SCENE KID – CALEB STEWART
Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. I never get tired of telling you these things, and I do it to safeguard your faith.
Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort, though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more!
I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.
I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!
Philippians 3:1-11
The honest truth is I was bullied somewhat mercillessly in middle school, had no athletic apptitude, above average smarts with below average grades and there was almost no version of myself that I could admire so I decided to build one out of people I did – mostly musicians, poets, and performers. I was in search of social salvation. I didn’t have the language for it then, but in retrospect, I must have believed that I could achieve that salvation – that I too could be someone I admired (as evidenced by the admiration of others) – if I worked hard enough for it. If I wore the right outfits, listned to the right music, read the right books, had the right friends, used the right substances, cocked the right attitude… I too could be saved from the image of myself that I had.
Now, I can honestly say I didn’t build that identity out of things I didn’t like. I wasn’t faking it. I really did, and still do, dig alt rock and punk, and EE Cummings, and Tim Burton movies. But back then there was an edge to it. I was trying a little to hard. It wasn’t enough to enjoy it just for what it was. I felt a compulsion to belittle people who “didn’t get it.” As if you being into something else was a threat to what I was into. So, I surrounded myself with others who felt the same way about the same stuff – scene kids. And together, we all expressed our individuality in total uniformity. We didn’t just love brittish underground music… we also hated country. We didn’t just read beat poetry. We mocked anything with a coherent plot as “pedestrian.” We didn’t just watch Monty Python. We refused to see Titanic.
Now, with my identity secure in Christ and from the relational comfort of my marriage and the myriad of meaningful friendships that I enjoy, that seems ridiculous. And it turns out that I actually like the Cure and Hank Williams… both sr. and jr, thank you very much. I can hang with both Jack Keroac and Tom Clancy. I still very much enjoy black and white films with subtitles. Yet, I saw the last Avatar movie on opening weekend.
In Philippians 3, Paul flashes his “scene kid” credentials and builds the sophisticated layers of this dense passage around his own testimony:
We put no confidence in human effort, though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more!
I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.
Philippians 3:3-6
Now, we glean from this passage the “scene” that Paul was a part of – 1st century Jews who believed that one could only attain salvation if they followed a very strict set of legal dictates. Where I was looking for some sort of “social salvation” by following the rules of my pre-Christ high school outsider scene, Paul was running with a much more serious crowd. These guys were attempting to secure the salvation of their souls and their society. They thought if they lived by a strict set of rules, then God would be impressed and take them into paradise when they died… and that he would show favor on them and save them from the oppression of their political enemies. For them, there was a lot more at stake than who was going to take who to prom.
Now, these rules had a basis in scripture, but the pharisees and other Jewish sects added additional rules to prevent themselves from getting anywhere close to breaking the “original rules.” And the very first rule, the rule that they and their ancestors had been following since Abraham, was that men who wanted to be part of the community of God had to be circumcised.
I’m not going to tell any private part jokes. It would be beneath me to even bring it up. But, if you don’t know what circumcision is, you don’t want to know. However, if you decide you want to find out anyway, ask a friend. Don’t look it up online.
Now, people who thought like Paul used to were coming into the church and telling the congregants that, while it was great that Christ died to provide you with salvation, if you wanted access to that salvation, you still had to follow the rules… starting with rule number #1.
If Paul had been an apostle to YouTube, I’m sure that verse would be followed with the sound of a ubber glove snap and an image of lawn sheers.
Notice that the “dogs, evil-doers, and mutilators” of v2 are not “sinners” in the classic sense of the word. Instead, they are a rather intense bunch known as “Judiazers.” They tought that in order to be a beliver in Christ, you had to first become Jewish – you must follow the Jewish customs if you are going to be saved by the Jewish messiah.
They insisted that to overcome sin – that is, thoughts, attitudes, and actions that run contrary to the nature of God – you must begin with human effort. They are the great overestimators who pump up human ego, equating our own wills with God’s, our own power with the very one who created the universe and all it contains. They, in short, are arrogant beyound comprehension.
So, Paul comes in and basically say, “These clowns think they know what’s up… let me tell you, I’m the OG. I was following the rules like a boss when they were still pooping their drawers. Don’t pay any attention to them, it’s total non-sense. And, I would know because before Jesus interupted my own foolishness, I was the king of nonsense.”
Right up front we learn that Paul is willing to draw on his own embarrassing photos from the past – to share his own journey from lost scene kid to assured grown up – in order to:
I never get tired of telling you these things, and I do it to safeguard your faith.
Philippians 3:1
He says, I’ll embarrass myself all day long if it prevents you from making the same bone-headed mistakes that I made.
Naturally, it forces us to ask, what is so bad about following in the rules – putting in a little elbow grease, helping God help us, so to speak? Why is that so bad as to actually be evil.
Well, the statue in the lobby highlights the logic perfectly: as long as we’ll recognize our weakness, own up to it, we can return to sanity and run headlong into the arms of the Father. But if we refuse to admit we have a problem, if our behavior is the very standard of good, then where are we to go? You cannot save a drowning man if the thinks he’s swimming.
The idea that your efforts will contribute to God’s strength is a quiet assertion that God’s strength is not enough. So, when Paul tells the Philippians:
Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort…
Philippians 3:2-3
He’s telling them that the real circumcision isn’t the self-initiated cutting away of actual flesh. It is the choice to cut away dependence on the flesh itself and to instead rely wholy on God’s work through Jesus. We need to surgically remove the notion that we need to impress God, to prove ourselves to him and that we are somehow more valuable to him because we get it “right.”
Thus, in verses 8 and 9 we read:
Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith.
Philippians 3:8-9
Those of us who’ve encountered the living christ on a personal level will readily attest that, when you’re standing in his presence, made heart-clean by his forgiveness, the world and all it has to offer becomes a very insignificant indeed.
But we need to remember that paul isn’t writing a memoir. This is an epistle, a public letter intended to give instructions, answer questions, and clarify ideas. This is practicle stuff meant to address specific circumstances. Paul isn’t positioning himself as a mere consumer of that power – someone who spectatees, but doesn’t participate. He wants to be one with Jesus on more than an intelectual or emotional level. He wants, and wants for us, the practical outworking of that power – to be filled with that power so that it radiates from him into his daily descions, effort free.
He tells us exactly how to get there:
I like the way the English Standard Version puts it:
… that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Philippians 3:10-11
We need to know him
We need to share in his sufferings (described in chapt 2)
Putting away our rights
Taking on humility
Letting God do the elevating
Become like him in his death (again, chpt 2: obedience)… and in his resurrection
Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:6-11