Welcome to the CommonsCast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. We find ourselves today at the end of a fairly lengthy series on the book of Philippians.

And that's an interesting place to be on a week when we return to our first in person service in a very long time. Most of you know that we plan all of our teaching a year in advance. The season eight journals are in process right now, and they'll be ready for you in September. By the way, can you believe that this community is about to turn eight? That's incredible.

But when we planned this conversation in Philippians about twelve months ago, we did not foresee the fact that we would be still online at the start of the conversation, and we certainly did not expect to be wrapping up a deep heartfelt letter rooted in a long standing friendship, even where the various parties had been separated by circumstances beyond their control on the week when we would dip our toes back into being together in the room. And there's just some kind of providentialness perhaps about these conversations and their timings, regardless of when you plan them. However, we have a lot of ground to cover today, and I do want to look back and recap the last seven weeks together. And then we want to move through the final chapter of Philippians today. And even as we do that, I need to also remember how to speak to a live audience again, so there's that.

And by the way, anyone else excited to see back seeing Friends, but also wondering how on earth you get out of all these new social obligations that you are definitely not ready for yet? Unfortunately, I read on Twitter this week that I'm saving myself for marriage is not in fact a valid excuse for getting out of anything. Sorry, if I have used that one on you. Regardless, let's look back on where we've been so far. We started this in week one, actually outside of Philippians in the city of Philippi.

And one of the really neat things about Philippians as a letter is that it's distinct from most of other letters from Paul, we actually have some insight into the origins of this community. You have the imperial context of Rome, but also we know some of the specific characters that serve as the foundation in this city. Paul comes to Philippi in Acts 16. And as he often does, he begins by looking for the synagogue. Now, that was not necessarily a building at the time, but it was the worshiping community that he could get to know and start from, except he doesn't actually find one there.

He walks around town looking for some men that might gather to pray, but all he comes across is several women. In particular, a woman named Lydia, a dealer of purple cloth. Now, in the text she's named as Lydia of Theatira. But what that means is the Lydian woman from Theatira. And that might indicate that at one time she had been a slave, who had saved or raised the money to buy her own freedom, and now had gone on to start a business for herself in a new town.

Either way, Paul realizes pretty quickly here that this is no random encounter. This is the leading of spirit. And I think this is actually a really significant part of the relationship that Paul has with the community that grows out of Lydia's leadership and generosity in Philippi. Paul comes to town looking for the men. The power and the places that he expects he'll be able to exploit his privilege and his connections, and God introduces him to something he doesn't expect.

And to Paul's credit, he pivots immediately. He recognizes what the divine is doing. He abandons his assumptions about who he needs to look for, and he follows Lydia's lead in the city. And it results in a community that Paul has a very special place for. In fact, I actually think we saw some of this at play in Philippi last week in chapter three.

Paul writes about how you carry your beliefs that's just important as what you actually believe. He says maturity is this, that if on some point you think differently than I, then I will trust that to you and God. Let only each of us live up to what we have already attained. And I think there's something about Paul's ability to recognize God where he didn't expect here at the start of the story in Philippi that feels like it's become part of Paul's view of the world by the time he writes his letter back to Philippi. That seems like a big deal to me that Paul loves Philippi because Philippi has actually changed something about Paul in the way that he sees the world.

But, from this foundation with Lydia, Paul then meets a slave girl and she's been taught to imitate the Pythias, this group of fortune telling priestesses in the cult of Apollo, and he frees her from that role. This however, upsets her owners, and they have Paul beaten and thrown in jail along with his companion, Silas. That night, an earthquake hits. The jail is sprung. Good news for them, except Paul sees that the jailer is about to kill himself, fearing the prisoners have escaped.

And so Paul calls out and says, look, we're here. We're not leaving. What's good for us can't be bad for you. And that man and his family joined the church as well, and so this becomes the basis for the Philippian church. A businesswoman, a slave girl, a Roman jailer, none of whom fit the mold as model church planters.

And yet here we are off to the races in a city that was dominated by Roman imperial worship of Augustus. And this theme of expecting one thing and finding another, really does seem to shape a lot of the letter that Paul writes. In fact, it's why we called this series, everything is awful, a letter about hope. Because over and over again, Paul surprises us with a deeper narrative below the surface. So, when we finally turn to Philippians, Paul opens the letter and he says, to all God's holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi together with the overseers and deacons.

Grace and peace to you from our God and Father, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, we spent a lot of time in the series talking about the Roman imperial roots of the city of Philippi. A city that was conquered by and rebuilt in celebration of Augustus, the self proclaimed son of God. And this phrase, grace and peace, which Paul uses a lot, means a lot here particularly in Philippi. Because that phrase is a direct challenge to the imperial cult.

