Sunday, April 6, 2025
/The Fifth Sunday of Lent
Isaiah 43:6-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3: 4b-14; John 12: 18
The Rev. James M. L. Grace
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and holy Spirit. Amen.
So I want to talk about the epistle reading today – Paul’s letter to the Philippians. A few important contextual comments about it first. It seems that Paul wrote this letter to an emerging Christian community in the Roman city of Phillipi, named after Phillip II, the father of Alexander the Great. Phillipi is on the coast in modern-day Greece, and you can visit the Roman ruins of the site today. While addressed to Phillipi, it appears that Paul wrote this letter while he was incarcerated in a Roman prison. He was arrested for supporting a Jewish insurrectionist in the eyes of the Roman government – his name was Jesus of Nazareth.
In his letter to the Philippians, Paul lists all his qualifications – his resume or pedigree – everything that qualifies him to be an apostle. He writes, and I here quote directly from Philippians, “If anyone has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more, circumcised on the eighth day (that was the day to be circumcised according to Leviticus 12:3) a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin (very important tribe which included Jerusalem within its perimeter), a Hebrew born of Hebrews as to the law, a Pharisee (the Pharisees were a Jewish group that flourished in Jerusalem).
In verse 8 Paul uses the Greek word “skubalon” to describe all these accomplishments of his. Skubalon is a Greek word which we would loosely translate as garbage or excrement. So what exactly is Paul saying here? Paul is saying that his pedigree – the things which used to be so important to him – being from the right tribe, being a Pharisee, being circumcised on the eighthth day, etc. – those things no longer matter to Paul. They went from being really important to becoming skubalon – garbage. The only explanation for Paul’s change of view is a spiritual awakening, which Paul had when he met Jesus. It was this spiritual awakening which gave Paul the ability to see all the stuff Paul thought was so important -status, prestige, respect – for what it really was – skubalon. When he is writing the letter to the Philippians in a prison cell, Paul considers his current lot as a prisoner who knows Jesus to be a promotion from his former life.
Decades ago I was a fan of the heavy metal band “Iced Earth” – shocking, I know. Iced Earth was like a lower tier Iron Maiden – Iced Earth had the melodies but neither the budget nor popularity of say, Judas Priest. The guitarist and lyricist in Iced Earth is a man named Jon Schaeffer. An avid reader, Schaeffer’s lyrics for Iced Earth songs were full of biblically inspired imagery with heavy focus on themes of hell, judgment, guilt, and redemption. Schaeffer is also a history buff, and his love of American history is apparent in Iced Earth’s thirty-minute song (yes – thirty minute song) on the battle of Gettysburg.
A student of American history, Schaeffer became a part of American history when he was arrested for storming an entrance into the Capital building on January 6, 2021 during the now infamous “Stop the Steal rally.” Schaffer fully cooperated with the authorities, and he served approximately four years in prison, some of it in solitary. When he entered prison in 2021, Schaffer was very anti-religious.
But prison can be a wonderful place for God to work. Schaffer was not allowed to read any books in prison – save one. A Bible. He began reading it. Likewise, Schaffer found the Christian faith practiced by other men in his cell block to be inspiring. After his sentence was complete, Jon Schaffer joined a non-denominational church and was later baptized. In the first interview he has had since his arrest (an interview released last week), Schaffer says “Jesus Christ is real, and it is powerful. It is the heaviest story ever told. It is the heaviest thing you could wrap your head around – his life, his death, his resurrection. There is nothing heavier, nothing.”
Schaeffer is no saint. And while I am still an Iced Earth fan today, and I love Jon for the spiritual awakening he is having, Jon and I’s politics and our theology are probably as opposite of one another as they could possibly be. However, Jon, like Paul, is an example of a human being who made a lot of mistakes (insurrection, agitation, and murder – here I’m just speaking of Paul). Both Jon and Paul were broken by the mistakes they made. Yet God used their personal failures as an open window to meet them. When Paul and Jon met Jesus, they could see that their pedigrees (Paul - a Pharisee in the tribe of Benjamin, Jon - a church hating heavy metal guitarist) their pedigrees were skubalon (garbage).
Now a prison sentence is not a prerequisite to having your life changed by Jesus. You need not be incarcerated to have perspective on your own skubalon. You can have a spiritual awakening outside of a prison cell. The question is – will you? AMEN.