{"id":1763,"date":"2003-10-05T14:47:00","date_gmt":"2003-10-05T18:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/?p=1763"},"modified":"2022-03-29T15:03:54","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T19:03:54","slug":"kosmopolitan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/?p=1763","title":{"rendered":"KosmoPolitan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Worldwide Communion Sunday<\/strong>
October 5, 2003
Reading:\u00a0Philippians 1: 27-30<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Download a PDF of this text<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLive your life in a manner worthy of the gospel.\u201d The English translations of Paul all taste like flat soda here. Paul\u2019s word choice fizzes. Now, I don\u2019t often haul out the Greek words. I don\u2019t want anyone snatching out of a sermon the notion that Christian faith depends on fancy learning. But offering to hear what a man really has to say is a basic duty. So let\u2019s listen to him. Paul said \u201cPolly-Tew-S-Thay!\u201d () This means \u201cBehave as a citizen.\u201d You can easily recognize some English word-cousins: Metro-polis, police, policy, politics. They all have to do with the Greek word for \u201ccity,\u201d polis. Poli-teu-esthe is \u201cBehave as a \u2018city-zen\u2019 \u2026 worthy of the gospel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does a good citizen behave? That\u2019s easy. Grateful. Conscious of, even eager for the welfare of all other citizens, while enjoying various liberties. A good citizen is keenly aware that the polis is an extraordinary entity. Somehow it holds the citizens together in freedom and in security, but it is also held together by them. The city is a thing so abstract and subtle it can hardly be defined. I once played 20 Questions\u00a0holding the word \u201ccity\u201d in my mind. Try it some time. Who can figure it out? They ask you\u201dAnimal, vegetable, or mineral?\u201d and while you stumble for an answer, they know that they\u2019re in for the long haul. To behave like a citizen is also to live in the knowledge that this wonder could be destroyed in a day, if you do not Polly-Tew-S-Thay! Poli-teu-esthe is about life with and for others in the city.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So behave like a citizen worthy of the gospel! But where? What citizenship does Paul have in mind? Philippi? Greece? Buffalo? Amherst, Kenmore? The United States of America? Paul was certainly no enemy of earthly rulers and rules, but neither did he make ordinary civics his subject. The polis of Paul\u2019s poli-teu-esthe is not your town. It is not your nation, either. We have seen the appalling misleading of politicians and televangelists who claim America as a Christian nation. Are they ignorant that Christ Jesus gave his blood so that no nation might ever again claim itself as savior-nation to the world; so that all nations might begin to find their promised blessing in that which is of God, not of earth? Paul was not recommending that you behave as a good citizen of your nation. No, far above clan and nation, Paul\u2019s eyes were set on a higher prize. Through Paul, God is asking you to take up your citizenship in the heavenly city, here, now, the house not made with hands. God wants you to be a Kosmo-politan; so that you kosmo-polly-tew-s-thay today\u2013conscious of the welfare of all other citizens of God\u2019s kosmos; all creatures great and small\u2013human and animal\u2013vegetable\u2013mineral. That\u2019s what God has in mind, through Paul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you undertake Kosmic caring? You start small, with your micro-kosmos\u2013those at your elbow and across the table in the church. \u201cStand firm. In one spirit. Strive side by side, with one mind for the faith of the gospel.\u201d On hearing these directions this morning, they may have had as much impact on your attention as that hail that fell last week; a loud noise for a few minutes, then melting away. But they could work, if we would work with them.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the main, do church people stand firm in one spirit? When we are bored, or ignorant, or angry, or feel things have changed too much, and we feel like wandering away\u2013in the main\u00a0what happens? Do most people poli-teu-esthe? Do most people behave as citizens of God\u2019s city? Or do we make that speech about this being a free coun-tree, where I can do what\u2019s good for me? If someone feels hurt and refuses to come to reconciliation and forgiveness, does the church send two or three to recall that one to her citizenship under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and his\u00a0commands? Or do we, in the main, simply let them go in their sin, telling ourselves that all will be happier in separate corners or different churches. When our life\u2013our real life\u2013crumbles, and it\u2019s hard to face the world for shame or sorrow, in the main, don\u2019t church people mostly just stop going to church altogether?\u2013the one place, as Bonhoeffer put it, where it\u2019s not safe to be a sinner.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today is World-Wide Communion Sunday. For those preparing to poli-teu-esthe, this is Kosmos Communion. Do you know what the key is to behaving like a citizen of God\u2019s city\u2013having the key to caring and curing like Christ in your hands? Conversely, do you know why so many churches are just falling apart, and so many others drag the flag over the cross and bat down every bird not plumed like themselves, including the Heavenly Dove? The key to life in the church is the Cross. It is the experience of having nothing left to lose, knowing that all is already given you in Christ, no matter what you think is missing. The key to understanding the withering death in the churches is people protecting their interests, functioning not at all as citizens of the Kosmos of God, but for themselves, thus tearing Christ\u2019s body apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key to life is the experience of your being in no way intimidated by your opponents, whatever they are\u2013inward weaknesses, or disease, or people acting harshly toward you. So what? O Kosmo-Politan! No one can take away your citizenship. In prayer and meditation, welcome what is given till you see it as gift. \u201cFor you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ.\u201d What was just words\u2013now dancing with life. No evil can befall you, for Christ lives in you. Now, take up this privilege of trusting him, and suffering for him as well. Take, and eat, my body and my blood. For \u201c\u201dIndeed, God did not send the Son into the Kosmos to condemn the Kosmos, but so that the Kosmos might be made whole through him.\u201d So that all might become KosmoPolitan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9Stephen H. Phelps, October 2003<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"