Today is indeed a day for rejoicing!  Wonderful musicians; wonderful music!  We are celebrating the end of our stewardship campaign – which signals the end of one year and the beginning of another.  We celebrate also the community that is Holy Covenant – coming together today…To give thanks for all that has taken place this past year and to reflect on the many blessings we’ve been given…To offer to God the promise of our gifts and fruits of our labor so that ministry can continue from this place.  And…To sing, praise and worship our God who makes all things possible.  I want to give a warm welcome again to our visitors – to our brothers and sisters from Chapel Hill UMC and Christ UMC who have come to celebrate with us this day – as well as my family who’s sitting right over here.

Let us pray.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.  Lord, let your gentleness be known to everyone for you are near.  Amen.

I’d like you to venture with me this morning as we listen in on some words of love that Paul is writing to his beloved church in Philippi.  Hear the word of the Lord coming from Philippians, chapter 2, verses 1-11.   Paul writes…

1If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

I love the fast-paced, high tech world we live in that the instant we realize we need to tell someone something, we can dash off an email or text message and in minutes our thoughts or feelings are known by the recipient.  But, I do miss getting letters.  Where someone has taken the time and effort to think out what they want to say, carefully written it down, sealed it and then popped it in the mail. Receiving a letter in your mailbox is like finding buried treasure.

I got a letter last week from my good friend Clint Ellison who had just returned from a Walk to Emmaus weekend.  I played a small part in Clint’s experience of the Weekend so he took the time to write me a letter to say thank you.  It was an unexpected joy to receive a letter in the first place – as I’m sure you’ll agree with me if this has happened to you recently.  And to make my joy complete Clint’s letter was full of appreciation, experiences he shared from the Weekend, words of encouragement in my ministry and a profession of deep friendship – all rooted in the love of Jesus Christ.

Paul’s letter to the Philippians is a letter like Clint’s, full of love and much rejoicing.  Actually, it’s a very long thank you note that Paul wrote to the church.  He’s writing from a Roman prison and the small Philippian community had reached out to him by sending gifts – probably money - a couple of times.  This was no easy task for the Philippians because they did not have a great deal of money to begin with and getting their financial contributions to Paul while he was in prison was especially dangerous.  Don’t you know this was a lifeline to Paul – he’s all alone…isolated in prison… it’s possible at any second the Romans will execute him for spreading Christianity, so his life could be over at any time.  And- even though he’s God’s great apostle, he’s human.  And don’t we all when we’re feeling alone…isolated…afraid…. need human interaction and to know that we are loved?  We see a side of Paul here we don’t see too often, but often experience firsthand.   Because he loves them, Paul hopes to see the Philippian community again once he’s out of prison. So, given their relationship, it’s easier to understand why Paul has written to them with words of love, encouragement and unity.  They are his friends.

Not only does Paul need love right now, but so do the Philippians.  Things aren’t going too well in Philippi.  Paul understands the church is experiencing some disunity and we learn that’s because there are outside forces opposing Christianity causing them problems.  There is additional disunity caused from within the community as some folks are being selfishly ambitious – setting themselves apart – prompting Paul to wag his finger a little and remind them gently that humility and turning the other cheek like Christ did is the right way for Christians to regard one another.  The discord in the church is causing an impact to the way the Philippians are behaving as Christians.  And out of love for them, Paul advises them to rekindle their unity through the love and compassion they have for one another and to become unified by putting their individual selves aside and modeling Christ.

