Citizens of Heaven
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CITIZENS OF HEAVEN
The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Second Sunday in Lent
March 16, 2025
Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us … Our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. (Philippians 3:17, 20)
In today’s reading from his letter to the Philippians, the Apostle Paul urges us to observe – even imitate – those who are living Christ-like lives. Who are they? Well, with all the modesty he could muster, Paul admitted that one of them was himself. “Join in imitating me, because I am imitating Jesus,” might be fair paraphrase of what he meant. “Hey, look at me,” he might have added.
Someone else who comes to mind is closer to home for us, and a good bit more contemporary than Paul. In fact, we have a magnificent portrait of her hanging in the reception room. Of course, I’m talking about Catherine Lorillard Wolfe. In 1846, when Grace Church opened the doors of this building for the first time, Catherine was 18-years old and lived at 744 Broadway. Her father was on the vestry of Trinity Church downtown, but with Grace Church now only two blocks away, he decided to transfer the family membership to this parish. Thus began a remarkable record of Christian service through the church. When her parents died, Catherine inherited enormous wealth from both sides of the family, and she took great pleasure in sharing her bounty. In her own words, she regarded her inheritance as a sacred trust “to be administered in the fear of God and for the benefit of humanity.” She built churches, hospitals, and schools throughout the world.
Catherine had two favorite charities: the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Grace Church. Listen to a partial list of what she did for us. She gave all the funds necessary to build and furnish the Parish House on the north side of the church, and the chantry on the south side. Both buildings are still in constant use today. The high altar, reredos, and Te Deum stained glass window at the east end of the church were her gift. The first chancel organ came from her, as did the land on 4th Avenue upon which Grace Church School buildings now stand. Perhaps most noticeable of all, when it was time to replace the old wooden spire with one made of stone, she gave the crucial gift to make it happen. Still today, the spire points to the skies, and reminds us that our citizenship is in heaven. “Look up,” is what it insists to all who pass by on Broadway. Apparently, one day in the early 1880s, Henry Codman Potter, the Rector of Grace Church, was telling a fellow rector all that Catherine Lorillard Wolfe was doing here, including the spire. The other rector sighed, and then he declared, “How I wish I had such a wolf in my fold.”
In today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke (13:31-35), we encounter not a wolf in the fold, but a fox in the hen house – not someone building up the kingdom of God, but someone devouring God’s people. Luke writes: Some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.’” When Jesus called Herod “that fox,” it was not a compliment. But why the name calling, and who was Herod, anyway? Note well, the Herod whom Luke writes about today was not Herod the Great, King of the Jews when Jesus was born. No, today we meet Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great. Herod Antipas was never granted his father’s title, King of the Jews. Instead, he was the Tetrarch of Galilee, in charge of the agrarian region well north of Jerusalem.
In the Gospels, Herod Antipas comes across as a self-serving, corrupt, and even debauched individual. Three incidents give us progressively deeper windows into his soul. The first would be his treatment of women. Herod was married to an Arab princess, but he took an unholy liking to his half-brother’s wife, a woman named Herodias. With his heart set on his sister-in-law, Herod divorced his wife and sent her back to her kingly father. Then he began wooing Herodias, eventually convincing her to leave her husband – Herod’s half-brother – and marry him. Guess what Herodias’ ex-husband’s name was. Would you believe Herod II? You need a scorecard to keep them all straight, and I’m only skimming the surface.
The second window into the soul of Herod Antipas concerns John the Baptist, a cousin of Jesus. John was a Galilean prophet preaching in the wilderness, and when he learned of the illicit union between Herod and Herodias, he railed against the whole family. Herodias didn’t like it, so she devised a scheme to get rid of John. To celebrate his birthday, Herod hosted a lavish banquet in his own honor, and invited many guests. Herodias had a daughter from her previous marriage, a young woman named Salome, presumably the niece of Antipas, and now his step-daughter. Herodias arranged for Salome to do a provocative dance at the banquet. All the men were gratified, most especially Herod Antipas: her uncle, now her step-father. How sick is that? As a reward Herod promised to give Salome anything, up to half his kingdom. Herodias advised her daughter to ask for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Herod gave the order and John was slain.
The third widow opens only briefly, but perhaps the view it provides of Herod’s soul is the most telling of all. It occurs later on in the Gospel of Luke (23:6-12), at the trial of Jesus after his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. You may recall that the Roman soldiers first brought Jesus to Pontius Pilate for questioning, but when Pilate learned that Jesus was a Galilean, he sent him over to Herod, who was staying in Jerusalem at the time. Herod was surprised, but pleased. He’d long heard about Jesus, and hoped that one day the miracle worker might perform a little magic show just for him. You see, once again from Herod’s point of view, life was all a great quest to fulfill his own desires. Thus Jesus, brought before him, was merely an opportunity to satisfy his curiosity. But when he questioned Jesus at length, Jesus spoke not a word. He refused to dignify the questions with a response. I was amused by one commentator, who stated the obvious about the passage: “It’s a bad sign when Jesus says nothing.”[1] It was a sign that Jesus did not like Herod, “that fox,” at all.
