Sermon 8th June 2008
Today, one of our Lay Readers, Adrian Parkhouse, preaches - based on the reading from Philippians 2:19-30:
“New Friends”
“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15
1. “And so we continue our series. Our series looking at the development of TV comedy in the years 1961 to 1969. A period of turbulence in the political sphere reflected in the growing willingness of comics to grasp the nettle of satire and so comment on the change in the nation’s life. This morning we come to 1966: arguably the satirical boom is beginning wane and the enfant terrible of “That Was the Week that Was”, David Frost, has moved on to the gentler “The Frost Report”. And a recurrent motif of the gags became the “3 men” – Messrs Cleese (soon to move onto the wacky Monty Python), Barker and Corbett (later to be national heroes in The Two Ronnies) – the 3 men of different heights and builds with comment on the topics of the day.
We join them now considering class: [perform an extract from the sketch].”
2. Back to reality. Back to what is really our series – following the teaching of Paul through his letter to the church in Philippi. But back also this morning to 3 men: to Paul, Timothy and Epaphroditus. And I will want to suggest that just as that sketch from The Frost Report used the relationship between those three men to open up some of the unspoken realities of the English class system in the 1960s – so our passage this morning may help us to open up something about the intended reality of Christian friendship.
This is my first talk in this series and, in case it is the first talk for some of you, before we look at our 3 men, I wanted to set out a couple of scene-setting assumptions:
· First, if you have a picture in your mind of the sort of letter Paul writes as being one packed with stern and intense teaching, put that to one side. Last week, Adjoa described this as a “love letter” to this new church. A good summary. Paul had been to Philippi at least twice: he knew the people and they knew him; and as Paul told us at the opening of his letter, whenever he thought of them, it brought a smile to his lips: when he prayed for the little community, he had joy. I am sure some of you share that experience – that when you pray for someone, you relive some experience of them: praying for Jocelyn, I find myself smiling as I think of the determination she has shown to get where she is today. So it is a love letter; and, moreover, a thank you letter, as Paul records his gratefulness for a gift sent to him in prison by his friends.
· Second, in part because the letter lacks the systematic theology of other letters, we get a glimpse of “Church” as it was in these pioneering days – not as she ought to be but as she was. Because the letter is more “private” than some of the others, we may feel that what Paul chooses to say, is chosen because it is immediate, it is directly relevant to this motley group of believers. And bear in mind, how motley it was. In Acts we read that Paul’s first visit resulted in the conversion of a wealthy lady cloth merchant – possibly Jewish -, of (it is at least likely) of a young clairvoyant slave girl, and of Paul’s jailer and his family. Quite a mix! And when we read this love letter we can begin to understand the impact, the difference, the change that becoming a believer, that “being Church” had – really had, not should have had - on these people. And so our series is exploring these changes.
3. Back to our 3 men: let’s explore how much we know about them. First their names were? [Paul (meaning = small); Timothy (meaning = honouring God); Epaphroditus (meaning = lovely)] They came from? [P – Tarsus, near the S coast of Turkey; T – Lystra, also Southern Turkey; E - Philippi, NW Greece]. Background? [P - Jewish, through and through; T – Jewish mother, Greek father; E – almost certainly 100% Greek]. Age? [P – (guess) 60s?; T (guess) 30s? E - ??]. Experience? [P – where to start? – from his conversion (as Saul) on the road to Damascus, his acceptance by the apostles, his special ministry (with Barnabas) to take the gospel to the gentiles, his journeys through Europe, his church-planting, his sail-making, his triumphs and failures, the words, the miracles, the persecution – and now his imprisonment: a lifetime of experience in representing Jesus. T – already a believer when Paul came to Lystra, but chosen by Paul to accompany him on his journeys, circumcised, and then from both Acts and the letters we find Timothy sometimes accompanying Paul on the journeys, sometimes being sent on ahead, sometimes staying with churches; he seems to have acted as Paul’s secretary in writing some of his letters; and now he is imprisoned with him; E – we know no more than we read here – he was the messenger, who carried the gift from the Church to Paul].
