Philippians 1:3-11 (NSRV)
3 I thank my God every time I remember you,
4 constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you,
5 because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now.
6 I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.
7 It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace] with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.
8 For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus.
9 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 in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless,
11 having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.
2 Corinthians 11:22-29 (GNT)
22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's descendants? So am I.
23 Are they Christ's servants? I sound like a madman—but I am a better servant than they are! I have worked much harder, I have been in prison more times, I have been whipped much more, and I have been near death more often.
24 Five times I was given the thirty-nine lashes by the Jews;
25 three times I was whipped by the Romans; and once I was stoned. I have been in three shipwrecks, and once I spent twenty-four hours in the water.
26 In my many travels I have been in danger from floods and from robbers, in danger from my own people and from Gentiles; there have been dangers in the cities, dangers in the wilds, dangers on the high seas, and dangers from false friends.
27 There has been work and toil; often I have gone without sleep; I have been hungry and thirsty; I have often been without enough food, shelter, or clothing.
28 And not to mention other things, every day I am under the pressure of my concern for all the churches.
29 When someone is weak, then I feel weak too; when someone is led into sin, I am filled with distress.
3 I thank my God every time I remember you,
4 constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you,
5 because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now.
6 I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.
7 It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace] with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.
8 For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus.
9 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 in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless,
11 having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.
2 Corinthians 11:22-29 (GNT)
22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's descendants? So am I.
23 Are they Christ's servants? I sound like a madman—but I am a better servant than they are! I have worked much harder, I have been in prison more times, I have been whipped much more, and I have been near death more often.
24 Five times I was given the thirty-nine lashes by the Jews;
25 three times I was whipped by the Romans; and once I was stoned. I have been in three shipwrecks, and once I spent twenty-four hours in the water.
26 In my many travels I have been in danger from floods and from robbers, in danger from my own people and from Gentiles; there have been dangers in the cities, dangers in the wilds, dangers on the high seas, and dangers from false friends.
27 There has been work and toil; often I have gone without sleep; I have been hungry and thirsty; I have often been without enough food, shelter, or clothing.
28 And not to mention other things, every day I am under the pressure of my concern for all the churches.
29 When someone is weak, then I feel weak too; when someone is led into sin, I am filled with distress.
Reflection
A few weeks ago we talked about choosing happiness, but about joy, you might ask? Can you choose joy? What is the difference between joy and being happy? Let’s face it we want both. We want to be happy and we want to feel real joy!
I’ve been trying to figure out the difference all week, all I know for sure is that they are not the same thing even thought we sometimes use the words interchangeably.
You know when you are happy everything is positive, everything is good, it’s a lightness in our being, a contented everything is all right with our world. We smile and laugh and have a good time – that’s happy! You see I’m not saying happy isn’t real or real enough; it’s light, it’s untroubled, and it can be momentary – flashes of happiness happen!
But joy; joy seems to come from another place, a place that is deeper within us, a place that encompasses all kinds of sorrow, and anger, and frustration, and fear. Joy can handle it.
Paul in his letter to the Philippians says: “Rejoice”, the Psalmists say “Rejoice” and Paul isn’t forgetting the issues facing the community in Phippi, the Psalmists are forgetting the trials and tribulations of Israel. They are saying “Look even though you have been through a lot- and I mean a lot of hard stuff: exile in Egypt, wandering in the desert, exile in Babylon – everything you have been through as a people of Yahweh- Still, Rejoice that your Lord is God, rejoice that Yahweh is with us.”
Paul in his letter to the church in Philippi is filled with joy, but not because of his own situation, seeing as he was in prison at the time, and not because he has had an easy time of it as the passage from 2nd Corinthians testifies.
Paul understood that joy doesn’t depend on what is happening or not happening, who is in our life or not in our lives.
Joy is an attitude of the heart and for Paul that is determined by faith in God and in Christ Jesus. Paul is confident that God is at work in his life, in the lives of the faithful in the emerging church communities that he and the disciples and their disciples helped foster.
He is filled with joy; not because he can pat himself on the back and sit back proud of his accomplishments, again pretty hard to do in prison when you don’t know what is going to happen to you and you could be put to death. Paul is filled with joy, not because the fledging churches were in great shape, no, they had their problems. Paul is filled with joy because these communities are filled with the Spirit of love, filled with people wanting to be the embodiment of love and hope and peace where they are, wanting to be the embodiment of Christ where they are.
Yep, they had the usual problems in the churches: power, faith, commitment, interpretation of rules, and rituals, and scripture. Paul had problems in his life: arrests, beatings, hunger, illness, shipwrecks, prison the threat of death. These people aren’t forgetting anything but “See that sunrise this morning ‘Rejoice!’”.
During the Advent season we light candles on the Advent wreath to help us remember the sentiments of the season: Joy, Hope, Peace and Love. But for the church the Christmas event is just the beginning of the Easter story. We know the baby born is moving towards the cross, the event line is a whole, advent joy is cognizant of the Lenten journey of anguish and sorrow. And joy can handle it.
