who do you think you are?

 

‘But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.’

Philippians 3.20, 21

When we read the Bible, we are invited to find ourselves in the story, and to do so honestly, in Christ. He is the interpretive key to the story, the resurrected Jesus who appears to his followers and says, ‘Peace be with you.’ Whatever you are going through, peace be with you.

This Sunday when the church gathered to meet with Jesus, we read from a letter Paul wrote to our brothers and sisters in Philippi.

Around forty years before the birth of Jesus, the brilliant Roman general Julius Caesar took for himself emergency powers to save the Republic. Not everyone agreed that this would save the Republic. Some, even former friends of Caesar’s, believed it would destroy the Republic. Caesar was assassinated (on what our calendar calls 15th March, 44 BCE) and the Republic thrown into civil war. Caesar’s friend Mark Anthony and adopted son Octavian chased Cassius and Brutus around the Mediterranean, catching up with them just outside Philippi, in Macedonia. Mark Anthony and Octavian won a decisive battle and rewarded many of their legionaries for faithful service by giving them Philippi as their pension, also making the city a colony of Rome, that is, Rome in another place.

Around fifteen years later, Mark Anthony and Octavian had fallen out, Octavian had defeated his former friend, and declared himself emperor, taking the title Augustus, or venerable, and rewarding more soldiers with retirement in Philippi.

Paul will turn up in town around seventy-five years later. By now the original generation of Roman citizens is gone, but the current residents enjoyed Roman citizenship as a participation in the reward of someone else.

This, too, is the basis on which we are citizens of heaven, of the rule and reign of God in the world which is the reward given to Jesus for being faithful even unto death, and which we benefit from. Not on the grounds of our own faithfulness.

Paul, Silas and Timothy were seeking to establish new communities of followers of Jesus in what today we would call Turkey. But every way they turned, they felt God say, not here, not yet.

Perhaps you know what it is like to seek guidance for a decision you need to make or an action you are looking to take and feel only confusion and frustration.

Eventually, one night Paul has a dream. A man from Macedonia stands before him, saying, Come over to us; we need to hear the Gospel too.

The next morning, over breakfast, Paul tells his friends about his dream, and they agree this is what they need to do. So, they head to the nearest port, take a ship across the Aegean Sea to Neapolis, and make the short walk inland to Philippi.

Wherever Paul went, his first move was to seek out the Jewish community, those with whom he had a common history. But at Philippi, there was no Jewish community. Perhaps there were some Gentiles who worshipped the Jewish god, and if so, they would probably be found on the Sabbath, a little way outside the city walls, by the river where there was flowing water to wash in before praying. And this is where they do find such people, including Lydia.

Lydia was a businesswoman, an immigrant to Philippi from Thyatira, perhaps what we would call a fashion designer. She invited Paul and his companions to be her guests; they told her about Jesus; and she asked to be baptised. Then for several days they shared stories of Jesus.

But as they walked through the city, they would be followed around by a slave girl who was possessed, or oppressed, by a demon that purported to tell your fortune. As many people want to know what is going to happen, or think that they do, or want to find a hack to swing chance in their favour, this slave girl made her owners, her pimps, very wealthy. And she started following Paul and his companions around, telling anyone in earshot, ‘These men are servants of the Most High God, who bring you a message of salvation.’

The endorsement of a demon is not the kind of publicity Paul is looking for, for Jesus. At first he tries to ignore her, but eventually it is too much. He turns around and performs an exorcism. The girl returns to herself, and her owners realise that they have lost their income stream. This makes them angry.

They drag Paul and Silas before the magistrates and accuse them of inciting public disorder. The magistrates decree that, accordingly, they should be stripped and beaten with rods in the public square, then spend the night in the cells before being run out of town. And this is what happened.

Paul and Silas find themselves in stocks in the innermost cell. And their response is to sing hymns of praise. Behaviour that intrigues the other prisoners. Who does this?

During the night there is an earthquake, and the prison doors fail. The jailer despairs. He sees a future in which he is held accountable for the escape of his prisoners, where he suffers the public shame of trial and execution; and he decides that it would be more honourable to take his own life.

But Paul calls out, ‘Stop! No one has escaped.’ You might feel that you have no options, but you do have options. And the jailer chooses to take Paul and Silas into his home, wash them, tend to their bruised and bloodied bodies, feed them. And he asks these extraordinary men, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ And, like Lydia, he and his household are baptised.

The next morning, the magistrates send the word to expel Paul and Silas from the city. But Paul does not think so. They are, he claims, Roman citizens. This terrifies the magistrates. It is not legal to punish a Roman citizen without trial, yet they had not taken the trouble to establish who was brought before them or their side of the story. They saw only a foreigner whose presence was an offence. Paul could be Nigerian, and Philippi, Sunderland. But for this failure, the magistrates could lose their jobs and be banned for life from holding any public office.

Instead, they find themselves humbled before Paul. Paul and Silas rejoin their companions, return to Lydia’s home to say their farewells, and leave town on their own terms.

Later, Paul writes to the brothers and sisters in Philippi, about (among other things) their primary citizenship (a colony of the rule of God) and the hope that the humiliated body will be glorified.

So where do you find yourself in this story of citizens and migrants, of feeling oppressed or of being exploited, of miscarriages of justice, of deep despair, of burning humiliation?

Where does Jesus suddenly appear before you, saying, ‘Peace be with you?’