Philippians 2:19-30
March 8
David A. Davis
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The second half of the second chapter of the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians reads like the announcements in a service of worship. First comes a soaring opening hymn that trumpets the cross of Christ and the divine exaltation of Christ. “In the cross of Christ I glory, towering o’er the wrecks of time, all the light of sacred story, gathers round its head sublime.” The congregation gathers in God’s name and through song and prayer offers praise and adoration to God in and through Jesus Christ, the glorified Son of God, the radiant Savior of the world. The people of God acknowledge and confess who they are, whose they are, and to whom they belong. And right there and then, in the flow of the sacred rhythm of worship on the Lord’s Day, sometime before scripture is read and the word is proclaimed and the sacraments are celebrated, sometime early on in the correspondence that is the Sunday morning liturgy; liturgy understood as the work of the people, sometime after a rousing hymn to Christ that everyone knows and everyone remembers, someone stands up and makes the announcement about the Sunday night potluck supper, or tells of the guest speaker coming in a week or so to share their own faith journey, or introduces a Moment of Mission, or shares the news about birth and death in the community of faith.
“I hope in the Lord Jesus”, Paul writes, “to send Timothy to you soon, so that I may be cheered by news of you….and I trust in the Lord that I will also come soon…Still, I think it is necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and co-worker and fellow soldier, your messenger and minister to my need.”
Timothy and Epaphroditus. Timothy. It is like a son working with a father in the work of the gospel, Paul says. “No one will be more genuinely concerned for you and your welfare.” Epaphroditus, brother, co-worker, fellow soldier, minister to his need. Paul calls him the messenger of the church at Philippi. Other translations say “representative,” but the Greek word is apostle. Epaphroditus, your apostle. The readers of scripture never learn anything more about Epaphroditus. He leaves the bible stage never to come back. But Paul calls him an apostle. “He wants to see you because he knows you have heard how sick he was. He was so sick he almost died, but he wants to come and let you know he is okay. God had mercy. You can imagine my grief if he died. Like me, he “came close to death for the work of Christ.” “Welcome him then in the Lord with all joy, and honor such people.” Honor such people. Honor people like Epaphroditus. Honor Epaphroditus,
After “let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” After “he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave….being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death.” After “God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.’ Not long after THAT, Paul, writing from prison, writing in chains, extoling the glorified Risen Christ, Paul says to the church at Philippi, “let me tell you about Timothy and Epaphroditus. You should honor people like them.
Professor Dan Migliore taught at Princeton Seminary and worshipped in these pews as a part of the Nassau Church community of faith for more than fifty years. Dan died this week, surrounded by those who loved him most. Just a few weeks ago, Dan told me that he taught more than 4,000 students at the seminary in the Introduction to Theology class alone. It is impossible to quantify the impact of Dan Migliore on the church of Jesus Christ through his teaching of generations of pastors, including me. Two weeks ago, as I was working on my sermon, I pulled a commentary on Philemon and Philippians off my shelf. The author of the commentary is Dr. Migliore. To give you a glimpse of the privilege and honor of my ministry here at Nassau, the book is inscribed. “For Dave Davis, dear friend, valued colleague in ministry, and faithful preacher of the Word of God. Dan Migliore September 19, 2014”.
It is indeed fitting this week, as Dan Migliore joins the Church Triumphant, to draw upon his faith to help us seek understanding when it comes to this rather jarring transition in Philippians 2. Here in one chapter, from the glorious rhetoric and poetry that proclaims the self-emptying of Jesus as servant and exalts Christ as Lord of all, to the church newsletter. Yes, a disconnected, even disorienting move that leaves the reader wanting to just read on and pay little attention to Timothy and Epaphroditus.
Allow me to let my friend Dan have the ah-ha moment of the sermon. May his memory be a blessing. To this exact conundrum in the last part the second chapter, offering his take on Paul turning to Timothy and Epaphroditus, Dan writes “As we have emphasized repeatedly, there cannot be the least doubt that, for Paul, what Christ did in emptying himself and becoming obedient even to death on the cross stands far about any acts of humility, love, service, and sacrifice on the part of his disciples. Christ is the supreme example because he is also and exclusively our Savior. Yet the free grace of God in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit enables his followers to participate and bear witness to-sometimes a costly witness to- his work….For Paul, he concludes, “an analogy can be discerned between the way of the Savior and the way of his faithful servants….No more than an analogy! No more than a faint resemblance.”
