FINISHING THE WORK
Sermontelling Philippians 1:1-18a (NL 444)
BIBLETELLING
Below is the Narrative Lectionary passage for the coming week. It is followed by Bruce’s notes on the text which aim at a general understanding of the text and some notes on the structures and techniques used by the Biblical storytellers.
From Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus.
To all those in Philippi1 who are God’s people in Christ Jesus, along with your supervisors and servants.
May the grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
I thank my God every time I mention you in my prayers.2 I’m thankful for all of you every time I pray, and it’s always a prayer full of joy.3 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. 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.4 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 prison5 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.6 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.7 I pray that you will then be filled with the fruit of righteousness, which comes from Jesus Christ,8 in order to give glory and praise to God.
Brothers and sisters, I want you to know that the things that have happened to me have actually advanced the gospel.9 The whole Praetorian Guard10 and everyone else knows that I’m in prison for Christ. Most of the brothers and sisters have had more confidence through the Lord to speak the word boldly and bravely because of my jail time.11 Some certainly preach Christ with jealous and competitive motives,12 but others preach with good motives. They are motivated by love,13 because they know that I’m put here to give a defense of the gospel; the others preach Christ because of their selfish ambition. They are insincere, hoping to cause me more pain while I’m in prison.
What do I think about this? Just this: since Christ is proclaimed in every possible way, whether from dishonest or true motives, I’m glad and I’ll continue to be glad.14
Philippians 1:1-18a [CEB]
THREE STORIES
The following three stories pair well with the Narrative Lectionary passage for the coming week. They are followed by Danny’s sermontelling footnotes which explore the stories’ theological connection to the passage as well as insights into craft and performance. Our advice is to read the story first before digging into the footnotes.
THE RUBY RING
Once15 there was a good king16 whose most prized possession was a ruby ring that had been in the royal family since before anyone could remember.17 It was passed from king to king and it was worn on special ceremonial occasions. Whenever the king put on the ring, everyone was truly dazzled by its beauty and perfection.18
One day, the kingdom was celebrating a festival and the king decided to make an appearance before the people. The king asked his servants to fetch the ruby ring and they did. When they brought him the small gold box that contained the ring. The king opened the box and gasped. There on the face of the ring was a huge scratch. At first the king was furious and demanded to know which of his servants had scratched the ring. After the king was satisfied that no one knew how the scratch had got there, his anger subsided into gloom. He closed the box and sent it away and decided after all that he wouldn’t be going out.
Soon, the servants were distressed because the king had cancelled all his public appearances and refused to leave the palace. Finally, one suggested to the king that he might send out a call for the jewelers in his kingdom to try their hands at repairing the ring. So the king announced that anyone who could repair his ruby ring would receive a great reward.
The next day, hundreds of jewelers were lined up outside the palace. Each one eager to take a shot at fixing the ruby ring. However, jeweler after jeweler failed. The scratch was so deep and profound that the jewelers couldn’t get rid of it without possibly ruining the jewel further and none wanted to risk the king’s anger. After a few days of this, the king began to lose hope. One by one, the best jewelers in the land left defeated. And each time, the King lost more hope that his ring would ever be repaired. At the end of the week, there was only one person left in the line: a peasant with tattered clothes.
At first, the king’s servants thought the man a beggar and tried to run him off but the man assured the servants that he was in fact a jeweler and was looking to repair the king’s ruby ring and claim his great reward. The servants were doubtful that this rough looking serf would be able to do what the finest jewelers in the land could not but what did they have to lose? So they let the peasant jeweler with the tattered clothes into the palace.19
When the jeweler entered the throne room, the king laughed. “Is the situation so hopeless that you’re bringing random people off the street?”
“No my lord,” One of the servants replied, “This is a jeweler and he has come here to fix your ruby ring and claim his great reward.”
