January 9, 2005
The Seven First Words of the Christian
Riley E. Jensen

This is a sermon about change and about hope.  Poised as we are on the threshold of a new year, experience teaches us that the pressures of change will press in upon us even as our natural conservative natures resist them.  Meeting the future is all about empowerment.  Where do we get the resources?  Where do we get the strength?  Where do we get the hope?

You have certainly heard about the seven last words of the church which ministers are fond of throwing around whenever they want to introduce a new initiative – we’ve never done it that way before!  Accompanying those but more often whispered silently are what I call the seven frequent words of the human condition – I wonder if I can do anything!  We know that so much of success is built upon self-confidence while too much self-confidence we call arrogance, and too little, insecurity.

We live in a world that admires rugged individualism.  Before the election I overhead a person saying that he was going to vote for one of the candidates because he considered him to be “a man’s man!”  Whatever that means, it is intended to be an image of strength and not weakness.  It is intended to convey the idea of self reliance and independence

However, the seven first words of the Christian that we find in Phillippians take us in an entirely different direction.  These are the oft-quoted words of the Apostle Paul written from a jail cell in Rome to his friends in the church at Philippi: “I can do all things through him (meaning Christ) who strengthens me.”

As we would say today, Paul went “way back” with these folks.  It was one of the earliest churches that he had planted in about A.D. 50 in Asia Minor (modern Turkey).   And the seed sown had yielded a great harvest.  Paul thought of this church much like my predessessor Jack Stewart thinks of Westminster.  I know this because Jack, now a professor at Princeton Seminary, frequently talks to his students about Westminster as his “baby”.  It is this kind of affectionate relationship that pastors have with their churches, and we know that Paul certainly had a special fondness for this church.

Over the years Paul would return again and again to renew friendships and to encourage the Philippian church in its ongoing ministry.  But then things suddenly changed.  He was arrested in Jerusalem.  And after two years detention is Caesarea, he was sent to Rome to stand trial before the Emperor.  Even in that ancient world, without telegraph or a decent postal system, news traveled fast, and one day the Christians in Philippi heard with sadness and shock news of Paul’s fate.  They responded by sending one of their number, Epaphroditus, to offer support on their behalf.

I.                   The Defining Moment

Occasionally, something so remarkable happens to a community that it changes the conversation.  Somebody wins the lottery, there’s a tragic death, 9/11.  Whatever has been business as usual, whatever has normally dominated the air time whether weather, sports, or the latest political campaign suddenly fades into the oblivion of the insignificant and irrelevant.

In this case, the word was out – Paul is in jail.  Our leader, our mentor, our patriarch is in deep trouble.  The feelings of loss and separation produced grief and despair.  But as is so often true the tears that are shed are not only for the other, but for ourselves also.  What will we do without this person upon whom we have relied so much.  It’s true, isn’t it that some people appear untouchable, larger than life, and when they get taken down whether by illness or by circumstance – it shakes our world.

The word went out – Paul is in jail, and because of that so in some sense are we.  Our world has suddenly become smaller, pressing in upon us.  If this one whom we looked up to, and upon whom we relied is powerless before the forces of evil then so are we.

So Epaphroditus comes back.  “I have a letter from Paul,” he says, “And he wants you to read it in worship today.”

And this is what Paul said:  “Get your mind off me.  I am not the center of the church.  If you are worried about how I’m doing, well I’m doing fine.  I am prepared.  I am prepared if I live, and I am prepared if I die.  With everything I have gone through, I would be glad to be free of it and to have flights of angels take me to my rest.  However, until that time comes, quit being consumed with thoughts of me and my well-being.  No church can survive built around the preacher.  The church is built around Jesus Christ.  I am the one in prison; Christ is not in prison.  Christ is the savior of the world.  Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  Preachers will come and go – young ones, old ones, good ones and bad ones – but the church is the church.  You have Christ, and you can do all things through him who strengthens you.”

You see, the conversation changed and it was not an entirely bad thing.  For when that happens it can press us up against what is really important and what really has meaning for us.  It was to that end that Paul not only did the gracious thing, he did the necessary thing.  He sent Epaphroditus back with a message devoid of self-pity and full of promise:  “Get your mind off me.  I can do all things through Christ, and so can you!”

II.                The Decisive Moment

While certainly there was a defining moment when the conversation changed, there was also a decisive moment when the focus changed.  The church and those of us who are individually part of it are here to serve a larger purpose.  But we all know that is so much easier said than done, because it is so easy to get bogged down in the petty, and the self-serving, and the immediate while sacrificing the eternal.  When the urgent crowds out the important, we lose the kind of focus that gives our lives balance.

One of the most remarkable things about this passage is Paul’s calmness in the face of probable martyrdom.  “In whatever state I am, I will be content”, he says.  How does he do it?  Does he really mean it?  When the countdown begins, and the end is in sight, is it really possible to put anxiety and fear on the sidelines with such absolute faith and trust?  Those certainly are our questions because we are an anxious and a fearful people whose stress level continues to rise and where anxiety defeats serenity at every turn.