In other words, in Timothy’s faithful work of the gospel alongside the Apostle Paul, and in Epaphroditus’ care for the prisoner, his looking not to his own interest but to the interest of others, there is a glimpse, a whiff, an echo of the work of Christ. A Christ-like witness in the mundane, yet holy, in the ordinary, yet extraordinary, in the nitty gritty but actually profound aspects of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, the self-emptied exalted Son of God. That by his grace, his grace alone, you and I are called to be Christ-like to one another. Or as the hymnwriter puts it, “Will you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you? Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too”.
“If, then, there is any comfort in Christ, any consolation from love, any partnership in the Spirit, any tender affection and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”. You don’t need me or any preacher to tell you how absolutely, positively, literally, how counter-cultural, other-worldly, hard to find anywhere in the public square that such Christ-like behavior is today. What is also of note here in Philippians 2, according to the biblical witness, we’re not talking about Martin Luther, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or Martin Luther King, or Mother Theresa, or some other saint or martyr or giant in the church’s history; the history of the Christian witness. Yes, Timothy is the recipient of a few biblical letters, and Epaphroditus is not mentioned anywhere else. So on the bible’s scale, they are minor characters at best. Epaphroditus and Timothy. “Honor such people.”
During the program year of 2005-06, Nassau Presbyterian Church and Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church joined together to celebrate 250 years of Presbyterianism in Princeton. We had opening and closing worship in McCarter Theater, four banners were made that rotate 2 by 2 between the two congregations, other celebrations took place, and there was a series of academic lectures on the history that were then published in the Journey of Presbyterian History. Professor Jim Moorhead, who was a student of Dr. Migliore, then taught alongside him for decades. Dr. Moorhead’s lecture was about Presbyterians in Princeton and at the Seminary in the 1920’s. One line in that lecture I have carried with me and returned to on more than one occasion. As he spoke about the blistering theological debates of the time and the iron fist of Jim Crow at its height, Professor Moorhead asked what impact it all had on the two congregations. “Part of the charm of congregational life,” he said, “is that through its enduring patterns of worship and devotion, it allows people to look beyond temporary issues and connect them with the rhythms of the eternal.”
My takeaway from Jim’s line, why I carry it with me, is not that congregations ignore the complexities, the challenges, the head-spinning and head-splitting impact the world brings, and stick heads into some kind of naïve religious sand. No, quite the opposite. I take Dr. Moorhead, who, along with Dr. Migliore, spent their careers not just as academics, but as Drs of the church. My takeaway is that when disciples in the Body of Christ face the complexities, the challenges, the head-spinning, head-splitting impact the world brings, as the church raises its prophetic voice and as Christians seek to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God, all in big steps and little steps, the church is still the church. And the ingrained patterns of congregational life by God’s grace and in the power of the Holy Spirit, hold each of us closer to the heart of God. When war is once again unleashed, or maybe better said, when wars never cease, and masked federal agents roam the streets, and our neighbors are frightened, and the lines at food pantries, including the one downstairs, are pretty much out the door, and the idolatry of gun violence and the Second Amendment never lessens, the church still does church. We still take food to a family sitting vigil at the bedside of a dying loved one. We still bury our dear. We still baptize our children and teach them to love their neighbor and to sing about Jesus. We still gather to praise and to pray and to yes, rejoice. We still yearn to look not to our own interests but to the interests of others. We still look, by the grace and power of Christ the Lord of all, to somehow be Christ-like to one another and in the world. “Honor such people”, Paul wrote.
Every now and then, on a Sunday morning, on some occasions, at coffee hour between services, we have what we call around the church office, “an expanded coffee hour.” Jose Cintron prepares special food beyond our normal coffee hour fare. You may not know this, but during the first service, from where I sit here in the chancel, as Jose is cooking, the appetizing, enticing aroma wafts in just a bit. Just a whiff. I might be the only one who can smell it. Just a whiff. Just the slightest resemblance, Dr Migliore wrote, the slightest resemblance in our Christ-like witness to Christ himself, the self-emptied, exalted Savior and Lord. Just a whiff. Not just every now and then, but every Sunday, every Sunday, I sit there, and I stand here, and I look out at you, and I get just the slightest glimpse, a bit of a wiff, the faintest echo of Jesus himself. And I have to tell you, it is very much a part, you are very much a part of what holds me close to the heart of God.