The king looked at the peasant jeweler suspiciously. He had his doubts but what did he have to lose? So he had the gold box brought out. Once the box was opened, the peasant jeweler looked at the ring and saw the deep scratch. “It can be done easily,” he said, “I’ll just need a week of privacy to work on the ring.”
The king agreed and ordered that the jeweler should have a special room in the palace which would be guarded day and night. He also ordered that meals should be brought to the peasant for the week while he worked on the ring.
And work he did. Tirelessly for an entire week, day and night, the jeweler could be heard hammering and chiseling and sanding and polishing until finally, a week later, the peasant jeweler emerged from his room with the gold box. He and the box were immediately brought before the king. The king took the box. His hands were trembling. This was his last hope. Was it possible that this poor jeweler had accomplished what the finest jewelers in the land could not? The king opened the box and gasped.
But this time it was a good gasp. The king smiled a great big smile and said, “My ruby ring is even more beautiful than before! As a great reward you are now the King’s official jeweler and you shall live in this palace, you and your family, and be well taken care of.”
With that, the king slipped the ruby ring on his finger and everyone in the room gasped as well. The ruby truly was more beautiful than ever. The peasant jeweler with the tattered clothes had done what no other could. Instead of trying to get rid of the imperfection, he had adorned it with petals and thorns and a leaf. He had transformed that awful scratch into a beautiful rose!20
~ Retelling of Jewish Story
ON FINISHING…
THE BALCONY
There was a wealthy man21 who noticed his neighbor had a beautiful balcony on the third story of his house, where he could overlook the entire village. Longing for his own third story balcony, he hired a carpenter to build a similar house with a third story balcony. The carpenter made plans to lay a solid foundation, build a first floor, then a second, and then the third with the balcony. He showed the plans to the wealthy man and explained that it would take him a year.
The wealthy man responded, “I want it now! Don’t waste time with the foundation and the first two stories. Just go ahead and build the third story with the balcony!”
~ Buddhist Parable
THE DRAWING
A young girl22 was sitting in her Sunday School class staring down at a blank sheet of paper. She poured a box of crayons out and began working intensely on a drawing project. When the Sunday School teacher saw what she was doing, she asked, “What are you drawing?”
“I’m drawing God.” The little girl said, not even looking up.
The Sunday School teacher, sensing this was a good moment for an important theological lesson, said, “But no one knows what God looks like…”
Still not looking up, the little girl replied, “That’s cause I’m not finished yet.”
~ Traditional Story
THE RACE
One of the most inspiring stories to come out of the 1996 Olympics was that of a runner named Derek Redmond.23 He ran the 400 meter race for the American team. Like most athletes, he had trained years and years for this moment. His own father had been his trainer and coach.
During the race, Redmond was way out front when the unthinkable happened. His Achilles tendon snapped! He stopped running but he kept going. Rather than leave and be carried away on a stretcher, he chose to drag his leg and limp toward the finish line. The crowd stood up and cheered as Redmond continued, in tremendous pain, limping toward the finish line. But he slowed almost to a stop because the pain was so great. Just then, a man ran out on the field and wrapped his arm around his waist. Redmond placed his arm over the man’s shoulder, crying, and the two of them finished the race together, father and son.
Later, in an interview, Derek Redmond said, “My father was the only one who could have helped me, because he was the only one who knew what I’d been through.”
~ True Story
THE ANGEL & THE BLACKSMITH
Once a village blacksmith had a vision.24
An angel of the Lord came to him and said “The Lord has sent me. The time has come for you to take up your place in his kingdom.”
“I thank God for thinking of me” said the blacksmith, “but as you know, the season for sowing crops will soon be here. The people of the village will need their ploughs repaired, and their horses shod. I don’t wish to seem ungrateful, but do you think I might put off my place in the kingdom until I have finished?”
The angel looked at him in the wise and loving ways of angels. “I’ll see what can be done” he said and vanished.