See the motto of Rome was victory and peace. And Augustus was named the savior of the world by Rome because he had conquered the world and brought peace to the world. Thing is he protected that peace by whatever means necessary, by crushing rebellions and barbarians and invaders. The entire Pax Romana was predicated on war. And for Paul, that kind of predatory peace really was no peace.

Instead, what Paul had discovered was what Jesus had demonstrated grace and peace. So grace and peace for Paul was about the lordship of Jesus in his life, but it was also his imagination of a new kind of world, a politic that subverted Roman rule. And so right from the very opening line of this letter, Paul is demonstrating something that he does over and over again in Philippians, a desire to subtly subvert and challenge our expectations of things. We see this at the end of chapter one. He gives us a bit of a glimpse into some of his own fears and anxieties.

I mean, this is Paul who loves to put on a strong face for everyone, but he's in prison and he wants to trust God, but he also knows that the situation is precarious and he doesn't try to hide that from his friends. In chapter two, he quotes this beautiful hymn of the early church, a poem about how Christ empties himself to come near to us. But then Paul uses that to shift our expectations of each other in humility, care for one another, he says, and slowly that will lead you to care for the other. The same way that Christ emptied himself for you. So it's this movement from ourselves to our families, to our neighbors, to the realization that all of the distinctions we carry between us and them, they were always fictitious.

Later, in the chapter he talks about how we grumble and complain about what's wrong with the world, but if we want to, we can choose to instead shine like stars in the sky. That's a reference to our participation in the world to come, this Jewish imagination of everything repaired. In chapter three, Paul challenges to look at our bias and our traditions, and he points to what appears to be an accusing finger at all of these pagan practices that surround the Philippians only at the very last second. To reveal that actually he's always been talking about himself all along. And his own tendency to want to draw hard lines between people, that same propensity that we see in ourselves from time to time.

Then at the end of the chapter, he invites us to look back on our past and forget it, by which he means actually remember it and metabolize it, learn from it fully so that you can leave it behind you. And this is sort of the underlying theme of all of Philippians. There's more beneath the surface if we dig a little bit deeper. Leaders come from unexpected places. Peace comes from grace, not war.

Tough guys get emotional and scared. The cosmic model of Christ's incarnation actually takes root in our expansion of neighbor. Grumbling can turn into motivation to change the world, and at the same time, sometimes our deepest rituals and traditions can turn from a celebration into exclusion if we're not careful. But if we can learn from all of this, then we can change all of this because nothing is ever wasted in our journey with the Christ who reconciles all things on heaven and earth to God. So that's where we've been for the last seven weeks.

Today, we have one more conversation in Philippi. First though, let's pray together. God of all grace and peace, who has walked with us and beside us through this season apart, who has extended graciousness to us even when we have failed to notice you, who has welcomed us away and now welcomes us return. Be near to us here as we gather online and in homes across tables and in ways that feel altogether new again. As we slowly return to patterns more familiar.

May we never forget this anticipation, the beauty of what we had been waiting so long for. May there be new joy in seeing friends today. New depth in conversations that arise, new sacredness and traditions that we have found ourselves apart from. But more than anything, might we recognize you with us. That there is always more beneath the surface of our lives waiting to be uncovered and celebrated.

May hope and joy and sacredness be discovered even in the spaces we may have taken for granted. Thank you for holding and keeping us in Christ. May we continue to offer that same care and support to each other. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.

Okay. On the agenda today is introductions, proper names, getting along, and finding the good. But let's jump in by reading the opening of Philippians chapter four. Says this, therefore my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crowns stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends. And once again, we've talked about this before, but Paul returns to this very effusive loving language, Bihar.

Maybe even a little over the top. This is again, it's a very different relationship than Paul has with Galatia or Corinth or some of the other churches in the Roman Empire. And again, all this, it reminds me of this fact that the Bible is not written in a vacuum. These are very specific people with specific relationships, writing in unique circumstances, and anything less than that, any attempt intentional or otherwise to reduce the Bible down to cold clinical words on a page, that's a mistake. Everything you're reading, there is an iceberg of history, and emotion, and connection, and argument, and reconciliation, and laughter, and frustration, and love that sits below the surface of these letters.

Sometimes all we can do is get a sense of that as we read, although in this case, Paul seems to pour it on a little thick with the Philippians. They're close. But, that relationship is important because next Paul says, I plead with Eudia, and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, I ask of you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my coworkers whose names are in the book of life. I mean, is Judea?

Who is Syntyche? Who is Clement? And who on earth is this true companion that Paul brings up? This is a somewhat strange addendum to add on to the letter here. And frustratingly, we really don't know what's going on here.

