What does it mean to share in Christ's sufferings? (Phil 3)

[The following is an alternative and much shorter ending to a recent sermon that was swamped by an attempt at raising a social justice issue. Regardless of the protective and therapeutic aim of the application of the text in the sermon in question — which in this case was to raise awareness of those who have suffered medical injury — such is often the effect of social justice preaching. The issue overtakes the text and the sermon, puts the listener on the defensive, and fails to frame the proposed remedial action in sufficiently convincing or inviting terms. If the sermon succeeded as a conversation starter, it evidently failed to persuade or meet with many takers of the hope that it set out to offer. Here, then, is perhaps a better way of resolving this troublesome sermon.]

So what does it mean to share in Christ's sufferings? 

First, it means recognizing that Jesus already shares in yours. He knows your every sigh, your every moan, your every ache, your every heartbreak. Every painful thing you even wonder about, whether it counts. Yes, it counts, but not in a meritorious way. It counts simply in the sense that Jesus notices and, indeed, he bears all these things with you. When he says, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me," he is invoking the partnership that a yoke entails. A yoke of oxen is a pair. He walks beside you, sharing your load as you share his. Though we are called to take up our cross and follow Jesus, this does not so much mean following behind him, say, marching up Calvary; it means matching your step to his as you walk your earthly way, sharing the cross-shaped bar of the common yoke, the one you bear with Christ.

Second, it means waiting and persevering. To be patient means to be "long-suffering." It means taking a deep breath and refraining from rash, precipitous action. In a time when people are growing disgusted and weary of so many forms of injustice and seemingly no accountability, the Christian must be ever vigilant, but never a vigilante. "Wait upon the Lord" is a refrain that runs through the Psalter (esp. Psa 37) and the entire canon. Those who wait upon him will inherit the earth, they will mount up on wings like eagles, etc.

Third, to share in Christ's sufferings means com-passion, to "suffer with" others who are suffering. This does not mean seeking suffering for its own sake; it means listening to those in distress, offering whatever divine counsel (from Scripture) is given you in the moment, praying for, but also advocating for those in your sphere, maybe even being a "patient advocate" — patient in a double sense — and standing with them if in no other way than with the ministry of presence. Helplessness shared is not hopeless. But help where you can. Share what wisdom, what simple forms of healing, have come your way. You are not alone, because Christ shares your sufferings. Your presence with the suffering can comfort them with the very same solidarity, not only your own presence, but that of Christ.

How do you understand what it means to share in Christ's sufferings? However you understand it, take comfort in the fact that our bodies and souls are not our own, but they belong to Him who purchased them with his own blood, who owns them now by virtue of his own suffering and death. He will not throw away or cast out anyone for whom he paid such a price of redemptive, merciful, tender ownership. And in the resurrection, we shall have everlasting comfort and peace.

Know your congregation

Instruction in preaching always entails some consideration of the various contexts in which we preach, and should encourage a commitment to gain greater and more intimate knowledge of the congregations we serve regularly and are charged with shepherding (which includes protecting, as well as feeding, leading, etc.). Staple preaching textbooks that deal with congregational contexts look at things like generational composition, racial and cultural demographics, language, gender, income, and the like.

None of the textbooks that I know of, however, give much attention to health concerns as a major aspect of preaching's contexts. I wish I had known some of the following data and thought them through more carefully before preaching a recent sermon that, in light of the idea of suffering with Christ, raised the health concerns many people are facing, and often facing in isolation and shame because of the way their concerns have been dismissed by the dominant culture (which, it turns out, may not be so dominant after all).

But here are two key statistics (and two assumptions) that we can superimpose over one another in order to arrive at what I think is a fair representation of attitudes in both church and society, and thus add an important layer to our understanding of context. [After stating the statistics, I will round the stats to the nearest tenth, so that we can speak of a "congregation" of ten whole people, rather than partial people.]

