During the month of October, I have been exploring our call as Christians. What does it mean to be a follower of Christ? What is it we are called to do and to be as followers of Christ?
Over the last three weeks, we have looked primarily at the letters of Paul. As the earliest Christian writings that are part of our Bible, they represent a look at how the earliest Christian leaders understood what it meant to be followers of Christ. For this final reflection, we will actually look back to the Hebrew scriptures, specifically the book of Leviticus (Leviticus 19:1-2 and 15-18).
As a Jew himself, Jesus was thoroughly grounded in Hebrew teaching and belief. So if we want to understand his teachings, we should also look at the source and grounding of his teaching.
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Today we wrap up this focused look at four of our primary responsibilities as Christians that we have been exploring this month. We started the month by exploring our call to become more like Christ rather than seeking perfection as the world defines it. Then we looked at our call to serve with gentleness all the people that we encounter along the way. Last week, we remembered those who have been an example to us as we considered our own call to be an example to others.
This week we return to a call that is a touchstone for many of us who are Christians, but we have a different text than usual as our jumping off point. Most if not all of us are familiar with the so-called Great Commandment story. This story appears explicitly in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. When Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment in the Law, the answer comes back that the greatest command is to love God and that there is another like it, which is to love our neighbors as ourselves.
At the beginning of the month, I told you that we would be exploring what it looks like to be followers of Christ, to live into the kingdom of God. Focusing on Paul’s letter to the Philippians the last two weeks, we have looked at our call to become like Christ and our call to serve all those we encounter with gentleness. This week, we turn to another of Paul’s letters to explore a different call - our call to be an example to others.
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Our reading today comes from Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 1:1-10). This letter is thought to be the earliest of Paul’s letters to make their way into the Bible. Thessalonica was the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia and sat along several important land and sea trade routes. It was an important city in that region of the Roman empire, and therefore a perfect destination for Paul’s efforts.
Paul was with the people of Thessalonica for a time, teaching them and helping them to grow. Once they were in a position to continue on their own, he moved on. But he continued to send these letters back to them, letters meant to continue the teaching he had started.
This sermon continues our look at what it is we are called to do and to be as Christians. We continue looking specifically at Paul's letter to the Philippians this week as we consider his admonition to be gentle (see Philippians 4:1-9). We will consider together what it is that Paul means by gentleness with a little help from Bob Marley and Micah 6:8 along the way.
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In our reading this week, Paul begins to draw this letter to the church in Philippi to a close. If you’ve ever received or written a letter, perhaps you recognize his attempt to start summing things up here. “Therefore, my brothers and sisters whom I miss…” (Philippians 4:1, CEB). This is a sure sign that he is preparing to draw the letter to a close.
It also indicates that whatever he is about to say is the main point that Paul wants to draw attention to. Not that anything else in the letter is unimportant, but his writing here indicates he is about to share something that he feels is important, something he wants remembered if nothing else is. “Therefore, my brothers and sisters…”
As we read this, we remember that Paul was writing specifically to a particular community. Even so, we can hear these words as if they were directed to us as well. The early church gathered these letters along with the gospels and some letters from other early church leaders into the New Testament because they felt these writings were important to all followers of Christ, not just the original recipients. And so we still read these letters and stories today and hear them as if they were written to us. They are still useful for building up the body of Christ which is the church two millenia later.
You may recall that in the verses from this letter we read last week, Paul was making an argument to convince the people in the congregation to focus their energies on imitating Christ. He pointed out how easy it is to get caught up in the ways of the world, and then he made the case that we are not called to be perfect in the eyes of the world. Instead we are meant to become more like Christ.
This week, as he begins to wind down this letter, Paul continues to point us toward what it means to be Christ-like. He starts by indicating that what he is about to say is the most important takeaway for those reading the letter. After he asks the community to assist in urging two women, who Paul considers coworkers, to come to an agreement, he tells us to be glad in the Lord always. Then he writes that we should, “Let [our] gentleness show in [our] treatment of all people” (Philippians 4:5, CEB).
As you hear this encouragement, what comes to mind for you? What does it mean to be gentle with people?
It seems that when we think about what it means for something or someone to be gentle, we most often think about what it is not. Gentle is not harsh. Gentle is not violent. Gentle is not strong. Gentle is not hard. Gentle is not forceful. According to the dictionary, gentleness is the quality of being kind, tender, and mild-mannered.
