Philippians 2:12-30

I’ve talked before about how my late father was an amateur astronomer, and how he shared his love of the subject with me as a child. I never picked up his level of interest, but he was understandably proud of one of my sister’s boys who went on to study astrophysics as part of his first degree.

But I still have fond memories of gazing up into a clear night sky with him, while he pointed out various constellations, and the names of the stars.

When my daughter as a teenager started asking me the same questions when we were walking home at night from her youth club, I installed an app on my phone that we could point to the sky and it would show us what all the stars and constellations were.

And recently my wife has been noticing these heavenly objects when we have been out on late night dog walks. So for her birthday I bought her a planisphere, a printed resource that helps you identify the planets and the stars.

I still get a thrill – and a poignant memory – when I see Orion or The Plough. I often think of Psalm 8 and get a sense of wonder and even of worship:

³ When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?

In today’s passage Paul doesn’t call us to gaze in wonder at the stars but figuratively to emulate them:

Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky (verse 15b)

In the world, our calling is to shine like stars in a dark sky. We are to be those points of light in the darkness. Rather than just moan about all the darkness around us, we get on with shining with the light of Christ.

We do this, says Paul, under his call to

continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³ for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.

God has saved us for a purpose. He has made us new. Now we live out that newness of life – but not on our own, because God is at work in us to make it possible. And this will make us like shining stars in the darkness of the world.

So what qualities does Paul say will enable the Philippians to shine like stars in their dark world? I think we’ll find that things haven’t changed that much.

Firstly, kindness:

¹⁴ Do everything without grumbling or arguing, ¹⁵ so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’

Well, that should be a shoo-in, shouldn’t it? Don’t grumble or argue.

Unfortunately, it isn’t in some churches. It is more widespread than some of us would like to believe, especially when we tell ourselves that our churches are friendly and welcoming.

Now I freely admit that as a minister I am sensitive to this one, because we church leaders are often the target of the grumbling, when people don’t like what we do or what we don’t do. You may know the old joke where the question is: ‘What’s the favourite Sunday lunch in a Christian household?’ The answer? ‘Roast preacher.’

And I also know that some of this grumbling comes our way because in these days of declining and aging congregations, people pin massive hopes on a new minister being the one to turn around the losses. Which is why at one previous circuit welcome service I quoted the famous line from Monty Python’s Life Of Brian: ‘He’s not the Messiah, he’s just a very naughty boy.’ The job of Messiah was taken two thousand years ago.

I’m also sensitive to this, though, not for the barbs thrown at people like me, but because in my position I hear the stories of those who have left a church, having been wounded by cruel words and actions. Do you know the damage caused by a harsh word in church?

More positively, did you notice just how highly Paul rates the idea of avoiding grumbling and arguing? He says it contributes to us being ‘blameless and pure.’ So often when we think about what makes us blameless and pure we think about the avoidance of certain ‘big’ sins, not least those involving sexual impurity. And I’m certainly not denying that these things are important.

But here, Paul says that if we want to be ‘blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation’’, then saying no to grumbling and arguing in the church is also part of this.

And doing this also makes us shine: we become ‘without fault in a warped and crooked generation’. A Christian community that chooses kindness over harshness will stand out in society. Indeed, we shine like stars in the dark sky.

When we are among our friends outside the church, can we truly say that the congregation we belong to is such a wonderful place of kindness and care, where people are not ripped apart by the words of others but rather are built up? Wouldn’t it be great if our churches were known in their communities as the places where people receive kindness?

Secondly, faithfulness:

Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky ¹⁶ as you hold firmly to the word of life.

Faithfulness – to the Gospel: ‘hold firmly to the word of life.’ This isn’t just an internal thing in the church, by the way: it’s also outward-facing, since it can also be translated, ‘hold out the word of life.’ In the church and in the world, we are called to hold faithfully to the Gospel, because that will make us shine like stars in the dark sky.

