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Joy in Disguise

Morehouse Publishing

Chapter One

I must begin with a confession: I often repeat myself in sermons. Sometimes the repetition is unintentional (a priest once took me aside at the end of a parish visitation and said, "Ed, do you realize that this is the third year in a row that you've used that story about Tom and his prayer life?"), and sometimes it's deliberate. When it comes to Philippians 1:6–11, the repetition is fully intentional. I associate this text with pastoral leave-taking.

I served as a parish priest for twenty-nine years before becoming a bishop, and during that time my moves were relatively infrequent. After two short curacies (the Anglican term for assistantship), I spent eleven years as rector of St. Joseph's Church in Buena Park, California, and almost fourteen years as rector of All Saints Church in Bakersfield, California. When I left Buena Park for Bakersfield in 1986, I found myself drawn to the Philippians passage highlighted in this chapter as I prepared to preach my final sermon. Then, fourteen years later, I returned inexorably (or so it felt) to that same text as I got ready to say goodbye to my friends in Bakersfield. Why? Because in this passage Paul is talking about the deep bonds of affection that have grown between himself and his friends in Philippi. He is saying goodbye to brothers and sisters whose lives have been intertwined with his own. His words could well have been mine.

"It is right for me to think this way about all of you," Paul says, "because you hold me in your heart.... For God is my witness, how I long for you with the compassion of Christ Jesus" (1:7a, 8). Paul is speaking with high emotion, and he's talking about a relationship that is far beyond the merely professional. The giveaway is found in the word "compassion," which translates a form of splanchna—a Greek term that means, quite literally, "bowels." Yes, bowels. While the word is used in its physical sense only once in the New Testament (take a look at Acts 1:18!), it turns up repeatedly to indicate our deepest emotions. "There is no restriction in our affections," Paul tells the Corinthian Christians (1 Corinthians 6:12). "Refresh my heart in Christ" (Philemon 20), Paul writes his friend Philemon, urging him to forgive his runaway slave Onesimus. Jesus himself displayed the same quality: "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd" (Matthew 9:36). "Affections," "heart," and "compassion" all translate that same, almost unpronounceable, Greek term. When Paul describes his yearning for his friends in Philippi, his heart is fully engaged. That's how it should be in the body of Christ.

In recent years, the Christian church has—quite rightly—recognized the dangers inherent in the relationship between leaders and people. Those relationships include, by definition, an imbalance of power. Pastors are, to put it bluntly, "over" their people; they carry an authority that is both moral and administrative. That's inevitable, whether a church structure is hierarchical or more egalitarian. In our day we have been horrified to see dreadful examples of clergy or lay leaders using that power to take advantage of parishioners—sometimes sexually, sometimes financially, and sometimes more generally in the exercise of authority. People's lives have been destroyed, God's children irreparably damaged, and the church held up to ridicule. And so—again, quite rightly—many churches caution leaders to create appropriate boundary markers, for their own protection and that of their people. In the middle of my office door, for example, is a window, and its purpose is more than purely decorative. My intentions aren't nefarious, but the window signals a kind of transparency in pastoral practice. One can never be too cautious in these matters. The Christian community needs to be assured that its leaders will act in a way that is both professional and ethical.

And yet that very principle of boundary setting, an essential aspect of Christian ministry today, makes it difficult to build the kind of shared affection that cemented the relationship between Paul and his friends at Philippi. How did Paul himself overcome that pastoral conundrum? He identifies two elements.

The first is simultaneously subtle and powerful. It involves time. "I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ" (1:6). Paul takes the long view. He recognizes that what the Lord is doing in the hearts and minds of the Philippian Christians will unfold, not in weeks and months, but in years and decades, indeed in eternity. "[God] may not come when you want him, but he's always on time," says an old Gospel song; God's timing is not necessarily ours, but it is sure and perfect. Paul comforts himself that, even though he may never see his Philippians friends again in this life, he and they are at a midpoint in their spiritual development. The work of transformation began when Paul first visited Philippi, as Luke describes in Acts 16. The work will not end until they together see Jesus face-to-face in an everlasting reunion. This is the "already/not yet" of the Christian life. (More about this in Chapter 9.) "Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is" (1 John 3:2).

