Preaching Paths 8 October 2023Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary

The Second NT reading for this date, Philippians 3:4b-14, has often been misinterpreted as Paul’s blunt repudiation of his Jewish faith in exchange for Christian beliefs. After a quick review of his credentials as a pure-blooded, law-keeping Jew and zealous Pharisee, Paul seems to sweep it all off the table. “Rubbish!” (v 4c). For far too long, this text has been used to justify deadly anti-Semitic convictions and practices. Perhaps the best service we can do our listeners will be to dismantle this deeply flawed understanding of this text.
We need to acquaint our listeners with the historical religious context that forms the backdrop of these verses. First, Judaism in Paul’s day was very diverse (as indeed it is today). His own sect, the Pharisees, promoted a distinctive interpretation of Jewish faith and practice, existing alongside others. The Sadducees and Essenes represented other distinct variations. In fact, the beliefs and practices of early Jesus-followers were themselves regarded as the marks of an emergent variation of Judaism, alongside other interpretations of what constituted Jewish identity in first-century, Roman-occupied Israel. Christianity was recognized as a separate religion decades later.
The presence of many sectarian variants within Judaism is further evidenced in the text itself. Paul’s purpose is to warn the Philippian church not to be seduced by yet another sectarian Jewish movement he calls the “mutilators” (see Phil 3.3). They insist that Gentiles must be circumcised to become Christian. This is not only false, but more importantly, a distraction from what matters most. And what does matter most? The world-shifting reality of the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ.
In vv 4b-6, Paul lays out his Jewish credentials and describes the aims that once drove his life. Purely Jewish by birth, he was “a Pharisee among Pharisees,” scrupulous about interpreting, adhering to, and enforcing Jewish law. Pharisees believed that the integrity of Jewish national identity depended on this. Paul had gained a stellar reputation among his peers in these pursuits (v 6). But for Paul, everything changed when Jesus, the risen Messiah, confronted, called, and commissioned him on the Damascus road. At that moment, Paul’s life was radically re-centered.
Paul’s message is twofold. First, Paul preaches that by raising Jesus of Nazareth from death after his crucifixion, God had vindicated Jesus’ challenging re-interpretation of the reign of God. His followers will be humble servants of God, practicing inclusive love, justice, and compassion, especially toward the traditionally “unclean:” sinners, outcasts, and society’s most vulnerable. Second, Paul declares that God’s new humanity includes Gentiles. In Christ, God has forged one new humanity. This notion was anathema to those who carefully guarded the purity of the nation.
It is crucial to make clear that it is not Judaism per se that Paul has set aside; it is his former interpretation of it that he casts away. Paul now pursues a new path, leaning toward the horizon of that new reality he has seen revealed in Jesus Christ and expressed among believers. Paul counts everything as “loss” except his devotion to the One who has claimed and transformed him. Now imprisoned for his disruptive claims, Paul is honored to suffer as did his Master before him.
It will not do, of course, simply to treat our congregations to a history lesson. It is our turn, now, to take stock of our own embodiment of Christian identity—tame, often, compared to Paul’s! What does it look like, in our time and place, to take up Jesus’ mission? What if we—as individuals and congregations—earned a reputation, not for endless church-splitting doctrinal disputes, but rather for showing up wherever strife, threats, hurt and hate diminish human life? We may risk our lives doing so; but acting in the name of the risen Lord of God’s new creation demands nothing less.