The blacksmith continued with his work and was almost finished when he heard of a neighbour who fell ill in the middle of the planting season. The next time he saw the angel, the blacksmith pointed towards the barren fields and pleaded with the angel, “Do you think eternity can hold off a little longer? If I don’t finish this job, my friend’s family will suffer.”
Again the angel smiled and vanished. The blacksmith’s friend recovered, but another’s barn burnt down, and a third was deep in sorrow at the death of his wife. And a fourth, and so on. Whenever the angel reappeared, the blacksmith just spread out his hands in a gesture of resignation and compassion, and drew the angel’s eyes to where the suffering was.25
One evening the blacksmith began to think of the angel, and how he’d put him off for such a long time. He felt very old and tired and he prayed “Lord if you would like to send your angel again, I think I would like to see him now.”
He’d no sooner spoken than the angel stood before him. “If you want to take me” said the blacksmith, “I am now ready to take my place in the kingdom of the Lord.”
The angel of the Lord looked at the blacksmith, and smiled, as he said, “Where do you think you have been all these years?”26
~ Jack McArdle
From the Archives: THE MAGIC RING
…When the father was advanced in age, he was torn about which of his sons he would leave the ring with upon his death. They were each deserving of it in different ways. Finally, he took the ring to a jeweler and asked that he craft two identical rings.
Before his death, the father called his sons to his bedside and gave each of them a ring. He said to them, “I am now giving you the ring my father gave me. If you wear this ring, you will live lives of piety and generosity. Its magic will produce in you the virtues of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control.”
After the father passed, the sons began to wonder who actually had the father’s magic ring and which had only been given copies…
SERMONTELLING NOTES:
Philippi was one of the stops on Paul’s second missionary journey. A couple of weeks ago, we looked at a story in the book of Acts which took place in Philippi. Paul and Silas were imprisoned there and did NOT escape when an earthquake caused their bonds to fall away and the prison doors to fly open. I stead, they remained in their cell and ministered to the jailer who was preparing to take his own life. It is interesting to wonder if this jailer was among those present when this letter was first read to the believers at Philippi.
Paul almost always begins the body of his letters with a prayer for the recipients. Careful attention to this prayer will almost always give us an idea what the rest of the letter will be about.
Paul’s joy is a major theme in this letter, even though we will discover later in the letter that Paul is writing from imprisonment and contemplates the very real possibility that this imprisonment might lead to his death. The source of this joy is the good news “in Christ” which he is preaching and the changes he sees in the lives of those who accept it.
An example of those who have been changed by the gospel. Paul considers the love and devotion displayed in the lives of the Philippians as a “partnership” in his ministry.
The first actual mention of Paul’s imprisonment. Roman prisons did not provide for food or other needs of their prisoners. Instead, family and friends were expected to do so. The Philippians have sent a man named Epaphroditus to help tend for Paul during his imprisonment.
Paul’ prayer for the Philippians assumes that they are filled with love. He prays that their love will lead them into deeper wisdom and discernment, will help them to see what is most important in life.
The “blamelessness” that Paul prays upon the Philippians is rooted in learning to love wisely. Paul has already expressed a strong conviction that this will be the case. God will complete what he has begun in them so that they may confidently stand before Jesus in “the Day of Christ.”
Throughout the Hebrew prophets, the final day of reckoning is referred to as “the Day of Yahweh” (English: “the Lord”). Paul effortlessly swaps the figure of Jesus into the role of Yahweh in the coming judgement, where one’s capacity for loving well is the mark of belonging to God.
It is grammatically unclear whether it is “righteousness” or “the fruit of righteousness” which Christ provides in this verse. Ultimately, of course, Jesus is the source of both.
Paul is convinced that his imprisonment has not stopped the spread of the gospel. To the contrary, it seems to have thrown gas on the fire.
Scholars debate which prison Paul is in when he writes this letter. The mention of the Praetorian Guard suggest to some that he must be in Rome awaiting a trial before Caesar. If this is the case, he will have been delivered here by Roman guards whom Paul had helped to rescue from a shipwreck.
