EXHORTATIONS
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Text: Philippians 4:1-9
Somewhere in the misty past, perhaps it was in another life, I was an Exhorter, not just by persuasion, but by actual title. For a period of two years, at a time that I felt particularly alienated from my own tradition, because of my struggle with my American Baptist family to be ordained as an openly gay man, I was involved with the Metropolitan Community Church. MCC, founded in the 1970's by an openly gay Pentecostal preacher named Troy Perry, is made up of lesbian, gay bisexual, transgendered, intersex, two spirited, queer and questioning folk and our allies. I thought, at the time, that this might be the church family I wanted and needed; so I began the ordination process in MCC. In their system, every applicant was required to serve a kind of apprenticeship, a time of discernment for the individual candidate, the local congregation and the denomination. During this period, candidates are known as Exhorters.
I have to admit that I found this title curiously archaic and never quite figured out its correlation to my service in that small, struggling congregation. As I understood exhortation - to urge by strong, often stirring argument, admonition, advice, or appeal - my primary job, as church musician, was hardly exhortative. I played the piano for services and led the choir, which sometimes had as many as six people, though I would hesitate to call them all singers. I think I preached once or twice but I don’t recall that my preaching leaned heavily toward exhortation, though I was younger and more certain about things back then.
So, when I opened the Bible to read through today’s ancient word, I was bemused to see, in one copy of the New Revised Standard Version, that the heading for today’s text was “Exhortations.” My tendency to free associate led me back to those days in MCC, which I had not thought about for a long time. Eventually, I left that congregation and denomination. Ironically, it was too gay for me. I did not want my congregational life and faith experience to be quite so ghettoized, to focus quite so strongly on LGBT concerns. Also, the congregation had dwindled down to about 18 people, and having a pastor plus two Exhorters, all of whom were strong personalities, seemed like leadership overkill. So, my brief career as an Exhorter came to an inglorious conclusion as I returned to my church family at the Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church in Oakland.
Now I suppose, in the end, that anyone who stands up to preach engages in exhortation to some degree or another; she or he rises to urge by strong, often stirring argument, admonition, advice, or appeal. Some would say that is the very definition of preaching. There seems to be no question that Paul was an exhorter by trade and by predilection. What I particularly like about today’s text is the content and quality of Paul’s exhortation to the church in Philippi. Paul clearly has great affection for this congregation. Some scholars call this letter of Paul’s a love letter. In the closing words, he makes this abundantly clear. “Therefore my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and my crown, stand firm in the Lord, my beloved.” As an aside (or maybe this is truly central,) anyone who has been part of community of faith truly grounded in the gospel and filled with folk who are committed to loving God and neighbor, can identify with the emotional tone of this verse. I certainly can, when I consider the places I have felt at home, including right here, as I think about you – my sisters, brothers, beloved.
Philippians doesn’t have the theologically instructive tone of the letter to the church at Rome or the chiding tone of the letters to the contentious Christians in Corinth. The Philippian church was a Roman colony located in Macedonia; it was a city which would have been very hostile to the emerging Christian church. Paul writes to the Philippians with tenderness and affection; he shares with them his own personal joy in the face of pain, his hope over against despair and his sense of peace in a time of great struggle and personal danger.
Last week we had Moses’s top ten from God; this week we have Paul’s top six:
Exhortation one - “stand fast.” This is an appeal for the Philippians to hold faithfully to the gospel, no matter how they may be challenged, either by external forces from a hostile living environment or by the petty jealousies and conflicts that threatened them internally. Stand fast, beloved. Stand for something that is bigger and more wonderful than any threat you can imagine. Stand fast for new life in Christ Jesus.
Exhortation two - “be of the same mind in the Lord.” This appeal is apparently to two women in the congregation who were embroiled in a conflict over - well, the Lord only knows what. Maybe it’s over the decor in the parlor or how to handle the congregation’s financial resources or how the next pastor should do his job or whether Philippi should be a red city or blue. Their argument may have been small or large, petty or serious, polite or painful. We don’t know. We do know that it pains Paul to see them in conflict. Paul’s appeal to Euodia and Syntyche is to pull together, to find their common ground in serving God and following Jesus. In their conflict, they are dissipating precious resources and undermining the health of the family. Bring your thinking - and your doing - in line with the mind of God, as best you can discern it. Together you can do great things for God.
