Spiritually Peaky
Passion Sunday – The Fifth Sunday of Lent
April 7, 2019
Preaching Texts
Philippians 3:4b-14
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.
Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Sermon text
When I was young, when you looked under the weather, it was referred to as “looking peaky” as in ‘You are looking peaky, come over here and let me see if you have a fever.”
But I was thinking this week about all of us, who find ourselves from time to time, feeling spiritually peaky. There are many symptoms, but some of us have grown so accustomed to hiding what’s going on in our hearts that our nearest and dearest might not even notice. Our coworkers, our families and friends might just notice that we are less animated, perhaps more withdrawn, or maybe even a little short of temper. But we are the experts of our interior life and we more or less have to depend on ourselves to know when we are depleted spiritually.
I heard someone sum up this feeling perfectly a few weeks ago. It was a woman whom I met during a Christian Formation workshop. She said that when she does not prioritize her meditation, prayer practice and scripture reading she is riddled with “junk thoughts”. If you have been blessed to not have junk thoughts – let me tell you what they are like. It’s like white water rafting without a paddle and without a guide – and the rapids are made up of self-doubt, remorse, catastrophizing and anxiety. And then there is another set of rapids that are made up of resentment, envy, and self-pity. And then perhaps the worst set of the rapids is the sea of shame. These thoughts hit you when you are down – when you are tired, when you are stretched too thin, or when you are nervous about something coming down the pike. The worst junk thoughts though hit you when you are the most vulnerable – when you are fast asleep, sometime between 2am and 3am.
Incidentally – I have heard Junk Thoughts humorously referred to as Stink’n Think’n or The One Person Committee Meeting in Your Head. I have also heard them described scientifically by a college psychologist – in Freudian language – as the Super Ego – that voice in your head that is the brutal critic which is satisfied with nothing less than perfection.
I am sure that these junk thoughts are at their very roots helpful for our self-preservation –helping us to anticipate what we are about to face, or helping us to settle something in the past. It probably helped our ancestors not get kicked out of the tribe when getting kicked out might jeopardize their very survival.
So how can we be on guard against these junk thoughts? Or how do we distract ourselves from them? Well, we know that we cannot over-prepare ourselves out of them. And we cannot over-think ourselves out of them. The most effective strategy is asking God for help. However, I hasten to add in my years of ordained ministry I have known some people who suffer from incessant junk thoughts that they were best helped by a mental health professional.
But for now, back to God for help. One of my favorite verses in scripture comes from our Philippians lessons for today and I just want to read it to you again:
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.
It is the calling out of these thoughts and regarding them as rubbish: no use, worthless, and of no value. And instead of depending on your own resources to dig yourself out of these swirling thoughts – hand them over to God – having faith that God will rescue you from even the worst criticisms that you, or anyone else, will level at you. Trust that God will make all things right through God’s righteousness to make all things righteous. And remember that the creator of our universe is on your side, and you can do immeasurably more than you can ask or imagine when you tap into the power and strength of God. That is what it means to want to know the power of Christ’s resurrection – that all that seems fruitless, hard, and painful, can be raised up and made right – albeit right might mean things come out differently from what you were hoping and planning.
So how we do this? We do this like Christ did – retiring to a quiet place to pray.
So say you have no idea how to pray. Well, I want to share a resource that I have been enjoying this Lent and it is an app on your phone called “pray as you go” (like pay as you go, but in this case, pray as you go). It is an app that is put out by a Jesuit Community in Great Britain – when you open the app there is a prayer for the day and each day the prayer combines music, scripture, some questions for reflection, and a final prayer. The whole session lasts between 10 and 13 minutes. The aim of “Pray as You Go” is to help listeners to[1]
- become more aware of God’s presence in your life
- listen to and reflect on God’s word
- grow in your relationship with God
You can also access Pray as You Go on your lap top or PC.
And just to end, by saying that I love I love this passage from Philippians that we have had this morning, not just the middle part I quoted earlier – but I also love the last few verses:
Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
I love that Paul, one of the greatest faithful and dedicated apostles of Jesus, when he talks about faith, he does not describe it as a destination or an achievement. He speaks of it as athletic training. Our life journey of faith and spirituality will never be perfect, it will never be completed until we return home to heaven. All we can do is press on toward the goal of a spiritual life and relationship with God.
And how is this training and praying rewarded? In a way it is summed up by our collect for this morning:
Grant your people
grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the
swift and varied changes of the world, our
hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through
Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, now and for ever. Amen.
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