It is interesting how often Roman soldiers came into Jesus’ (and Paul’s) orbit in powerful ways. History tells us that Christianity had an early foothold within the Roman military. In fact, the oldest remails of a space evidently set aside for Christian worship was discovered in the heart of a Roman military encampment
Paul’s imprisonment was probably a subject of much curiosity. He was jailed in Rome by choice, having demanded his right to an audience with Caesar as a Roman citizen. The charges against him were vague, probably little understood by those in Rome. The opportunity for Roman Christians to explain who this man was and what he believed was great.
In order to explain why Paul’s teaching might be a danger to Rome, his enemies will first have to explain what Paul’s teachings actually were. His rivals, paradoxically, had to spread the gospel in order to rail against it.
Once again, Paul underlines that the proper motive for Christian action is love.
Paul ends this opening passage of his letter by once again expressing his joy in spite of his physical circumstance. He rejoices because his arrest has caused others to spread the gospel, sometimes even in spite of themselves.
THE RUBY RING
The struggle with a reading like this one is that there are a variety of different themes you could choose to run with.` I am often caught between trying to give the best story for each theme or choosing one theme and giving three good stories on it. This week, I have chosen the latter. While the themes of partnership, prayer, and proclamation of the Gospel are all worthy and would no doubt generate good stories, I’ve chosen the theme of God ‘finishing the work.’ For my fellow United Methodists, there is an opportunity this week to focus on sanctifying grace. Verse 6: “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it…” is one of the key verses that comes up in discussions of the Holy Spirit’s on going work of sanctification in our lives.
While other Christian traditions do not emphasize this as much or in the same way, I have found that most agree with the statement: “We can’t become like Jesus without Jesus’ help.” My hope is that, whatever your tradition, these stories will help you share the ways God is faithful to complete the work he began in us.
The great thing about the fairy tale as a parable form is that most of our hearers are primed to recognize God as the archetypal ‘king.’ When we hear that there was once a ‘good king.’ That taps into our longing to be led by someone wise, just, and merciful. It is a readymade metaphor for the ways God does and doesn’t wield power. When we are trying to explain the complex ways of God to our congregations, we can do worse than to try our hand at writing our own parables involving a ‘good king.’
I have found that telling fairy tale stories cast a certain spell on the hearer. There is something about kings in far away kingdoms that gives the hearer permission to completely let their guard down and get fully absorbed in a story. There are probably myriad reasons for this. It is the genre of oral storytelling (with ghost stories and jokes) that most people are most familiar with. I find that when I begin a story, once in a far away kingdom… all hearers, young and old, lean in.
The other end of this fairytale parable is the ring. The ruby ring is symbolic of the hearer: treasured by the heavenly King and yet flawed. Understanding this is the key to telling this story well. It may seem melodramatic that a ring cause so much trouble and handwringing in the kingdom, but then, why should the creator of the universe care so much about the fate of a bunch of bald mammals on one tiny planet? That he does is the good news.
This story is not an allegory. An allegory is a specific kind of parable in which (almost) every character has a symbolic meaning. Think of THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE. Aslan is Jesus. The White Witch is Satan. Turkish Delight is the Forbidden Fruit. Edmond is Sinful Humanity… etc. In our parable, it is enough that the King is God and that we are the ring. We don’t have to worry about figuring out who the peasant jeweler is. He just exists to further the story’s point. This may seem like a pointless English class review unless you are going to try your hand at writing your own parables.
Many parables are also allegories but just as many aren’t. Rather, they are based on one simple comparison meant to illustrate one simple truth. To that end they may employ a host of different characters which aren’t specific symbols but who are working together as a cast to bring home the truth of the parable. Think of Paul’s parable of the body with many parts. The simple truth is that just as parts of the human body work together with out competing and quarreling, so should the church’s members. Each body, name checked, serves this comparison. But each isn’t assigned a different symbolic value. In other words: the eye doesn’t stand for apostles, and the hand for teachers, and the nose for prophets. This would be a far more developed symbol system than is necessary to drive home this simple point.
