Philippians 4:1-9
Proper 23 (28) - Year A
After we are enjoined to pay attention to helpful and healthy behaviors there is a payoff.
Here is an interesting pair of ways of putting it.
NRSV - "... and the God of peace will be with you."
The Message - "... God...will work you into [his] most excellent harmonies."
How do you balance things being with you versus you being worked in with others?
Does one of these open you more? Which is it? Why?
After you've answered in 25 words or less, why do you think someone else might see it the other way?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/october2002.html
Are you Syntyche (fortunate) with your Euodia (good journey)?
How might you account for such blessing? Is it attributable to your excellent rejoicing, your high quality gentleness, your above average ability to not worry? Might it be your qualities of truth, honor, justice, purity, pleasing, and other excellent commendables?
Just keep on keeping your head when others around you are losing theirs and G*D's peace will be with you. [Accurate? or not? can peace be present in times of distress?]
Given our usual backgrounds, experiences, and cultural norms that run counter to these, it would appear it takes a whole lot of hard, hard work to arrive at such a disciplined peace.
Do you have a place of refuge from your own history, old tapes, and peers wherein these looked for qualities might be nurtured and freed? Will it take a touch of Spirit? a Spiritual Director? an examined life? hitting bottom? to refocus and know whom you need to associate with -- the Euodia's and Syntyche's of available in your life?
Come, wrestle with what it takes to receive good news and you will develop an experience base that will make it far easier to share what you receive.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/october2005.html
Lost in Love by Air Supply
Lost in Love and I don't know much,
Was I thinking aloud and fell out of touch?
But I'm back on my feet, and eager to be what you wanted.
So lift your eyes if you feel you can
Reach for a star and I'll show you a plan.
- - -
Like Euodia and Syntyche we can get to thinking aloud and being out of touch with one another. It is part of the maturation of a relationship - coming through such times.
We are asked, as loyal companions, to aid others in getting back on their feet with one another. A part of this help is showing a star-plan, a better way.
What would you show folks to help them lift their eyes when they are not quite up to it themselves? Would it have to do with being gentle with yourself as well as others? Might it reveal a refuge where worry doesn't have the last word? Could it be a new way of looking at prayer as simply thanksgiving?
After getting back on our feet the challenge comes to stay there. It is difficult to keep on doing the things we have learned lead to G*D's peace. A major part of community is reminding one another about what we consider to be honorable (and disgracing others is not honorable). We do need to call others and be called, ourselves, to account over definitions of justice and purity codes, what it is that goes beyond appearing to build things up to actually doing so.
Each of these qualities, so easily turned in to some formulaic power of the positive, comes to us as a mirror, asking us questions about where we are standing and with whom we are in solidarity.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/october2005.html
Philippians 4:1-9
Exodus 32:1-14 or Isaiah 25:1-9
Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23 or Psalm 23
Matthew 22:1-14
Moses is delayed on the mountain: Worry. Take things into your own hands and build an alternative worship experience. Dance around a golden calf, which is what hoarded resources are good for.
Wedding guests have refused their invitations and killed the messengers: Recompense. Take things into your own hands and kill the killers. Invite any left to the wedding. A seemingly generous act finds the violence of recompense still active when someone doesn't live up to a dress code. With a finer and finer sieve are folks caught, until none will be able to stand. Many are called, but few are chosen. Few are chosen, and even these will eventually be speechless.
It is difficult to let our gentleness be shown in a wilderness setting or an example of heavenly blessing. We refuse to take the time to remember goodness and mercy all the days of our life.
- - -
glory is exchanged for grass
every day
that which is before us
is never as delightful
as that which is not
grass is greener elsewhere
grass is exchanged for grass
grass for grace
promises of G*D with us
in Moses' return
in a heavenly banquet
fall on empty ears
we hallucinate grass
until gold becomes an oasis
busy-ness an edge for advancement
getting hungrier and hungrier
settling for empty calories
unsettling the ox within us each
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
I'm intrigued with verse 5 – "let your gentleness be known" (NRSV)
John Wesley's Notes indicate: " Yieldingness, sweetness of temper, the result of joy in the Lord." Here we can play with simple joy and specific joy in the Lord. Wherein do these signify the same thing and something different?
Is "moderation" (KJV) a better way to come at this text? How about "forbearance" (ASV)? What about the extended form in The Message, "Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you're on their side, working with them and not against them"?
When we find joy in moderation, rather than just moderation for its own sake, or forbearance or being for others, there is a switch that is thrown in our perception of our own experience. Then our honor, purity, pleasingness, excellence, and praise not only grow from G*D's peace, but lead to it. In joy these circles come round right and we find ourselves in a place just right, a valley of delight.
May you Syzygus others, yoking them together (their better fate) than allowing a separation to grow between two, oh so similar, folks.
Along with your daily bread, may you daily en-joy.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html
Stand firm. If you are going to be an inviter, don’t, at some point, begin to limit that invitation. There are going to be inappropriate people engaged with church. That’s a part of the definition of a church.
To find one criterion or another by which they can be turned out is not standing firm.
Why would Paul have to encourage Euodia and Syntyche to continue reinviting one another if the they and others hadn’t started to wobble in their firmness?
Let your gentleness (your invitational nature) be known to all. Don’t worry about how such incompatible folks can learn to stand firmly together. There is peace and joy enough to sustain you and them in this journey.
Finally, whatever is true (invitation trumps tossing out), whatever is honorable (when disappointed invite the more), whatever is just (variety of gifts need a system whereby they may each add to the common good), whatever is pure (following Jesus’ way, not the way of Jesus’ codifiers), whatever is pleasing (paying attention to the next steps available without getting stuck in past steps), whatever is commendable (we are in life together and co-responsible for each other and creation), enact it no matter what the temptation to follow a short-cut. Keep on, stand firm, be not afraid, peace is not lost.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/10/philippians-41-9.html
Definition of being of “one mind”: Let your gentleness be known.
Definition of “the Lord is near” (with you/within you/partnered with you): Do not worry.
Definition of “excellence”: Keep doing what you have learned from your experience. (Unfortunately we can be excellent in doing harm as well as doing good.)
How might you practice gentleness in your context? Remember, gentleness here is a way of standing firm; it is not as floppy as milk toast.
How might you practice not worrying in your context? Or, perhaps, worry a bit less? Again, remembering that standing firm means, in part, not letting worry have the last word even if it is a first word.
These words of instruction are grounded in practice. We hear the encouragement and now we are called to practice. Such practice takes place most effectively in a community where we identify how it is with our soul and are accountable to practice deepening or changing what we have found out about our condition. Practice is going to look differently in different locales and stages. These details are not worked out for us, but we do have three overviews that help us put a practice plan into effect. It is alright if we even only work on practicing one of the three as they are all interconnected and we will still engage them as a matter of course.
Finally, beloved, just do it.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/10/philippians-41-9.html