First Congregational Church
May 11, 2014 Fourth Sunday after Easter Philippians 2 “JOY - Jesus, Others, You: What It Is; What It Ain’t” Rev. Dinah Haag, preaching In case you missed the acronym in the title, if you take the letters in the word joy, line them up vertically, j would stand for Jesus, o for others and y for you. It’s a perfect acronym for summing up this morning’s scripture passage. Last week we started a four week series on Philippians, convenient for the four chapters of the book/letter and the four weeks of May. Having the passage read from Eugene Peterson’s version, The Message, made chapter 1 leap off the page, far more as a personal letter than many of us have heard scripture before. So if it’s a letter, it seems only right that we hear the same voice to keep the flow and continuity. Philippians 2 The Message 1-4 If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. 5-8 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion. 9-11 Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father. Rejoicing Together 12-13 What I’m getting at, friends, is that you should simply keep on doing what you’ve done from the beginning. When I was living among you, you lived in responsive obedience. Now that I’m separated from you, keep it up. Better yet, redouble your efforts. Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God’s energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure. 14-16 Do everything readily and cheerfully—no bickering, no second-guessing allowed! Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message into the night so I’ll have good cause to be proud of you on the day that Christ returns. You’ll be living proof that I didn’t go to all this work for nothing. 17-18 Even if I am executed here and now, I’ll rejoice in being an element in the offering of your faith that you make on Christ’s altar, a part of your rejoicing. But turnabout’s fair play—you must join me in my rejoicing. Whatever you do, don’t feel sorry for me. 19-24 I plan (according to Jesus’ plan) to send Timothy to you very soon so he can bring back all the news of you he can gather. Oh, how that will do my heart good! I have no one quite like Timothy. He is loyal, and genuinely concerned for you. Most people around here are looking out for themselves, with little concern for the things of Jesus. But you know yourselves that Timothy’s the real thing. He’s been a devoted son to me as together we’ve delivered the Message. As soon as I see how things are going to fall out for me here, I plan to send him off. And then I’m hoping and praying to be right on his heels. 25-27 But for right now, I’m dispatching Epaphroditus, my good friend and companion in my work. You sent him to help me out; now I’m sending him to help you out. He has been wanting in the worst way to get back with you. Especially since recovering from the illness you heard about, he’s been wanting to get back and reassure you that he is just fine. He nearly died, as you know, but God had mercy on him. And not only on him—he had mercy on me, too. His death would have been one huge grief piled on top of all the others. 28-30 So you can see why I’m so delighted to send him on to you. When you see him again, hale and hearty, how you’ll rejoice and how relieved I’ll be. Give him a grand welcome, a joyful embrace! People like him deserve the best you can give. Remember the ministry to me that you started but weren’t able to complete? Well, in the process of finishing up that work, he put his life on the line and nearly died doing it. Thank you, Andy. Congregationalism - from it’s roots - doesn’t support creeds - mostly because a creed is a shared statement of beliefs, and the Pilgrims believed that everyone had a brain, so they should come to their own conclusions. When there are confusing places in the Bible, we are to study them and figure them out for ourselves. The Nicene Creed (which deals with the idea of the Trinity) and the Apostle’s Creed (which deals with the divinity and humanity of Christ) and other such creeds take stances, to which one agrees or not. If there is an over-all Christian creed, it would mostly likely be from this chapter, and most specifically the last half of verse 5-11. Many of us are more familiar with our pew version of that section. “have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Most weeks, regardless of time or commitment restraints, I try really hard to develop a flow of concepts. Obviously, if you’ve been around at all, sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. But this week, it seemed more like a pop-corn sort of week - a phrase that popped out here and another phrase that popped out there. There’s a logic theory called Occam’s Razor that is basically the idea of “the simple solution is usually the best.” So in a deliberate dismissal of continuity, except in progression of our passage, and making more room for the Holy Spirit to do it’s thing, the first kernel is “agree with each other.” It’s an interesting phrase, because it doesn’t say ‘believe the same thing, or claim the same creeds. It could even mean to agree to disagree. Be deep-spirited friends. Paul doesn’t say how many we need, but just that we need some folks in our lives that are safe to reveal our deepest hopes and fears - people that are Jesus with skin on. We need those folks to share the load so that unloading our burdens on one person doesn’t bury that person under a pile of “stuff.” A team of two oxen can pull a lot more than just one. But the power behind a team of four oxen or even six is nothing to get in the way of. (And yes, I just violated the prepositional ending rule violation.) Put yourself aside. Paul doesn’t say to be a door-mat, allowing people to walk all over you and stomp on you. “help others get ahead” We mistakenly believe that diversity is the enemy of unity. Yet God's Word teaches us that selfishness, not diversity, is the opponent of an atmosphere of unity. “Be energetic in your life of salvation.” Who of us ever thought about our faith being energetic, much less a reverent and sensitive energy? “Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society.” If there isn’t motivation there, then allow me a cuff to the back of your head, Jethro Gibbs from NCIS style. I know, some days we don’t feel so energetic. Thank goodness it’s not our energy that propels us, but God’s. It’s interesting, too, that not all of society is squalid and polluted, Mr. Apostle Paul. Be cheerful - no bickering. But by the grace of God, there go we. At least if there’s a high level of bickering going on here, I’m completely immune to it, out of touch, and should hang up the ministry robe. Bickering may well be one of the top ten reasons people are ‘spiritual but not religious,’ meaning that they believe God but don’t do church. If only we could invent a bickering filter, we could help a lot of churches and we could raise some cash. But then, what church needs cash? “Being in a community of the Spirit,” or as the New International version says, ”If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ:" A couple of gentlemen, Matthew Heard and Randy Umfleet, wrote this about being “united in Christ.” “Take an inventory of your church or a fellowship group you have visited recently. You can usually tell quite quickly if a person or a church is encouraged by the reality that they are united to Christ. If they are, it will show in their relationships!” (That’s true in and outside the church, by-the-way.) Paul says, “I plan (according to Jesus’ plan.”)…. The former Pharisee Saul, now apostle Paul, like any of us, had a high potential for high-horse syndrome, and could have forgotten the order: Jesus first, others second, Paul third, which would be Jop, not Joy, but you understand. So often we get that order mixed up - maybe most often reversed. When we get the order j-o-y right, that joy allows us to whistle even in the dark moments of life. I so wish that all of you could “live” in this building as much as I have. It’s such joy to have people pop in, to hear people playing the piano or organ on occasion. But one of the most delightful moments come when I hear people whistling a tune of one kind or another. When people whistle a tune, they are usually in that happy place where the joy in their heart is sort of spilling over the brim. We don’t generally feel that way in our dark moments. But when it’s Christ’s joy in our hearts, we can whistle, even it’s a dirge or an “in-your-face” sort of whistle - “I will overcome!”. When we can whistle in the dark places, we are not defeated, and that’s what Christ’s joy helps us do. So let us quickly pray before we take our joy out into the world. Gracious God of delight and joy, thank you for this time together today. For some of us, this message of joy is stocking up our heart’s larder, for those times when we need to remember the joy that marks our connection to you. For others, this message is hard, because pain or sorrow or disconnect or any of a million other reasons seem to divide our hearts. Help us, in those dark times, to remember that joy is not always about jumping up-and-down or out-of-control, that sometimes it’s a quiet joy, and that sort of joy is every bit as holy as any other. So help those who are struggling with joy this day, and lead each of us into ever greater joy as we pray these things in Jesus’ name. And all your kids say, Amen. Comments are closed.
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