Is this what Paul has in mind here? When Paul speaks of gentleness, does he simply mean we should be soft and tender to all that we meet? As we continue reading, that does seem to be a part of it. But if we read the rest of this section through the lens of Paul’s admonishment to be gentle, we get a fuller idea of what it is that Paul is encouraging here.
First, as noted before after Paul begins the closing of this letter, he names two women who we can assume are a part of the community at Philippi or at least that would have been known to the community there. He wants these two women, who he considers coworkers in ministry, to come to an agreement. So part of what Paul is thinking of as gentleness is urging those who disagree to come to an agreement. Not only that, but we seek to help out those who struggle and work alongside us.
As we continue reading, Paul goes straight from gentleness to anxiety. I would guess that we all know something about anxiety right now. We’ve been living in quite an anxious time for the last six months. But connected to gentleness, Paul tells us not to be anxious.
As I read this bit, the first thing that came to mind was the Bob Marley song, “Three Little Birds,” where he sings “Don’t worry, about a thing. ‘Cause every little thing is gonna be alright.” But, where Marley says we shouldn’t worry because everything is going to work out anyway, Paul tells us that instead of being anxious we should lift up all prayers and thanks to God.
Finally, Paul tells us that we should focus on what is true, holy, just, pure, lovely, and worthy of praise. Being gentle means focusing our energies on the right things instead of the wrong things. Following the previous suggestion, instead of focusing on the things that make us anxious, let us focus our energy on what is good in the world.
Taken altogether, Paul's vision of what it means to have a spirit of gentleness covers far more than our current expectations when we hear the word. But as we consider the urging of agreement, the support of those who work alongside us, the call to be thankful rather than anxious, and a focus on what is good and righteous, we see that Paul’s call to gentleness sounds a bit like our call to serve others. But it is a specific type of service. It is service in the sense of doing what is right, of building up others. Following on the heels of last week’s admonition, it is a humble service that seeks to promote the well-being of others. It is a service that remembers that God is the source of all that is good in the world.
I hear in this echoes of Micah 6:8. This is the well known verse from the prophet where, in response to the question of what we should offer to the Lord in thankfulness, the prophet responds, “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8, NRSV).
Justice, kindness, and a humble walk with God. This is what Paul is urging us toward. As we explore what he means by gentleness, this is almost exactly how he explains it. We seek justice when there is disagreement or when someone has been wronged. We offer kindness to those that work alongside us and all those who we encounter in our day. We walk humbly with God, offering thankfulness for all that we have received and all that God continues to offer.
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, (notice what I did there?), let us remember Paul’s encouragement here and approach all we meet with a spirit of gentleness. But not only gentleness as we may commonly envision. Instead I mean a gentleness as Paul has suggested. A gentleness that seeks the well-being of others, that treats others well, that remembers to keep our focus on God.
So that we can carry this reminder with us in song, I have chosen a musical setting of Micah 6:8 as our song of reflection today. This particular setting appears in the United Methodist hymnal supplement, The Faith We Sing. It is a brief choral version of this verse. I hope that you will hear it as an encouragement to approach everyone you meet in the coming days with a spirit of gentleness.
Today we begin a new series exploring our calling as Christians. Over the course of this month, we will be looking at some of the expectations we find in scripture for how those of us who follow Christ are expected to live in the world. What does it mean to be a Christian, to live into the kingdom of God?
Paul gives us a bit of help here in his letter to the Philippians (see Philippians 3:4b-14). Paul gives us an excellent example of what we are not to do. We are not called to be perfect as the world defines it. Instead, we are called to be more like Christ.
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As we move into a new month, we transition out of the Season of Creation and back into Ordinary time. Far from our common understanding of ordinary time as dull or mundane, ordinary in this case simply means counted. This is the 27th Sunday of ordinary time.
During the church year, Ordinary time is a season of growth. It is a time when our readings touch on what it means to be the body of Christ in the world, what it means to live into the kingdom of God. There are readings from the book of Acts and the letters of Paul. And the Gospel readings are often parables about the kingdom of God.
This week we turn again to Paul’s letters. There are some familiar things going on here as Paul is again encouraging an early Christian community with arguments that he has used before. In this letter he is again talking about the difference between living for the flesh and living for the spirit, though he uses slightly different language.