Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
October 2, 2005
Philippians 4: 1-9
In his book, Brother to a Dragonfly, homespun philosopher, Will D. Campbell, has this fictional dialog between Preacher Will and his friend, P.D., sort of a freelance critic…often of the church.
“You know, Preacher Will, that church of yours and Mister Jesus is like an Easter chicken my little Karen got one time. Man, it was a pretty thing. Dyed a deep purple. Bought it at the grocery store. And it served a real useful purpose. Karen loved it. It made her happy. And that made her mamma and me happy. Okay?”
“I said, ‘Okay.’
“But pretty soon that baby chicken started feathering out. You know, sprouting little pinfeathers. And you know what? Them new feathers weren’t purple. No siree bob; that dang chicken was a Rhode Island Red. And when all them little red feathers started growing out from under that purple it was one heck of a sight. All of a sudden Karen couldn’t stand that chicken any more.”
“I think I see what you’re driving at, P.D.”
“No, heck no, Preacher Will, you don’t understand no such thing. I haven’t even got to my point yet.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. Rave on.”
“Well, we took that half-purple and half-red thing out to the chicken yard and threw it in with all the other chickens. It was still different. And the other chickens knew it was different. They pecked it and chased it all over the yard; wouldn’t have anything to do with it. And that little chicken knew it was different too. It didn’t bother any of the others. Wouldn’t fight back or anything. Just stayed by itself. Really suffered too. But little by little, day-by-day, that chicken came around. Pretty soon, even before all the purple grew off it, while it was still just a little bit different, that darn thing was behaving just about like the rest of them chickens. Man, it would fight back, peck the ones littler than it was, knock them down to catch a bug. Yes siree bob, the chicken world turned that Easter chicken around. And now you can’t tell one chicken from another. The Easter chicken is just one more chicken. There ain’t a darn thing different about it.”
“I knew he wanted to argue and I didn’t want to disappoint him. ‘Well, P.D.”, I said,” the Easter chicken is still useful. It lays eggs, doesn’t it?”
It was just what he wanted me to say. “Yeah, Preacher Will, it lays eggs. But they all lay eggs….” Is he right? Is the church, are church members, just like that Easter chicken? Has the non-Easter world turned us around, made us just like everyone else? “Ain’t a darn thing different about it.”
When I got into today’s text from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay there. Last week we listened to some of the noble, even poetic cadences of Philippians 2. “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing of the Spirit…” The words just roll off your lips. But today, we run headlong into an abrupt, even embarrassing interruption of all these fine words and finely tuned thoughts. Suddenly Paul gets very personal. We find ourselves in the midst of a dispute between two members of the Philippian church – Euodia and Syntyche. Paul just blurts out – “You two need to get along with each other!” Why does he do this? Why does he bother us with this trivial dispute in the midst of so beautiful a letter? These many centuries later, why should we care about these two women who couldn’t seem to get along? Certainly there must be more important things, weightier matters, Paul would have us consider.
William Willimon is now a United Methodist Bishop, but thinking back to his days as a pastor and a preacher he says, “As a preacher, I like to go after big game in my sermons: nuclear war, capital punishment, racism. I keep waiting and hoping for the church to rise above its pettiness and go on to grander and greater things, to talk about the big issues and the systemic, social sin. So I’m in my study, pondering the vast questions of theology, when the President of the United Methodist Women comes rushing into my office saying, ‘Preacher, come quick! Euodia and Syntyche have squared off in Fellowship Hall and its getting ugly!’ Enough of such pettiness, I want to say, let’s get on with the church!”
Or is that the church? Is this just a petty squabble – just like all the other chickens the in yard – or is Paul possibly inviting the Philippians – and us – to see something deeper than a petty dispute between two church leaders who cannot seem to get along? Let’s listen to his words again. “I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel…” Interesting how, in the early church, women are already taking a leadership roll. And then he adds, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice." Paul looks at these two women and sees, not bothersome, inconsequential squabblers, but saints. He sees saints. That’s what he calls them, saints. ‘God is at work in you,’ he tells them. God is at work in you. And I suspect he believes that God is also at work in the midst of this disagreeable situation.
Why interrupt his majestic letter with this seemingly small dispute? I believe it is because he wants the Philippians to understand that they are not like the other chickens. Not any longer. They are now the church of Jesus Christ. And, in the words of Willimon, “In the church, the little things really do make a difference, because it’s in the little things that we get our glimpses of the kingdom. You and I don’t live on cloud nine; we live here, in this church, where the only glimmer you’re going to get of the kingdom is the one you get while standing next to ordinary people like Euodia and Syntyche. The world is quite right in assuming that it ought to be able to look at the church and see people who look different. There is only one church, the place where ordinary people like you and me make visible what we believe happened in the life and death of Jesus. I wish you knew how significant it is when you take a meal to the home of someone who is sick, or provide a ride to church for some older person who couldn’t be there without you, or take a whole afternoon to listen to the troubles of a teenager. It’s the little things that are so important.”
Am I misreading this text, or does Paul seem to think that the very Kingdom of God, the Realm of God, might very well rise or fall on what happens between Euodia and Syntyche? That is why he brings their dispute before the entire community. He expects the entire church to help with their healing; he expects something more, something different from these Christians; he expects them to embody, in their everyday, ordinary lives, something of the love of Christ.
Then he adds, “Rejoice!” And I have to wonder, what does any of this have to do with joy? I suspect that if I stood here in this pulpit and told you that two members of our Women’s Fellowship were battling it out in the kitchen, and named them, and then urged you all to intervene, I suspect none of us, and especially them, would find much reason for joy in all of that. Embarrassed? Yes. Uncomfortable? No doubt about it. But joyful? Euodia and Syntyche may not have been particularly pleased with Paul, either. So why does he do this?
I once read a description of the early Christian church as a “conspiracy.” By that, the author meant that these ancient Christians “breathed together.” (con – with; spire – breath) It wasn’t some sinister plot that held them together. It was their shared sense of grace, their breathing together – with breath – as the gathered people of God. I think this is where Paul is trying to take this church of Philippi…and where he is taking us. He is helping them to mold a communal identity, encouraging them to invest their lives and confidence in one another for the sake of a common dream and a shared mission, he is inviting them to “breathe together.” In the words of Peter Marty, a Lutheran pastor, “A communal spirit blooms where people are deeply in touch with one another, thriving because of their faithful interaction with one another.” So in lifting up Euodia and Syntyche, Paul is saying, “We are involved with each other here, we are concerned for each other, we must participate in each other’s healing and reconciliation, because for us to do so is to reproduce the love of Christ in our life together. To do so is to conspire, to breath together.”
And therein lies the joy. Pouring ourselves into something larger than ourselves, being willing to turn ourselves inside out for each other, spending time together, together being reminded who we are and whose we are, discovering that to be truly human is to be loved by God and to love and be loved by others; together grabbing hold of all of life, in its prose and poetry, its power and poverty. That’s the joy! Yes, my pastoral style may be just a bit different from the apostle Paul. I probably won’t be naming names from the pulpit. At least not today. But I like the direction in which Paul is leading and I celebrate his vision of a joyful people, breathing together, embracing all the moments of life, and thereby modeling a common way of life that enriches them and, indeed, enriches all the world.