Standing on Our Knees
Philippians 4:1-9
Today we conclude our four-week foray through Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Here in chapter 4, as Paul writes his farewell, we see again the deep affection that he has for the church in Philippi. He expresses his love for them and his longing to see them once more. He calls them his joy and his crown. And then he tells them to “stand firm in the Lord.”
If you remember where Paul is when he writes this letter, you might find it odd that he would encourage the Philippians to stand firm in the Lord, because Paul himself is imprisoned. You’d think that if anyone needs to be encouraged to stand firm, it would be Paul. He’s been arrested because his preaching has been deemed a threat to the public order, something that the Romans took very seriously. While he was arrested in Jerusalem, and was initially under local jurisdiction, Paul asserted his Roman citizenship, which entitled him to a hearing in Rome.
He writes to the church in Philippi while under house arrest. And yet while Paul cannot move about freely as he would like, he remains immovable in another sense. His faith, his hope, his joy—none of these are dependent upon his present circumstances. No matter whether he is free or fettered, Paul’s faith, hope, and joy remain constant and unchanging.
In verses that follow shortly after today’s reading, Paul writes, “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”
That last line is sometimes interpreted as, “Christ enables me to do whatever I set my mind to,” but really what Paul is talking about is the ability to endure any situation with equanimity—with calmness and composure. In times of plenty and in times of want, whether he is free or imprisoned, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard his heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Paul can remain at peace even while he is in prison.
The peace of God—that is the source of Paul’s own ability to stand firm in the Lord. It is not something that he summons from within through sheer willpower. It comes to him from the God who grants a peace that the world cannot understand.
The peace of God guards the hearts and the minds not only of individual believers but of the church as God’s people. We are called to be a community that reflects God’s peace to the world. To do that, we must be at peace among ourselves. Whatever divisions exist—and there will always be some—must lose their significance when compared with our unity in Christ. Therefore Paul urges two members of the church in Philippi, Euodia and Syntyche, to be of the same mind in the Lord.
There is not much that can be said about what the issue between Euodia and Syntyche was, or if it was even a dispute. The language is vague. But what we can say, first of all, is that whatever the issue was, Paul felt that it was important enough that he addressed it publicly. This letter, like all of Paul’s letters, would have been read aloud to the entire church. If, indeed, this was a dispute between Euodia and Syntyche, imagine having your dispute with a fellow church member enshrined in scripture for all time! Of course, Paul did not know that he was writing words that would come to be regarded as scripture. He was merely addressing an issue within the local church. But poor Euodia and Syntyche!
Second, both of these names, Euodia and Syntyche, belong to women. Paul describes them as his coworkers, having struggled beside him in the work of the gospel. Women were integral to the life and mission of the early church in Philippi and elsewhere. The first Christian convert in Philippi—and, in fact, the first Christian convert on European soil—was a woman named Lydia. She was probably a woman of some means, as she was able to host the members of the church in her home, and no mention is ever made of her having a husband. You can read about Lydia’s story in Acts 16.
Paul then returns to this letter’s dominant theme—joy. “Rejoice in the Lord always,” he writes; “again I will say, Rejoice.” Once again, this is coming from a man who is under house arrest. Paul does not rejoice because he is confined—he is not a masochist. He rejoices because his joy does not depend on his circumstances. His joy is found in the God who is near at all times and in all circumstances…even, and perhaps, especially…in confinement.
Rejoice in the Lord always. Think about what this means. So often our attitude toward God depends on our circumstances. I’m suffering. God must be punishing me. God doesn’t care about me. Or the opposite. Life is wonderful! God is good!
But Paul says “Rejoice in the Lord always.” That means for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health. Just like a marriage.
But I don’t feel like rejoicing. Yes, I know. That’s the point. Paul’s message is not, “Don’t worry, be happy.” (It’s a nice song, but it’s lousy advice to give someone who’s hurting.) Nor is he telling the Philippians to put on a brave face or suggesting that they ignore or deny cold, hard truths. Paul’s message is simply: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
Do not be anxious about anything. While grammatically, the words “Do not be anxious” would be classified as the imperative mood, i.e., a command, we ought to hear this not as a command but as an invitation. Paul is not demanding, Thou shalt not be anxious as though it were a commandment written on a stone tablet. He’s inviting the church to bring our anxieties, our fears, our heartaches to the God who is near…who is nearer to us even than those same anxieties, fears, and heartaches that darken our days and haunt our waking nights. In other words, Paul is inviting the church to pray. And he’s promising the church that in prayer there is peace, because “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Do you know how powerful that is? This is not wishful thinking. This is not prayer as a substitute for action. This is not “thoughts and prayers” offered as an empty, perfunctory response to the latest national tragedy. Prayer is potent. Prayer is powerful. Prayer profoundly changes us.
