As Paul finishes the letter to the Philippians, we begin to sense a level of finality in his words—as if he knows this will be all that he can say on the topic. After completing this letter, Paul will only have personal letters, like the ones that he writes to Timothy, left to pen.
The ministry that God began in Paul’s life on the Road to Damascus is coming to its end. Therefore, Paul’s tone sounds different as he concludes the letter.
Gone are the strong rhetorical devices that he uses to teach and admonish the people to follow God. Gone is the systematic theology that Paul is perhaps best know for penning—a theology we refer to often in the church today.
Now he has something different to say.
Now Paul reminds us as the listener that “The Lord is near” which is a clear and strong statement because Paul knows that we are often anxious in our lives and in the ministries we participate in.
Today I am focussing on verse 5 of this chapter because those words address our anxieties as the church and offer us a solution to those same struggles.
Move 1- anxiety
Let’s start by reflecting on pacing and productivity of our lives. . .
During the day we have the narcotic of busyness to satisfy our hearts and minds. We can, and many of us do, become so busy that we no longer notice the things which will later nag at our hearts; the issues, or persons, or events that refuse to be removed from our minds. During the day, they don’t matter as much because we are so busy.
As the cliche say, ‘time flies when you’re having fun,’ we might want to amend that by saying, ‘time flies and so we don’t notice.’ That busyness serves not just a distraction, but it is simultaneously the first-line of defense against our anxiety.
But as the day comes to its end. . . things change.
At night, when we are not busy, when we cannot sleep because of a racing, frenetic mind, we are undefended. . . and those same anxieties, which we did not address because we were so busy, grow and grow. They germinate in our minds because they are unchecked—nothing keeps them at bay when we are trying to sleep.
There aren’t just monsters that live under the bed for our children, but some of those same symbolic monsters reside in the minds of mature Christian men and women.
You see, you can’t argue yourself out of being anxious or being afraid about what is going to happen next. It is a cycle that feeds upon itself. The more anxious I become, the greater the feeling of anxiety becomes in direct relation. Then as the feelings live unchecked, we begin to wonder if our lives are completely out of control.
This is because anxiety is not rational so I can’t rationalize the fear away. The more anxious I become, the more I find myself powerless to address it, then the more it grows in my heart.
For instance, what parent stands at the door when their child is afraid of the monster in the closet, or the rumbling under the bed, and says dismissively, ‘We’ve talked about this, it isn’t real. So let’s go to sleep. . .” and then walks off??
No, that’s not how it works! . . . We rush to the child’s bedside. Taking their hand we reassure them that there is no monster waiting to get as soon as we leave the room. Their fear is an irrational fear they are dealing with, and so we have to respond differently.
Paul knows this to be true also as he writes his final parts of the letter to the church, and that is why he says, “the Lord is near.” That is a deliberate phrase for Paul. As we read it, we can feel something changing in our hearts because of those words.
When he says, “the Lord is near,” Paul is inviting his readers to remember their Hebrew heritage whenever their anxiety grows. And as they remember that heritage, and the God who heard their prayers in the Egypt, they remember their Hebrew worship practices which reminded them of the God who is present.
Their minds gravitate back to the words of the Psalms where the promises of God’s presence abide in written form. Paul is echoing for his listeners the idea that David and others spoke about, that God hears the prayers of the broken, God is present with those feel isolated and anxious.
“I am not going to rationalize it for you. I want to comfort you with these words,” Paul is saying. For Paul there is no greater ideal to fall back upon when fear could be the response to the issues of the day besides the aspirational words that comforted us as we read them: The Lord is near.
Move 2- Gentleness
From “The Lord is near,’ we are lead to Paul’s next concept from verser 5—the idea that we translate as ‘gentleness,’ or also, as the translation I read stated: ‘magnanimity.’
Let me say at this point, that we are not talking about gentleness as you could define it as one of a fruit of the spirit from Galatians. Once again, Paul is going deeper for us as he ends the letter to the Philippians.
Instead, this words refers to:
“A person of compassionate nature who is willing to be living above and beyond what is strictly fair. It amounts to showing concern and respect for the integrity of others and giving them the benefit of the doubt. In other words, it is the sort of quality necessary if there is to be unity among a diverse group of people.”
Again, not the fruit of the spirit. This gentleness brings us together as God’s people. It offers grace and kindness to the other person—especially if we do not agree with them.
For Paul, as we practice this ‘gentleness,’ this ‘magnanimity,’ we become aware of the fragility of the other person and their spirit, and rather than tread them down because we are too busy to dwell with them, we take the time, we make the time, to “be with” them. To listen to them. To let them teach us as we teach them—does iron not sharpen iron??
Patience is applied, then, in these relationships when we might want to apply judgment and cynicism because we are too busy, too quick to judge the other person, rather than take the time to listen and be. . . gentle.
This is Paul’s gentle, magnanimity, and it combats the anxiety we feel because it offers grace-filled space, from person to person, to grow and to learn together. It is literally translated, ‘fitting fairness,’ which is a far greater thing than ‘demanded fairness,’ or ‘blind fairness,’ or even, ‘political fairness.’
Paul wants the church to faithfully apply the correct amount of gentleness because we are giving the other person the benefit of the doubt, and because that person is so important to us that we would have it no other way.
Move 3-
Paul understands that as we practice this posture, as we become aware of the needs of each other, it helps us address our anxieties, and reach out to God in response to that learning.
One of the trickiest aspect of anxiety is that it can cause us to think that we are alone; that no one empathizes with us. As we wrongly believe that we are alone, we begin to believe that the church is not present to help us grow and heal.
But Paul reminds us that as we practice gentleness, as he described it, we are able reach and speak to God. This builds community. And as we speak to God, a letter that we thought was written to the body of Christ only in the 1st century, becomes a word to us personally in this context.
For we know churches and congregations whose attitude seems anxious today. . . Paul says, be gentle with them, be fair to them, remind them that the Lord is near.
I too know people, as I am sure you do, who do not worship with us at Plains, but they too are unable to sleep at night because of the stress and anxiety that the world puts on them. . . What would it look like to remind them that the Lord is near?
Conclusion
That is the work that Paul is leaving the church in Philippi to attend to as he finishes this letter and it is also what we are left with as this church today. . . “I urge you,” Paul begins as he speaks to just 2 people, to care for all of them, to pray for all of them, to rejoice with them, and listen to them without judgement or cynicism.
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