This brings me back to today’s reading from Philippians. When Paul encouraged his readers to find good Christian role models to observe and imitate, clearly, the likes of Herod Antipas were not on his list. Herod was no citizen of heaven. He was a fickle, corrupt, narcissistic creature of the earth. Herod was an embarrassment to the Jews, whose calling it was to be a light to enlighten the nations. We can only imagine how deflating it must have been to have a person of such low moral character as their government official. Beware of following the example of Herod and others like him, warned Paul in the strongest possible terms: Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; their glory is their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.
Likewise, witness how decisively Jesus moved on from Herod, as if not to grant him rent-free space in his mind: Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way. Jesus had a mission to fulfill, and it was not to die in Galilee under Herod, as did his cousin, John the Baptist. It was to go to Jerusalem, confront the ruling powers, and offer his life there. He said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” The image of the protecting mother hen was a scene that would have been familiar to many in the agrarian Galilean countryside. Then as now wild, hungry foxes seek to ravage barnyard chicken coops. If a fox breaks into a hen house it’s a terrifying sight. Apparently, a mother hen will try to shield her chicks from the fox by gathering them under her wings. The chicks are hard to corral, and the hen will invariably die in the effort. She stands firm against the fox, and gives her life for her young.
Jesus knew that he was going to die in Jerusalem. Mother hens seldom, if ever, survive when the fox attacks. Her only instinctual hope, I suppose, is that if the fox takes her it will leave her young alone. Jesus seems to have understood that his death would be saving in a similar way. By going to Jerusalem he would absorb into himself the full blast of what sin could render. When he stretched out his arms on the hard wood of the cross, he would offer himself, in obedience to God’s will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world. St. Paul would go so far as to suggest that we join in imitating those who live according to the cross of Christ. Look to those who are offering themselves, not serving themselves. Look to those who aspire to be citizens of heaven. Look not to those who are base creatures of the earth, gratifying their own lust for power.
“Join in imitating me,” said St. Paul, who implied that he was imitating Jesus. Or, if St. Paul is too remote a figure for you, join in imitating Catherine Lorillard Wolfe, who gave generously of herself to build up the kingdom of God and benefit humanity. But even she, whose blessings we still enjoy today, lived long ago, having died in 1887. Someone else, then, whose story is familiar to many people still alive today, is Jonathan Daniels, who was an Episcopal seminarian and civil rights activist. He, too, can show us what it looks like to be a citizen of heaven. Just sixty years ago this month, on Sunday, March 7, 1965, Daniels witnessed on television the violent suppression of peaceful marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Later that evening the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. went on air and urged students to come to Selma and join the non-violent protests against racial segregation. By the next Thursday, Daniels was on the bus headed south, and he was there on March 17 – sixty years ago tomorrow – for the successful march across the bridge.
Jonathan Daniels recognized that one march across one bridge was hardly the end of the struggle. Thus, he stayed on in Alabama, recruiting African Americans to vote for the first time, integrating churches and stores, and exposing the injustices that were all too common in the deep south. In August he was arrested with a large group of others who were picketing a whites-only store. For nearly a week they were held in squalid conditions, until finally being released into the brutal heat of the Alabama summer. Daniels and three others walked to a local store to buy something cool to drink. As they approached the screened door, Daniels was with a young Black woman who had also been detained – 17-year old Ruby Sales. Before opening the door a man on the other side leveled a shotgun at them, and threatened that if they came in, he’d blow off their heads.
Instantly recognizing the gravity of the situation, Daniels pushed Ruby Sales out of the way, and she fell to the ground. The man inside the store fired the gun through the door, and Daniels took the full blast of the shotgun to his chest. He died instantly. He gave his life so that another might live. Like a mother hen standing between the fox and her brood, he absorbed the evil into himself.
Jonathan Daniels, Catherine Lorillard Wolfe, St. Paul the Apostle – each of these in his or her own way aspired to be citizens of heaven, even in the time of this mortal life. They are worthy of observing and imitating. My prayer is that the Spirit of the living God who dwelled in them, also burns brightly in us and shines through us. Let the spire of our magnificent church ever raise our sights and standards, so that we too may follow Jesus, along the way that leads to eternal life.
[1] Leslie Weatherhead, Personalities of the Passion, Hodder and Stoughton, p. 52.