4. 3 men – some things in common and some differences. And what did Paul have so say of them: “Timothy…like a son with his father has served with me…”; “Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker and fellow soldier…”. A brief insight into the friendship between them. 3 friends, thrown together by being “Church”. We see a small part of how they have related – at least from Paul’s perspective. Timothy, the apprentice, standing out as the one with “a genuine interest” in the welfare of the people in Philippi: a real love, a real desire to see Jesus glorified. Epaphroditus who longs for the Church at home, whose working and soldiering have made him very, very ill, but who, in that illness was more concerned about the effect on his friends than on the risk to him.
5. Our passage is a domestic interlude in Paul’s letter: it is a delightful, candid, glimpse into the friendship – possibly unlikely friendship – between the 3 men. But can it have any relevance to us? Taken in isolation, it may be tricky to see how: but read in the context of the letter as a whole, I think so. A dominant theme of the letter, continued from that smile that came to Paul’s face when he thought of this church, is the encouragement to be united in love: “my prayer for you is that you may have still more love, love that is full of knowledge and insight…”(1:9); “live together in harmony, live together in love as though you had only one mind and one spirit between you…” (2:2); and “…make up your differences as Christians should..” (4:2).
The friendship of the 3 men is in the context of the love of the Church. It is an example of the many friendships – some closer than others – that the men will have had: but an example too of the “fellowship”, the “agape”(the Greek), that the Church knew - and still knows today. As a church it is part of Christ’s gift to us that we are capable of agape-love – love that is decisive not impulsive; that is deliberately not dependant on emotion, feeling or impulse; but where we can make the decision to love unselfishly, to serve, to have Timothy’s genuine interest for those we love, to take the risks with our own well-being that Epaphroditus was willing to take.
6. It was clear to me that this was not a sermon that could say, as those little cartoons use to say, “Love is….”, “Christian friendship is….” Instead, this footnote to a love-letter, provides a chance for each of us to ponder our own engagement with the fellowship love of the Church – perhaps to review our attitude to those around us – the extent of our response to the love of God. Remember that it is the nature, the genuiness, of that love that will often have most impact on those around us: Tertullian, an early Church leader, wrote: “It is our care for the helpless, our practice of lovingkindness, that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. 'Look!' they say, 'How they love one another!’”.
“New Friends”
“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15
1. “And so we continue our series. Our series looking at the development of TV comedy in the years 1961 to 1969. A period of turbulence in the political sphere reflected in the growing willingness of comics to grasp the nettle of satire and so comment on the change in the nation’s life. This morning we come to 1966: arguably the satirical boom is beginning wane and the enfant terrible of “That Was the Week that Was”, David Frost, has moved on to the gentler “The Frost Report”. And a recurrent motif of the gags became the “3 men” – Messrs Cleese (soon to move onto the wacky Monty Python), Barker and Corbett (later to be national heroes in The Two Ronnies) – the 3 men of different heights and builds with comment on the topics of the day.
We join them now considering class: [perform an extract from the sketch].”
2. Back to reality. Back to what is really our series – following the teaching of Paul through his letter to the church in Philippi. But back also this morning to 3 men: to Paul, Timothy and Epaphroditus. And I will want to suggest that just as that sketch from The Frost Report used the relationship between those three men to open up some of the unspoken realities of the English class system in the 1960s – so our passage this morning may help us to open up something about the intended reality of Christian friendship.
This is my first talk in this series and, in case it is the first talk for some of you, before we look at our 3 men, I wanted to set out a couple of scene-setting assumptions:
· First, if you have a picture in your mind of the sort of letter Paul writes as being one packed with stern and intense teaching, put that to one side. Last week, Adjoa described this as a “love letter” to this new church. A good summary. Paul had been to Philippi at least twice: he knew the people and they knew him; and as Paul told us at the opening of his letter, whenever he thought of them, it brought a smile to his lips: when he prayed for the little community, he had joy. I am sure some of you share that experience – that when you pray for someone, you relive some experience of them: praying for Jocelyn, I find myself smiling as I think of the determination she has shown to get where she is today. So it is a love letter; and, moreover, a thank you letter, as Paul records his gratefulness for a gift sent to him in prison by his friends.