If our community here at Holy Covenant Church were to receive a letter from Paul, what do you think he would say to us?  I imagine it to be very similar to what he’s saying to the community at Philippi.  He’d have warm feelings for us as his friends and would express his desire to be reunited with us because of our continual efforts to care for others.  Like the Philippians, we are generous with our gifts and talents and share what we have.  Paul would compliment us saying “great job Holy Covenant for modeling the life of Christ with your multitude of outreach efforts evidenced by your commitments to your food pantry and to fighting hunger, to Christ’s Foundry, to sharing your coats and your candy, to the Austin Street Shelter, to cleaning up the messes made by mother nature, to CHAP, to sending your adults and youth on mission trips, to teaching our non-US neighbors how to speak English, to the Christmas mission store, to knitting prayer shawls, to Amigos Days, to finding more ways to use your time, your prayers, your gifts and your presence in Carrollton and across the world.”  And as we move forward planning what 2008 will look like for us as a church, we see there are even more walls to paint…more food that needs to be stocked in the pantry…..there are more ways we need to love our neighbor… more ways to look not to our own interests, but to the interests of others.  Because the need will always be there and we will always need to show others the love of Christ.

And what of unity?  What would Paul say in his letter to us about our unity and having the same love and same mind?  To keep our church running efficiently and to keep the ministry happening that we have planned, we know it takes working together in a unified effort to pull that off.  But it’s unrealistic to think that we couldn’t find ourselves in the same disjointed position as the Philippians.  Sometimes life piles up on us and we do turn inward and think first of ourselves.  Sometime it seems like it IS ALL ABOUT US.  We are busy people.  We have families, jobs and responsibilities we each individually must take care of.  And, we all have our different personalities, different passions and little quirks and wrap all that together with the ordinary demands of life, some disunity or discord is bound to happen.  Happens in our church; happens everywhere; happens in our lives; happens all the time.  But Paul’s advice to us – as is his advice to the Philippians – is instead of dwelling on our differences and the circumstances that can divide us, is to strive instead to think of others the way Christ did.  We are to serve one another the way that Christ served us. This is what will unify the Philippians and what will keep us unified.  In Paul’s letter to us congregants at Holy Covenant, we would find the same compassion, encouragement and joy that he sends in his letter to his friends in the church in Philippi.

In 1936, a letter of love was sent to a lady by the name of Wallis Simpson.  Wallis Simpson received the love letter from a king, though she was deemed less than ideal as a candidate for royalty.   She had many things going against her, not the least of which were that she was an American and that she was not just once but twice divorced.  In fact, to be with his love, the king would have to give up his throne.  And though Wallis pleaded with him not to, that is exactly what Edward the VIII did the very next day.  King Edward gave up his throne and his title of King of England – for her.   While Wallis pleaded with the King not to abdicate his throne for her, he professed his overwhelming and undying love for her.   He told Wallis it was too late - the documents were already drawn up.  She could do whatever she wished – go wherever she wanted to go.  But, he said to her, “Wherever you go, I will follow you”.   The next day, Edward ceased being King of England. 

It’s a great love story, but in our modern times, doesn’t it sound a little dramatic?  Who does this today?  In those days, though, it was quite the scandal throughout the world.  Edward’s love for Wallis Simpson must have been extraordinary for him to make such a sacrifice for her.  Imagine a king giving up his kingdom at all, but giving it up for love?  And especially giving it up for the love of just one person? 

Paul knew how to answer to this question.  We know it, too.  Christ could have taken full advantage of being God instead of being human – and just bypassed the suffering….bypassed the cross.   He could have just been God – King of Kings.   He could have enjoyed the kingdom and not given it up and his life and ours would have played out very differently.   Instead, he abdicated his throne for you.  He became one of us, served us and did go to the cross. Even though we’re sometimes less than desirable, the overwhelming love Christ had for you – and me – took priority.   It’s this kind of humility, this kind of servant hood that Paul wants the Philippians and us to remember and to model in our own lives.  Like giving someone the benefit of the doubt and loving them any way when they or say or do something that makes us mad.  It means signing up for a mission trip and being real life HEROES to someone rather than sitting at home and watching the show on TV.  It’s using what you’re good at to make someone else’s life good.  It’s what WE here at Holy Covenant have been good at for 30+ years and together with one mind and one spirit as a unified, humble, and loving congregation can continue doing to love and serve as Christ loved and served us.   Today, let’s celebrate where we’ve been and where we’re going – together as a church community.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.  Lord, let your gentleness be known to everyone for you are near.   Thanks be to God!