For too long now, we have heard church leaders say that we should adapt our message to the society we live in, because parts of it are unacceptable today. But the moment we just make Christianity like a religious version of the wider culture, then there is no longer any reason to join the church. Why join something that is just like how you are already, anyway? There is no point.

No: the only hope for the church to be like shining stars in the dark sky is if we keep to the Gospel, even and especially where it differs from the culture in which we live.

And if you don’t believe me, then listen to the respected historian Tom Holland. He has been on quite a journey in his thinking and in his life. In 2016, he wrote,

It took me a long time to realise my morals are not Greek or Roman, but thoroughly, and proudly, Christian.

He realised that we owe the good things in our society to our Christian foundations and began an excursion into the message of Christianity.

Recently, he has publicly urged churches to ‘keep Christianity weird’, and to ‘preach the weird stuff’. All those crucial values we cherish actually have their basis in the weird stuff of Christianity like the miraculous, not least the resurrection, ascension, and second coming of Jesus.

The church leaders and members who trumpet how the resurrection is just a way of saying someone stays in our memory, or that the ascension is a fairy-tale and the second coming is science fiction are not doing the church any good at all. They are doing the church a grave dis-service. They are removing all power from the Gospel and leaving it like a limp lettuce leaf.

If anyone comes into your church’s pulpit and starts preaching this stuff, do not just dismiss it and say, ‘It’s interesting to hear diverse opinions’, or ‘Let’s live with contradictory convictions.’ No! See them for what they are: wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Let’s stay faithful to the Gospel in all its weirdness: that’s where the power to transform lives is.

Thirdly, service:

Here I’m thinking of what Paul says at the end of the reading about Timothy and Epaphroditus. Paul says that Timothy will be concerned for the Philippians’ welfare, that he doesn’t spend his time on his own interests, and he has a track record of serving (verses 20-22). Epaphroditus, who didn’t enjoy good health, almost died for the Gospel and risked his life to help Paul (verses 26-30).

It’s not enough to be ‘nice’, which might be what you would think had Paul stopped after his admonition to avoid grumbling and arguing. A faith based on Jesus, who suffered and died on the Cross, cannot be reduced to ‘niceness.’ Timothy and Epaphroditus, with their modelling of selflessness and sacrifice, show such a faith in action.

People like Timothy and Epaphroditus are true Christian heroes. These are the kind of people we rightly celebrate. We write books about them. We use them as sermon illustrations! They are exceptional.

But why are they exceptional? Isn’t their example simply what should be the Christian norm? Aren’t their lives of service, sacrifice, and risk-taking the natural consequences of Jesus’ teaching and example?

And if they are, then why aren’t more of us like them?

Is it that it’s easier and more comfortable to opt for niceness rather than sacrificial servanthood? Have we bought into ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ but not the rest of him? Are we keen to scoop up the blessings of faith while not taking the responsibilities and the challenges?

Jesus certainly shone like a star in the dark sky, and so as we work out our own salvation, that is going to involve beginning to imitate him. That’s what Timothy and Epaphroditus did. They found ways to imitate Christ, and in doing so they shone brightly.

So I wonder in what ways Jesus is calling us to imitate him? Who are we being called to serve, as Timothy did? For whom are we being called to take risks, as Epaphroditus did?

And let’s remember that both of these men had their frailties. We read explicitly here that Epaphroditus had his health issues. We read in other New Testament Epistles that Timothy was timid. These were not people who were somehow genetically wired to be heroes. They had the same imperfections and weaknesses that we have.

Much as we might like to believe otherwise, the New Testament doesn’t have two categories of Christians: the ordinary ones, for whom a fairly modest standard of lifestyle is required, and the keen ones, who are held to higher standards, and in whose reflected glory we can bask. Jesus never made divisions like that.

The call to kindness, to faithfulness to the Gospel, and to sacrificial service is for all of us. Do we want to shine like stars in the dark sky? Or do we want our light to be snuffed out?