Playing In The Dirt

This written for and given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on March 28, 2004, the 5th Sunday of Lent of that year!

The Scripture is from Philippians 3: 4b-14…

        It seems as if over the years a lot of my relatives have been involved in farming in some manner or other, though I must admit those numbers have decreased greatly as those of my generation and younger have chosen careers that have taken them away from ‘playing in the dirt”. And you know, I think ‘playing in the dirt’ is about as good a description of farming as one could ask for! There is just something about the smell of fresh-tilled soil that I think most people instinctively find exhilarating, even if they aren’t sure why, or even realize what it is they are smelling!

        Soil is the basis of all farming… the fundamental element needed for every aspect of it. If you’re raising beans or corn, it is the soil that nurtures the seed until its roots shoot out and the stalk reaches toward the heavens. It is the soil that then provides the support for each plant’s journey towards God while still providing all that it needs to make that journey. Those that raise any kind of livestock are also aware of the importance of the land itself… in addition to growing the feed needed for each animal, land is needed to provide space for the herds to move and breathe and live! So it is the soil… the land itself, if you will… that all of our lives are based on, whether for food or income or both! As such, one would think it is extremely valuable! And in many ways, it is! Indeed, one group of my relatives did very well in the farming industry during the late sixties and early seventies due in large part to the seemingly unstoppable increases in land values.

It was a time when it seemed like they could do no wrong. Corn yields were approaching and passing the hundred-bushel-an-acre mark, hogs were making money hand-over-fist, and beef prices were soaring. I recall them paying $6000 for a one-of-a- kind bull bred by the University of Illinois that was ‘designed’ to improve the performance of their herd. (You must recall that this was at a time when I felt like the $1.25 I earned each hour was a very respectable wage… Ford was selling brand-knew Pintos for $1995… $6000 was a LOT of money!) They bought two new hundred-horse tractors to farm with… a far cry from the fifty and sixty-horse units that were considered huge as I was growing up, and ordered a brand-new Ford grain truck with all-wheel drive that could follow the combine anywhere it went!

They would buy up land one year, make improvements and farm it for a year or so, then sell it at a significant profit. And the bankers knew that all of this land was going to increase in value, so it showed up each year on the positive side of their net-worth statement… in other words, everyone considered it worth much more than what they had purchased it for, and so they could use that ‘excess’ as collateral to finance other, more ambitious projects. Then came the late seventies.

I’m sure most of you here remember what happened… people came to realize that all of this ground was far too overvalued and stopped buying… and the bottom fell out of land prices! Suddenly, all of these acres that were listed in the asset column as being worth x-number of dollars were now worth half that much or less. The problem for many farmers and investors was that they still owed the overly large amount of money that they had paid for or borrowed against it! So it was that almost overnight, these hundreds of thousands of dollars of net worth were moved from the asset side of the balance sheet over to the debit side… and all of this is a very down-to-earth example of what Paul’s talking about in these verses from Philippians… what I once counted as profit, I now consider loss!

In the verses immediately leading up to today’s, Paul had been cautioning the church in Philippi about a zealous faction that had been causing much trouble and division at other churches. These ‘Judaizers’, as described by one commentator, depended on their obedience to the Jewish law… and especially the covenant of circumcision… to make them acceptable to God. They believed, essentially, that it was through their actions that they would be accepted into heaven… in other words, they could ‘earn’ their way in. Paul, however, states most emphatically that this was not… and IS not, I might add… the case!

The Life Application Commentary says that, “Paul warned the Philippian believers to stay clear of the false teachers who taught that what people did… rather than the free gift of grace provided through Christ… is what saved them and made them believers. Paul’s conversion to Christ wasn’t based on what he had done, but on God’s grace… he did not depend on his deeds to please God because even the most impressive credentials fall short of God’s holy standards. Credentials, accomplishments, or reputation cannot earn salvation. That comes only through faith in Christ.”

