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Two months ago, before you even knew I would be leaving, I came across this scripture passage in my reading. It immediately struck me as the passage I wanted to use on this day. I even wrote it on a scrap of yellow paper and put it in my middle desk drawer so I wouldn’t forget.
Philippians 1:3-11:
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.
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. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus.
And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.
I hope you can see why I was drawn to it. There are so many wonderful phrases in it that speak to our relationship and our time together. I thank my God every time I remember you. You hold me in your heart. This is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more. It is a beautiful, loving, joyful passage of scripture. In fact, the whole letter is sometimes referred to as an epistle of joy.
But as usual with scripture, the more you dig, the more surprises you find. Sometimes those are unpleasant surprises. This time they were mostly good.
When studying the epistles, we sometimes treat them primarily as theological treatises, and they certainly are rich in theology. We forget that they are first and foremost, letters, and in this case, a letter to people the writer knew and loved. Scholar Michael Joseph Brown says it is common for the apostle Paul to begin his letters with an expression of thanksgiving. What is different in Philippians is that the word translated once as praying and a second time as prayers is not the usual word for prayers. “The verb describes some sort of lack or deficiency, and so by extension means ‘to request’ or ‘to beseech.’”[1] This isn’t a casual prayer. This is an entreaty, a pleading kind of prayer. The way you pray when you’re concerned. The way you pray when you are praying for someone you love.
One scholar writes: “Paul’s expression of affection for his Philippian partners in the gospel is stronger than that expressed in any of his other letters” and the book “gives us a window into his loving relationship” with the recipients.[2] It is no wonder that this scripture appealed to me for this Sunday.
So Paul is praying—entreating, pleading with God—for these people he loves. But what is his prayer? Verse 9: “This is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight.” It makes me ask, though, how does our love overflow with knowledge? “This is problematic to 21st century Western sensibilities; we prefer to separate our affections from our knowledge. One is subjective and volatile, while the other we prefer to think of as objective and reliable. . . .In the 1st century, however, Paul operated under completely different categories. In his world, knowledge and affection are not separate from one another. Rather, they are two sides of the same coin. [Emotion and reason] are equally legitimate as tools of persuasion, equally a part of what makes up the workings of a person. So, then, what does Paul mean when he exhorts the Philippians to let this love ‘overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight’ (1:9)?”[3] The Greek preposition that the NRSV translates as “with” can also be translated as “in” or “by.” “The interpretive question has to do with the relationship between love and knowledge and insight. Given Paul’s appeal for unity later in the letter (2:1-18; 4:2-3), his prayer for the Philippians is that their love might begin to heal their divisions . . .by means of knowledge and insight.”[4] Because of this, Scholar Amy Lindeman Allen translates Philippians 1:9 as: “This is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more by means of knowledge and full insight.” We need full knowledge of someone in order to fully love them. And we need to fully love them in order to have full knowledge.
I may have told you that when Jackie and I were dating, I broke up with her. I got scared because she could see me. Really see me, even the parts I worked so hard to hide. And because she’s an empath she could feel what I was feeling. Sometimes she knew what I was feeling before I did, and I found that highly annoying! And very scary! I finally came to realize that to be that completely known AND completely loved was an amazing thing.
We need full knowledge of someone in order to fully love them. And we need to fully love them in order to have full knowledge. This has several implications for this beloved community on Meetinghouse Hill. First: Trust in the knowledge that you have of one another. Trust in what you have known about one another for years—that your fellow church members are wonderful people with good hearts and good minds and good intentions. Trust in the wisdom you have seen in one another as evidence in good financial stewardship, good protection of our physical resources, good care for one another in times of loss and grief. Trust in the knowledge of the past. The second implication is connected because heart and mind are equal. First was trust in the knowledge. Second is lean into the love. Lean into the relationships you have built here. Lean into the strength of those relationships that were built through years of working side by side at the Holly Daze Bazaar, of laughing together over stories around the table, of mission trip inside jokes that were never supposed to leave Cherryfield but always did! Lean into the love that was always there and still remains, in spite of social distance and masks, in spite of hard choices, in spite of the loss of our opportunities to be together. Lean into the love that is the fulfillment of knowledge. Open yourself to learning and talking so that you may love all the more. I agree with the Apostle Paul: “The one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion.” God has begun a good work among you. Technically, God began it in 1734, if not before! But God begins again and again with each new era, each new day. And I am confident that God will continue this good work.
I am so grateful for our time together.
Grateful for the ways you have helped me grow.
Grateful for the ways you have invited me into your lives.
Grateful for the ways you have loved me and let me love you.
I have asked my daughter to sing partly because I’m pulling pastoral privilege! and partly because this song contains a line that feels so appropriate for how I feel today: “Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we.” Today I raise a hymn of joy in grateful chorus for all that has been, and all that is yet to be. Amen.
[1] Michael Joseph Brown. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/second-sunday-of-advent-3/commentary-on-philippians-13-11-2
[2] Bratt, Doug. https://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/advent-2c/?type=lectionary_epistle
[3] Amy Lindeman Allen. https://politicaltheology.com/the-politics-of-overflowing-love-philippians-13-11/
[4] Allen.