This Wild & Precious Life ~ Philippians 1:20-26

Our text this week is artful in its poetry and symmetry. Though not exactly captured well in translation it speaks with a cadence and rhythm that brought to mind another poet whose words provide the proper question for Paul’s words today. The fact that the poem is called The Summer Day makes it even that much more appropriate. Written by the Christian, Mary Oliver, half-way through the poem, she writes:

The Summer Day

. . . I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Tell me, Paul – Willie Richardson – Bob King – Martha Blair – Jackson Kirk -  the rest of you Trinity-folk “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” That is the question that sings behind Paul’s words from Philippians 1:20-26. How does Paul answer that question and how might his answer help you give an answer yourself?

          1.    First, Paul answers the question by making up a word to express his

unwavering expectation that Jesus wins and that he [Paul] will not be ashamed.

We need to begin by talking about the importance of words. Words have meaning and shape our sense of what’s real, what we know and what we can see. Mark Twain joked: “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” I’ve had fun this week discovering newly invented words created to be the right word . Here are a few[1]:

A crapella - (ah kra-‘peh-luh) adj.—Sung badly while listening to music using headphones.

Carcolepsy - (‘kahr-kuh-lep-see) n.—The tendency to fall asleep as soon as the car starts moving.

Cellfish - (‘sel-fish) n.—Someone who talks or texts on his or her phone to the exclusion of those he or she is with.

Chiptease - (‘chip-teez) n.—A bag of potato chips that seems full but is mostly air.

These are great because they vividly express something that we know to be real but failed to have an adequate word for. And guess what! Our text today begins with just such a discovery. I know it’s been awhile but our Greek of the Week starts our sermon today. In Vs. 20 Paul expresses an unshakable conviction that is hard to render well in English. The word is ἀποκαραδοκία. It is only found in the writings of the Apostle Paul and he only uses it twice: Romans 8:19 & Philippians 1:20. It could almost be rendered “to crane the neck [head] attentively.” The word is directly connected with “hope” in our passage thus forming a hendiadys – two words joined by a conjunction to make a single point. I sort of translate it as a “my hope-filled craning of the neck.” It’s what we do when waiting outside an airplane terminal for our loved one to exit or what children do waiting for a float at a parade. The English translation can make it sound like Paul is unsure or worried but that’s not what “hope” means in the Greek. Hope is not wishful thinking but an assured reality that something or someone is coming. And what is Paul assured of, what does he crane his neck for -  longing to see walk off the plane? That Jesus will be exalted and he will not be ashamed. Friends, let’s have church. Jesus will be exalted and you, me, others – we will not be ashamed. We will not be able to answer Mary Oliver’s question until we know what God wants for our life. The problem is, of course, more than that we don’t have a word for this feeling of expectation – we seem to so easily forget. God has won in Jesus Christ. Jesus will get the glory, will be exalted, because he has won. All of the problems that we face will not change that fact. And this God will not see us shamed. We’ve lost this confidence. Some of us have even come to identify “shame” with proper Christian feeling and thinking. We’ve confused a healthy vision of guilt – feeling bad about things we’ve done with shame – feeling bad about who we are. The God who made you and saves you didn’t do so because God hates who you are. You are worth saving. And he has done so through Jesus Christ. What word will we invent to help us express our hope in this “wild and precious life”? So here’s your challenge – you word-smiths out there. Someone come up with a word that expresses our hope-filled delight in Jesus and shamelessness. A sort of love-no-matter-whatness word that we can use to express our sure and firm hope.

What is it you plan you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

          2.    Paul answers the question knowing that life with Christ (live or die) means you can’t lose.

Vs. 20 will see Paul tell us not that he “wishes for courage” but that he has full courage that Jesus will be praised whether he lives or dies. The spiritual life is a challenge with all the thrills that come with it but it’s not free-soloing a rock climb (climbing without a rope). It’s climbing top rope with the rope coming from above, always capable of arresting your fall. That doesn’t mean the rope will pull you up the wall but it does mean that you simply cannot fall to your death. Vss. 21-24 reflects Paul’s top-rope

confidence of a life in Christ no matter what the outcome:

21a     Life is Christ

21b     Death is gain

22       Life is worthwhile work

23       Death is to be with Christ

24       Life is for the benefit of others

Paul understands that though he doesn’t know how to truly choose between the two desires - both ends, both choices, both results are insured by Jesus himself. This doesn’t mean that you can’t be scared or that you can’t recognize that things are hard. It means as we learned last week that Jesus isn’t thwarted by, or afraid of, anything. So lean in. So prison cells, Paul learns, can become pulpits and places for grace and joy. And if the Roman Government chooses to execute him – that doesn’t matter – they don’t determine his end anyway. If we are secure, what mountain would you like to climb?

          3.    Don’t die before you’re dead.

We need to cultivate a joy that is resistant to death and all its signatures: despair, hopelessness, shame, terror, greed, and hate. Paul discovers that life has a purpose, it’s made to be good fruit. He will make the powerful statement that he believes he won’t die because the fact that he is still alive means that God has meaningful work for him to do. He will not die before he is dead. He will not give up hope. Friends, you are not incidental, not random, not meaningless, not forgetful, not powerless. In Christ, you are a purpose-filled love bomb that Jesus wishes to use for life in all its expressions. So wear a mask but don’t for one second imagine that you are called to merely keep yourself safe.

The early Christian thinker Ireneaus once said, “The glory of God is a living human being.” This statement, however, has been wrongly translated by some as “The glory of God is a man fully alive.” Of course, the added adverb conjures images of radical acts like cliff-jumping, downhill snowboarding, and big wave surfing – as if God’s glory and grace require some radical, death-defying hobby to be enjoyed. But Paul and the original quote by Irenaeus or the correct sentiment – God is glorified by normal people who recognize that the breath that fills their bodies comes from God and that that God gives love and purpose. If you have breath in your body – you ARE God’s glory. So choose life and act accordingly.

Friends, during this Covid crisis we must be responsible. We should behave properly but we must not give into a fear that keeps us from seeing life as a gift to be lived. Circumstances don’t determine your life. Only Jesus does that. We must never give into a terror that has us die before we our dead. The Apostle Paul reminds us that one more thing will help us do that.

          4.    Discover who is your “with” and “for.”

The power of our passage is often obscured by grammatical conventions in English that don’t exist in the Greek. Attempting to rectify that reveals the power of Paul’s thinking in vss. 23-24:

 

The purpose God has for you is not some selfish naval gazing nor some self-important sense of greatness. It’s simply a perspective of recognizing in the moment who it is you are called to be “with” and “for.” On the hand, we must recognize that we are/will be “with Christ” who will keep us safe. But Paul writes in vs. 25,  Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith.”

In 1910, poor health kept William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, from addressing the crowd at their Annual Convention. People were relieved, however, when they discovered that General Booth had sent a telegrammed speech that was to be read to the entire group. In gathered anticipation, the moderator opened up the telegram to find only one word: “Others.” Who are your others? Who is it that God has called you to be “with” and “for,” to have a relationship with, to advocate on behalf of?

Larry McMurray recently shared that his children called Ruth Holme “Sunday School.” Ruth discovered a “with” and “for.”

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[1] https://www.rd.com/list/hilarious-made-up-words/

Funeral Homily for Stan Holme

 Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom.
²⁹ He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.
³⁰ Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall;
³¹ but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint. ~ Isaiah 40:28-31

14 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. ² My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. ⁴ You know the way to the place where I am going.” ⁵ Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” ~ John 14:1-5

Stan was a man of hope. In a world of staggering problems, he lived as a believer in hope, a bearer of hope, and a builder of hope. Look at the scriptures that he picked for today – hope sings from them. And this hope is not optimism or idealism. It has nothing to do with wishful thinking or fantasy but seeks to name reality and revere truth. Hope, I believe, is what Stan would like for me to share with you today. But don’t lose hope – I also know that he would want me to be brief.