We can hold whatever is happening in our lives; grief, darkness, sadness, pain, anger, frustration and still let the light in, we can still hope, we can still find a moment that says: “You are still here and here is good! Because here is where possibility still exists, here and now is where the kingdom of God is present to us.”
Paul’s faith is so deep and abiding, it’s kind of scary; are we, too, called to have this kind of faith? I feel like a tiny mustard seed beside Paul, I imagine many of us would, but look at the way he encourages the people in Philippi:
3 I thank my God for you every time I think of you;
4 and every time I pray for you all, I pray with joy
Paul’s heart is overflowing, despite the prison cell, despite what the future might hold.
I was reading a book that I got at the book sale last week and it in the author was talking about prayer and really pushing the link between prayer and gratitude going so far as to say that all prayer should be thanking God and that we shouldn’t be praying asking for anything – prayers of supplication. And I’m bringing this in here because I’ve often seen this link made between gratitude and joy; you want to feel joy make a list of all the good things in your life.
Might be helpful, might be useful, might be a link but let’s face it when are we most likely to pray, I mean really pray with our whole heart in it? When can we do nothing but pray? In times of trouble, I times of stress, when the future seems bleak and uncertain, when everything is closing in on us, when our lives are crumbling.
And those are not prayers of gratitude, they are not prayers of thankfulness, they are prayers of supplication: asking, begging, beseeching, for ourselves and for others.
It’s like Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane Luke 22:42: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
It’s like Jesus in Luke 23:34: 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.
It’s like Paul in Philippians 1:9: 9 And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight…
These are prayers of supplication not gratitude, they are prayers asking God for the possible and the impossible, Jesus and Paul are people who are confident that their prayers would be heard, confident that their God would listen and their prayers would be answered – these are prayers of faith. These are people of faith.
I believe faith makes a difference. I wish I could put my finger on what allows joy to infuse this letter Paul writes to the Philippians. How did his love and faith combine in such a way even after years of hardship? He spent years of beginning communities, founded on his experience of the risen Christ and the uncompromising rule of love, years of defending himself and the fledging churches and he prays with joy. I want that kind of faith, I want to participate in that kind of love, I want to live with that kind of joy. The kind of joy that infuses my whole life and all my prayers.
And I would be thrilled if there was some kind of shortcut that I could share with you but if there is one – I don’t know it. Well, short of being on the road to Damascus and having a vision that throws you to the ground and makes you blind and sets you on a journey that lands you in prison years later.
So if Jesus’ example is anything to go by, and Paul’s life journey shows us anything it is that faith is an everyday learning, a day in and day out activity, and that it is bound up with love in its own unique way and interwoven into your own unique life.
Paul’s words portray a joy that emanates from his love for these people in Philippi, he calls some of them by name, just as he knows the people in other communities – his love infuses everything he says. Just like Jesus’ love comes through all his encounters with people, regardless of the outcome; the woman at the well, the rich young man, Pharisees, the woman who touched his hem – his reaction to them is grounded in love.
Joy doesn’t seem to be one of those things that you can get by going after it, it’s not a goal- it’s more elusive than that.
I think Paul, and Jesus before him are conduits of God’s love and if we want some of that faith, some of that hope, some of that joy we hear about in Paul’s letters, then the way to that joy is by sharing God’s love. Becoming conduits ourselves, letting God’s love flow into and out of our lives, letting God’s love flow through us. May it be so for all of us.
Amen
A few weeks ago we talked about choosing happiness, but about joy, you might ask? Can you choose joy? What is the difference between joy and being happy? Let’s face it we want both. We want to be happy and we want to feel real joy!
I’ve been trying to figure out the difference all week, all I know for sure is that they are not the same thing even thought we sometimes use the words interchangeably.
You know when you are happy everything is positive, everything is good, it’s a lightness in our being, a contented everything is all right with our world. We smile and laugh and have a good time – that’s happy! You see I’m not saying happy isn’t real or real enough; it’s light, it’s untroubled, and it can be momentary – flashes of happiness happen!
But joy; joy seems to come from another place, a place that is deeper within us, a place that encompasses all kinds of sorrow, and anger, and frustration, and fear. Joy can handle it.
Paul in his letter to the Philippians says: “Rejoice”, the Psalmists say “Rejoice” and Paul isn’t forgetting the issues facing the community in Phippi, the Psalmists are forgetting the trials and tribulations of Israel. They are saying “Look even though you have been through a lot- and I mean a lot of hard stuff: exile in Egypt, wandering in the desert, exile in Babylon – everything you have been through as a people of Yahweh- Still, Rejoice that your Lord is God, rejoice that Yahweh is with us.”
