The author and civil rights activist James Baldwin said “not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”  He wrote those words for an essay, published in the New York Times in 1962 during the height of the Civil rights movement. Paul’s letter to the Philippians was also written at the height of a movement. It was written in a time when being a Christian was a life and death struggle, not just an emotional one. It is believed that Paul wrote this letter from prison following his arrest in Rome for preaching the Gospel, which was illegal.  The portion of the letter we heard this morning gives the impression that we are supposed to personally try to be as Christ like as possible, this is certainly the intention of the compilers of the Lectionary, but that is not at all Paul’s intention. To find his intention, we have to back up one line to the actual beginning of the chapter where he says “If, then, there is any comfort in Christ, any consolation from love, any partnership in the Spirit, any tender affection and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.  Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…” This request is not about each person being of like mind with Christ Jesus, it is about the Community doing so because it is in community that we come closest to success.

There are certainly Christian traditions that emphasize the importance of individual adherence to the teachings of Christ, and they are not wrong to do so, we should all strive to be as Christ like as possible, but personally, I really struggle with the idea that Jesus died for my personal sins and ultimately I just can’t bring myself to accept that. Instead, I think we should focus on the belief that Jesus died for our collective sins, remembering that sin is not the breaking of a rule. It is instead the breaking of our relationship with God and with each other, which is why when I call us to confess our sins I first ask us to acknowledge the things that separate us from God and from one another, because that is actually what sin is, it is the interruption of the community, of which we and God are all a part. This is going to sound strange, but murder, bank fraud, theft; while all crimes are not by themselves sins, what makes them sin is the interruption of the community through the harm that these crimes cause. This doesn’t mean that these acts are not morally wrong, it simply means that we shouldn’t oversimplify and reduce sin to a laundry list of crimes and then assume that we know who is saved based on who got caught.

The list of the sins of humanity are countless. Pick any -ism or any ideology and you will find sin. Why? Because of the purpose of an -ism, such as racism, ageism, or even sexism is to categorize and separate. We are programmed, by our own language, to categorize everything and when we do so we create barriers between ourselves. I’m doing it with this sermon by pointing out that some faith traditions might have the whole salvation thing wrong. Nothing is going to change our basic instincts to categorize, but if we ever hope to move past it then we have to face the fact that we do it; not with the mistaken belief that we are going to stop it, but with the knowledge that when we catch ourselves we can then repent, we can ask for forgiveness, and we can do better the next time; not because we got caught, but because we are a part of a community that values love.

A community based on love could look like many things: it could be what inspired thousands of people to take to the streets in the 1950’s and ‘60’s to face the blatant and systemic racism that was and is still pervasive throughout this country. It could be what has inspired thousands of people to protest gun violence, sexual harassment, social inequality, the right of a person to have control of what happens to their body, or the right of a black man or woman to go into a store without needing to worry about what they do with their hands for fear of being accused of shop lifting. It could be all of these things and in some cases perhaps it is, but what I know it is, is a group of people who gather together because of their shared love of God, who work together to improve the lives of not only the people within their community, but all people. It is a group of people that is willing to face the things we know need to change, even if we are afraid that the change will never come. Our lack of faith in the community, whether it manifest as the grumpy comment or the assumption that we know what is best or even that we have the power to control everything; that lack of faith is a sin. It is a sin because our grumpiness and desire to control is about what we want and not about what is best for the community. Loving God and loving our neighbor means we put others before ourselves, not in a harmful way, but in a way that helps us put aside our preferences and assumptions in recognition that our selfishness is interrupting the community and its shared mission.

Today begins Holy Week and as we journey towards Easter and reflect on the last days in the life of Jesus; I implore us all to ask whether there is something we need to face so that it can be changed? Is there something that we do, or tend to do, or have done that we need to atone for? Is there something for which we need to repent? If there is, I invite you to write it on the slips of paper that were passed out earlier and then come forward and put them in the bowl on the altar during the prayers of the people. No one will ever read them, they will be placed in an envelope during the service and then burned in the new fire at the Great Easter Vigil, so whatever you write is between you and God. You will have the same opportunity at our Good Friday service, so if you can’t think of anything you have time.

If we truly love God and our neighbors then we must seek to follow the example of Paul and “Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than ourselves.” Amen