Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
(Philippians 4:1-9)
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I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but political silly season has begun again. There is, after all, a provincial election coming up in about nine months, and we’ve started to see TV attack ads. The Liberals are running ads attacking Patrick Brown, and the Conservatives are running ads attacking Kathleen Wynn, and that’s probably going to be our reality for the next nine months, because it’s always so much easier to attack someone else than it is to actually defend ourselves. And that isn’t just the reality in politics. There’s evidence of it in the Bible, as well. Paul may tell us that Christ has given us a ministry of reconciliation, but when people can’t agree – even on matters of faith – it’s a lot easier for us just to try to tear down those who disagree with us rather than to try to reconcile with one another. That’s the way it is today; that’s the way it was in the very first generation of the church. Reconciliation is hard – divide and attack is so much easier. Those who are familiar with the New Testament will immediately think of the situation of the church in Corinth – which was a terribly conflicted church that had split apart on all sorts of issues, but it wasn’t restricted to Corinth. In our reading this morning, we found that the problem had raised its ugly head in Philippi as well.
Today’s passage focuses on two women named Euodia and Synteche. We don’t really know who Euodia and Syntyche were. Their names only appear in this one verse of the Bible – Philippians 4:2 – and this one verse and its context doesn't really tell us very much. But there are some things about them that we can infer from this one very brief reference. It seems that Euodia and Syntyche had worked together closely in the church in Philippi, but somewhere along the way something had happened between them. It probably started over something small (which is how church conflicts often begin) but as time went by and these two who had previously worked together so closely became more and more estranged, it began to affect the entire community. Paul – who had a deep and intimate relationship with this church – wanted to heal the rift, and so he “urged” them – he “pleaded” with them, some translations say – to be reconciled, and to “be of the same mind in the Lord.” What I found myself wondering was what caused them to be estranged. Over the years, I’ve seen some pretty silly things that have caused big conflicts in churches. But whether it’s a silly issue or whether it’s a big issue, at its root all conflict is about power. Somebody has the power to do something, and somebody else wants the power to do something different. Or, perhaps, somebody has simply claimed the power to do something without anyone agreeing. Either way, it comes down to power. Euodia and Syntyche had a disagreement. They wanted to do things in different ways. We don’t know the details – but that’s how it must have been. And, as often happens, the church at Philippi probably started to divide. Some took Euodia’s side and some took Syntyche’s side. Church splits are never pretty. I’ve heard the phrase “amoebic church growth” - the idea being that like a single celled organism, the church sometimes splits into two separate parts that go their separate ways, with each part growing into something new and different. It’s a nice theory – but I have my doubts. When I was a lay person I lived through a church split. One group of people stayed in the congregation; one left and started a new congregation. It was all very bitter and in the end neither congregation was as strong as the congregation had been before the split. Today, one is nothing more than a shadow of its former self; the other is long gone. So much for amoebic growth. I suspect this was Paul’s concern as he surveyed the situation at Philippi and the disagreement between Euodia and Syntyche: that whatever the issue was, it had the potential to destroy all that Paul had accomplished in that community as he struggled with Euodia and Synteche and others for the gospel.
Paul wasn't angry with Euodia and Synteche. He was close to them. He cared about them. He had worked with them. As he said himself, they had "struggled beside [him] in the work of the gospel." Whatever the issue was that had come between them, Paul wanted these women to be reconciled - for their sake, for the sake of the community and for the sake of the gospel, because nothing dishonours the gospel more than a serious church fight. After all, "if those Christians can't even get along with each other, why should we listen to them," many would say. So there's a lot at stake in this fight. As I've said, we don't know what the dispute was about, but in general I find myself wondering if it was a matter of people who had allowed their focus to be taken away from the gospel and turned toward other things?
The theologian Miroslav Volf said that “the main temptation isn't to reject God outright, but to embrace God as secondary ...” And that’s the truth. When push comes to shove all too often we may say that we believe in God, but what we believe in most is what we already believe, and the temptation is then to use God as a justification for all sorts of bad behaviour. How many people in thew world today of all religions use God as an excuse for hatred or violence? That’s probably not what was happening in Philippi, but still there seems to have been a struggle that must have somehow involved someone putting what they wanted ahead of everything and everyone else – even ahead of God. It can happen so easily – because struggling for the gospel is hard work that brings few material rewards or benefits – and that sometimes demands a price from us.
It's a struggle to be true to the teachings of Jesus in a society that's either actively hostile to Jesus or that simply chooses to ignore Jesus. Euodia and Synteche faced the first situation; we face the second. They faced persecution from their society; we face indifference from ours. In ancient Philippi, society was threatened by the gospel and attacked the church; in modern Ajax-Pickering, society is indifferent to the gospel and ignores the church. And in either case, it’s very easy for us to lose sight of the gospel, to turn inward to protect ourselves against the world and sometimes even to turn against each other – losing our focus on what really matters, because we get so concerned by things of little or even no importance. We lose sight of the big picture. We see the trees, but we’re blind to the forest. We focus on what matters to us and not on what matters to God or what’s central to the gospel – and most of that happens because it’s hard to keep focused on the gospel when we’re inundated day after day with values and ideas and beliefs that don’t in any way reflect the values and ideas and beliefs that were proclaimed by Jesus. We become creatures of our culture rather than servants of our God, and we break apart – because if our culture tells us anything, it’s that what “I” think is the most important thing and that what “you” think can be dismissed or mocked or attacked if it doesn’t agree with me. That’s the opposite of what the gospel is all about; those types of attitudes are the opposite of what Jesus both taught and lived out. We are to surrender ourselves, humble ourselves, not try to lord it over each other but be one another’s servants. Paul wants Euodia and Syntheche and the rest of the community in Philippi to get back to a way of life that honoured Jesus, and he encouraged it by emphasizing a few simple but important things, so I want you to hear again just a bit of the passage we heard earlier:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
In just four verses we find references to joy, prayer, thanksgiving and peace. The same Paul who encourages prayer and thanksgiving amidst the difficult circumstances the people of God may face (as I said earlier, whether those difficult circumstances are persecution or indifference) also emphasizes joy and the reality of a peace beyond all understanding. These four things are related. Thanksgiving brings us joy as we focus on all that God has done for us, and prayer results in peace as we’re reminded of God’s never-ending presence with us. A community that demonstrates joy and prayer and thanksgiving and peace is a community demonstrating a vibrant spiritual life and the presence of God within it. But as we struggle for the gospel against a culture that in so many ways is opposed to the gospel those four things can become so difficult, and in the midst of struggle divisions appear and threaten to tear down what God has built.
Have you ever had a small rock hit your windshield? It leaves a little mark and you think nothing of it. But it’s done damage – and slowly but surely that little mark turns into a crack that spreads and spreads until the whole windshield needs to be replaced. A simple fix could have solved a lot of trouble. When we face troubles – either from outside our community or within it – the fix is pretty simple: joy, prayer, thanksgiving and peace. These things bring us together and hold us together as we struggle to make the gospel message heard.
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