A Message for Lent 2025
Lent 2025 – Bishop Frank Logue
The values and practices of good citizenship were a large part of what I learned in my many years as a Boy Scout. Among the merit badges I was required to earn on my path to becoming an Eagle Scout were those for Citizenship in the Community, Citizenship in the Nation, and Citizenship in the World. The badge requirements involved me learning about my responsibilities as well as my rights in each of these realms.
For the Apostle Paul, his Roman citizenship was critically important to his life and ministry. Yet Paul holds this in relative tension with his faith when in his letter to the Philippians he proclaims that our citizenship is in heaven. I want to use this as a lens for seeing Lent from another angle in asking, “What difference does it make that I am a Citizen of Heaven?”
To open this up, I want to share how citizenship uniquely mattered to both Paul and the Christians he wrote to in Philippi and then return to our own Lenten journeys. In the Acts of the Apostles, Paul’s preaching in Jerusalem angers a crowd. A riot was near breaking out when the Roman Tribune had Paul bound and brought to the barracks. The book of Acts describes when they had tied him up with thongs, Paul asked the centurion, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who is uncondemned?” Paul confirmed his citizenship, then we read, “Immediately those who were about to examine him drew back from him; and the tribune also was afraid, for he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had bound him.”
Paul had been born a Roman citizen, while most within the bounds of the Roman Empire had no such status. The young Saul, as he was called until his conversion, was issued two pieces of wood connected by a hinge, called a diptych. Inside the pieces wood were wax surfaces that provided both his proof of citizenship and birth certificate. While scripture does not tell of Paul carrying this artifact, we read how he readily proved he was a Roman citizen when challenged. It is not a stretch to assume he had this first-century equivalent of a passport that sometimes worked as a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card.
Paul knew that citizenship mattered a lot to the Philippians as well. They lived in an important city on a major trade route to the east. After Philippi was destroyed in war, Octavian populated the rebuilt city with military veterans and gave the city a unique status as an ius italicum, meaning Philippians were as much a citizen of Rome as those born in the capitol of the Empire. When Paul told the Philippians, “Our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” he understands how much Roman citizenship matters to them.
Paul’s use of the word Savior here is also meaningful as he rarely used the word Savior to describe Jesus. But the Roman Imperial cult described the Emperor as the Savior. The use here is very appropriate for naming the citizenship which matters most is being a citizen of heaven as the one who will save you is Jesus, not the Emperor.
For Paul, baptized Christians are citizens of heaven. This is not a future promise but a present reality that is to result in a change in worldview marked by changes in behavior. Philippians 1:27 is translated in the NRSV Bible as “Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” But a closer look at the Greek shows that what we translate as “to live” was a verb that literally means “to citizen.” We have no such verb in English. A rougher translation that gets Paul’s idea across is, “One thing, citizen yourselves in a way worthy of the good news of the Messiah.”
We too are to conduct our lives in a way that befits the coming reign of God. This means we are to be people of prayer, whose lives witness to the deeper reality that our real hope and trust rest in the God who made us, loves us, and sent Jesus to redeem us. We are to act as Citizens of heaven as we give as Jesus gave, forgive as Jesus forgave, and love as Jesus loved.
If you are looking for a resource that will assist in this journey, our 1Book1Diocese for Lent is Passions of the Soul, a book meant to provoke self-awareness of how our instincts, emotions, and reactions can assist us in breaking chains of thought leading us astray. This practical insight can diagnose what is binding us to unhelpful and potentially destructive patterns. The more we disrupt these unhealthy habits of thought and action, the more our lives will reflect our ultimate citizenship.
For while many will set their minds on earthly things alone, we know our citizenship is in heaven. It is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ whose triumph over sin and death we will celebrate anew on the other side of our Lenten journey. And as we embark on this season, may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make the light of his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
Amen.