Paul in his letter to the church in Philippi is filled with joy, but not because of his own situation, seeing as he was in prison at the time, and not because he has had an easy time of it as the passage from 2nd Corinthians testifies.
Paul understood that joy doesn’t depend on what is happening or not happening, who is in our life or not in our lives.
Joy is an attitude of the heart and for Paul that is determined by faith in God and in Christ Jesus. Paul is confident that God is at work in his life, in the lives of the faithful in the emerging church communities that he and the disciples and their disciples helped foster.
He is filled with joy; not because he can pat himself on the back and sit back proud of his accomplishments, again pretty hard to do in prison when you don’t know what is going to happen to you and you could be put to death. Paul is filled with joy, not because the fledging churches were in great shape, no, they had their problems. Paul is filled with joy because these communities are filled with the Spirit of love, filled with people wanting to be the embodiment of love and hope and peace where they are, wanting to be the embodiment of Christ where they are.
Yep, they had the usual problems in the churches: power, faith, commitment, interpretation of rules, and rituals, and scripture. Paul had problems in his life: arrests, beatings, hunger, illness, shipwrecks, prison the threat of death. These people aren’t forgetting anything but “See that sunrise this morning ‘Rejoice!’”.
During the Advent season we light candles on the Advent wreath to help us remember the sentiments of the season: Joy, Hope, Peace and Love. But for the church the Christmas event is just the beginning of the Easter story. We know the baby born is moving towards the cross, the event line is a whole, advent joy is cognizant of the Lenten journey of anguish and sorrow. And joy can handle it.
We can hold whatever is happening in our lives; grief, darkness, sadness, pain, anger, frustration and still let the light in, we can still hope, we can still find a moment that says: “You are still here and here is good! Because here is where possibility still exists, here and now is where the kingdom of God is present to us.”
Paul’s faith is so deep and abiding, it’s kind of scary; are we, too, called to have this kind of faith? I feel like a tiny mustard seed beside Paul, I imagine many of us would, but look at the way he encourages the people in Philippi:
3 I thank my God for you every time I think of you;
4 and every time I pray for you all, I pray with joy
Paul’s heart is overflowing, despite the prison cell, despite what the future might hold.
I was reading a book that I got at the book sale last week and it in the author was talking about prayer and really pushing the link between prayer and gratitude going so far as to say that all prayer should be thanking God and that we shouldn’t be praying asking for anything – prayers of supplication. And I’m bringing this in here because I’ve often seen this link made between gratitude and joy; you want to feel joy make a list of all the good things in your life.
Might be helpful, might be useful, might be a link but let’s face it when are we most likely to pray, I mean really pray with our whole heart in it? When can we do nothing but pray? In times of trouble, I times of stress, when the future seems bleak and uncertain, when everything is closing in on us, when our lives are crumbling.
And those are not prayers of gratitude, they are not prayers of thankfulness, they are prayers of supplication: asking, begging, beseeching, for ourselves and for others.
It’s like Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane Luke 22:42: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
It’s like Jesus in Luke 23:34: 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.
It’s like Paul in Philippians 1:9: 9 And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight…
These are prayers of supplication not gratitude, they are prayers asking God for the possible and the impossible, Jesus and Paul are people who are confident that their prayers would be heard, confident that their God would listen and their prayers would be answered – these are prayers of faith. These are people of faith.
I believe faith makes a difference. I wish I could put my finger on what allows joy to infuse this letter Paul writes to the Philippians. How did his love and faith combine in such a way even after years of hardship? He spent years of beginning communities, founded on his experience of the risen Christ and the uncompromising rule of love, years of defending himself and the fledging churches and he prays with joy. I want that kind of faith, I want to participate in that kind of love, I want to live with that kind of joy. The kind of joy that infuses my whole life and all my prayers.
And I would be thrilled if there was some kind of shortcut that I could share with you but if there is one – I don’t know it. Well, short of being on the road to Damascus and having a vision that throws you to the ground and makes you blind and sets you on a journey that lands you in prison years later.
So if Jesus’ example is anything to go by, and Paul’s life journey shows us anything it is that faith is an everyday learning, a day in and day out activity, and that it is bound up with love in its own unique way and interwoven into your own unique life.
Paul’s words portray a joy that emanates from his love for these people in Philippi, he calls some of them by name, just as he knows the people in other communities – his love infuses everything he says. Just like Jesus’ love comes through all his encounters with people, regardless of the outcome; the woman at the well, the rich young man, Pharisees, the woman who touched his hem – his reaction to them is grounded in love.
Joy doesn’t seem to be one of those things that you can get by going after it, it’s not a goal- it’s more elusive than that.
I think Paul, and Jesus before him are conduits of God’s love and if we want some of that faith, some of that hope, some of that joy we hear about in Paul’s letters, then the way to that joy is by sharing God’s love. Becoming conduits ourselves, letting God’s love flow into and out of our lives, letting God’s love flow through us. May it be so for all of us.
Amen
