June 30, 2024
Philippians 4: 4-9
Most of all, friends, always rejoice in the Lord! I never tire of saying it: Rejoice! Keep your gentle nature so that all people will know what it looks like to walk in His footsteps. The Lord is ever present with us. Don’t be anxious about things; instead, pray. Pray about everything. He longs to hear your requests, so talk to God about your needs and be thankful for what has come. And know that the peace of God (a peace that is beyond any and all of our human understanding) will stand watch over your hearts and minds in Jesus, the Anointed One.
When my dad was a student at Baylor University he was in a fraternity, but before you draw comparisons to recent Baylor frat boys, let me assure you things were different at Baylor in the 70s. Back in the 70s national Greek organizations weren’t allowed on campus, so my dad was part of the Baylor-specific AEX which stood for Adelphoi En Christo. As the name suggests AEX was a religious fraternity, specifically for young men who planned to go into the ministry. At Baylor in the 1970s that population was thick on the ground, and they didn’t get up to the kind of shenanigans other fraternities and sororities enjoyed. In fact, Dad had one frat brother with, as Dad describes it, the perfect name for a televangelist - Marty Jean.
And Marty would have been a good televangelist because he took prayer seriously. So seriously that he prayed about anything and everything. One night Dad and the other brothers invited Marty to join them for pizza. He gave his usual response, “Hold on, let me pray about it” and then took so long Dad and the other brothers got tired of waiting and left him behind. That was over 40 years ago, and my dad still remembers Marty because his determination to pray about everything made him functionally paralyzed.
To be fair, I’ve never met Marty. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that he and my dad didn’t stay in touch after their Baylor days, but it seems clear to me that Marty was desperately afraid to make the wrong decision, to step foot into something “sinful,” to deviate an inch from the “path of righteousness.”
I keep thinking about this 18 kid from East Texas in the 1970s - the area of the state where I grew up, which is part of the Bible Belt to this day - and can’t help but be a little heartbroken at his sincerity. He was doing the best he could to be good, to live right, and all the while he was being lied to by anxiety and controlled by the power of fear. As my dad said so succinctly, “Marty had analysis paralysis,” which is exactly what the main fuzzy character in this morning’s Dr. Seuss book is struggling through.
That’s why I chose this morning’s book because as I’ve told you before being afraid is one of my best things. I take daily medication for anxiety, have had Chicken Little tendencies for as long as I can remember, and have the ability to create things to worry about even when everything in my life is going well. In addition, I live, you live, we all live in a society that functions on fear and making people afraid. So, it’s important in this sacred space to ask ourselves, what are we scared of?
As adults, we can look at Dr. Seuss’s main fuzzy character and the empty green pants and see the lesson he’s teaching from the first few pages, but that doesn’t make his point any less astute or important. It sounds silly, but think for a moment about the green pants in your life - are there things that keep cropping up again and again that scare you silly? Are there people who crop up everywhere that you’d rather avoid? What are the crises of faith or conscience that keep us up at night? What are we scared of?
Paul, the author of this morning’s Philippians reading should have been petrified. I say “should have” because Paul’s in a bad way while writing this letter. In prison, “awaiting trial by the Romans, with the likely outcome of death”[1] Paul writes to his longtime friends and ministry partners in Philippi to thank them for sending a church member to visit him and bring a gift from the congregation. But along with the gift, this church member brings news of a conflict between two church members and never one to pass up a teachable moment, Paul writes this “detailed exposition...on how to be a Christian community.”[2]
He ends the letter with “several independent words of exhortation”[3] or urgent appeals which is a closing strategy used in other New Testament epistles like Thessalonians. Paul’s “emphasis on gentleness, lack of worry, prayer, thanksgiving and peace”[4] is at complete odds with his writing from a prison cell. If there was ever a time or reason to be angry and anxious this is it! And yet Paul writes “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Jesus Christ.”
Paul’s choice in using the word “guard” from the Greek root φρουρέω/phroureó is intentional as there’s a Roman garrison in Philippi tasked with guarding the “citizens of Philippi and the interests of the Roman Empire.” Therefore, this concept of their hearts being guarded by peace would have been familiar to Paul’s audience, but Paul isn’t done there. He continues in verse 9 to call God “the God of peace,” which “associates peace with God’s very nature.”[5]
It’s likely that Paul’s understanding of peace is built on the Hebrew Bible’s “notions of shalom” or wholeness, and while that’s a beautiful enough concept to spend multiple sermons on, the most important thing to know about Paul’s understanding of peace is that it’s “not merely an individual experience, but [one that] occurs among authentic community. For Paul God’s peace is not an optional add-on, but part of the experience of authentic faith and spirituality.”[6]
Put another way, the peace of God happens in community because we are whole when we are together. We are whole when we serve God together, when we challenge each other, when we enter into relationships with each other when we hold each other up.
Separation and division are fertile soil for fear to spread. Darkness and isolation are the best place for anxiety to ferment. That’s why we must take seriously this idea that we worship and are loved by a God of peace and that this peace “surpasses all understanding.” God’s shalom, God’s wholeness is too big for us to comprehend, too big for us to wrap our minds around, and often too expansive for us to get on board with.
Because that’s the catch here. As much as we need God’s peace so does the rest of the world. As much as we hope for wholeness in our lives and for our families, people who don’t look like us have the same hope. We don’t get to be the arbitrators of God’s peace, we don’t get to put limits on it, and we don’t get to decide who’s worthy or unworthy.
The Good News this morning is that we always have access to the peace of God, which is part of the Holy One’s very nature, but we must be willing to reach out. Despite our fear, despite our anxiety, despite how much of life is unknown. And when we don’t have the strength to reach out for ourselves that’s when we lean into our family of faith who comes along beside us, extending their hands and pulling us along with them.
My friends, being people of peace, being a church that embodies God’s peace isn’t easy. This is not simple work we’re called to because to paraphrase Dr. Seuss’s fuzzy main character the world is full of people who are just as strange to us as we are to them![7] But when we sit together in peace, we give calmness and understanding an opportunity to flourish. We drive fear and anxiety out of the places they would otherwise take root. We are able to greet each other with a smile and say, “Hi!”[8]
[1] Christi O. Brown, “Holy Friendships: A pastor in South Carolina reflects on the deep friendships that enable us to embody the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ together,” from https://www.faithandleadership.com/christi-o-brown-holy-friendships, December 1, 2014.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Troy Troftgruben, “Commentary on Philippians 4: 1-9,” October 5, 2017 from http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3444, October 5, 2017.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Dr. Seuss, What Was I Scared Of?
[8] Ibid.
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