Westwood Presbyterian Church

August 17th, 2008

197 Browning  Boulevard, Winnipeg, Manitoba  R3K 0L1

REV. PETER BUSH's SERMONS

Praying for the Church 3 - Philippians 1: 3-13

 

     One of the questions that it is fun to ask kids is this: Do fish feel that they are wet? That is, do fish think of themselves as being wet and not dry? Well, we don’t know what fish think about this question, but it does raise the question of how much of our surroundings we are really aware of – and how much we simply take for granted? How aware are we of our culture – and the ways in which our culture thinks and acts? The way our culture thinks and acts is so usual to us that we no longer notice things about it. Only when we start talking to someone from another culture – or try to explain another culture to our culture do we start to see some of the things about our culture.

     This morning I want us to think about the word “you” – in English it is very hard to tell when someone says, “You make me proud” if the person is talking to one person or to a bunch of people – “you singular” or “you plural”. The only way to tell is from the context. Now because of our highly individual culture – where we focus such extraordinary amounts of energy in thinking about the individual and highlighting the rights of the individual – when we hear the word “you” we automatically start to think “you singular”. We find it stretching to think in “you plural” terms – to put that more bluntly – we prefer to think about “me” rather than “we”.

     In praying for the church we need to move from me to we – from the individual to the collective – from the singular to the plural. And that is exactly what Paul does in Philippians 1:3-11 – the passage that we read this morning.

     Twelve times in these 9 verses Paul uses the words “you” or “your” – and every time he is making a reference to the collective – to the group – never does he refer to the individual. And as if to make that point abundantly clear he says “all of you” four times. Paul is praying for the whole church – the complete community – for everyone who has gathered – for everyone whom the Lord God has called into the community of the church.     Now it would be easy to say, “That is nice” and go along on our merry way without thinking about the profound implications of such an emphasis.

     There is a humorous saying – “I love everyone, it is people I can’t stand.” When Paul writes that he prays for the “all of you” who are part of the church in Philippi he is under no illusions of just how challenging it is to be the church – to be a body of Christians together. Paul knows full well that there are people who do not get along in the church in Philippi – and in fact in Chapter 4 he names two people who are not getting along – Euodia and Syntyche – and asks them to get along – to be of the same mind in the Lord.

     To be part of a group is not easy – because there is always the tension between what I want and what the rest of the group wants – between what I believe God is calling us and what others in the group believe is the correct path. To be part of a collective is hard because I don’t always get my way. But even more difficult being part of a collective changes me – someone else’s idea might be better than mine – and my ego takes a bit of a hit. Someone else has the ability to do something that I can’t do as well as they do – and a little jealousy sneaks in. To be part of a “all of you” – or as a Texan might say “you all” – means that I have to give up some of my plans and dreams and ideas for the good of the whole. I need to think less of “me” and more of “we” – less of “self” and more of “us”.

     Presbyterians believe fundamentally in this truth. Decisions are made by groups of people – the Session (the elders) are a group where together decisions are made. The same is true of Presbytery and Synod and General Assembly – the guidance of God is heard through a collective not through an individual.

     For each of us then, the invitation is to pray for Westwood Presbyterian Church that we (plural) would have the grace and ability to become a people together, not merely a collection of individuals – but a community.

     So we are called to be a community – that is great – but how do we do that?

     I have worked with congregations that wanted to build community – that wanted a sense of closeness with one another – and they tried to do that by doing lots of things together. If I was going to draw a picture of how they built community – they created a circle of people in the church and they focused their attention on building a powerful spirit of community in the middle of that circle. And to be honest it seemed to me that the congregation became very inward focused.

     Paul does not suggest that that is how community is built in the church. Rather he points in a different direction – knowing that human beings are not the end in themselves – and that when human beings make themselves the end of all things bad things start to happen. Paul prays that his readers will be brought to completion on the day of Christ. Paul invites his readers not to look in – but to look ahead. Paul invites them to put their “us-ness” into a different perspective – the perspective of Christ’s return.

