First Reading: Jeremiah 26:8-15
8When Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, “You shall die! 9Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without inhabitant’?” And all the people gathered around Jeremiah in the house of the Lord. 10When the officials of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king’s house to the house of the Lord and took their seat in the entry of the New Gate of the house of the Lord. 11Then the priests and the prophets said to the officials and to all the people, “This man deserves the sentence of death, because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.” 12Then Jeremiah spoke to all the officials and all the people, saying, “The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and this city all the words you have heard. 13Now therefore mend your ways and your deeds, and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will relent of the disaster that he has pronounced against you. 14But as for me, behold, I am in your hands. Do with me as seems good and right to you. 15Only know for certain that if you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood upon yourselves and upon this city and its inhabitants, for in truth the Lord sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears.”
Psalm 4
1Answer me when I call, O God, defender of my cause; you set me free when I am hard-pressed; have mercy on me and hear my prayer. 2“You mortals, how long will you dishonor my glory; how long will you worship dumb idols and run after false gods?” 3Know that the Lord does wonders for the faithful; when I call upon the Lord, he will hear me. 4Tremble, then, and do not sin; speak to your heart in silence upon your bed. 5Offer the appointed sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord. 6Many are saying, “Oh, that we might see better times!” Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O Lord. 7You have put gladness in my heart, more than when grain and wine and oil increase. 8I lie down in peace; at once I fall asleep; for only you, Lord, make me dwell in safety.
Second Reading: Philippians 3:17 – 4:1
17Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. 18For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. 20But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
1Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.
Gospel: Luke 13:31-35
31At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” 32And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. 33Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’ 34O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
What are You Bananas About?
Now I don’t think I’m going too far by describing some sports fanatics as being a bit crazy. I’m not talking about the occasional fans who watch casually and discuss their favorite team’s performance with other likeminded people. I’m talking about those fans who go all in, paint their faces, travel to all the away games, and during the season will only wear clothing that supports the team they route for.
For the super fan who falls into this category, it doesn’t matter if they’re cheering for preschool T-ball teams or professional athletes in the Super Bowl or the World Series, they go all in. Sports super fans can be crazy. They’ll spend countless hours in a stadium, enduring the freezing cold, the pouring rain or intense heat to watch their children or their favorite team play. They yell their heads off and act like fools to cheer on their team. They’ll even heckle the umpires when a call isn’t to their liking. There’s something about loyalty to a sports team that can make a person do some pretty crazy stuff.
For example, there was an anonymous fan of the Washburn Rural High School wrestling team in Topeka, Kansas, who started sending hundreds of bananas to the school’s wrestling coach. It started the morning after Washburn Rural’s girls’ and boys’ teams both won state wrestling titles. Washburn’s wrestling coach, Damon Parker, got a surprise delivery of 100 bananas. A few days later, more bananas arrived. When Topeka’s local television station reported on this story, Coach Parker had received nearly 600 bananas from this anonymous fan.
I can only assume that a fan is behind this stunt because Coach Parker is known for motivating his teams with the phrase, “Win the Whole Banana.” Coach Parker keeps putting this phrase on his team’s white board throughout the season. I’ll admit that it is memorable. I’ll also have to concede that it must be effective, because both the girls’ and boys’ wrestling teams won state titles. This is probably the reason that Coach Parker’s desk was hidden under 600 bananas.
Coach Parker told the local TV reporter that he would give away the bananas to the student body, and if any were left over, they would be donated to the local food bank. “Win the Whole Banana.” It’s an interesting rallying cry. Like I said, sports fans can be a bit eccentric. In our Epistle reading for today, the apostle Paul needs to rally the believers in Philippi to stand firm in their faith, in spite of persecution from the wider society, as well as internal conflicts, and false teachers within the church itself.
There were plenty of challenges that could have destroyed the new congregation in Philippi. Paul needed to give them a rallying cry to motivate them and the tools to empower them to hold on to their faith in Jesus Christ. Obviously, he didn’t choose, “Win the Whole Banana.” However, we can read the rallying cry he did choose in Philippians 4:1, “Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord, my beloved.” “Stand firm in the Lord.” That’s Paul’s rallying cry. That was his challenge to the Philippian church more than 2000 years ago, and it’s his challenge to us today. “Stand firm in the Lord.” Not a bad motto.
Seminary professor Fred Craddock tells the story of being invited to preach at a small rural church many years ago. When he walked in the door of that church, he saw the strangest thing hanging behind the pulpit. Instead of a cross or some other religious imagery, there was a picture of an English bulldog. Beneath the bulldog’s jowly face was the caption, “Get a bulldog grip on your faith.” The pastor was obviously a Georgia Bulldog fan.
I doubt Paul would agree with the idea of hanging a picture of a Bulldog behind the pulpit, but he would certainly agree with the sentiment: “Get a bulldog grip on your faith.” It’s the same advice he gave the church at Philippi and it’s still relevant for us today. In this passage, Paul gives us three tools for standing firm in our faith regardless of any external or internal challenges we might face. First, Paul says to get connected with other believers.
Staying connected with other believers means we can find strength and support in a community of people who are striving to live as authentic followers of Jesus. St. Paul writes in verse 17, “Join together in following my example brothers, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.” In other words, “Know a model Christian? Live as they live. And then be a model follower of Christ yourself.”
That’s why Jesus called His followers to form a church—a people who are set apart for the express purpose of modeling the love of God in their society. We need each other. No believer can do it alone. We need a community that supports us in the good times and the bad, accepts us with all our short comings, and models Christ-like behavior for us to imitate. Dr. Ralph Wilson and his wife went house-shopping a few years ago.
