PHILIPPIANS: A LETTER TO FRIENDS -

REJOICING IN THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS

Acts 16:11-15; Philippians 1:1-11

January 15, 2012 - Rev. Janet Duggins

Part 1: Philippians 1:1-2

A Letter to Friends

What with email and unlimited calling plans and text messaging and Skype and so forth, the experience of getting a handwritten letter is one many of us rarely have these days. I consider myself fortunate, because I have a couple of “old fashioned” correspondents. One friend, who is very much underemployed and whose life is a constant round of one challenge after another, writes a long, newsy letter to each one of us in our family on our birthdays. She has an incredible sense of humor about life and how ridiculously irrational it can be sometimes, plus a truly deep faith and confidence in God’s goodness. Her letters make us laugh like crazy and at the same time, they inspire us. I also have a cousin in prison, and his only means of communicating with the outside world is through letters. It’s very evident how important it is to him not just to get letters but also to write them and have that means of expression and communication with people who want to hear from him.

Getting their handwritten letters brings me a sense of connectedness with these loved ones; it brings them close.

That’s what was going on between Paul and the Christians in Philippi when he wrote them this letter that we’re going to be thinking about for the next few weeks. To appreciate and understand what we call “the book of Philippians,” we really need to remember that before anybody started thinking of these lines as “scripture” or part of the Bible, this was a letter to friends.

So far as we know, Paul only was in Philippi about three times, but he felt deeply connected to the church there. In Acts, we can read a little about how that Christian community came to be, and Paul was a part of that beginning. He had thought he was going to go into Asia to spread the message about Jesus, but that didn’t work out, and then he had a dream in which he saw a man from Macedonia calling out for help. So he went to Macedonia with Silas, and Luke, and a young new Christian convert named Timothy, and of course they went to Philippi, the most important city of the region. It was not only along a river but at the foot of a mountain pass so the major travel and trade route from Greece to Asia Minor went through Philippi; it was a large and diverse city. The first Christian converts came from a group of devout women who met near the river to pray. Lydia, a merchant woman originally from a city in what today is Turkey, and probably a prosperous citizen, opened her home as a place for the community to gather. This church also included a slave girl who Paul freed from the power of an evil spirit, to the dismay of her owners who could no longer make money from her fortune-telling, and the jailer who had guarded Paul and Silas when those slave owners had them locked up on the pretext of disturbing the peace. Together with many other believers, they formed a community of faith that was diverse, active, prayerful, and generous.

At the time of writing this letter to the Philippian church, Paul was under house arrest far away in Rome, but the Philippians hadn’t forgotten him; in fact, they had sent him a generous gift of money to help meet his needs, and one of his purposes in this letter was to say thanks.

But this letter is more than a thank you note, and more than an update on the latest in Paul’s life. If it had been no more than that, it wouldn’t have lived on and become part of the scripture that forms the faith of the Christian church. What makes it more is that Paul and the Philippian Christians share a spiritual partnership that transcends not only a great distance but even time, such that we get to be in on it too.

In spite of the circumstances, this is a letter with a joyful spirit behind it. In spite of everything, Paul can find a great many reasons to be glad and thankful, as we shall see.

The tone of the letter is set right here at the beginning: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” “Grace and peace to you.”

Now, “Grace and peace” was a common greeting, and even to us it sounds like a throw-away, phrase, like “have an nice day.” Abstract words that have a pretty sound but mean nothing in particular. But to Paul, these are anything but casual words. To him, they express everything that makes his life, and the relationship he shares with the Philippian believers possible. Grace and peace are the foundation for the joy and gratitude he feels, even while he is imprisoned and far from friends and experiencing deprivations and uncertain about what the future will bring. God’s grace embraced Paul even when he was running away and persecuting Jesus’ followers, and that grace changed him completely, through no work of his own. He experienced the living presence of Christ and soon became, as he says, a “servant of Jesus Christ.” In that identity and mission, he continued to experience the power of God’s grace, and to see it at work in the lives of the people he taught and mentored. God’s grace has already seen him through a lot of tough times, and by now he has found that relying on the grace of God allows him to be in a place of peace, no matter what’s going on around him.

Imagine what it must have been for the Philippian Christians to hear those words, maybe read aloud for the whole community to hear: “Grace and peace.” They were very likely worried about Paul and possibly anxious about their own circumstances; they might have expected a letter focused on Paul’s desperate plight, or the uncertain future of the church; they may have been anticipating instructions or warnings. But almost the first thing is… “grace and peace to you….” “Grace and peace, to you.”

Part 2: Philippians 1:3-11

Rejoicing in the Communion of Saints

Are there people who bring you joy, just thinking of them?

That’s how Paul feels about his friends in Philippi.

Paul thanks God every time he remembers them because thinking about them brings him joy. He wishes he could be with them, but even at a distance he feels this closeness with them. He holds them in his heart, and what’s more he knows they hold him in their hearts, too. With them he shares what is most precious and important to him: the good news and the living presence of Christ. In them, he has seen his own love and work and ministry bear fruit. Earlier he referred to them as saints – not to set them apart as people who have somehow already reached a state of perfection – as he says, he knows God isn’t finished with them yet - but to name them among those who belong to God. He is confident that God’s Spirit is going to continue to teach and mold and empower and bless and use them for good.

This isn’t just about good memories for Paul. He doesn’t dwell in the past but has some hopes for the future of these folks he loves so much, and to that end, prays for them, as well as giving thanks for them. He wants the best for them, not in the sense of prosperity or a happy life, but in the sense of being fully alive to God’s love and purposes.

Have you ever had someone praying for you like that?

What is that like, or what would that be like?

And what is it like to pray for someone else in this way?

It’s an expression of love, isn’t it?

Paul’s prayer is for his friends to be able to really sense God’s presence and see God’s purposes and know that God is at work in their lives. In other words, his prayer is for them to develop the gift of discernment. This is a prayer, essentially, for growth into spiritual maturity. What a great prayer to pray for someone you love… or to have prayed for you!

Does it sound too lofty, too pious, or just too hard?

I don’t believe Paul has anything in mind that requires his readers to be spiritual giants. In a book about spiritual transformation, Ruth Haley Barton identifies just three attitudes that make us ready to discern God’s work and purposes in our lives, and they are pretty simple:

- Confidence in the goodness of God.

- Understanding that love is the Christian’s primary calling.

- Trust that, if we pay attention, God’s spirit will show us what love demands of us in whatever situations we find ourselves in.

Those seem to be exactly the same things Paul sees – and prays will continue to flourish – in the lives of the Christians in Philippi.

The result of it, he writes with confidence, will be a harvest of righteousness - which in the Bible doesn’t mean anything like self-righteousness or a pious attitude, but justice, and right relationships with God and people. A HARVEST, an abundance … of justice, kindness, hope, compassion, peace, generosity, love. That’s what happens in a community where Jesus Christ is present, and people know it. It’s a beautiful thing, a joyful thing. It is God’s children being who they were meant to be, living their gratitude and praise. And God’s love shines in them.

RESOURCES:

Dwelling with Philippians: A Conversation with Scripture through Image and Word, Elizabeth Steele Halstead, Paul Detterman, Joyce Borger, and John D. Witvliet, eds., 2010, William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI.