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Philippians 1:3-11 CEB I thank my God every time I mention you in my prayers. I’m thankful for all of you every time I pray, and it’s always a prayer full of joy. I’m glad because of the way you have been my partners in the ministry of the gospel from the time you first believed it until now. (Philippians 1:5 CEB) I’m sure about this: the one who started a good work in you will stay with you to complete the job by the day of Christ Jesus. I have good reason to think this way about all of you because I keep you in my heart. You are all my partners in God’s grace, both during my time in prison and in the defense and support of the gospel. God is my witness that I feel affection for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. This is my prayer: that your love might become even more and more rich with knowledge and all kinds of insight. I pray this so that you will be able to decide what really matters and so you will be sincere and blameless on the day of Christ. I pray that you will then be filled with the fruit of righteousness, which comes from Jesus Christ, in order to give glory and praise to God. This has to be about the easiest sermon I have ever written because like Paul in his letter to Philippi, “I thank God every time I mention you in my prayers.” During these past three years with you, we have become partners in the “ministry of the gospel.” Gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ and the good news of Jesus Christ is to show the love and power of God’s grace to the world through all that we say and do. I want to take time today to give thanks for the ways that good news has sprung out of the mission and ministry we have done together, and I want to say thank you because, without this congregation, this good news could not have been shared the way it has. As I prepare to depart, I hope and pray that God will grant you “an overflowing love capable of discerning what really matters,”[1] so that the fruit of the gospel will always be found here in this place among this body.
As we talked about last week, the pastor is not the be-all, end-all of the church, and so I, as your pastor, cannot take credit for all the good things that have sprung up during my time here. No, these good things were the products of curiosity and listening. As I was starting my appointment here at Community Church, I had a pastor colleague of mine ask me a curious question. They inquired about what things I would get done during my first 100 days, which struck me as a bit odd! It made it sound like I had been elected as president, and I only had a few months to push through my agenda before you all wised up and grew resistant to my meddling. Now, I am sure they meant the best, but it got me thinking about my approach to my new church. What would I do? What should I do? I decided to approach this community and church with an open curiosity. I wanted to hear what you were saying, feel out where you were hurting and where you were joyful. I listened, and I spent those first 100 days learning about you. I heard folks were proud of something called a “Cookie Jar Auction,” but I also heard groans about how the cookie jars had gotten expensive and it had gotten harder for many folks to be able to afford one. I learned that one congregant had made a habit of purchasing coats for needy kids, but that the need here in Thermopolis was more than one or two people could manage. I found that there was soup fellowship but numbers had dwindled and a lot of work had fallen on just a few. I discovered that many of you were former teachers and were deeply concerned about offering opportunities for young people to learn and engage with their faith through our building. These became the seeds for my work here and for our work together. The only bold thing I did was to name for you these things you already knew. As I gave them a voice, I saw you nod and I saw God starting to move in our midst. Now, our church has a fund set up for the local cookie jar auctions, and to date, we have contributed over $2000 to help folks across our community. We started the Coats 4 Kids program, a seed planted by Glenn Dunbach, and together as a church and with community partners, we have put coats, hats, and gloves on over 100 kids. For my fruitfulness project, a requirement for my ordination, I set about revamping and restarting our Soup Fellowship under the banner of a Community Meal. My goodness, what a success it has been! With our committees and church volunteers, we have fed over 500 people and have collected over $2000 in donations to keep this ministry running. People for People partnered with us and will look to host another meal in August. We have also strengthened our children’s Sunday school programming, confirmed youth, and restarted hosting VBS. The words of Bishop Karen Oliveto, our bishop here in the Mountain Sky, spring to mind. At almost every annual conference, she says that when a bunch of Methodists comes to town, people should know and feel the difference. Today, I want to expand that to include our Presbyterian siblings as well and say that this town has felt the difference that you have made. Some kids feel it every time the temperatures drop and they have a coat to put around their bodies. Folks, hungry not just for food but for company in this lonely world, have found their fill of both in between our walls. People, who have never been to our church, who may not even know Jesus yet, have felt his love through donations we have made as a church. I can also say with full confidence that there are kids who have seen the face of God in the energy, passion, and love that our volunteers have shared at Vacation Bible School. All of these things are a wellspring of joy in my soul, and they are the reason that I can say: I give thanks to God for you. These same things are the reason I can say this is the easiest sermon I have written. After all, it is easy to be thankful for the gospel work done here at Community Church because you don’t have to go looking all that far or hard to find something. You have brought your gifts and your graces to this work. You have shared what was growing in your hearts, from those gospel seeds God had planted there. I hope and pray that these missions and ministries that we have partnered together on have helped the gospel flourish in your hearts. The church should be a place where good news flourishes, after all. A place where good things grow to be shared with the world. So, I say again, thank you! Thank you for letting me serve as your pastor. Thank you for letting me partner with you! Thank you for bringing your whole selves to this work! I hope it has transformed you as it has transformed me. Tell me, do you share all of this when you talk to people? When people ask about your week and your life, do you mention Community Federated Church? Do you let the joy and transformation found here shine in you before others? I know I do. I like talking about the stuff we do. I like talking about feeding folks and cookie jar auctions, I cannot help but smile! The transformative power of the gospel is really the best advertising any church could have, and all of you, are like walking billboards. You announce to the world that this is what the gospel looks like! It is through you and this work that we do together that inspires people to come and see what this church, this congregation, and this God is all about. Here comes the tough part, what will you do after I go? Let’s face it, mission and ministry take work. I get it. None of us are getting younger, and it takes time and energy to do all of this. Coming to church and sitting in our favorite pew to sing some favorite hymns and share in a bit of worship and then going home is so much easier. I think in truth so many churches decide this is all that the Church is, and they simply stop going outside their doors. They start pining away, hoping that people (with no effort on their part) will happen to wander through their doors and never leave. To stay alive, to stay vital is to “be filled with the fruit of righteousness,” the good fruit that comes from living out the gospel, the love of God, amongst people. Fruit is meant to be shared after all, and all the people we are supposed to share it with are out there, not only in here. To do mission, to be in ministry together in the world, that is how we “give glory and praise for God.” What is more, when people get to experience the good things of the gospel through this church, it won’t just be me giving thanks, and it won’t just be all of you glorifying and praising God. Amen. [1] Joel B. Green and William H. Willimon, eds., “Notes Phillipians 1:3-11 CEB” in The Wesley Study Bible: CEB (Nashville:Common English Bible, 2012), 1494.
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