You May Die -- FPC sermon excerpt

An earthquake, and then a hurricane. What a week it has been!

Although Tuesday’s earthquake caused an old chimney to crumble here at FPC, no one was injured. That’s good news, because I wouldn’t want people to think of the church as a particularly dangerous place to be.

Of course, if the apostle Paul heard me say that, he would probably disagree. For him, the Christian faith is a very dangerous thing, a practice that he knows might cause his death.

He writes today’s Scripture lesson while he is doing hard time in a Roman prison. He and his fellow Christians have been a very unpopular group, badmouthed for their secret meetings and their refusal to worship the emperor. But now they are also criminal suspects. Plenty of Romans are pointing fingers at them, hoping to win the favor of brutal Emperor Nero.

Paul knows that he might die.

In spite of this, Paul is very upbeat in his letter to the Christians in Philippi. He thanks God for their sharing in the gospel, and prays for them with joy (Philippians 1:3-5). Imprisonment has had some unexpected benefits, he reports — it “has actually helped to spread the gospel, so that it has been known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ” (vv. 12-13). This inspires his fellow Christians to “dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear” (v. 14).

You might think that danger would make Christians timid. But the opposite is true: It makes them bold and brave.

“Yes, and I will continue to rejoice,” says Paul. He expects and hopes that “Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain” (vv. 18, 20-21).

You didn’t see that coming, did you? That line is about as unexpected as an East Coast earthquake.

Living is Christ, and dying is gain. Paul is saying that as long as he lives he’ll experience Christ, and when he dies he’ll gain eternal life with Christ.

Paul might die. And he’s okay with it.

Paul reminds me of the endurance athletes who voluntarily do a dance with death as they compete in increasingly difficult events. I’m not talking about marathons and triathlons — as many of you know, I’ve done a few of these and have found them challenging, but not deadly. At the next level are people like Bruce Allentuck of North Potomac, Maryland, who is determined to inflict the maximum amount of punishment on his body and mind.

According to The Washington Post (February 11, 2011), Allentuck is neither a Navy SEAL nor a physical trainer. Instead, he is a forty-something guy who owns a small landscaping business, and goes home to his wife and three children. In his free time, he will crunch through six miles of snow with a 50-pound piece of oak, sprint a third of a mile with two buckets of gravel, or run five miles in a creek with a 60-pound truck tire.

Just for fun.

In June, he traveled to Vermont to run the 2011 Death Race. This competition is so cruel that organizers require the entrants so sign a three-word waiver. It says, “You may die.”

This kind of risk does not make the Death Race entrants timid. Instead, it makes them bold and brave.

“I just want to see if I can push through and do it,” says Allentuck. After completing seven marathons, four ultramarathons, three Ironman triathlons, a Chesapeake Bay swim, and 30 to 40 other triathlons, he says, quite simply, “It’s the next thing.”

So, what’s the next thing for the apostle Paul? He is straddling the line between life and death, and wonders which is better for him. If he lives, he will continue to engage in “fruitful labor,” and he knows that such work is beneficial to the Philippians (vv. 22, 24). But if he dies, he will “depart and be with Christ” (v. 23).

He seems to be leaning toward life, so he writes, “I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith, so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again” (vv. 25-26). Paul pushes himself to the edge of death because he wants to see what he is capable of, striving for the sake of the gospel.

Have we lost this drive in the church today? In many ways, I think we have. So often, we turn away from risk and focus on what is comfortable to us and to the people we want to attract to the church. The Death Race involves incredible commitment and preparation from participants, and so does the race of the Christian faith.