Eudia and Syntyche are names that roughly mean successful and lucky. And they were both common female names in Greek. By the way, all the pronouns here are feminine, by the way. The implication being that these two, along with Clement and whoever true companion is, are coworkers of Christ equals even with Paul in the work of the gospel. Again, it's pretty hard to make a consistent argument that Paul meant anything less than what he wrote in the Galatians when he said, there is no longer male nor female.

All are one in Christ. Does the Pauline tradition always live up to that? No. Has the church always lived up to that? Unfortunately, no.

We have not. But Paul's investment in the leadership of Lydia here in Philippi, his endorsement of the apostleship of Junia in Romans, his tasking of Priscilla with preaching his letter in Rome, all of this makes it pretty hard to dismiss the way that Jesus, or Paul follows Jesus in recognizing the ability of all people, male or female, to grasp and share the goodness of God. Still though, there's this true companion. Who on earth is this? And interestingly, true companion is the word in Greek, and some people think this too is a proper name.

So maybe what we've got is three people here. Eudia, Syntyche, and Paul is addressing. Paul is asking Susagos to mediate between his two friends. And to be fair, that is exactly what we saw last week when Paul said, this is maturity. To understand that in some circumstances, relationships are going to be more important than being right.

So he's taught it. Now he's asking them to live it, and that's a little on the nose perhaps, but that's also kind of Paul's style. He's never one to be too subtle about anything. However, there is also another really interesting possibility here. If it's possible that Susagos is actually a proper name that we've misinterpreted, is it also possible that Iudia and Syntyche are not proper names, and we've misinterpreted them?

And without getting too nerdy here, there's a category of Pauline interpretation called the Tubingen School, named after a city in Germany where a bunch of theologians used to hang out and talk to each other about theology. One of the ideas to come out of the Tubingen School is the idea that Paul is not actually necessarily calling out two specific women and telling them to work things out. He's actually inviting the Philippian community to live out his imagination for, maturity together. So the idea here is that Judea, which means successful or even blessed, refers to the Jewish people in the Philippian community. And syntyche, which means lucky, refers to those Gentile or non Jewish people in the Philippian community who found themselves welcomed into the story of Jesus.

And that means that the true companion, suzegos, well this is then perhaps a reference to the spirit of Jesus that is present between us whenever we come together, wherever two or three are gathered to pull us together to the center. And I've used this metaphor before, but whenever I talk about being Jesus centered at common, that's a big thing for us. Or whenever we hear about Paul's imagination of maturity in our difference, often think of the gravity of the solar system as an image. If Jesus is at the center, the sun in this metaphor, the source of gravity in our lives that sits between us, then you and I, we can find ourselves very far apart in all kinds of different issues or arguments. In fact, we could even be on opposite sides of a particular issue and still find ourselves drawn together in the middle.

In Philippi, perhaps that meant Jewish people who still practiced and celebrated Jewish custom and tradition. Worshipping alongside Gentile people who learned to both honor the practices of their neighbors without developing a need to appropriate those practices for themselves. Maybe it meant Roman citizens who benefited from their place in the imperial system learning to appreciate and listen to the stories of those who were not afforded that privilege in Rome. For us, it almost certainly means worshipping across political divides and celebrating cultural distinctiveness, learning from those with different experiences of life in the world and making room for those stories not just to be told but to be celebrated. Because when Paul says, I plead with you to be of the same mind, the language here is more than just like, get along.

And it's certainly more than just one of you change your mind. The phrase here is actually, And I like the way the scholar Gerald Hawthorne says it. He writes, a single translation, such as to agree with each other, loses the richness of the meaning here. Embraces not only the idea of possessing a common mind, but also the idea of having shared feelings and attitudes, a harmony of life, a callback to Paul's opening. Remember back chapter one, Paul writes, it is right for me to feel this way about you since I have you in my heart.

It's the same language there. Write for me to feel this way, and I plead with you to be of the same mind. That's both pronane. And I think it gives us a little bit better insight into what Paul Paul leaves about community. Regardless of how you interpret these names, is this just a dispute between two people or is it an encouragement to get together and live together as community?

Either way, it's an encouragement about the way we interact. And considering that you and I, we are, all of us right now, on the verge of relearning how to live together all over again, perhaps that is a healthy reminder for all of us as well. To be of the same mind or literally to think together, not just to agree with each other, but to listen to each other. To take seriously the stories of the other. To trust that when I can't see what you see, your experience of the world can add to mine.

It doesn't need to be a threat to me. And this is something that at times feels like we have lost sight of all around. But it's also why. I think Paul can go from this to this. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, put it into practice, and the God of peace will be with you. Now, note here, Paul says finally, but like any good preacher who loves to hear themself talk, present company excluded of course, he will then go on to wrap up a few more things after this. Fair play. He has a few more words about his personal plans, and he wants to thank the Columbian community again for their support. But this here, this really is the culmination of everything he's been writing in this letter.