The first statistic — documented here in a 2024 study published in JAMA — is the loss of "trust in physicians and hospitals ..." from April 2020 to January 2024, a shift from 71.5% in 2019 to 40.5% in 2024. That is a huge 31% drop in less than four years; let's call that 3 people in 10 who have lost trust in physicians and hospitals.

The second statistic is the roughly 80%/20% ratio of people who received at least one needle-based C-jab to those who did not. Some estimates place the rate of uptake at 79%/21%, others at 81%/19%. But let's say: 8 of 10 vs. 2 of 10.

The first assumption (which the JAMA study also suggests) is that the 20% (or 2 of 10) who declined were already distrustful of physicians and hospitals in 2020; so, that 20% (those two people) would be counted among the original 28.5% (roughly 3 in 10) who expressed distrust going in to the (nearly) four-year period in question.

The second assumption (for which I have no data) is that churchgoers responded basically along the same lines as the larger society. Most churches — no doubt in the interest of neighborliness and good citizenship (the standpoint of the humanitarian ethical sphere) — cooperated with public health recommendations, shut down, flipped services online, and went along with all the promoted protocols. Many urged participation in the medical programs, though I know of no churches that were overtly coercive. Very few churches refused to close and many of those that did so faced a number of legal challenges as a result. The present post will not weigh in on the wisdom of those responses, but simply assumes that the participation of the church was roughly equivalent (statistically speaking) to what was reflected in the broader culture: 80%/20%.

Rounding our percentages to the nearest 10%, we can characterize the views represented in our congregations (as of 2024) as follows:

• 40% — 4 in 10 (a distinct minority) took the C-jab and continue to trust physicians and hospitals and evidently see no reason to do otherwise. 
• 60% — 6 in 10 do not trust physicians and hospitals. This majority can be further distinguished among:
• 30% — 3 in 10 who trusted the system in 2019, took the C-jab, and now do not trust the system; 
• 10% — 1 in 10 who distrusted the system, reluctantly took the C-jab for whatever reason, and continue to distrust the system, either from persistent distrust or with reasons reinforced by recent experience; and
• 20% — 2 in 10 who never took the C-jab.

If you are ever led to mention this from the pulpit, do so with great care and caution, and may the Lord fill, anoint, and inundate you with grace, mercy, peace, and love for every group mentioned above. If you think — perhaps more wisely — this topic of conversation should be addressed outside the pulpit, say, in educational settings or around the kitchen table, may you likewise be blessed with abundant grace to listen well and temper your zeal. Perhaps circumstances will unfold that will make it unnecessary to address it directly at all, though I would suggest great yawning silences about such things have their way of gaining greater negative force the longer they are ignored. Either way, it is important to know your congregation. I hope this offers a clearer view of the attitudes and experiences reflected by those in the pews, and for that matter, those who are no longer in the pews. 

We face a spiritual crisis

According to the Surgeon General.

So how do we preachers awaken the church to this crisis and rally them to the cause?

Epistemic capture of one field vs. epistemic clarity in another

So while several important voices are calling for medicine to escape the epistemic capture of the sciences, here is my old, unassuming dissertation on The Homiletical Kierkegaard and his view of Preaching in Light of the Epistemic Spheres ...

Can Kierkegaard's biblically derived understanding of understanding help preachers — and perhaps even scientists — develop eyes to see? This was not written with science in mind, except to some extent "dogmatic science." But you never know what lights may come on if folks read outside their guild.

Avoiding the oppositional tone ...

Here is a snippet of the great Sinclair Ferguson warning preachers against using an oppositional tone in their preaching. He has a valid point. Sometimes what is intended as encouragement and grounds for hope comes across as judgment, and righteous indignation on behalf of one's congregation comes across as anger at them.

If I may be so bold, however, Ferguson uses such a horrific analogy to describe the effect of this oppositional tone that, in his own address, he basically replaces an oppositional tone with a destructive image. Ferguson knows his Bible. I wonder how he would square, e.g., Stephen's sermon and its fallout in Acts 7—8 with his characterization of oppositional preaching. All of which is to say that the challenge for preachers to use the right tone and image at all times, in every sermon, never goes away, no matter how much experience we have or how conspicuous and prestigious our platforms. 

