Preacher: Julia Baker

Scripture: Philippians 4:1-8

When I was 28 a relationship that marked most of my 20’s, 

with the man I thought I would marry, came to a very ugly and sad end.

The morning after I woke, after having sobbed myself to sleep, 

and the verses

we read in Philippians were with me. Especially the lines —

“And the peace of God that surpasses human understanding will guide 

your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.” 

I woke acutely aware that I could spend terrible months and years

to come trying to understand what had happened. Or I could not,

I could open my hands and let it go. Let go of analysis and all 

the figuring out of my loyal anxious mind thought is the path to peace… 

In that bed, face puffy and wet with new tears I wrote this poem:

Braiding

“We can see forever

when the vision is clear.”

• Cyprian Consiglio

In a house of linen and willow

I have been braiding

the rose-blonde hair

of our imagined children.

While they slept on

goose feathers

you and I walked

our land, dancing

to the star-fire of all

that our pain has grown.

Today I wake from years

of dreaming

come to this moment

where I lie alone

on white-cotton

fully accompanied

by morning sun-fire.

In a house of my own,

you are far away

and at last

I am right here—

gazing through the light

at the current

and only forever.

From clarity I lovingly

brush out all the tangles,

allowing hands beyond

my own to sort out

silken threads

to fine for human

grasping.

Our braided hopes slip

gently through my hands

falling into place.

—

Allowing hands beyond my own to sort out 

silken threads to fine for human grasping. 

I chose this verse today in Phil. because I needed it. 

as we just prayed about together — there is so much in our world

to be anxious about, to fear and grieve. 

One of the reasons that poetry has been such a gift

in my healing journey — from that grief and others –

is that poetry is a language that allows all that is to just be.

As the poet Ada Limon says, “Poetry recognizes our wholeness, even as it relieves us of the need to sum it all up…

poetry offers us a place to be that feels closer to who we are.” 

In this quote I hear what God yearns for us through God’s peace: 

If I were to edit Ada’s quote in conversation with our passage today I would play with it…. 

“God recognizes our wholeness, while relieving us of the need

to sum it all up…God offers us a place to be that feels closer to who we are.” 

All of this is what I near in Paul’s closing words in Philippians (what we read)

and throughout the whole letter. 

—

This week I was sick and listened to the book of Philippians a few times. 

I invite you, maybe this Sunday afternoon, to read the whole letter or find an audio version online and listen to the 4 chapters. 

It is a powerful testament of Paul’s faith and deep union with Christ.

Paul is writing this letter from prison writing to thank the church for a gift given to him and to encourage/exhort them. 

The letter to the church in Philippi is centered around a poem in 

Chapter 2: 6-11 

A poem that artistically tells the story of the Messiah’s incarnation, life, death, and exaltation.

Our scripture passage read for today is the close of the letter. And all that comes before it surrounding this poem at the center of the letter are vignettes where Paul takes key parts of the imagery and themes in the poem and expresses lived examples to show how living as a Christian means seeing your own story as a lived expression of Jesus’s story. 

—

Paul begins his letter with gratitude. An opening prayer of gratitude for their partnership in the gospel and a prayer 

“That the life transforming work begun will be carried on into completion…”

Paul then speaks from his place of imprisonment and a profound posture of hands open peace —

If I live I am in Christ, if I die I die in Christ. Both would be gain.

I hear in this echo of the mystics — of Julian of Norwich and her words “All is well and all is well, all manner of things shall be well.” 

I hear echos of this in stories through the ages, stories to today of people —

The invisible stories of thousands facing the harshest of realities rooted in God’s peace.

—

All of this is not AT ALL a Polly-Anna or head in the sand posture. This is not Spiritual Bypassing, but rather a profound place of acknowledging

where our deepest security and rest and understanding comes from. The both/and of – this horror is happening AND I am God’s, there is a Bigger story holding this all, and thus I am okay, more than okay.

I noticed throughout the letter and at the close Paul centers his words on gratitude, and rejoicing — at he is writing this to people who themselves are facing very challenging times — 

The church in Philippi was the first Jesus community Paul started in Eastern Europe. Philippi was a Roman colony in ancient Macedonia – it was full of retired soldiers and was known for its patriotic nationalism. 

Of course then, Paul faced resistance when announcing Jesus as the true king of the world. After Paul moved on, those that became Jesus followers then faced this same resistance and even persecution – and within it they remained a dedicated and vibrant community. 

So for Paul to tell them…

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make your requests known to God.”

Is not being said lightly. 

The call to thanksgiving makes me think of worship experiences I have had in Latin America or in Black churches.

Where the level of praise, the body dancing joy is profound – in these communities where suffering is also so close.

Gratitude opens us up, it orients us. 

It is the both/and holding of our grief and our praise and petitions. 

A poem that has been orienting to this last year is: 

A Brief for the Defense by Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies

are not starving someplace, they are starving

somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.

But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.

Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not

be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not

be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women

at the fountain are laughing together between

the suffering they have known and the awfulness

in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody

in the village is very sick. There is laughter

every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,

and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.

If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,

we lessen the importance of their deprivation.

We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,

but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have

the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless

furnace of this world. To make injustice the only

measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.

If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,

we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.

We must admit there will be music despite everything.

We stand at the prow again of a small ship

anchored late at night in the tiny port

looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront

is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.

To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat

comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth

all the years of sorrow that are to come.

We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,

but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have

the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless

furnace of this world. To make injustice the only

measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.

—-

We must have

the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless

furnace of this world. 

This line and the phrase — stubborn gladness 

has become a mantra of sorts for me this year. 

And it to me embodies what we hear in verse 8 and 9: 

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

—

This thanksgiving, this attunement to beauty, this stubborn gladness, 

to the art in your church gallery, to the music we sign together, all of it

this poetry of acknowledging our wholeness — 

this act of prayer of rejoice and gladness is itself the alchemy for peace. 

It is how we rest our weary figuring it all out anxious minds into the peace that undergirds it all. 

Paul is giving us a blueprint to the way of living that doesn’t turn our faces or hearts away from the school shooting, the famine in Gaza, the breakup and betrayal, from the work in response we are each individually called to do without being so crippled by it that we are consumed by it.  

It is the very act of feeling it, naming it 

praying with thanksgiving for all that stirs our blood and bones, in beauty in terror,

in gratitude for being alive to feel it, praying 

for God’s transforming presence as we work and grieve and play and risk delight.

How are you being invited to rest deeper into God’s peace, to guard your mind and heart to them show up in the world with more gentleness, more stubborn gladness,

more rejoicing — for yourself and us all?

—

Like the braiding images in my poem, sometimes 

I imagine God’s peace that surpasses our understanding

as a great woven tapestry that I can rest in – woven of Mystery and love,

Mercy and grace. Woven of all the threads of things I don’t know, that are 

beyond the human grasping. All of the Spirits’ beautiful seen and unseen work.  

—

We are going close by listening to beautiful Irish sung prayer.

I invite you as you listen to feel yourself cradled, by God’s peace that surpasses, encompasses, cradles our understanding —

within all that we cannot tie together neatly, 

God, who is Peace, is writing a poem of peace in the world, a lullaby of All is Well.

May this Irish blessing enfold our personal and collective anxiety

with the Truth of Christ’s Presence and Peace.