     Suddenly there is a new way of looking at the challenges of community building – the example of what it means to live in community is Jesus. Jesus who as we read in the call to worship was the one who gave up his rights, his power, his authority to become a servant, to become one who died so that the community of the church could be born. To say that the community of the church will find its completion in the day of Christ Jesus is to name the example to be followed – the model to be emulated when we live and function in community. In the “you all” of the church – being the servant is the way of life. A servanthood which finds its strength in following in the footsteps of the one who was servant of all.

     We are called to serve others – to be the servant of all – not because the other people are better than we are, not because we like the other people, no our servanthood grows from the example set out by Jesus Christ. Because to be honest, the church, any church, is made up of some pretty strange people who do some pretty strange things. We are brought together in community not because we share anything in common other than that we have been called here by Jesus Christ.

     If the invitation to community building is rooted in following the example of Jesus Christ, it is an example that is leading somewhere. For Jesus did not just die – did not just become a servant – but He was also raised to life again by the power of God, and some day His glory will be fully revealed. So Jesus is not only our example for living in community – He is also the goal of that community.

     For community to be built – it needs to be going somewhere – it needs to have an end in view. Paul prays that his readers would keep the end in view – the day of Christ. The day when Jesus will return – when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We live moving towards that day – we live in community waiting with eager longing for that day to arrive. For we live knowing that all of our attempts to build community – all our attempts to bring the “you all” of the church into being are going to fail to realize the full glory that is coming. What we have now – even our best attempts now – are mere shadows of what will be – what is coming on the day of Christ. Paul hammers this home when he prays that the church will be pure and blameless on the day of Christ. The church – not individual members of the church – not a few people who were right – but the church – the “all of you” of the church – this is who is to be presented pure and blameless together.

     One final thing we need to get into our heads – what one of us does to build up the body of Christ – what one of us does to help the kingdom of God advance – what one of us does to help someone become part of the church – all of us do. And what all of us do – they pieces that each of us brings to the table – is not to the credit and glory of us – it is not brownie points for this church – all that we do has one purpose the glory and praise of God. In the church this is one of the values we hold to – “It is amazing what can get done, if no one cares about who gets the credit.” It is worth saying again, “It is amazing what can get done, if no one cares about who gets the credit.”

     In the church all the credit – all the glory – all honour goes to God – who through Jesus Christ has saved us and through the action of the Holy Spirit has given us gifts and abilities – our salvation, the gifts of the Spirit, are not to be used for our honour – they are not to bring us praise – instead they are to bring glory and praise to God.

     The church does not exist to bring itself glory – it exists to bring glory to God. The “you all” of the church has one purpose – to point to the glory of God. The church points people to the glory that is coming – the church points people to where the glorious grace of God is to be found. The church exists not for its own ends – but for the ends of God who wants all people to become part of the kingdom He is building.

     In praying for the church we are pulled outside the church to see a greater purpose – the glory of God in the world.

 

     Praying for the church works in two directions at the same time.

     First, we are moved from being driven by our individual likes and dislikes, our individual goals, our self-focused reality – into a community and in community find that our self is gradually replaced by a vision of “we”. The community of the church helps us become “un-selfed” – for to be in community we can not place self above us.

     This shift is frightening – for it is so opposite to the direction that we find going on in our society. This shift throws us off balance.

     So this is where the good news of the second direction praying for the church sends us in comes in. The community of the church exists for one purpose – to bring glory to God. We are un-selfed not so that another human institution can become the center of our world – we are un-selfed in praying for the church so that God’s glory can be revealed.

 

     The Shorter Catechism asks – “What is the chief end – the primary purpose – of human beings?” and the answer is “The primary purpose of human beings is to glorify God and enjoy God forever.” In praying for the church – we find our primary purpose become clearer – we are no longer the focus of all things – we are called to a higher goal – to bring glory to God. The limited scope of our lives is given eternal value for the call to glorify God does not end in this world – it continues on into the life to come.