It was, I think, sometime in 1973 or 1974 that I was summoned to Esther's hospital bedside. She was one of the elder saints of the parish I served as curate, well into her nineties, beloved and respected, and her family called to say that she was dying. There was no particular illness involved. Her body had simply decided that it was time to shut down. The rector (who'd known Esther for decades) was away on vacation, and the family asked me to visit Esther in his place. And so I made my way to the hospital—to pray and to offer whatever hope and consolation I could.

Esther was wide-awake when I came into the room, weak but still characteristically chatty. She told me that she was prepared to die ("ready to go," were the words she used), that she wasn't afraid, that she looked forward to seeing her long-departed husband, her parents, childhood friends, and, above all, Jesus. Even at a distance of more than thirty years, I can still hear her voice and see her serene face. I stood by her side, took her hand, and prayed, some combination (I recall) of Prayer Bookesque formal language and more spontaneous utterance. Whatever came out, I was aware as I held her hand that she was drifting off to sleep. By the end of the prayer, she was breathing slowly, evenly, and shallowly. I gently released her hand and reached into my wallet for my business card. Then, in the stillness of the room, I wrote her family a note on the back of the card, letting them know that I'd been there and prayed with Esther.

I'm not sure how long I stood next to Esther. Five minutes? Ten? More? She seemed deeply asleep. Then, her eyes still closed, she began to pray—aloud. "God bless Father Ed," she said. "Help him, bless his ministry, keep him in your care." And with that, her voice trailed off and she resumed her even breathing. I will never know (until she and I talk it over in heaven) whether she was aware that I was still in the room. She died that night, her last act to pray for a very young and rather brash priest. Ever since, Revelation's picture has seemed more real to me. In heaven, we're told, incense rises before the Lord as the "prayers of the saints" (Revelation 5:8). Esther's prayers are among them. The Lord had bound us together, created the shared affection that St. Paul describes so vividly in Philippians, and I know, to the very core of my being, that our connection in Christ stretches from time into eternity. Paul had that same confidence as he wrote his friends in Philippi. Affection begins in time and lasts forever, as Jesus transforms us from the inside out.

Paul highlights a second element, mutual prayer. "And this is my prayer," he says, "that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight, to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God" (1:9–11). Quite commonly (though not without exception), Paul begins his letters by praying for the recipients. In the case of the letter to his Philippian friends, the prayer includes horizontal and vertical ingredients. He prays, to begin with, for an abundance of love among the Philippian Christians (the Greek word is agape, the same term used in 1 Corinthians 13 to describe the self-sacrificial love that should characterize the Christian community). As we'll see later in the letter, the Philippians were as "relationally challenged" as any church, their disputes both theological (3:2–3) and personal (4:2–3). It would take a supernatural infusion of God's power to enable them to love one another, and that's precisely what Paul prays for.

His prayer is vertical as well. Paul asks God to produce in the Philippians the discernment to know right from wrong and the holiness of life that will enable them to do it. In other words, transformation doesn't just happen. In praying for his Philippian friends, Paul implies that they will remain untouched by grace unless they consciously open themselves to the Spirit's work.