I guess the question for me is how can we have an attitude of acceptance without developing one of complacency.  It’s the “meek shall inherit the earth” argument.  When Jesus said, “the meek shall inherit the earth”  he certainly wasn’t promoting a quietist passive faith that would surrender to the forces of evil without a fight.  The whole life and ministry of the Apostle Paul himself contradicts that notion for his was an activist aggressive faith.  Paul certainly didn’t find himself in prison by avoiding confrontation.

“In whatever state I am, I will be content.”  You see, this isn’t about being passive, it’s about being centered.  Paul was able to handle imprisonment and even the prospect of the end of his life because he was centered in a faith that believed that life is a gift and that there is a purpose beyond that of mere survival.

And yet we must never mistake such an attitude for passivity or simply giving up.  Some of you will remember the story of the three frogs who found themselves trapped in a large vat of cream.  One looked at what appeared to be a hopeless situation and soon sank to the bottom and drowned.  Another panicked and began to flail his legs wildly in a desperate effort to get out.   He was soon exhausted, and he, too, sank to the bottom and drowned.  The third simply kept kicking methodically, steadily, until the vat of cream turned to butter, and he climbed out.

All of us find ourselves in situations, don’t we, where we get discouraged feeling that there is no way out.  The temptation overwhelms us to just give up, because there appears to be no hope to us there must be no hope.  But the example of Paul is neither to give up nor to panic, but to continue to claim the moments and the days given to us with gratitude.  But that sort of attitude rests not in individual will- power but to rest in the will of the gentle One who holds us in the palm of her hand.

Many of us overvalue autonomy, the strength to stand alone, the capacity to act independently.  Far too few of us pay attention to the virtues of dependence and interdependence, and especially the capacity to be vulnerable when we drop our defenses.   And  we can drop our defenses only when we love and are loved.

III.             The Transforming Moment

While there are certainly those defining moments in life when the conversation changes, and those decisive moments when attitudes change, they all lead up to those transforming moments when our lives change.  I am not talking here about some hot house conversion experience where convicted of sin we turn from darkness and see the light.  The truth is that those transforming moments come to us when we face those crisis times in life and realize that our strength, our will power in not enough.

This is what led Paul to go deep into his center probing for that extra measure of courage and faith that would see him through to the end.  And when he found it, he exclaimed, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  Those need to be both the first words and the last words and the in-between words for the Christian.

I don’t know about you but I am helped by mantras and mottos.  You know, something to grab hold of when faced by seeming hopelessness.  During those times when our minds can run wild with fear and anxiety always imaging the worst, it is important to be able to go quickly to our center and remind ourselves of what really anchors our lives.  Of course, I am not talking about a sedative here, a kind of spiritual valium that removes the pain and puts us into a happy never land.

The transforming moment comes when that power beyond ourselves transforms faith into action.  Elton Trueblood tells a wonderful story about a man who had the crazy notion that he wanted to walk across Niagara Falls on a tight-rope pushing a wheelbarrow with a person in it.  Who knows why people get these ideas but we know that they do.  And so this man began his preparation by setting up two poles in his backyard, stretching a tightrope between them and practicing – every day for a year – first with a balance bar, then without it, then with a wheelbarrow, and finally he added a load of 175 pounds of bricks.  And he got to point where his abilities matched his confidence, and he could do it regularly without falling off the wire.

His next door neighbor was initially fascinated and skeptical of this endeavor.  At first it seemed a joke but as he watched night after night, it began to enter the realm of possibility.  Word began to get out and the crowds began to gather as the time approached.  The press picked up the story and when the big moment arrived a crowd of several hundred was on hand.

The man put his wheelbarrow in position, looked across the wire checked its tension.  Everything seemed to be in order.  Then he turned to his faithful neighbor and as if soliciting encouragement, he asked, “Joe, do you think I can do it”.  Joe, knowing that his friend might be having a few moments of doubt and wanting to bolster him said, “Of course, I absolutely believe you can do it.  I would bet a month’s wages on it.!”

The performer looked out over the falls one more time and then asked, “Joe, do you really believe?”  Now with a note of seriousness and sincerity, Joe replied, “Yes, I really believe!”  “Great” said his friend, “You’re my guy, get in the wheelbarrow.”  I offer one disclaimer at this point – don’t try this to prove your faith or you might hurt yourself.

The point is made isn’t it?  Faith without action means nothing. “ I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” is more than a great motto.  It is the recognition that we can only move through this life with the kind of confidence and courage we find in the Apostle Paul if with him we can say, “I have learned the secret!”  Here he is using a term popularized by the Greek mystery religions and well known to his hearers.

However, for the Greeks the secret was veiled and guarded by ritual and formula and known only by a select few.  But Paul is throwing open the doors and letting us in on the secret for the secret of his courage, his seeming fearlessness, his independence in the face of trial and tribulation is in fact, his dependence on another.

At the beginning of this new year, a time of making resolutions, summoning will power, hoping for new beginnings, the secret of contentment, the secret of confidence in the face of all that life may bring us this year is in the nurturing of that relationship with the One who has made us, and redeemed us, and whose love will not let us go.

None of us knows what the new year will hold.  We hope for the best; we prepare for the worst.  But we know that “we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.”