They visited a new subdivision under construction. At the entrance to that subdivision, the builders had constructed “model homes.” These were representations of the houses that would be available when the subdivision was complete. These model homes were meant to create trust in the builders’ vision and skills. That’s why they’re the first homes you see when you drive into a development.
At the beginning of the building process, the rest of the tract may be full of mud and bricks and exposed pipes and rolls of insulation. They may look ugly and incomplete. But you know the builders have a plan to make them into the same beautiful homes as those at the front of the subdivision, so you hand over a down payment and sign your name to a contract. What looks like a mess right now, will one day become beautiful homes for the buyers to dwell in.
In the same way, Dr. Wilson writes, God places “demonstration models”, believers in the church, people who serve as an example of what an authentic Jesus-follower looks like. Their character strengthens the church and keeps us focused on our mission as the body of Christ. They remind us of what God has planned for those who trust Him and give their whole lives to Him. The question for us is, who will be a model for others?
St. Paul writes, “Keep your eyes on those who live as we do.” That’s his first piece of advice for standing firm in the faith: Get connected with other believers. The second thing Paul advises us to do, is remember that we are citizens in God’s kingdom. Paul writes, “For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there . . .”
I don’t know about you, but I’m concerned at the rate society is becoming increasingly secular and has lost its focus on spiritual realities. As a famous French philosopher reminded us, “We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a physical experience.” To be a spiritual being means to live in tune with God’s heart and mind. And for those in tune with God’s heart and mind, we see their lives overflowing with the fruits of the Spirit as listed in Galatians 5: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. In other words, their lives reflect Jesus.
Jesus faced an overwhelming number of challenges, stresses, and sorrows in His earthly lifetime. So did St. Paul. And yet, they didn’t get overwhelmed. They relied on God’s strength and wisdom and power to help them forge ahead with joy. Knowing that we are citizens in God’s kingdom gives us great hope. It means that we are spiritual beings guided by the Holy Spirit who offers us the resources we need to overcome our circumstances.
A few years ago, Naval Admiral William H. McRaven told a story during the 2014 commencement address at the University of Texas at Austin. A cohort of Navy SEALs-in-training were entering an especially grueling week of conditioning. They went for days with little sleep. They endured intense physical challenges. On Wednesday of that week, the trainees were taken to the Mud Flats, a swampy area between San Diego and Tijuana. The trainees would be spending the next 15 hours in ice-cold mud up to their necks. However, there was a way out.
The instructors announced that if five men from the training cohort dropped out, then all the trainees could get out of the mud and go home. All it would take would be for five men to give up and all of them could escape this long night of pain. Then something interesting took place. In response to the instructors’ taunts, one of the trainees began to sing. And then another joined in. And then another. The instructors threatened the trainees with more time in the mud if they didn’t stop singing. But the singing continued. As Admiral McRaven said, “We knew that if one man could rise above the misery, then others could as well.
There’s power in hope: remembering that we’re citizens of God’s kingdom allows us to rise above the misery of our present circumstances. It gives us the hope we need to stand firm in the Lord when we’re tempted to give up. Paul reminds us that we can stand firm by being connected to one another and the second lesson Paul shares with us in this passage is that this world is not our home. The final thing Paul reminds us of, is that we can stand firm in the Lord because we eagerly await our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul writes, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there . . .” That’s the ultimate source of our hope, the ultimate motivation to stand firm in the Lord. He has promised to come back, not as a humble man, but as the Messiah. We will see Him as He truly is. That truth transforms our waiting into a time of joyful, purposeful, hopeful living because Jesus promises to reward those who follow His commands when He returns.
In June 1965, six teenage boys from the island of Tonga skipped school to go sailing on the Pacific Ocean. They got caught in a storm and shipwrecked on the deserted island of ‘Ata. In September 1966, more than a year later, the captain of a small fishing fleet sailed near the island of ‘Ata and discovered the six boys, alive and well. The boys’ families had given up hope of ever finding them alive and had already held funerals for them. They called the rescue a miracle.
The way the boys survived was they set up a system of work and rules to govern their days. They began and ended each day with a song and a prayer. They paired up into work teams and created a chore roster so that everyone had certain duties to maintain. They hollowed out tree trunks to collect rainwater. They foraged for food, then planted a vegetable garden. They created their own recreation area with a badminton court and home-made weights. They set up a fire and took turns tending it, so that it never went out. When one of the boys fell off a cliff and broke his leg, the other boys rescued him, set, and splinted the broken bone, and took over his chores while he recovered. The boys were determined to work together, support one another, and keep the faith until the day of their rescue. This sounds a lot like the early church as described in the book of Acts, doesn’t it?
Even though the early Christians were persecuted almost daily and lived through many challenges, they didn’t lose hope because Jesus assured them that He would return. But until His return, Jesus promised He would be with them in the presence of the Holy Spirit. “Therefore, my brothers,” writes St. Paul, “you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord!”
Remember that the apostle Paul most likely wrote these words from prison. He’d lost his job and his cushy place in society when he became a follower of Jesus. He’d been ship wrecked, beaten, jailed and harassed many times for spreading the good news of Jesus Christ. It was only a matter of time before the Roman government beheaded him. He knew what was coming, yet he stood firm in the faith, joyful until the end. And his advice written 2,000 years ago is still relevant today.
God has given us the tools we need to stand firm in the Lord no matter what our circumstances: Stay connected with a community of believers, remember that you are citizens of God’s kingdom, and eagerly await the coming of Jesus Christ. God has proven time and time again that He is faithful to His promises, and He will supply us with the strength we need to stand firm in Him, until that day when we see Him face to face.
Amen
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