One of the great gifts that's come to me as Bishop of Northern Indiana is the opportunity to get to know Father Ted Hesburgh, retired president of the University of Notre Dame. Because of Father Ted's friendship with my two predecessor bishops, I've had the chance to sit down with one of the great Christians of our era—a man who loves the Lord Jesus, who reaches out to Christians of all stripes, who is at once intensely loyal to his own church and fully open to people in other Christian communities, who has advised presidents and popes, who has made a significant impact on the relationship between faith and public policy, and who is a force for the Gospel of Jesus Christ around the world and within the church. (Obviously, I find it hard to limit my superlatives when it comes to Father Ted Hesburgh!) On the basis of his warm welcome to me when I first moved to South Bend and the decades-long connection between the diocese and the university, I invited Father Ted to address our diocesan convention in 2002 (and to be designated, in the process, as an honorary canon of our cathedral). Father Ted accepted my invitation, with the caveat that he would need to speak from the heart rather than from a text: his failing eyesight no longer allows him the luxury of writing out his speeches. I happily agreed. What struck me most from Father Ted's remarks was a single piece of advice, one that I carry in my heart daily. Every day, Father Ted said, Christians should pray a simple prayer: "Come, Holy Spirit." In that prayer, we are allowing God to fill in the gaps and to accomplish in us what he wants to accomplish.

And so it is that Paul the Apostle prays for his friends in Philippi. His prayer is at once specific and open-ended. He is asking God to do what needs to be done to transform the lives of these Christian converts; and having prayed, he places them in the Lord's most ample care. In other words, Paul's short and direct prayer provides a kind of spiritual "glue" that binds him to his friends in Philippi and permits him, even from the distance of a jail cell, to express the affection that wells up in his heart. "Come, Holy Spirit," he says in effect, "touch my friends and transform them. Come, Holy Spirit, help them to know your purpose and to do it." Paul maintains just the right balance in his role with the Philippian Christians as their leader and friend. He recognizes two things: that their relationship expresses itself over time, with the present moment as a kind of way station on the journey; and that the relationship is nurtured and sustained, above all, by prayer that gives God permission (not that he needs it!) to work in their lives. The Book of Common Prayer captures this well: "Almighty God, we entrust those who are dear to us to thy never-failing care and love, for this life and the life to come, knowing that thou art doing for them better things than we can desire or pray for; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

The shared affection that Paul portrays in the opening sentences of Philippians isn't exclusively a matter of feelings. There's an objective reality that underlies his words. Jesus has bound us to one another—in 1 Corinthians 12:12–13, Paul identifies this as a baptismal reality—as surely as he has bound us to himself. Nothing can change that. Thus, the church is more like a family than an organization. Our family connections are a given. You cannot choose not to be the child of your parents, the sibling of your siblings, the niece or nephew of your uncle. You are related to them whether you like it or not. So it is in the body of Christ. As brothers and sisters of Jesus and children of the Father, we are by definition related to one another. When we refer to a fellow Christian as a brother or sister, the term is not simply an analogy. It's a statement of fact.

And yet, within the family, affection grows—not easily, to be sure—in fits and starts, sometimes (because the church has its share of challenging people, it's important to be honest about this) not at all. But we can profitably reflect on the people whose faithfulness has challenged our own, brothers and sisters who have encouraged us in our own journeys, shown us Jesus in surprising ways, provoking us (as the Letter to the Hebrews so colorfully puts it in 10:24) to love and good deeds. Out of the apparent randomness of our connection in the body of Christ, God creates shared affection.

A couple of years ago, during a vacation trip to Southern California, I found myself driving almost accidentally by St. Joseph's Church in Buena Park, in the northwest corner of Orange County, and decided to stop and walk around the deserted buildings. I'd left St. Joseph's two decades earlier, and in the intervening years, the parish had installed an outdoor columbarium on the south side of the parish hall building. Though I had occasionally visited the parish since my departure, this was the first time I was able to stand before the columbarium and contemplate the name plates that line the wall. There, in one corner, was Bill, my former senior warden and a great counselor to me in my early (and brash) years in the parish. (Bill's son is now a bishop. How proud he'd be!) Toward the center I saw Ellen's name. She was once my altar guild directress, unfailingly cheerful, amazingly flexible, always ready to say yes whenever I tinkered with the liturgy. In another corner was Jerry, a gifted evangelist. Whenever newcomers would visit the church on Sunday morning, Jerry would identify them (he had a kind of internal radar that would help him to spot new people) and shepherd them around the coffee hour, introducing the newcomers to as many parishioners as possible. Then there was Sarah, president of the Episcopal Church Women, as direct and honest a person as I've ever known, with a tough exterior and a heart softened to the Lord—and to those in pain. She was a born pastor. The list went on and on as I looked up and down the rows of the columbarium. It took me quite by surprise (because I don't easily show emotions) when I found myself weeping in gratitude for these brothers and sisters.

