Here is the communion meditation I prepared for worship at Minter Lane today.
Philippians 3:4-11
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.
In order to adjust the Philippians perspective, Paul pulls out his personal ledger book and starts recounting the items in it, and how the world sees them.
- Circumcised on the 8th day – Profit
- Israelite – Profit
- Member of the tribe of Benjamin – Profit
- Hebrew born of Hebrews – Profit
- Pharisee – Profit
- Incredibly zealous – profit
To the world, these are are all things to be leveraged for one’s gain and benefit. In the kingdom of God, however, what counts as profit gets redefined. God’s ledger book is upside down. What the world marks as profit, God marks as loss, and what the world files in the loss column God counts as profit. Paul’s profit column probably reads:
- knowing Christ Jesus
- loss of all things
- righteousness through faith
- suffering
- death
At the table, we affirm and participate in God’s upside down kingdom. Here we proclaim that in brokenness is health and in shed blood is life. Here God’s kingdom reminds us what true gain really is.