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Sunday September 18, 2005 - Proper 20, Year A

It's the first verse that gets our attention in our reading from Philippians today. Did you hear it? The apostle Paul wrote,
"For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain."

It pulls us up short. Dying
is gain?
It's not exactly the way
most of us think
of death.
Death is the enemy, the final failure,
the end of everything
that matters.
Living is what we're here for. It's what we want to keep hold of. It matters, above all else.

So what is the apostle Paul talking about here? Is he off in some crazy world of his own,
suicidal tendencies
taking over his common sense?
Is this something we should be reading in church, teaching our children?
What is this about dying
as gain?

Death is something
that we don't talk about a whole lot
whether we're here at church
or anywhere else. It's a taboo subject,
one that we maybe fell safer not addressing, as if
by not talking about it
we can somehow protect ourselves
from it's power.

Most often we don't get to talking about it
until there's a crisis,
when someone close to us dies, or gets sick with something life-threatening,
or maybe when some event on the news, whether it's 9/11 or the case of Terry Schaivo,
when an event like that
forces death on our consciousness.

When that happens, we maybe allow it
to sneak into our minds, we maybe
talk about it
at least briefly.
But then, as fast as we can,
we deal with whatever minimum is absolutely necessary,
and then we push it back to the darkest corners,
and pretend
it will never
happen to us.

Bu the reality is
that all of us will die one day,
whether it is sooner or later, and it's better for us
and particularly for our families
if we have talked some about it.

So this morning
I want to do two things.
First, to talk about why the apostle Paul said
what he did,
"to me, living is Christ and dying is gain",
and then second, to talk about our death
and how we face the issues surrounding it
as Christians

First the apostle Paul.
As afar as we know, when Paul writes this letter, the letter to the Philippians,
he is writing from prison. He's stuck, most likely in Rome, having been arrested for preaching about Christ, and now he's in the hands of the Roman government. He is writing this letter to the members of the church at Philippi, to thank them for the gift the church has sent him,
and to encourage them to stand firm against those who oppose them, both non-Christians who attack them, and Christians who have gone astray.
And he wants to reassure them
that just because he is in prison
doesn't mean that his ministry is a failure, doesn't mean
that somehow God has failed.
In fact, he's been keeping himself busy in jail
preaching to his guards!

It's most likely, as far as we know, from references in other parts of the New Testament
that Paul's time in prison
is coming close to it's end. The law allows him to be held for two years, and that two years is almost up. A decision has to be made: to declare him innocent, and release him,
or to declare him guilty,
and have him executed.
So when he says "To live is Christ, to die is gain,"
Paul has the real possibility of death in the immediate future
hanging over him. This isn't just theory;
in probably not much more than a few days
he will know
if life is ahead of him
or death.

And so he thinks
about the two possibilities ahead of him.
There is life
and there is death.

Life, thinks Paul, is good. Life
is the place where he gets to serve Christ. If he is a live,
he's able to write to, to encourage, to lead the church. There is so much to do, and so every extra minute he lives
is more time
to do the work of God.
And alive, he is able to continue to reach out to the Philippians, to strengthen them, and to enjoy their growth.

But death, says Paul,
is even better. Because in death
he gets to be with Christ. It's as simple as that. The Jesus Christ
that he never got to meet in person on earth
he will get to meet
and spend the rest of eternity
in his presence.
What could be better?

But, he concludes, his work isn't done. And so for now
his calling
is to life.

It's a long way
from how most of us view death, isn't it?
We tend to see it as the enemy, something to be avoided at all costs.
But from Paul's perspective, death is not the worst thing that can happen to us. In fact, it's the best thing - because it's when we finally get
to meet Christ
face to face.

Because that's what, according to Paul,
death is all about. He doesn't talk a whole lot about what it will be like when we die, just that we will be resurrected
and be with Christ.
And as far as he is concerned
that is the most wonderful, incredible thing,
to be sought after
above all else.

And there is a sense in which
the whole of life
is preparation for that.
Living life
in a way
that is worthy of Christ.
In a way that means
that if Christ were to physically
drop in on us tomorrow
we would not be ashamed,
but would welcome him with great joy,
as an honored guest.
But of course, while Christ may not be with us physically,
he is with us through his spirit
each and every day,
and so we are to live our lives
in a way that reflects that.
So that what Christ sees
is people
whose life here on earth
reflects the way that our life with be after death, living in the presence of Christ and giving him glory.

That's why Paul said, living is Christ
and dying is gain.

So what about us? What do we think about death?

Most of us
would prefer not to think of it at all. It's a conversation
that we prefer to put off
until it can't be avoided.

First of all, death is not something to be feared.
The process of dying, that may be difficult and painful, or quick and merciful. Our deaths are painful for those who love us and will miss us terribly. But death itself
is not something we should be afraid of.
We will be safe in the hands of God, safe as we share in the resurrection
of our Savior Jesus Christ.

But second, death is something we need to prepare for.
One of the slightly odder things that I am required to do by Canon Law, that is, the law of the Church, is to instruct you
"about the responsibility of all persons to make a will as
prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer."
And if you were to open your prayer book to page 445, this is what you would find there:
"The Minister of the Congregation is directed to instruct the people, from time to time, about the duty of Christian parents to make prudent provision for the well-being of their families, and of all persons to make wills, while they are in health, arranging for the disposal of their temporal goods, not neglecting, if they are able, to leave bequests for religious and charitable uses."
So I'm telling you: please make sure you have a current will. It protects those who you leave behind from having to deal with everything themselves; it's also good stewardship. You need to choose where you want your money to go, not let those decisions be made for you and potentially lose some to the government.
But death is something we need to prepare for in other ways too. The case of Terry Schiavo made the headlines, and one of the reasons it did that
was that it wasn't really clear what Terry's wishes were for the sort of end-of-life decisions that had to be made.

In this month's Episcopal Life, which we have at the back of the church, there is an article about one family and how they went about having this sort of conversation. It tells about how when a woman, who had been ill, got gradually sicker, they had a family meeting, her and her four children, to talk about how they would care for her through the end of her life. One son, a doctor, was appointed to make the decisions. In the end she had surgery and never regained consciousness. In accordance with her wishes, her ventilator was removed, and, as her children read the final chapter of a favorite book to her, she died.

I encourage you to read this story; it's also available online at www.episcopal-life.org.

And finally, we should prepare by living in a way
that doesn't leave
unfinished business.
There is nothing worse, I sometimes think,
than when someone dies and there is all this emotional stuff that hasn't been dealt with.
So tell your family you love them. Practice forgiveness. Focus on what really matters, and let the rest
take care of itself.

These are not easy things to deal with; they're not easy to talk about, even in the abstract from the pulpit. But they are important.

And as Christians, people who are confident that death is not the end,
that we look forward to being with Christ,
we have all the more reason
to be prepared. Those who we leave behind
will grieve;
the decisions we make now
will allow them to say goodbye
without the burden
of unfinished business.
will at least remove some of the practical pain for them.

And then, maybe, we can join Paul in his claim, "To live is Christ, to die, is gain."
And remember, as the book of Romans tells us, "Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

 

Sermon ©Raewynne J. Whiteley 2005