The hope that is waiting to be found if we choose to look for it below the surface of our lives. And again, we saw this when we went back to the letter in the recap today. Over and over again, Paul says there's this, but if you look again, there's also this. If you can see clearer this time, without distraction, without more clarity, then there is more waiting for you here. However, understand that as beautiful as this passage is, as important as it is, this is not just naive optimism that's driving all here.

This is not a look on the bright side approach to your pain. This is not a put on your smile and bear it attitude here. There's something far more true and more healthy that Paul's addressing. It's an honest acknowledgment of everything that we experience in the world, placed alongside a commitment to never lose sight of what is good around us. And for me, that's really Paul's trick in this letter.

To pretend that things are good when they're not is a delusion. But to lose sight of what's good when things are hard, that is despair. And so when Paul says whatever is true and noble and right and pure and lovely and admirable and excellent and praiseworthy, think about these things. This is not coming from a sense of avoiding what is really happening in his world. I think it's very much coming from that same encouragement he started with to hold on to each other and support each other.

It's interesting. This time he uses the word logizomai. And we talked earlier about that word pronane Paul uses when he says be of the same mind. That has a very relational nature to it. Oh gizomai is interesting, because you could almost say that one is a very clinical word.

It actually means, if you look it up, to determine by a mathematical process, to reckon or calculate. But the idea here is actually to turn what is good and beautiful into your life into a discipline for yourself. And this isn't about the secret. This isn't about believing that if you had just looked on the brighter side of things, the universe would have given you what you needed. This is about understanding that our view of the world is shaped by the world that we choose to look at.

And if you and I want to learn to love each other well, if you and I want to be part of the healing of the world, that Jewish imagination of the world repaired. If we want to, like Paul encourages us, shine like stars in the sky and uncover hope even when everything is awful. And what Paul is saying is that we need to cultivate the ability to stare straight into the suffering of the world without somehow losing sight of the beauty that surrounds us still always. And that's hard. For you and I, for us to stare unblinking at the history of residential schools as Canadians.

And for us to look into the face of the unhoused person that we cross paths with, for us to see clearly the impact of all of our choices and our purchases and our habits on the world around us without looking away from it. All of that will depend on the clarity enabled by you cultivating what is sacred in your life. That's Paul's point. If you want to be able to sing songs while locked in a Philippian jail, If you want to trust in salvation while waiting for a Roman trial. If you want to get along.

Judea and Syntyche in a world that wants us to fight with each other. If you want to find yourself full of hope, even when everything hurts, then what you need is more than a distraction. What you need is an intentional, deliberate practice of cultivating your awareness of the good that surrounds you always. Part of why I love this section so much is of course the poetry of it, but it's also the expansiveness of Paul's invitation here. Whatever is true and noble and right and pure and lovely and admirable or excellent or praiseworthy, it's almost as if Paul says, I don't care what it is for you.

I don't care where you find it, but when you notice something that is good, name that as sacred for yourself. Hold on to it for dear life because that that will give you the courage to change what is not yet healed and repaired around you in the world. And for me, that's as simple as the beauty of my daughter delighting in four inches of water in a kiddie pool in the backyard on a hot day. Or the return of gatherings in this room, limited as they may be, sweltering as they may come. It's vaccines that enable us to emerge from a season that has stolen far too much from all of us.

It's messages from friends, and Marvel movies, and cold beers, and conversations that start here, and they end up way over here. It's when anyone changes their mind for the better. So it's unique moments when for some reason the divine just feels particularly unexplainably close to me. Because the thing is, all of those moments are more than just good, they are holy. And if I let them, then those moments will give me the fuel.

They will propel me toward the ability to participate in something much bigger than just myself even when it feels like everything is hard around me. Whatever is true, think about these things. And the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ will be with your spirit. Amen. Let's pray.

Now for all the opportunities that we have to recognize your grace and peace around us even those moments that slip past our attention. We are nonetheless grateful. And even when everything is hard, even when there are real challenges in front of us about how the world needs to change and how we can participate in that healing, Might your spirit bring us alive to the good that surrounds us always. To everything that is true and beautiful. Everything that is noble and right.

Everything that can inspire us to believe in a future that has not come yet. One where earth looks like heaven above. And so as we focus on these moments around us, as those moments give us the courage to draw together in community and love each other well. As we put our energy and our action, our resources and finances, our imagination and creativity behind your kingdom one step at a time. May you continue to show us more and more of your goodness always.

May we take that as a challenge. As fuel and energy to create good wherever we can. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.