In today’s verses, then, Paul points out that he is not downplaying any of the so-called requirements listed by the ‘Judaizers’ because of any failure of his own to abide by them… indeed, by their standards he was far more ‘qualified’ than many of them! In his own words, he was, “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.” There were no Jews more ‘Jewish’ than him! But, he states, for the sake of Christ, all that he might have counted before as profit… that is, all that the world, or his fellow Jews, might have been proud of as spiritual wealth and pointed to as an asset to his life… he now counted as loss… they had no value at all in regards to the faith and love and greatness of knowing Christ Jesus! So it is that he says, in verse 8, reading from the New Living Translation, “Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own goodness or my ability to obey God’s law, but I trust Christ to save me. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith.  As a result, I can really know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I can learn what it means to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that, somehow, I can experience the resurrection from the dead!”

In other words, what Paul is saying is that all of those things that he once placed on the asset side of the balance sheet of his life… all of those things that his family, his fellow Jews, and the world at large thought were an important and necessary part of life, and even salvation… counted for nothing! They would all have been placed on the debit side of his life’s balance sheet accept for one very important thing… Christ’s death on the cross eliminated that balance sheet!!! None of the values of the world apply anymore… they are empty… meaningless… worthless… indeed, the only thing of any worth whatsoever is our faith in God!

In the 12^th chapter of the Gospel of John we find an interesting story… let me read some of it…

Six days before the Passover ceremonies began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus — the man he had raised from the dead. A dinner was prepared in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, and Lazarus sat at the table with him. Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with fragrance.

But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples — the one who would betray him — said, “That perfume was worth a small fortune. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor…”

Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. She did it in preparation for my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but I will not be here with you much longer.”

According to the Life Application Commentary, “This ointment or perfume was made from an aromatic herb (also called spikenard) from the mountains of India, and it was imported in alabaster bottles. This expensive imported item carried such value that people used it for investment purposes, as gold is often used today. According to (some sources), this particular nard was worth 300 denarii (the equivalent of a year’s wages of a working man… perhaps $30,000 today). When supper was finished, Mary took this pure, expensive perfume and poured it on Jesus’ feet.

Many centuries later we are still humbled by the extravagance and the appropriateness of Mary’s gift. She poured out the very best she could find. But price is not the central issue here…what we observe is this sincere expression of faith and love. We render similar honor to Jesus when we practice faithful service wherever God has placed us — at home with children, at the office, teaching, or any of the myriad of other tasks we perform to support ourselves. Faithful, honest, diligent service done as unto the Lord is a gift to God. It is costly. Often others might think the effort wasted, for it seems to make no large or permanent change in the world. But what others may call insignificant or wasteful, God deems to be like the fragrant aroma that filled the house when Mary poured the nard on Jesus’ feet.”

Now, I bring this up to help make a point… what is it that you consider of value in your life? We would all like to think that under similar circumstances we would do the same as Mary… that the fact that something is worth a small fortune by the world’s standards would not deter us in using or giving it to the Glory of God. After all, Paul states that there is nothing of this world that surpasses the greatness of knowing and loving Christ Jesus… and that certainly includes all ‘things’, as well! So I ask again… what is it that you consider of value in your life?

It would appear, since you’re here, that attending Sunday service is more important to you than, say, sleeping in late… but what about tomorrow? Could you, perhaps, give some time to some needy service in the community in God’s name? If your time is valuable, wouldn’t it be great to give some of it to Christ by helping those who need it? And what about money? “No!” you say, “Paul is not talking about money here!” I agree. But I asked you what things YOU consider valuable! And if money is one of those things, are you being as generous with it in doing God’s work as He was in giving it to you in the first place… not to mention the generosity He shows in forgiving your sins?

What is it that you consider of value? Only you can answer that… but I remind you… God already knows! However, for those of us who may feel we come up a bit short in doing and being all that we should… I would point out what Paul says in the last of today’s verses, again, reading from the New Living Translation…

“I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection! But I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be. No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize… for which, God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.”

We are human… we are not always perfect. But the beauty of the grace of God is that it doesn’t matter to Him whether we are perfect or not… as long as we continue to strive to be! That means that each day is a new day… and each new day means another chance to serve God in the manner that He desires. Again… are you living your life by your values… or Gods?