Good News and Bad News
Phil.
“I thank my God every time I remember you …
for our partnership in the Gospel
from the
first day until now”
I have
to admit that these words of Paul
Were
also words that I spoke last week
As
I told people about Covenant
When
I was at the Pastor’s conference.
Whenever I get together with other pastors
And we
compare notes about churches
I
give thanks to God for all of you,
For
God has done and is doing and
Will
continue to do great things
Right
here at Covenant.
That’s the good news!
The bad
news is that there is much to do!
When
I came back from the conference
I was
overwhelmed by the world news:
The continued violence in
And the new
fighting between
Hezbollah and Israel in southern
Lebanon
It
is hard not to be depressed at the state of the world
When
the images on television each night
Are
of bombed out villages, fleeing refugees,
Lebanese
and Israeli mothers both
crying out
for peace.
It is hard to believe in the goodness of
humanity
When
there is so much war in the world
And
so much destruction,
And so much loss of life and plenty of
guilt to go around.
Paul’s letter to the Philippians was
written in just such a time
Paul
himself was in prison.
There is
much debate over where he was in prison
But the text mentions “the whole
imperial guard”
Which is at least a hint that
Paul was
Imprisoned in
That he
was writing in early 60’s
That means that not only was Paul in
prison himself
But
that the Christians were under persecution by Nero
The
accounts of that persecution are as disquieting
As
the images we see nightly on the news.
So Paul was writing to people who were
also concerned
about the state of the world as they knew it.
And were personally involved
with loved
ones at risk- as we are today.
One might have imagined Paul’s letter to
be dark and despairing
And
yet he writes “to all the saints- hagios-
in Greek.
It
means holy ones.
It’s
a strange greeting to people who had imprisoned Paul
And
beat him when he was actually with them
And
who he would later chastise
For
a dispute between two women.
But he calls them “saints” hagios
Not because
they are righteous or perfect in their own right
but because they belong to God,
they gain their holiness from Jesus Christ.
And the first two words he speaks to
them are
Grace-
charis- in Greek and peace- shalom in
Hebrew.
Paul
bring the very grace of God into the conflict
Paul
believes that peace comes from this grace.
By offering these two ethnic greetings
together
He
is not only speaking but living toward reconciliation.
That’s the genius of Paul.
He
uses language to both enter into the despair-
He doesn’t minimize people’s pain and
suffering-
But
also to offer hope in the midst of depair.
Paul uses the word grace-3 times,
Joy
-5 times, Rejoice- 9 times and Thanksgiving- once
The
root for all these words is the same-char
And Paul’s
letter is filled with it
Even
though he is writing from prison.
Even though he’s writing in a
time of persecution,
Even
though the church is struggling with conflict
The
joy, the grace, the thanksgiving is there
Because
it comes from God.
And
it allows Paul and the Pilippians to see
The
possibilities.
Paul
rejoices in being in prison because
It
has given him an opportunity to preach the gospel
to
the imperial guard, Roman soldiers.
It
has given him credentials to speak about suffering
To
people who are suffering so that they might hear
From
this fellow sufferer- where there is hope.
That’s why there are so many support
groups today.
We
have discovered that authority comes from solidarity.
If
a person is struggling with grief, it is good
To
be with other people in various stages of grief; If a person is struggling with sobriety it is good to be
With
other folks who know what that struggle is like;
If
a person is struggling with disease it is good to know
What
other people with the disease are doing
To
keep their spirits and bodies strong;
Paul
was able to look the bad news in the face,
And
confront that bad news with good news,
With
the comfort of the Gospel.
Now don’t think for a minute that
comfort is easy.
Comfort
literally means com-with- forte- strength.
Comfort
literally means to “be with in strength”.
That’s
what Paul was doing with the Philippians
He
was being with them in strength.
He helped them to see both sides of life
and to realize
That
good or bad, it can be used to spread the gospel.
Notice
all the dichotomies Paul lifts up:
His
imprisonment- the bad news
helped to spread
the Gospel- the good news;
Gospel
spoken with envy- gospel preached with goodwill
All
help to proclaim Christ;
The
gospel proclaimed with selfish ambition
And
the gospel proclaimed with love
All
get the gospel out there;
And
finally whether Paul lives or whether he dies
He
continues to rejoice in the gospel.
Paul’s words inspired the writing of the
In
1563. In the midst of the Reformation in
Where the secular and religious world was
changing,
People
were struggling with the fighting between
Catholics
and Protestants; rich and poor;
Right
belief and heresy;
And so they wrote a series of questions
and answers
That
start with:
What is my only comfort in life and death?
That I belong- body and soul, in life and in death-
not to myself but to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.
That’s a pretty good summary of Paul’s
letter to the Philippians.
And it’s a powerful statement of faith
for us as we live
As
a people of faith in the world today.
We are called to be a holy people
but it’s not our righteousness that makes us
holy.
It is because we dare to follow Jesus
Christ.
We live in a world of violence that we
can’t control
But
we can witness to the love of God
In
the midst of that violence by demonstrating
The
love of God for various people of various
Ethnic
groups right here in
We are dealing with our own issues of
sickness and grief
We
can’t solve those issues but we can live
With
the Pauline confidence that in life and death
We
belong to God.