Johnson hearings

Posted with no further comment:

https://x.com/SenRonJohnson/status/2104614515392577579?s=20

Two more reasons to read Oecolampadius' Sermons on the First Epistle of John

  

Cloth w/ DJ                                      Kindle                                      Paperback

(1) Oecolampadius has replaced Zwingli as the most important first-generation (Swiss) German Reformer. In case you missed it, Yale professor Bruce Gordon, in his recent biography of Zwingli, pronounces Oecolampadius the stronger theologian. Sadly, in recent centuries, English-speaking heirs of the German Reformed tradition — "German" referring to the language the first Swiss Reformers spoke; their reforming work, by and large, was not done in Germany per se, but in the Swiss cities and cantons along the Rhine — have been cut off from the tradition's most important founding father. But just last year several seminal works of Oecolampadiana (in addition to my own) appeared: a translation of his piece critiquing "the Paschal laughter" (i.e., preachers clowning it up in the pulpit), the complete collection of his correspondence with Zwingli, et al. Oecolampadius studies is a burgeoning field and not a moment too soon. (See below.)

(2) The Sermons on the First Epistle of John (preached in Advent 1523, published in the spring of 1524) represent the evangelical movement (i.e., early 16th c. Protestantism) at its most unified. Although the first-generation Reformers would gradually come to some strong disagreements over the sacrament of the Lord's Supper (1525-1528), resulting in a rupture at Marburg (1529), there was a time when the Lutherans in Wittenberg were applauding the Reformer of Basel for his lectures on Isaiah and his Sermons on 1John (both unfolding in 1523-24). There had even been talk of hiring Oecolampadius to join the faculty at Wittenberg. The cracks would begin to appear in late 1524 with debates over Karlstadt's tracts criticizing Luther on the sacraments, but those would take some time to develop.

These days, my social media feed is awash in attacks on Calvinism. Many of these are likely from bots, others from those who have little understanding of Reformed theology. I also see many good-hearted souls rushing to its defense. 

Behind Calvinism, of course, are not only the Westminster Standards, but Calvin himself and the Institutes. Behind Calvin himself (a second-generation Reformer) stands the first generation of Reformers, and prior to the disagreements that beset the first-generation at Marburg, the evangelical movement looked with unanimous approval on this "Handbook for the Christian Life." In many ways, the series on the First Epistle of John represents the most mature distillation of the Gospel from a unified evangelical movement: from Oecolampadius as the chief expositor of the (Swiss) German Reformed, with the unanimous endorsement and congratulations of the Lutherans in Wittenberg. It was a moment of notable Christian unity marked by the Spirit, when the Gospel was clearly distinguished from the corruption of the Roman church at the time. 

There is a lot to be said for going back to the source material, especially this source material, which epitomizes the very best of the Protestant tradition (no less than one third of the global church). More than that, it represents the critical moment when, homiletically speaking, the Reformation grasped the baton from the ancient church (from Chrysostom, in particular)—the Eastern and evangelical movements connecting for a brief moment to jolt preaching itself back to life. And yet, this pivotal series has only been available to English-speaking readers since 2017. 

Laffer Curves across the map

Surely every field, every discipline, every profession will, at some point, demonstrate some corollary to the Laffer Curve. Art Laffer's famous napkin sketch (basically a frowny face) doodled for President Reagan describing how there is a tax rate above which revenue decreases rather than increases, i.e., becomes counterproductive—I assume—applies broadly, across the map. In my own area of homiletics, one often hears the objection that a sermon exceeding the attention span of most hearers will "tax" them overmuch, and instead of inspiring them will make them restless. What about your field, your experience, your congregation, your constituency?

Lord willing, I hope my sermon this morning does not run too long. I would much rather be greeted with smiles.