March 4, 2007--Second Sunday of Lent

Lectionary Texts:
Psalm 27;
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18;
Luke 13:31-35 or 9:28-36;
Philippians 3:17-4:1

Sermon Text: Philippians 3:17--4:1

Which Bridge to Cross,
Which Bridge to Burn?

Country artist Vince Gill records a song that asks, “Which bridge to cross, and which bridge to burn?” It speaks of a man struggling in regard to his relationships (all good country songs have some relationship struggle to talk about). He is struggling to remain faithful and going through the agonizing process of asking which bridges he should cross and which ones he should burn. The dangers of not making such a decision causes us to become like Benedick in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, who according to Beatrice, “. . . wears his faith but as the fashion of a hat; it ever changes with the next block” (Act 1, Scene 1).

We struggle with influence: who or what is going to influence us? When we make this commitment to Christ, we have exciting new bridges to cross, but we also have some bridges to burn between us and our past ways of thinking, relating and living. The discernment God gives us as we grow in His grace allows the freedom and the ability to choose which is which.

Burn bridges between ourselves and those influences that are “enemies of the cross.”
The people at Philippi are being warned here not to fall under the influence of those who “live as enemies of the cross of Christ.” At first glance, in our contemporary culture, we might read this as a warning against radical terrorists or against mystical pagan religions seeking to pull us away from our true faith in Christ. However, these are not the culprits Paul warns them (and us) about!

These “enemies of the cross of Christ” are not just the false teachers and radical sectarians whose theology is in opposition to the teachings handed down to us. They are also those “whose god is their stomach,” and whose “glory is in their shame” (v. 19). In other words, these enemies of the cross of Christ are people who look just like some who work with us, go to school with us and maybe even sit in church with us. They seek their own walk instead of the Jesus walk we’ve begun talking about during this Season of Lent. They are motivated by whatever fulfills their immediate needs (“their stomachs”) instead of by what fulfills the call of God. They are shameless when it comes to flaunting their own wealth and worldly wisdom.

In the movie A River Runs Through It, Norm Maclean (the narrator and protagonist) states that his father was a Presbyterian minster, which meant that the world was “a [darn] mess,” and that the grace and beauty we have lost must be restored. The mess we have gotten ourselves into is the result of our own selfish desires and of our shameless arrogance. These choices make us enemies of the cross. When we receive the grace of God and enter into a relationship with Christ, we are called to burn bridges between that old way of living and where we are now, so that our focus is on Christ.

This does not mean burn bridges between ourselves and other people entirely. We are not called to separate from those people who need Christ, we are called to reach them. However, as far as their influence goes, we are to use discernment and not allow those whose main concern is their own selfish ambition, or those whose focus is upon feeding their own hedonism, to affect our behavior.

Cross the bridge into full trust in and dependence upon Jesus Christ and His grace.
Throughout Paul’s writings we are reminded of our “real citizenship” (3:20). We are not alone in this Kingdom. We are born (again) into a community that is doing some bridge burning and building as well. We assist one another in the architectural process of bridge building and bridge burning, benefitting from the discernment of those who walk this journey with us. In The Last Battle, the last book of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, the “real” Narnia (an allegory of Heaven) is a place where its inhabitants are always shouting: “Higher up and further in.” The invitation of the Kingdom of God is just that, and as we cross bridges into a deeper walk with Christ, we become people who are transformed into what we have been invented to be. We live out our baptism. We become true citizens of the Kingdom of God together.

There is this kind of radical commitment involved in Christianity that says, “All I once held dear, built my life upon” is nothing compared to this: knowing Jesus! Paul reminds us that when we begin with this commitment, God, through His Holy Spirit, is able to help us to begin burning the kinds of bridges that would only lead to our demise in the long run. “Standing firm in the Lord,” as Paul writes in 4:1, means making choices to burn bridges with those idols we once held dear. This frees us up to fully embrace the way of Christ; to cross bridge into eternal life by faith and walk deeper and further into God’s Kingdom!