· Second, in part because the letter lacks the systematic theology of other letters, we get a glimpse of “Church” as it was in these pioneering days – not as she ought to be but as she was. Because the letter is more “private” than some of the others, we may feel that what Paul chooses to say, is chosen because it is immediate, it is directly relevant to this motley group of believers. And bear in mind, how motley it was. In Acts we read that Paul’s first visit resulted in the conversion of a wealthy lady cloth merchant – possibly Jewish -, of (it is at least likely) of a young clairvoyant slave girl, and of Paul’s jailer and his family. Quite a mix! And when we read this love letter we can begin to understand the impact, the difference, the change that becoming a believer, that “being Church” had – really had, not should have had - on these people. And so our series is exploring these changes.
3. Back to our 3 men: let’s explore how much we know about them. First their names were? [Paul (meaning = small); Timothy (meaning = honouring God); Epaphroditus (meaning = lovely)] They came from? [P – Tarsus, near the S coast of Turkey; T – Lystra, also Southern Turkey; E - Philippi, NW Greece]. Background? [P - Jewish, through and through; T – Jewish mother, Greek father; E – almost certainly 100% Greek]. Age? [P – (guess) 60s?; T (guess) 30s? E - ??]. Experience? [P – where to start? – from his conversion (as Saul) on the road to Damascus, his acceptance by the apostles, his special ministry (with Barnabas) to take the gospel to the gentiles, his journeys through Europe, his church-planting, his sail-making, his triumphs and failures, the words, the miracles, the persecution – and now his imprisonment: a lifetime of experience in representing Jesus. T – already a believer when Paul came to Lystra, but chosen by Paul to accompany him on his journeys, circumcised, and then from both Acts and the letters we find Timothy sometimes accompanying Paul on the journeys, sometimes being sent on ahead, sometimes staying with churches; he seems to have acted as Paul’s secretary in writing some of his letters; and now he is imprisoned with him; E – we know no more than we read here – he was the messenger, who carried the gift from the Church to Paul].
4. 3 men – some things in common and some differences. And what did Paul have so say of them: “Timothy…like a son with his father has served with me…”; “Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker and fellow soldier…”. A brief insight into the friendship between them. 3 friends, thrown together by being “Church”. We see a small part of how they have related – at least from Paul’s perspective. Timothy, the apprentice, standing out as the one with “a genuine interest” in the welfare of the people in Philippi: a real love, a real desire to see Jesus glorified. Epaphroditus who longs for the Church at home, whose working and soldiering have made him very, very ill, but who, in that illness was more concerned about the effect on his friends than on the risk to him.
5. Our passage is a domestic interlude in Paul’s letter: it is a delightful, candid, glimpse into the friendship – possibly unlikely friendship – between the 3 men. But can it have any relevance to us? Taken in isolation, it may be tricky to see how: but read in the context of the letter as a whole, I think so. A dominant theme of the letter, continued from that smile that came to Paul’s face when he thought of this church, is the encouragement to be united in love: “my prayer for you is that you may have still more love, love that is full of knowledge and insight…”(1:9); “live together in harmony, live together in love as though you had only one mind and one spirit between you…” (2:2); and “…make up your differences as Christians should..” (4:2).
The friendship of the 3 men is in the context of the love of the Church. It is an example of the many friendships – some closer than others – that the men will have had: but an example too of the “fellowship”, the “agape”(the Greek), that the Church knew - and still knows today. As a church it is part of Christ’s gift to us that we are capable of agape-love – love that is decisive not impulsive; that is deliberately not dependant on emotion, feeling or impulse; but where we can make the decision to love unselfishly, to serve, to have Timothy’s genuine interest for those we love, to take the risks with our own well-being that Epaphroditus was willing to take.
6. It was clear to me that this was not a sermon that could say, as those little cartoons use to say, “Love is….”, “Christian friendship is….” Instead, this footnote to a love-letter, provides a chance for each of us to ponder our own engagement with the fellowship love of the Church – perhaps to review our attitude to those around us – the extent of our response to the love of God. Remember that it is the nature, the genuiness, of that love that will often have most impact on those around us: Tertullian, an early Church leader, wrote: “It is our care for the helpless, our practice of lovingkindness, that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. 'Look!' they say, 'How they love one another!’”.
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