Likewise, if you create your own parables, you don’t have to waste time making sure everything in it corresponds to something else, just focus on the one simple point you are trying to make. If it winds up being more allegorical out of necessity, so be it, but forced allegory usually makes for bad storytelling.
Here, we get to the point of this story. Perfection is something different than being without flaw. Somehow, God making us into who we are created to be doesn’t mean totally erasing who we are. God works within our flawed humanity to bring about his own beautiful purpose. Paul wants the Philippians to be pure and blameless. He wants their love to abound more and more. He wants them to be pure and blameless. And he talks like this is all something flawed human beings can do and be with Jesus’ help. It must be true.
ON FINISHING…
The Balcony is the first of three short little stories on finishing. It is a Buddhist parable which no doubt is meant to explain that there are no shortcuts on the road to enlightenment. Just as one cannot build a third story balcony without first laying a foundation and building the first two floors, so enlightenment cannot be achieved over night by an impatient meditator. This is true of holiness as well. When we become Christians, the new creation is begun in us but it must be grown to maturity. This does not happen over night. The Holy Spirit’s work in us is slow and deliberate. But that’s Good News, be cause it will be done right!
The Drawing is one of those stories that belong to the preacher’s oral tradition. That last line is a killer! “I’m not finished yet” could be the total of a sermon and a repeating refrain that ties it together. Each of us is being made in the likeness of Christ. If people don’t yet know what God looks like, it is because we aren’t finished yet…
When most people think of perfection they think of ‘flawless execution.’ The sports metaphor we reach for might be Olympic diving or figure skating where the object is to pull off your routine without making a single error and Judgement will come in the form of a series of numbers held up on cards. If any of them say anything less that ‘10,’ you weren’t perfect. But the word Paul uses, telos, is more the sense of completion. It’s that sense of a sculptor who is finally done with the work and puts down the hammer and chisel and says, “It’s finished.” There may have been mistakes made along the way but now the artist finally satisfied. Perhaps this is why the sports metaphor Paul so often reaches for is running. Running is about endurance. It’s about finishing. A perfect marathon would be run in 0.0 seconds. No runner without a pocket wormhole will do that so each instead aims to get to the finish line as fast as their imperfect bodies will allow. Many of us will finish our races limping with the father’s help, but when we reach the end we can still say, “I have been made perfect!”
THE ANGEL & THE BLACKSMITH
I absolutely love this story by Jack McArdle. It does some interesting things with the idea of being finished. Often we see sanctification as a goal. We Methodists have been taught to say, “I’m going on to perfection.” But what is the work is the point? If everyone who responded to an altar call were suddenly perfect and ‘ready to beam aboard,’ what would the rest of the world be missing that only happens when a disciple is dragging her cross up the hill trying to finish the tasks that are set before her? Maybe the unfinished work that makes us holy is more valuable than the ultimate goal…
This story uses a variation of the rule of threes I’m naming two examples and a montage. If there are any storytelling experts out there who know the proper name for this technique, I’d love to know. This variation deftly avoids a storytelling trap. Knowing that the hearer will feel finished after three occurrences of an event, but the story requires more than three, the storyteller can fully tell two of those occurrences and put the rest in a montage that quickly cycles through the remaining occurrences in the space of one. You often see this technique employed in a heist movie when the main character has to recruit the gang to pull off the job. Almost always, we’ll be privy to two full scenes of the hero convincing an expert he needs to come out of retirement and help them. The remaining 11 are recruited in a rapid montage. Once you’re hip to this technique, you’ll see it everywhere.
So next time you find yourself asking for just a little longer to finish your work, just remember the lesson of the blacksmith, or you may just find yourself laying down your hammer in… The Twilight Zone… (dee-doo dee-doo dee-doo dee-doo)