Living is Christ

Philippians 1.21-end

Today, in the lectionary, we have begun a series of readings from Philippians.  As we do so, can I encourage you to take some time this week to read this letter in full.  It won’t take you long, although it is worth lingering over.  And reading it will put what I’m saying today, and next week, into a wider context.  In the meantime, I’m going to try to give you some of that context and see how it applies to our own.

If you read from the very beginning of the letter, you discover it is from Paul and Timothy, although it is Paul’s voice that comes through most strongly.  It is addressed to “all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi”, saints in this context meaning ‘believers’ – it is not a measure of perfection.  So, when I read Paul’s letters to the churches I like to think, what is he saying to “all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Overton…or Erbistock”? Insert the name of your own community!

If you know Paul, you will know that he often has challenging things to say – but reading the whole of this first chapter, you notice that Paul is essentially optimistic, hopeful; and don’t we need that, especially at the moment?  In the early part of this chapter, Paul writes,

“I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. 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.” (1.3-6)

He is thankful for them, remembering all that they have shared in their journey of faith.  He is full of joy, and prayerful for each one of them.  And he is confident – not in them or in himself, but confident in God and in his purposes.

This would be a great litmus test in all our work together as a church community.  Are we thankful for each other, as we look back on the journey we have shared?  I had a real sense of God’s provision as he opened up the way for me to come to Overton and Erbistock, and I am thankful for the welcome I have been given.  I am also thankful for the history of this part of Wales and respectful of it; and thankful for the community that I have found here. 

What are you thankful for, looking back?  And, looking around, in the present, are we praying for each other, as Paul prayed “constantly”, and do we do so with joy?  One of the challenges of the current crisis is that we might be robbed of our joy.  Anxiety might sap our energy.  But even in the midst of the pandemic, there is joy – as we focus on the blessings of family, friends, the created world and, indeed, its creator.  As so often, this is partly a question of what we choose to focus on. 

And, looking ahead, what confidence do we have in the future?  I have reflected a lot recently on the way in which the pandemic has robbed us of future, making it almost impossible to plan.  We managed some quality time with our daughter on holiday and have arranged to spend a few days with her next month.  And then this week we hear that the Prime Minster might stop households in England from meeting again.  It is so difficult to plan anything.  But when Paul says, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion”, his faith is not in politicians, in church leaders or in himself – his confidence is in God, the God of their shared history, their current experience and the one who is their future hope.

So, if we say that Paul is essentially optimistic, it is because he trusts God, despite his circumstances.  Paul is in prison, in his own lockdown, confined to four walls, probably under house arrest in Rome.   We’re not entirely sure of the details, but if you read this opening chapter you can’t help but be moved by his passionate prayers for the Christians in Philippi.  Despite his circumstances, these are people for whom he feels a real connection and, with no Zoom to link them across the airways, his prayers reach out across the Adriatic Sea.  “And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more…”

I hope that whets your appetite for this opening chapter and for the rest of this letter.  That background helps us to understand the phrase with which today’s reading begins, “For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain.”  This is not some cheap boast of Paul’s; he is facing the threat of execution.  But as death looms, he is able to embrace the possibility with faith; indeed, he comes to the conclusion that it would be “far better” “to depart and be with Christ”.

In the modern era and in our western culture we have protected ourselves from death, with improved medical care, longer life expectancy and, often, the separation of the process of dying from the home and the community.  We might watch many deaths on our television screens but go many years with no direct contact with those who are dying.  This is essentially positive, but this way of life and death comes with its own side effects – one of which is that we go most of our lives, even as Christian people, without thinking about eternity.  It may only be as old age sets in, with illness and other sadness, that we may consider it better to depart and be with Christ.  We certainly don’t make that choice from a place of health and happiness.

Paul, as a relatively young man, looks through the door of death and rejoices that he might soon be with Christ.  He speaks about it almost as a choice – not that he is thinking of ending his life but knowing that others might take it.  For Paul and his contemporaries, life was far more fragile than it is for us, even in a time of pandemic, and so the alternatives are very real.  To continue to live, and to serve Christ that way, or to die and be united with Christ eternally.  Paul can accept either; but at this time he embraces life and the opportunities it brings.

And so, in his letter, he turns to encouraging the Philippians in the way in which they live.  Too much emphasis on death and eternity might suggest that this life doesn’t matter.  But it does, if only, as Paul says here, because the way in which we live is testimony to the gospel, to the good news about Jesus that we are called to share.  There can be no doubt, reading these verses, that for Paul this is the purpose of life – to share with others the gospel that has changed the course of his life.

We are witnesses to that gospel in our community, signposts of faith.  When people around us know that we go to church, our attitude matters.  “live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ”, says Paul.  Next week we will read, in chapter 2, one of the most powerful expositions of what that means in practice.  Maybe that’s another incentive to read ahead.  But here, unity and the strength that comes from that is Paul’s theme.  The Philippians are encouraged to ‘stand firm in one spirit’, ‘strive side by side’, ‘with one mind’.  They are facing persecution and the death that Paul faces, and Paul calls them to support one another, find strength in common purpose, and be faithful (in the richest sense of that word).  To their persecutors this will be a reminder of the destruction that will come to those who oppose God, and the salvation of those who choose to live in faith.

Do we, like the Philippians, have the “privilege”, as Paul puts it, of suffering for Christ?  I really wouldn’t want to be in the same place as Paul or the members of the early church.  Their path was incredibly difficult, and I doubt that I could have walked it.  But in the face of outright opposition and persecution, they found unity and strength.  The church grew and could not be defeated.  The Christian gospel spread throughout the world – and although it later came to be associated with power and privilege, it began in the same weakness and vulnerability that we see in the cross of Christ.

I would suggest that our suffering for Christ today is experienced through the vulnerability of our church community and the threat that within a generation there may be no Christian congregation worshipping in this village.   We are not being hounded out by Roman soldiers with swords, or defeated by cannibals resisting our gospel message, or silenced by communist regimes as some still are in the world today.  But the drift towards secularisation, which means that many of our children and grandchildren never attend church, faces us with a wall of apathy or, if people are interested at all, questions about the relevance of faith in the modern world.  In this way, we have the privilege of suffering with Christ – who was also faced with incomprehension and marginalisation even before his final suffering and death.

But the message of the cross – and, therefore, the message of Paul in this letter that is suffused with joy – is that resurrection comes in the morning.  Life follows death, a life that is better than the present time and which, as we have seen, Paul even preferred.  When we grow despondent, we need to renew our focus on Christ – and work together, in the unity that Paul commends, to continue to keep the gospel flag flying in this community and wherever we are, demonstrating that we are people of hope; today, this week, and in the months to come.  We will read more from this letter about how we might do this in the coming weeks.