Text: Philippians 1:1-18

For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight 10 to help you to determine what is best, so that on the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

As I struggled with what to say about this letter, these are the verses that I kept coming back to. I kept coming back to them, I think because, as I’ve said before, I most identify with Paul when he is being pastoral. When he is expressing his love for a community where he has both been a leader and been cared for as one of them.

Paul has a deep care for the people in Philippi. I’m sure you’ve all had this feeling – I know that those of us who are parents have it for our children, but also for others who we love – that we just want the absolute best for them. Want them to thrive and to blossom. That’s Paul’s expression for this community, and rightly so.

We joke that reading the epistles is like reading someone’s outgoing mail or selecting from their sent emails. But I actually take some issue with that. One the one hand sure, this is a one-sided conversation and the perspective of this one guy.  They are only a glimpse into the life and perspective of Paul and the early church.

One the other hand, this is way different. We know, because he says so, that Paul is writing from prison. Both because he’s in prison and because this is the ancient world a lot more is invested in his letters to churches than in my emails or even my sermons.

Sidenote: It’s not entirely clear where or when; he’s imprisoned by the Roman empire but could be in Ephesus or Rome or somewhere else. And it could be only a year or so after he planted the church in Philippi or up to 10 years later. I’m inclined to think the later end because of the depth of relationship he seems to reflect and the urgency that seems to be invested in his instructions and the expectation of Christ’s return. 

In the ancient world letters were the way to share important information. There was no email, no quick one-off texts, no phone calls, not even a reliable mail system. One of the ways that we know Paul had a deep and connected relationship with Philippi was that they sent messengers to bring him new sand carry news back. Paul puts a lot of intention and care and thought in each letter. He will probably go months or longer before he can hear from them or reach out again.

Paul’s longing for what is best for the Philippians is rooted and grounded in his love of Jesus and for his desire for them too to experience and share Jesus’ love. 

I often have to remind myself that that these brand new Christians didn’t have the advantage of the Gospels in the same way that we do. What they have is Paul’s personal story of his life-changing encounter with Jesus. The testimony that Jesus identifies with those who suffer and who was willing to suffer himself at the hands of Rome and in defiance of his own religious leaders. They have this knowledge and the understanding that Jesus – not Caesar – is king.

Paul’s invitation to them, his urging, is to discern together in community – a community that would look very different than the stratified social system around them. Their community includes men and women, slaves and free people, wealthy business owners and tradespeople, Jews and Gentiles. Which is both amazing and so hard! 

Paul writes to everyone, to “all the saints in Philippi” along with the “bishops and deacons.” Those weren’t institutional positions at that time, although the words have come to have institutional meanings in the contemporary church. At the time those Greek words just meant “leaders and servants.” He’s addressing the leaders and the servants and everyone else: all the saints. 

All of these very different folks are called on to discern the best way to respond to and embody righteousness among themselves and in their city. Righteousness, by the way, could be substituted out for the word justice. Same word. 

This is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best…having produced the harvest of [justice].

These lines brought back to mind the days way way back when I was working as a volunteer coordinator in community ministry in Winnipeg. The community ministers that I worked with there were formed by liberation theology and community development theories. And it was from them that I first encountered the action-reflection-action learning cycle. 

It’s not rocket science. (I guess it’s probably social science) It’s a cycle of noticing an injustice or inequity or need, responding or taking action rooted in compassion and care, then reflecting together in community on the experience. Paul encourages his community to seek a harvest of justice/righteousness. Has love that lead to reflection had a just outcome?

Even further back in my life I had friends who traveled to Guatemala with a group of Catholic Workers and a priest named Richard Rohr. Rohr is now kind of famous for founding the Center for Contemplation and Action, which was only a few years old at the time. They had this saying by Rohr on their t-shirts: “You can’t think yourself into a new way of being but you can live yourself into a new way of thinking.” 

Now, on the Center for Contemplation and Action, one of the points on their “What we believe” page is 

Spiritual wisdom is not just something to be learned—it must be lived. We do not think ourselves into a new way of being; we live ourselves into a new way of thinking. Contemplation naturally leads to loving action, to solidarity with suffering, to a deeper commitment to justice and peace. If Love is the goal, then contemplative practice is the path. 

I can’t get into Paul’s head, really. But it seems like this is just what he’s longing for his beloved Philippians.

That’s what connects me to him. As a pastor who loves her people (y’all!) I long for us to be rooted and grounded in love that, through our discernment together, has the fruit of justice. That we may embody Christ’s compassion for each other and for the world. That through our study of and reflection on the Gospels and on God’s invitation to us, we may produce a harvest of loving action. And that as we learn from and reflect on our actions we may gain even more insight and knowledge into how we are called.

People of God, in the words of Paul, “I thank my God every time I remember you.” May we continue to do and reflect on this work of Christ’s loving compassion together.

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