But I don’t feel like rejoicing. Yes, I know. That’s the point.
I may have shared this with you once before. I have preached nearly 175 sermons here thus far, so forgive me if I’m repeating myself. The greatest upheaval I have ever experienced in a positive, beneficial way, was due to prayer. The reason that I’m no longer writing advertising copy at my corporate desk but preaching from behind this pulpit is entirely due to a prayer that I prayed some 17 years ago.
“Lord, make me uncomfortable.” That was it. That was the extent of my prayer. I didn’t pray the rosary nine times or attend a dawn prayer service for 40 days. I just prayed four simple words: “Lord, make me uncomfortable.” I didn’t know where it would lead. I didn’t know what changes it would bring. I simply knew that I felt too comfortable at that stage in my life. In my own way, I was unsettled and looking for something…for peace, perhaps—the peace that comes with knowing that you are in the right place, among the right people, utilizing your God-given gifts and trying to make those gifts a blessing for others.
Yes, the peace of God comes to us through prayer. The peace of God guards our hearts and minds. But don’t mistake the peace of God for peace as the world understands it. The peace of God, Paul writes, surpasses all understanding. The peace that comes to us through prayer should not be equated with a worldly peace. Neither prayer nor peace are of our own making. They are gifts from God. And because they are gifts from God they have a power that is not of this world.
But don’t mistake the peace of God for peace as the world understands it.
“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.” That memorable line, which ought to be emblazoned on banners and carved into stone inside every church, comes from the 20th century Swiss theologian Karl Barth. You’ve heard me mention his name before. Barth makes the case, in line with Paul’s words here in Philippians, that prayer is not an escape from reality but rather an active alignment with God’s mission to challenge, heal, and redeem a broken world.
A couple of weeks ago The New York Times published an opinion piece titled “I’m Exhausted. You’re Demoralized. We Weren’t Built for a World Like This.” The author, a professor of environmental studies at Middlebury College, and a practicing Methodist, writes, “It increasingly feels to me like we just aren’t designed to cope with the pace and scale of events that keep crashing down on us. I mean, how are parents (or grandparents) supposed to cope with the notion that AI might wipe us all out or that the El Niño now bearing down on us will take temperatures to unprecedented heights for our species?”
To that I would add that we weren’t designed to cope with a daily and unending fusillade of lies in our public discourse, nor corruption on a scale that would make a late 19th century robber baron blush. What’s a person to do amid this constant state of crisis? Technological crisis. Environmental crisis. Political crisis. It makes me pine for my childhood in the 1980s when the only major issue I had to worry about was the threat of nuclear war. Like the character of Frank Costanza in Seinfeld, this all makes me want to shout, “Serenity now!”
But as Frank Costanza learned, much to his continued distress, you cannot summon serenity from within. And this is a great irony: inner peace does not come from within; it’s a gift given to us by the God whose peace is not of this world. Amid the disorder of this world—personal, political, social—it is the peace of God that prevents us from succumbing to escapism, cynicism, defeatism, or despair. And it is the peace of God—that inner peace that comes from outside ourselves—that enables us in a culture of lies to focus on what is true, what is honorable, what is just, pure, pleasing and commendable.
As the people of God, i.e., as the church, a church set apart from the world but at the same time sent into the world to witness to God’s peace, we don’t turn our backs on the disorder of the world, nor do we pretend that everything is hunky dory, although sticking our heads in the sand is always a temptation. No, in the face of the disorder of the world we clasp our hands in prayer. We stand firm in the Lord by falling to our knees. Our stance is one of constant prayer by which we hand over all our anxieties, fears, and heartaches, and we receive in return a peace that meets us wherever we are…in hospital rooms and board rooms, in places of worship and places of work, in church aisles and grocery-store aisles. Wherever you are, wherever you go, may the peace of God guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.