Philippians 1:1-11
David A. Davis
September 24, 2023
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Our second scripture lesson this morning comes from Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi. When you read Philippians you have to remember that Paul is writing from prison. And he is not writing because he has a bone to pick (that would be Galatians). He’s not writing to a church that seems to be picking itself apart (that would be Corinthians). He’s not writing to offer a treatise on the gospel as it relates to the question of Jews and Gentiles (that would be Romans). Paul is writing to a church that has partnered with him in proclaiming and living the gospel and church that is struggling to have courage and be persistent and cling to faithfulness amid the very real challenge and opposition the world brings to bear. A letter from prison to a congregation seeking to be faithful to the gospel.
Throughout the letter Paul seems to put these stakes in the ground that help to frame the life in Christ: a life of prayer and praise, a life of encountering, knowing, and proclaiming Christ, a life of partnering with others in living the gospel and contributing to a harvest of righteousness. Paul writes of hearts overflowing, minds renewing, lives transforming. Also, throughout Philippians, there is a thread stitched by Paul that invites the reader to ponder the relationship of the heart and the mind; knowing and loving; thinking and believing. A fitting letter to read in a congregation that sits on the edge of campus in the heart of town. A letter from prison to a congregation seeking to be faithful to the gospel.
Philippians 1:1-11
Thanking God and praying with joy because of your sharing the gospel. Confident in the one who began a good work among you. Sharing in God’s grace. Longing for the compassion of Christ Jesus. Producing a harvest of righteousness in Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God. Thanksgiving. Joy. Sharing. Grace. Compassion. Righteousness. Glory. And praise. All in just the first few verses. Paul’s greeting to the folks at Philippi drips with the fulness of the life of faith. His longing for them, his love for them, his prayer for them overflows in the words, in the writing. Unbridled enthusiasm for the congregation that is rooted in and grows out of Paul’s unbridled conviction about the overflowing love of God. His rhetoric here is a kind of an onomatopoeia. Words overflowing to proclaim the overflowing harvest of the righteousness of God. A letter from prison to a congregation seeking to be faithful to the gospel. A letter from prison that celebrates abundance.
“And this my prayer, that your love may overflow with more and more knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes though Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.” Knowledge and full insight and the determination of what is best precipitated by, dependent upon love overflowing. Knowing more and more, figuring it out, discerning the best way to work toward a veritable harvest of righteousness, all of conditioned by love overflowing. All of the theological knowledge one can muster, and all of the situational ethics disciples face every day, and all of the discussing/discerning/figuring, all the think, think, think that defines a Christian congregation in a university town, all of it is downstream from love overflowing.
“That your love may overflow”. Overflow. That your love may grow more and more. That your love may abound more and more, that your love may be abundant. That your love might become more and more rich. One paraphrase puts like this: “that your love may flourish, that you might love much and love well.” Paul’s prison rhetoric of abundance is matched by his bold conviction and prayer that a congregation full of the followers of Jesus would be defined by an abundance of love. Identified first not by piety or right doctrine or formulaic confession or theological confidence or a self-preserving assertion of who is in and who is out but by love overflowing.
One day just this last week, I was walking on the sidewalk on Palmer Square just outside of Theresa’s Café. I said “hi” to a person walking their dog. I recognized them and if I worked at it a bit I could come up with their name. We aren’t really friends or even acquaintances. But we’ve been introduced on occasion and been at the same fundraisers or other stuff in town over the years. I expected to keep walking but the dog walker said. “I should come see you sometime.” “Oh?” I said. “Well, I have been trying to read a bit of the bible everyday on my phone.” My sinful self knows immediately this is not going to go well. “It’s quite a hard slog” the person said shaking their head. Then they let out a rather dismissive laugh. “I have absolutely no idea how anybody can believe one word of it.” Of course, what I heard was “what on earth have you done with the last forty years of your life and why?” I actually don’t remember much of my response before I came to “your dog is beautiful, what’s the name?” The name was “Spot”. I came back to the office thinking about what a hard slog it is for a disciple of Jesus or a an entire congregation of disciples to have any influence in the face of the world’s indifference. The world’s indifference or worse.
If we’re honest, some days, probably most days, that slog in the world is real. And if it was all just left to us, love would be far from overflowing, more like a drop in the bucket. The harvest of righteousness? Well, not a lot of sheaves to bring in, maybe a leaf or two if it was all left up to us. You know it. I know it. Paul knew it. Nothing reminds a community of its humanity more than love coming in barely a trickle. Nothing proclaims the church’s humanity to an indifferent world louder than a congregation that thrives on judgment and condemnation. Nothing marks the church’s humanity more than a congregation torn by strife, broken relationships, and love just left in splinters all over the floor.
The core, the crux, the very foundation of the Apostle Paul’s theology of abundance, is the conviction and affirmation that any abundance of love, comes in and through Jesus Christ. It is his love flowing in and through us. That’s what keep us going when the slog is real and the world seems so dark. That’s what we cling to when life together is hard. That’s what give us hope, and moves us forward, and defines our response even when death calls. His love poured out. His overflowing love.
The other day on the street I really didn’t want to get into a discussion of the authority of scripture, the formation of the canon, and the theology of the Word made flesh. But I could have offered an invitation to join us this morning as we presented bibles to the third graders. Not because we believe in the words on the page but because it has the stories that help us to tell a child about the compassion of Jesus and his longing for just and righteousness world. And because just maybe that book can sit on a desk or shelf and every now and then remind them of a community that told them over and over again that God’s love will never go away. I could have offered an invitation to join us this morning as we ordain elders and deacons in the life of our church. Each one, who in their own way, can point to an experience of the overflowing grace of God unleashed in their lives in and through this community they are now called to lead. I could have offered an invitation to join us because the only way I know to keep slogging along in the life of discipleship out in the indifferent world is to come together again and again and again and again to tell each other, as if for the first time, of the overflowing harvest of the righteousness of God. And over and over and over again praying that our love might flourish, that we might love and love well.
In every generation there are churches, congregations, and seminaries full of those voices of gloom and doom proclaiming the death of the church and pointing to loss of anything and everything from members to dollars to voice and power. Climbing the steps of the pulpit of scarcity with a sermon entitled “I have absolutely no idea how anybody believes in the church anymore”. Paul wrote a letter from prison to a congregation seeking to be faithful to the gospel. A letter from prison about abundance. Allowing a harvest of God’s abundant love and grace and righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ.
“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, so that in 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.”
I don’t know about you, but I will take that prayer every time. Nothing challenges the worlds indifference and a theology of scarcity better than a community determined to let God’s love overflow.