Image: 21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya, retrieved from this website.
On this second Sunday of Lent, our readings take a turn. Last week, we heard Jesus confront the devil and his false promises of power through control, accumulation, and spectacle. Now, we jump ahead to Luke 13, where the Pharisees warn Jesus that Herod Antipas, who murdered John, is looking to kill him too. Jesus is running afoul not just of religious leaders. Secular powers, too, would like to rid themselves of this troublesome itinerant preacher and healer for proclaiming the imminent arrival of God’s realm. These secular powers—Herod and the Empire that supports him—brook no opposition. They will not tolerate challenges to their power, even by God Himself.
Just as in the reading last week, the problem is idolatry—putting something in God’s place that is not God.
And this problem is well-familiar to the apostle Paul. I’ve modified our reading a bit from what the lectionary has. But know that right before our reading, Paul issues a warning. It’s a warning against who he calls “enemies of the cross of Christ”. These enemies have their minds set exclusively on this world. Their appetites and passions dominate them. The cross, to them, seems like so much nonsense. They want domination, wealth, and comfort. And at Philippi, this isn’t surprising. Philippi was an official Roman colony. Its citizens enjoyed privileges and wealth on par with native Roman cities. No wonder Paul is concerned with these enemies, so focused on their privilege, power, and wealth.
In contrast, Paul reminds the church at Philippi that their true homeland and citizenship is in God’s realm. Now, you learn in pastor school not to talk too much about Greek in your sermons. But this one’s too good not to discuss. The word “citizenship” is politeuma, from the root Greek word polis, which means “city”. Polis has a lot of English words derived from it, including policy, police, and politics. If we think of politics generally as “affairs of the city”, then the Christian is to be first and foremost concerned with the affairs of God’s realm. Why? Because that realm is our true home. The city of God is where we finally belong, not the city of the world.
The problem for us is that the affairs of the worldly city seem so ultimate. So final. We can so, so easily put our leaders, our political views, and our ideologies on a quasi-divine level. And the information we get often gleefully reinforces these sins against the first commandment. We get entrenched. Everything becomes a life-or-death situation. And we get anxious. Scared. Enraged. And all this anxiety, fear, and rage distracts us from our true calling to be people of the good news.
The people of God have been in a similar place before, though. The church at Philippi was dealing with its own conflicts and anxieties. Paul mentions two female leaders of that church, Euodia and Syntyche. They are well-known to Paul and have labored alongside him in the gospel’s work. Yet, something has come between them. We don’t know the nature of the conflict, but it is serious enough to draw Paul’s attention. Perhaps it is so serious that members of the church are taking sides, leading to rupture in the community. In situations like that, partisans on either side can be so sure that they’re right that they make an idol out of being right! Others may simply be frightened of the fallout from this conflict—after all, the early church was also a mutual aid society. If the church broke apart, what would happen to them? So, as Paul urged the members to be of the same mind in Christ, emulating his humility, he also urges these two leaders to do the same. To remember first and foremost that they are citizens of the city of God. Not the colony of Philippi. Not the Roman Empire. And not even the world.
There are different values associated with God’s realm. And those values often run afoul of those of the world. In Philippians 2, Paul sings of some of them as embodied by Jesus Christ. Humility, not pride. Other-focused, not self-enriching. Obedience to God over any human authority. And we can infer some others. Mercy, forgiveness, love of God and humanity, and refusal to inflict violence to get one’s way. Jesus lived out these values perfectly as the model citizen of God’s realm, not as a mere moral example, but as the way to break the demonic hold the world has on us. To break our addictions to violence, to pride, to rage, and to fear. And to establish the kingdom of God within every human heart. Jesus absorbs the violence and sin of the world so we can die to the world ourselves.
And that death happens at our baptism. We drown to the world. Sure, the old, covetous, wrenching, grasping, anxious, frightened, wrathful creature in us is stubborn. But baptism is its mortal wound. God’s Word, Jesus Christ, is present when we pour water over the head of an infant, child, or adult, to make a new citizen of heaven. And the Holy Spirit is given to the baptized to help us live in that new way of life—a life defined by mercy, love, obedience to God, and to growing into a shalom life.
And so, we need not be anxious. We need not be scared. And if we’re angry, we know we can direct that anger somewhere constructive, not destructive. Paul writes two of the most beautiful verses of scripture here, verses that have become my own personal guiding light lately since Roma chose them for her funeral:
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
We don’t need to be anxious because whatever happens in this world, God will lead us through it. God will give us strength to respond courageously, with love and grace. And we know who we are. At the end of the day, we’re not citizens of Douglas County, the state of Minnesota, or the United States of America. We don’t belong to the donkey or the elephant; to earthly politics or ideology. We belong to Jesus Christ our Lord as citizens of heaven. Thanks be to God. Amen.
© 2025, David M. Fleener. Permission granted to copy and adapt original material herein for non-commercial purposes with appropriate credit given.