          1.    Hope walks in reality.

Unfortunately, I only knew “tired and weary” Stan. Like the passage read from Isaiah, I only knew “stumble and fall” Stan. But, Stan was a man of hope in the Lord. And though frail I sometimes caught glimpses of him soaring like an eagle, even when in pain. I watched him soar around his dinner table talking about all of you and sharing how much he loved his family. I glanced at him running in this building – in a hobbling sort of way - greeting others, asking about them, praying for them. I saw him walk a little faint as he discipled people at the Pancake House or wrote me hand-written letters about how to improve worship. And yet none of this detracted from Stan’s unflinching realism – the constant wrestling with his own body, the struggle and tension of being a physician in pain, who longed to soar in the great outdoors he loved, only to be found in a body that often stumbled, fainted, and fell. His love of Jesus and commitment to the church were offered hopefully with great pain and Stan had no trouble describing that pain to me, showing the wounds, noting the scars. As a physician, Stan knew something all too well. In the presence of a God, the most hopeful thing we can do is show Him our wounds.

I once had a friend describe Christianity and belief in God as a means for weak-minded people to hide from the tragedies of life. Maybe there are such people out there but I haven’t met many and that person certainly never met Stan. Hope as wish-fulfillment is also not how the Bible speaks. The passage from Isaiah speaks of hope for the weak, the tired, the weary, the stumbling, and the falling. Hope is a struggle. So you are on the path of hope not when you abandon reality or refuse to live in this world with all its physical and psychological pain. You are on the path of hope when you stare hardship wide-eyed in the face, mourn its pain, acknowledge the hurt, and keep on walking – if even with a limp.  Hope shines against the backdrop of pain and doubt, Isaiah shouts, when the weak place their trust in the Lord and say, “He will . . .” He will give strength, he will give power, he will win. He will, He will, He will..

Friends, the good news that I want to share with you today is that you may look at your life with an unflinching realism. You can sit there right now in your sadness and say, “This isn’t right. He shouldn’t be gone. Death is tragic and painful. I miss him so much and feel tired, and frail and weak.” You can confess all that is wrong with yourself and the world. You can reveal all the struggle and doubt that you have.

Stan, does something sneaky by the way. Did you catch it? Perhaps he’s more of a preacher than a physician. In our passage from John 14, he stopped the reading at vs. 5. Why did he do that? It’s vs. 6 that’s the final chord, the crashing ending with cymbals and horns. But he stops at vs. 5, with Thomas’ expression of doubt. Knowing that Stan planned all of this very carefully, I don’t think this is an oversight. Rather, I think this is the mind of a careful, hopeful believer who knew that even doubt can walk with hope

Isaiah is right – when we hope in the Lord we will eventually walk and not faint. I’m reminded of the fact that if something is functional or has power in English we say, “It works.” However, in French when something is functional you say, “It walks [Ça marche].” Stan’s life right to the very end reminds us that hope isn’t silly or meaningless. It’s not nostalgic nor blind. No, in the face of real struggle and hardship, “Hope walks.”

          2.    Thankfully, hope is not about you.

Of course, nothing would make Stan more furious at me than for me to stand up here and tell you that you should be like him, or that his hope rested in his own belief to handle life himself. No, Stan’s life was not hope itself but a sign of hope – pointing you to where you should look, to whom you should trust, to the One who hopes for you.

The passages from Isaiah and John acknowledges that hope comes from God and connects to God – the One who does not grow tired or weary, the One who will come and take us to be with him. Hope always has an object, always demands the preposition “in.” Our Christian hope is not in ourselves, not in church, not even in doctrine. Our hope is in the one whom Stan loved and followed – in Jesus Christ. Our hope, in other words, is a historical story, rooted in reality, of Jesus of Nazareth, who spoke of the kingdom of God, forgave sinners, healed the sick, challenged religious leaders, spoke of justice for the poor and compassion for the broken-hearted. He acted out the hope that had always been attributed to God. And the world and political powers killed him. But even the grave couldn’t keep him down. Hope, it turns out, is unkillable.

So I would like to end by offering the invitation that Stan would wish me to offer – “Hope in the Lord and believe in Jesus.” For that is what Stan has done, and that is where Stan will be and where Stan now whispers Isaiah’s words:

“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth.”

He will – offer you hope.

He will - help you soar.

He will – prepare for you a place.

He will – win.

He will, He will, He will. Amen.