A disappointing Sunday at St. Jude’s
So: this was the passage —
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 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. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 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 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. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 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. 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, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
This was our preacher because this Sunday Miss Virginia was AWOL again. According to his website —
And this was Uncle Albert in the car on our way home —
“I’m no theologian, but.” He stops.
“But what?” I’m supposed to say, but I’m driving.
“But,” Uncle Albert goes on unprompted, “what the hell was he talking about?”
“Feet,” I said. “Jesus’s feet.”
“What?”
“Mary was washing Jesus’s feet because she didn’t want Judas getting hold of her three hundred denarii.”
“I’m not talking about the preacher, what he said. Who was listening to that fruitcake? I am talking about The Apostle. And why wasn’t he, instead of that smarmy passage from John? He’s a Lutheran, isn’t he?”
I knew he was talking about the preacher and not the gospel writer, why wasn’t the preacher talking about Paul? But I said anyway, “John? A Lutheran? I would hardly think so.”
“Very funny,” Uncle Albert said. “The preacher. He’s a Lutheran; so why wasn't he talking about The Apostle. John!” He blew a raspberry. “Somebody needs to explain this byzantine illogic. That was the Lutherans’ calling, I thought.” By “this byzantine illogic,” he meant Paul’s. But let him explain, Uncle Albert:
“I don’t know how he gets away with it. He believes we are saved by grace once for all, right: ‘There is no condemnation to them that walk in Christ Jesus’ so not ‘height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in him,’ Romans, right?” He must be right, so I nod.
“But, saved by grace once for all, he, The Almighty Apostle, must ‘press on to make it his own,’ this grace even if ‘Christ Jesus has already made me his own,’ he says. No, wait, forget that. He, Paul, still has to press on – let me say it again – he has to press on, ‘straining forward toward the goal for the prize,’ which he is going to make his own. And, I take it, we should best do likewise.
“Because, apparently, Christ’s dying for us is not enough without we imitate Paul in pressing on, straining on, and taking the prize. Which has already been given to us!
“In short, ‘Christ without Paul is not enough.’ – Philippians 4.”
I don’t have any great love for Paul; still, I was going to say, “I don’t think that is what he is saying.” But instead, as we turned the corner, I said, “We’re home.”
This morning, I called and asked Axel if he knew Melancthon Philips. He said he didn’t. “I’m not sure he exists,” Axel said. “I mean, it sounds made up, doesn’t it?”
“Well, someone exists,” I said. “We saw him.”
I called and asked Nils. He said, “He’s a fraud, isn’t he? Episcopalians will believe anything.”
04.04.22
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