17th Sunday after Pentecost – the Rev. Mark S. Winward, MDiv,ThM
Proper 20A
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” — Philippians 1:21
Jim Elliot and the Question of Suffering
Those words could just as easily have come from the mouth of Jim Elliot, the missionary who was killed while trying to share the gospel with an isolated people in Ecuador. I first heard about Jim through his brother-in-law, Tom Howard, a professor at my college who was influential in my own spiritual journey. Through him, I came to know the story of a man remembered for his courage, devotion to Christ, and desire to share the gospel.
Jim and Elisabeth went separately to Ecuador as missionaries in 1952 and married there the following year. Together with other missionaries, they served among the Quichua people, providing medical care, working at translating Scripture, and sharing their Christian faith. But Jim and several others also hoped to make peaceful contact with the Waorani, a people who had had very little peaceful contact with outsiders. After months of trying to communicate their peaceful intentions, five missionaries established a small camp along the Curaray River. Their first encounters with Waorani people seemed promising. Then, unexpectedly, the five men were killed. Jim Elliot was twenty-eight years old.
Years before his death, Jim had written words that would later become famous: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” And that raises a difficult question. Where was God? Their wives had prayed for them. They believed God had called them and that they were doing his will. And they were killed. So did God abandon them? Did God somehow fail to answer those prayers?
It is hard to see how anything good could come from what happened on that riverbank. Five young men were dead. Five women had lost their husbands. Children had lost their fathers. The mission they had risked their lives to begin appeared to have ended almost before it started. God did not keep those men physically safe, and we should not pretend otherwise.
I cannot explain why God did not prevent those deaths. Nor can I explain why one person comes home safely and another does not, even though both have been surrounded by prayer. Those are questions that faithful people have carried through terrible grief. Paul’s words do not explain why a particular tragedy happens. They do tell us something about our relationship with Christ when it does.
Paul’s Confidence in Christ
Paul was well acquainted with the cost of discipleship. He wrote his words in today’s lesson to the Christians at Philippi from prison. He does not know exactly what is going to happen to him. He may be released, remain imprisoned, or even be executed. Yet his words express a remarkable confidence. Whatever fear he may have felt, he is convinced that his future belongs to Christ.
“For to me,” Paul says, “to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Think about what Paul is saying. He does not know whether he will be released or executed, but he is convinced that he belongs to Christ whatever happens. If his life continues, there is work to do for the people he loves. And even if he dies, his life with Christ will continue.
Paul is not saying that death is meaningless or that suffering does not hurt. He had lost his freedom, been beaten, imprisoned, and rejected. He knew what suffering could take from a person. What he is saying is that none of those things, not even death itself, can finally take Christ away from him.
“For to me, to live is Christ.” If Paul lives, his life no longer belongs simply to himself. It belongs to Christ. He says that remaining alive means “fruitful labor” for him. In other words, if God gives Paul another day, he intends to use that day in the service of Christ and Christ’s people.
And his concern for those people is very real. Although he desires to depart and be with Christ, he believes that remaining alive is more necessary for their sake. He wants to help them grow in faith and joy. Even from prison, he is thinking about how they will live together, stand beside one another, and remain faithful to the gospel.
To live is Christ means that my life is not simply about how long I can preserve it. It means that the days I am given belong to him, and that the people he has placed in my life matter.
To Die Is Gain
But then Paul goes even a step beyond that: “To die is gain.” How can Paul possibly say that?
Because Jesus Christ is risen. The Christian hope is grounded in the conviction that Jesus Christ entered fully into death and that God raised him from the dead. His suffering was real, and so was the grief of those who loved him. On Good Friday, they had every reason to believe that everything had ended. But the grave could not hold him.
If Christ has conquered death, then those who belong to Christ need not believe that death is the end of their life with him. That is why Paul can sit in prison, facing an uncertain future, and say, “To live is Christ and to die is gain.” Whether he lives or dies, he belongs to Christ.
That confidence does not require us to feel calm about dying. We may be afraid of pain, of leaving the people we love, or of what we cannot yet understand. Our hope rests in the risen Christ, who holds us even when we are afraid.
Belonging to Christ
The deaths of those five missionaries were not the end of the relationships between their families and the Waorani. In time, Elisabeth Elliot and Rachel Saint, whose brother Nate had also been killed, went to live among them. Dayuma, a Waorani woman who had become a Christian, and other Waorani women helped make those relationships possible. An invitation came for Elisabeth and Rachel to enter the community. People who had once been strangers learned to live alongside one another, and the gospel continued to be shared.
Those relationships became an expression of grace, courage, forgiveness, and reconciliation. But none of it makes the deaths less terrible or means that God needed five men to be killed. Nor should we conclude that every tragedy will be followed by some good outcome that we can recognize.
Some grief remains unresolved throughout a lifetime. Some prayers leave us with questions we cannot answer. The Christian hope does not depend on our being able to look back and explain how everything worked out. It rests on what God has done in raising Jesus Christ from the dead, and on his promise that our life with Christ will endure.
So what about us? Will God always keep us safe? If by safe we mean that nothing terrible will ever happen to us, the answer has to be no. Faithful people suffer illness, accidents, war, and violence. People who are deeply loved and earnestly prayed for do not always come home. Whatever physical security we possess in this world is temporary.
But can anything that happens to us finally separate us from Christ? Paul’s confidence is that it cannot. We may suffer and be afraid. We may lose people and things we cannot imagine living without. Yet even in those losses, we remain his.
And that gives the church a responsibility. When someone among us is frightened, ill, or grieving, our calling is to stay close enough that they do not have to carry it alone. We cannot always explain what has happened or make it better. We can listen, bring a meal, offer a ride, pray, and keep showing up after the first weeks have passed. Through that care, we help one another know the love of Christ.
Living for Christ
Our circumstances are very different from Jim Elliot’s, but we still have to consider what it means to belong to Christ in the life we have been given.
For some of us, the answer will involve work we are able to do: caring for someone who is hurting, forgiving an old injury, speaking truthfully, or sharing our faith with someone who needs good news. There are people who need our time and attention, and responsibilities through which we can serve Christ.
For others, illness, age, or exhaustion may have made life much smaller. We may need help with things we once did easily for ourselves. Belonging to Christ does not diminish when our strength does. There is faithfulness in receiving care, in allowing another person to help, and in offering whatever prayer we can manage. Our worth to Christ has never depended on how much we can accomplish.
Paul wanted to remain with the Philippians because he loved them. That love gives us a way to understand the life we have been given. Whether we are offering care or receiving it, we share a life in Christ in which we need one another.
We do not know what tomorrow will bring, but we can give our attention to the life God has entrusted to us today and to the people with whom we share it. There will be times when we are able to help and times when we need help ourselves. Through all of it, we belong to the Christ who died and rose again. As Paul writes to the Romans, “So whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” Amen.