St Gabriel's Family Communion. Sunday 5^th October 2008. - Rev. Arthur Botham

Old Testament: Exodus.20:1-4; 7-9;12-20;

New Testament: Philippians 3:4b-14;

Holy Gospel: St. Matthew 21; 23-32

The present state of the stock market must be a matter of great concern for many a government, company accountant, and investor - both great and small. The past weeks have seen billions of pounds wiped of the share values of companies with a resulting loss of value and dividend, banks that once seemed secure falling over.

Analysts say that the market was vastly over-inflated and what we will see in the aftermath of this massive slide, is a return to more stable and normal levels. Though what comfort that could be to the weary accountant or investor glancing down his profit and loss sheet I really can't imagine. It can be distressing to put your trust in something for a better life only at the last to see it crumble away.

Paul looks back to the time when his whole system of spiritual accountancy broke down and all the accumulated profit of the years slumped to rock bottom. He recognizes his previous state of personal spiritual bankruptcy. But to his astonishment there at the end of it is the risen Christ, the one whom he despised and rejected. Paul witnesses to an intensely personal transaction.

Reading these words of Paul's reveals something of how he understands his encounter with the risen Christ and it is easy to imagine him having something of the accounts blood because he uses the analogy of profit and loss. He begins by listing items on the credit side:

1.      A Hebrew of Hebrews: Not the same as saying he was a true Israelite. History had scattered Jews over known world, almost every town, every city, every country had a Jewish community. Tens of thousands in Rome, over a million in Alexandria. Uniquely they refused to let themselves be absorbed into the local culture. Retained own religion, customs and laws but often forgetting their native tongue and adapting to the use of the universal language - Greek. A Hebrew was a Jew of pure racial descent and who deliberately retained the ancient Hebrew language. Paul claimed pure racial descent. He was of the tribe of Benjamin

2.       As far as the Law was concerned. he was a Pharisee. An exclusive religious sect. There were no more than six thousand. Spiritual athletes of Judaism. Name means 'separated ones' Main aim in life was to keep the Law in all its minute detail and then some. Not only a Jew who could trace his lineage, but also one devoted to rigorous observance of its religion.

No one knew better from personal experience than Paul knew what Jewish religion was at its highest and most demanding.

3.      As far as zeal was concerned: Paul had been a persecutor of the Church whom he regarded as the enemy of all that he adhered to and believed in. To have a 'zeal for the Lord' was the hallmark of the religious life for a Jew. Paul had been so zealous that he had tried to wipe out the church, something that he never forgot and refers to often throughout his letters and his life. He is not ashamed to confess that he once hated the Christ he now loves and serves. It is Paul's claim that he knew Judaism at its most intense and fanatical.

4.      As for legalistic righteousness: Paul claims there was no demand of the Law that he did not fulfill. Obsessive, purist and thoroughly uncompromising. He had a record in Judaism that no man could fault.

All these things Paul might have claimed to set down on the credit side of the balance, but when he met the risen Christ he immediately wrote them off as bad debts. All that he had held, believed in and built his life on were in fact quite useless. All his human achievements had to be laid aside in order that he might accept the free grace of Christ.

There are echoes here of the parable recounted by Matthew where Jesus told of the man who found the treasure in a field, sold all he had just to buy that field.

Paul had to divest himself of every human achievement, every claim to honour in order to accept the complete mercy and grace of God in Jesus Christ. He does this by moving them all over to the debit side of the account. Not just reducing them to a zero balance but to a negative one. He counts them loss! This is what Paul found: A right relationship with God is not found in any human achievement or effort. He is saying to them and to us "all my life I sought a right relationship with God. I thought it was to be found by strict adherence to a set of laws and principles but I was wrong." What an admission to make for one of his standing! He says that "ultimately it all turned out to be nothing more than rubbish, fit for the tip - the only way into a right relationship with God, to find fellowship with him and to be at peace and in friendship with him is through knowing Christ." Further "I gave up trying to create a goodness of my own, I came to God in humble faith as Jesus had told me to and I found that fellowship that I so longed for."