As we ponder the people to whom we are bound in Christ, names and faces will appear before us, some living, many dead. These are the ones who have shaped us and formed us in the Christian life. "Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith" (Hebrews 12:1–2). The shared affection that grows almost unbidden in the body of Christ has the power to transform us, to challenge us, and to provide a model for faithful discipleship. In this, St. Paul discovered his joy, and so do we.

Questions for Reflection 1. Who are the people, living or dead, to whom you are bound? 2. Who are the ones who have borne witness to you and shaped your life as a Christian? 3. Who first introduced you to Jesus or made the gospel real to you? How did that happen? Was it verbal witness, personal example, or some combination? 4. Who continues to do so now?

Chapter Two

I can still remember with surprising clarity the first Christian sermon I ever heard. In the spring of 1966, my girlfriend (later fiancée, now wife) invited me to Hollywood First Presbyterian Church to hear Dr. Raymond Lindquist. I was a recent convert to the Christian faith and as unchurched (to use the modern term) as one could be. The sermon that day changed my life forever.

On one level, Dr. Lindquist's sermon was hardly groundbreaking. He took 2 Timothy 4:6–15 as his text. The apostle is apparently just months from martyrdom, and he writes to his young apprentice and successor, Timothy, with some final words of advice. At first, Paul reflects on his impending death. "As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come" (2 Timothy 4:6). He looks back at his ministry and the way that he has faithfully done the Lord's bidding. "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing" (2 Timothy 4:7–8). Paul seems to be at peace with himself and with God, despite the sword that hangs over him.

But then, in a moment of painful honesty, Paul tells Timothy about the people who've let him down. "Do your best to come to me soon, for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.... Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him for his deeds" (2 Timothy 4:9–10, 14). Although Paul mentions those who remain loyal to him (2 Timothy 4:11–13), it is obvious that he feels alone, abandoned. That, in fact, was the title of Dr. Lindquist's sermon: "When You Feel Abandoned." He spent some time talking about ways in which we, like Paul, can experience abandonment, and about Paul's only antidote (trusting, despite his current circumstances, that God had used his ministry and that his eternal future is secure). We too, said Dr. Lindquist, need in moments of desolation to recognize in faith both the presence of the Lord in our lives and the promise of everlasting life that is both sure and certain. End of sermon.

Two things happened to me that day. First, I had an "aha!" moment. The scriptures became real to me in a way that they hadn't before. I felt as though Paul wrote his letter to me, that these ancient words had been penned not only for Timothy's benefit but also for mine. Second, I found myself saying, "I want to do that, too." In an instant, Jesus laid out my life's work: "to make the word of God fully known" (Colossians 1:25); to take a two thousand-year-old text and proclaim it today so that lives (including my own) might be transformed by its power.

That very power is the experience to which St. Paul bears witness as he writes to his friends in Philippi. He has discovered that the word of God has the power to transform lives and to affect the eternal destinies of men and women. He is convinced that the proclamation that he and the Philippians share is God's vehicle for changing the world.

The context is bittersweet. "I want you to know, beloved, that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ" (1:12–13). So far, so good. Paul's incarceration is enough of a public event that it has gained the attention of people well beyond the Christian community. His very body, held fast in the stocks, has become an icon of the gospel, a visible sign of Jesus himself. Paul's imprisonment has also emboldened Christians. "Most of the brothers and sisters, having been made confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear" (1:14). Perhaps Paul's own fearlessness in the face of horrendous circumstances has provided just the encouragement that his fellow believers need so that they too can proclaim the gospel boldly.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Joy in Disguise by Edward S. Little Copyright © 2009 by Edward S. Little. Excerpted by permission of Morehouse Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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