09.Jul.2009 Moving forward, moving upward…

Philippians 3:12-16:

Several days later when Jesus returned to Capernaum, the news of his arrival spread quickly through the town. Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there wasn’t any room for one more person, not even outside the door. And he preached the word to them. Four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn’t get to Jesus through the crowd, so they dug a hole through the clay roof above his head. Then they lowered the sick man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My son, your sins are forgiven you.”

Paul models here in the Book of Philippians an attitude that all who seek Christ need to fashion for themselves: one of self-awareness, humility, and ultimately perseverance. I would suppose that these are the qualities Paul has in mind when he mentions the spiritually “mature” Christian in verse 15.

But this attitude isn’t easily achieved. It isn’t automatic. It takes a process before we get there. Let us examine that briefly.

Step 1: Self-awareness. Note first where you are standing, which is squarely in your humanity, which is itself in sin. Recognize that you’ve got your faults. Recognize those sins you’re still trying to shake. Recognize that God’s not finished with you yet, therefore you are not flawless, therefore you’ve got no reason to boast. You, like Paul, have not reached perfection. You’ll get there one day when you shed your earthly body. But right now you’ve got flesh and flesh is weak and given to temptation. Recognize this.

Step 2: Humility. The leap from self-awareness to humility is a short one. Once one takes a moment to examine their shortcomings they generally come to the quick conclusion that they have quite a bit to work out, so they had best be humble. But there is freedom in humility, by the way. Not having to walk around quietly (or emphatically) boasting of your “superiority” allows you to really connect to those around you, for it takes you out of the Moral Competition. What’s more, accepting the fact that we all stand as equals in the sight of God allows one to care for others more genuinely, and enables them to share more generously their authentic heart. People pull together when they feel a common connection. And I assure you, no connection is more common than our inherent sinful nature.

Step 3 is the important one, then: Perseverance. Through perseverance one will continue to tinker with themselves, will continue to engage their own heart, will continue to strive to answer the ever upward call of Christ. Through perseverance one will keep moving.

These verses in Philippians, you’ll notice, continually speak of movement—about focusing energy, looking forward, straining (a strong word there), and racing. The moving Christian is never content to sit in their present state of confusion, or lack, or laziness, but ever moving forward. Have you ever noticed that the most difficult part of implementing any positive change—in diet, in exercise, in church attendance, in your prayer life—is the getting started? Once you are moving, continuing becomes increasingly easy. The trick, then, is to get moving. This can be a difficult thing to accomplish alone.

Enter friendship.

Another point worth noting in these scriptures—the ones from Mark in particular—is that you’ll not be alone in this Christian journey. You’re not supposed to. You’ve not been designed to. It is rather easy to fool yourself into thinking that Higher Spirituality equates to you pulling away from community and into yourself. Into such ‘noble’ acts as deeper thinking, extended solitary prayer (think: monks), and thick, theological reading. These things are all well and good, to be sure, but not at the expense of cutting oneself off from a group of other people who are doing likewise.

God was quite serious about our existing in community. That’s why He gave Adam Eve. And that’s why He gave us the Church. This man in Mark 2 was a crippled man. He had no choice to make his journey alone. He was poor, a beggar. And as the scriptures say, he was paralyzed. But he had friends; this is obvious.

It is his friends who carry him to where Jesus is; his friends who help lift him up upon that clay room; and his friends who dig their way through it. Jesus remarks at the conclusion of this story that the sick man’s sins are forgiven, but, as Mark emphasizes, this is not a response to Jesus’ seeing his (the man’s) faith, but their faith. The point is clear: friends get their friend to where Jesus is, and what’s more, they have to exert an unusual amount of effort in order to do so. They know their friend. They know his needs. And they are willing to help.

That is who a friend is. They do not allow the ones they care about to remain paralyzed in their stuff—their weakness, their struggles, their apathy, their backsliding—and they refuse to become paralyzed or apathetic themselves. They get involved. They get moving. Just like you should. Left to our own devices, you see, we remain paralyzed. That, finally, is why God gifted us the Church. To place us amongst a web of people who are all striving toward the same goal. Through the interaction, the mutual encouragement, and the effort exerted will you all cross that finish line.

The Christian life is the perseverance life. The Christian life is the communal life. The Christian life, finally, is the moving life