You could have said that their land of promise lay on the banks of the Tiber, but Paul quickly reminds them otherwise. “Our commonwealth is in heaven,” he tells them. We belong to Jesus, and so our true homeland is the place that belongs to him. We don’t really belong to Rome (or to Israel, for that matter). Our hopes turn to heaven, from which Jesus will come to redeem us completely. We live by its standards, strangers and pilgrims just like our father Abraham.
In baptism, we Christians take on a new citizenship. Drawn from many nations, our deepest loyalties must lie with our Lord and our brothers and sisters around this world, and those in glory.
Surely the anonymous early Christian writer describes us as well as the Christians of his own day: “They live in countries of their own, but as sojourners; they share the life of citizens, they endure the lot of foreigners; every foreign land is to them a fatherland, and every fatherland a foreign land. ... They spend their existence upon earth, but their citizenship is in heaven.”
Look It Up
Read Acts 16:11-40, the account of Paul’s first visit to Philippi. Do you think Paul’s own experience of Roman citizenship might have shaped his understanding of Christian loyalty?
Think About It
What does the Philippians text imply about the relevance of the modern state of Israel for Christians?
Next Sunday: Third Sunday in Lent (Year C), March 7, 2010
BCP: Exod. 3:1-15; Psalm 103 or 103:1-11; 1 Cor. 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9
RCL: Exod. 3:1-15; Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Cor. 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9