Exhortation three - “Rejoice in the Lord always.” Oh, Paul can really get into this one. Hear his voice rise as he appeals to them to rejoice. “Rejoice,” he says and “again I will say, Rejoice.” How can a man, languishing in a Roman prison and facing almost certain death, be so full of joy? What has he seen, what has he experienced, what has he known that draws such an exclamation of joy, an exhortation to rejoicing from his tortured, aging body? Yet there it is, as he describes his own life struggle, “labors, imprisonments, floggings, often near death, beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, adrift at sea, frequent journeys, danger from rivers, from bandits, from my own people, from Gentiles, in the city, in the wilderness, at sea, from false brothers and sisters, toil and hardship, sleepless nights, hungry, thirsty, without food, cold and naked. And under daily pressure because of anxiety for all the churches” (2 Corinthians 11:23-28.) After all this, this same man, from his prison cell, cries out in utter defiance of death, in affirmation of new life in Christ, exhorting his beloved community to a different way of being, even in a highly hostile world, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”
Exhortation four - “Let your gentleness be known to everyone.” There is no angry acting out here, no call for violent rebellion, no exhortation to arms against the enemy. Here is Paul’s appeal to nonviolent resistance. The law of love calls us to a life of gentleness. Like St. Francis, we are called to give up the arms and the wealth that would allow us to lord it over others, to feel superior, to treat others as less than ourselves. Talk to the birds and the animals and the trees, sing with the sun and moon and stars, join in an unending hymn of praise to God that begins with a gentle hush and ends in gentle glory. Practice gentleness and see how gentle the world can become in response.
Exhortation five - “Do not worry about anything.” Paul here is appealing directly to Jesus’ teaching: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25-33.) It’s not exactly “Don’t worry, be happy,” but it is related in its advice that we let go of the things that worry us, especially those things that are beyond our control. How much time and energy is wasted on things that are insignificant or that we can’t change, at the expense of all we could be doing to bring God’s reign here and now, all we could add to the coming kin_dom of God in our daily living? Please don’t worry - about anything. The God who holds the future is the God who holds your hand.
Exhortation five - instead of worrying, “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Paul is not advocating here for the sort of prayer that wants to manipulate God’s will to my way. Supplication and requests, grounded in genuine gratitude to God who has made us and given us all we need and more, are likely to lead to the kind of intimate conversation that will, in the end, help me to know and understand something of God’s will for my life and for the world. Attune me and align me, oh God, so that the peace that passes all understanding will guard my heart and mind in Christ Jesus
Exhortation six - “Think about these things.” What things? “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is anything excellent and if there is anything worthy of praise.” One of my mentors in the field of psychology did his dissertation on the work of Carl Jung. Though he can talk depth psychology with the best of them, he has become a confirmed practitioner of cognitive behavioral therapy. His specialty is working with perpetrators of sexual abuse. While he believes, at some level, in the possibility of change, he also understands that many, if not most of our feelings, thoughts and behaviors become heavily patterned through abundant repetition and are, therefore, “hardwired.” I mention this, because I think part of Paul’s appeal here is a sort of antidote or preventive practice to patterns of worry and anger, of neglect and abuse, of violence and disrespect that disrupt the just and peaceful, gentle, loving possibilities promised for the kingdom of God. Paul is writing to folks like you and me people who are susceptible to the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” as well to our own propensities, on occasion, to do ourselves in. Beloved sisters and brothers, don’t let your thoughts and feelings and behavior be caught up in old, self-defeating, soul-killing, life-sucking, world-destroying patterns. Think about these things, instead - truth, honor, justice, purity, what is pleasing, commendable, excellent and worthy of praise. Wouldn’t it be interesting if these were the guidelines of the fair political practices office, if they were required of anyone running for public office?
Finally, exhortation seven - “Keep on doing these things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me,” Paul says. One thing I have learned from working with another friend, Daniel Pryfogle, is the discipline of appreciative inquiry. He has helped me to see that if I focus on the positive, the things that are good and right and hopeful, then I don’t have to give myself over to worrying about what is wrong or broken or irritating. But, as with therapy, it is clear that one does not change through insight alone; one needs the challenge of actually working through things, using the discipline of appreciative inquiry, the powerful practice of thinking about these things. Not just on an occasional Sunday, not just once in a while, but as a disciplined spiritual practice if we really want to disconnect those hard wires and transform our lives and our world. Keep on doing these things - standing fast, working and living together in solidarity and community, rejoicing in God and one another and all creation, being gentle, letting go of worry and centering yourselves in prayer, taking account of all those things that make life worth living and characterize God’s kin_dom on earth. Keep on keeping on in the face of whatever comes to challenge – and, in the end, “the God of peace will be with you.”
Exhortations! I don’t know how strongly you feel stirred by Paul’s argument, admonition, advice, or appeal here - or mine, for that matter. This is not exactly a martial call to arms or powerful push for moral rectitude. It is a more elusive challenge to live in the world in a different way, as a follower of Christ, a recipient of new life, a co-creator of the kin_dom of God on earth as it is in heaven. It is a challenge that undermines traditional ideas about power and control, about competition and violence, about who’s in and who’s out, perhaps about exhortation itself. Rather than try stir you to some sort of precipitous and ill-considered action, I invite you to join me in thinking on things - not just in our heads but also in our hearts and our bones as we seek to be faithful to a higher calling and more profound exhortations from God herself, who loves us and holds us and wishes us well. Amen.