Only, if we’ve heard of them at all, that’s not how we think of them. It seems that Euodia and Syntyche have come to represent not early Christian pastors or elders, but catty squabbling, you know, like women can get into. Most of the time that sermons and commentaries mention them, it’s nearly always speculating what kind of drama was cooking up between them and how badly they must have been arguing for Paul to bring it up in this letter. But the gossip fizzles beyond that, because scholars don’t discern any pressing conflicts in Philippi, and Paul mentions nothing else in the letter itself. But it must have been juicy, right?
I mean, in the paraphrase we read today there is a whole sentence about Euodia and Syntyche being in an argument and disagreeing, and Paul telling them they’re going to need to work it out. (Ending with a potentially exasperated, Help these women). But that is not in the actual letter of Paul. Half the translations out there reflect what Paul actually writes, which is, “I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche: be of the same mind.” That’s it, that’s the entire sentence. Then he goes on to say to the community, these two women worked alongside me, and now I want you to look after them like you’ve done for me.
We are going to pause dear Euodia and Syntyche here in their contentious reputation, sit them down with Paul’s exhortation, and come back to them in a few minutes.
I want to paint for you the picture of what these little first century churches and communities were like, and what Paul was trying to do with all his letters to them that have become letters to us.
A couple months ago, some of you were praying for me, when I went, in fear and trembling, to speak about Christianity to a class of high schoolers studying world religions. In my conversation with them, I used a video, made by some theologians and artists from the church Andy and I were with in Switzerland in May. It painted a picture of the early church and described what it was like for Rome to have to deal with this new upstart religion.
This new movement was turning households and families on their heads. Instead of each person playing their proper societal role, these little bands of believers had women and slaves leading, embraced worthless children at the center of their life, ate all together at the same table, in short, they disrespected the hierarchy and sensible foundations of the whole society that kept order and stability. Their very way of life threatened anarchy against the empire!
Then, when Rome tried to stamp out “The Way” and scatter and destroy its followers with the greatest power it wielded, the power to inflict death, in all the creative and terrible ways of killing that the Romans were famous for, it got even trickier. Because when Christians were put into the arena with the wild dogs, they didn’t run screaming in terror, like normal people, they accepted their death with a strange peace. They were not afraid to die, like death didn’t mean the end of everything for them. This actually made people start admiring them, instead of mocking them!
These people claimed to belong to a different kingdom, and they seemed to believe it. They worshipped a God who had made himself weak, who gave up all the godlike powers to became human, and then even died! None of this made any sense. No god, of any peoples or lands the Romans knew of, made itself weak. No god would allow humans to kill it. And no god who could be killed could be worth following.
Nevertheless, these followers of the Way were steadfast. They could not be controlled by the empire’s rewards, or manipulated by the empire’s threats, and they felt no compulsion or duty to uphold any decency or order that held the realm steady. They even did not just look after their own; they welcomed in strangers and especially took care of the sick, the poor, prisoners and outcasts. Then, throw them in prison themselves, and they sing, for pete’s sake!
Our bible is filled with letters from Paul to these little communities all over, who are daily living faithfully in another realm, even in the midst of this one. They are real people with real questions and real struggles, losses, and joys, trying to work out how to live in a hostile regime with completely contrary values to the kind of life they’ve been brought into and are now seeking to live out.
And while the people change, and the details change, and the empires change, the calling and the struggle are the same today as they were then. How do we keep on living in the freedom we’ve been given in Christ to remain in our belonging to God and all others, and not fall back into the mindset of the empire?
The purpose of all Paul’s letters, is to remind the people of The Way that nothing is the same because of Jesus. The cosmos has shifted, reality has broken open, the end is written, and our own lives are now caught up in the life of Christ, lived out in community with one another, in service to the world. And wow, do we need reminding.
Some of his letters, like the letter to the Romans, are treatises, where he’s trying to lay it all out to people he hasn’t yet visited. Several of his letters address specific arguments, issues or problems in the community he is writing to or between himself and them. This letter before us today is neither. It’s a joyful thank you letter. The main message of the letter to the Philippians is, “Keep on doing what you’re doing.” (as summarized by Matt Skinner, Working Preacher).
It’s amazing, by the way, how much this message helps us in even the smallest of ways. On Thursday I had physical therapy for my bum hip, and my PT told me again how I should be doing the exercise I’ve been doing for two months. She described the a shallow pool of water, and imagining trying to slowly dip first one foot in, and then the other, while holding my core steady. When I demonstrated, she smiled and nodded affirmatively, “Yes! Just like that!” I was astonished how good it felt to hear someone who was guiding me at something say, “Keep doing what you’re doing!”
In his letter to the Philippians, Paul says it this way,
“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 empty 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 you have in Christ Jesus, who
Then he goes on to quote to them a shared song, a creed that becomes the center of this whole letter; everything he says before or after points to back to this familiar hymn. Scholars believe is perhaps the earliest one in the church – something they all would’ve known and shared. I like to imagine it was taught to him by Ananias and the community in Damascus whom he was intent on destroying but who instead welcomed him in and taught him the faith. It’s a song about Jesus, maybe even an action song that starts high and goes low and goes up high again. If you’ve seen the Odyssey, maybe it was something chanted with pounding stick and sweeping arms. The song says,
though he existed in the form of God,
he did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
9 Therefore God exalted him even more highly
and gave him the name
that is above every other name,
10 so that at the name given to 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.
This is the core of it all for Paul.
The mind we have in Christ is this mind; the reality we live in is this reality. The Christians facing down monsters in the arenas were not people of superhuman bravery in the face of death. The people of the Way to whom Paul is writing are not people of superhuman kindness in the face of evil, or superhuman self control in the face of temptation.
They were people who have already died. Death has no power over us, nor sin, or temptation, nor evil, nor sorrow, nor pain. All these things are real and we experience them, but they do not define us and cannot destroy us because we face them as those who have died and been risen with Christ into life on the other side of death, on the other side of fear, on the other side of threat.
We have been given the life of Christ, the mind of Christ, the reality that Jesus lives in and opens up to us- of complete connection to God and one another forever in the love of God given to us by the grace and power of God. So when the brain tumor comes, the addiction pulls us under, when the terrible longing for a loved one whose life we cannot set right throbs inside us every day, when we feel lost, or afraid, or overwhelmed, we can throw ourselves honestly, completely, without hesitation or pride on the mercy of God, whose will uphold us and carry us through through the arms and words and faces of those who share this way with us.
Which brings me back to Euodia and Syntyche, who’ve been patiently waiting for us to return. “I urge Euodia,” Paul writes, “I urge Syntyche, be of the same mind in the Lord.” He continues, using a nickname of sorts for the community, “Yes, I ask also, you true yokefellow, help these, who worked closely with me, and also with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.”
The people of God argue. That is not in question. Paul breaks up plenty of arguments in other letters to other communities, for sure. And maybe he’s doing that here too – there is no reason why that in itself would be a bad thing.
But the whole letter is urging the whole community to be of the same mind in the Lord, the mind they have been given for their life in Christ, to keep doing what they’re doing, to live in the life-after-death Christ-way of relationship, the Christ-way of seeing the world, the Christ-way of relating to God.
So, despite centuries of some bible readers largely assuming they were just a couple of gals in a heated spat, it’s possible that the same words mean the same thing when addressed directly to Euodia and Syntyche as they do in the rest of the letter to everyone else, and that these women who have worked closely with Paul, are here being commended to this community, to be welcomed in and cared for, and to share this same mind with them all.
I kind of loved stumbling into this, because it just goes to show that even when we’re reading the bible, we dear humans often accidentally slip into the mindset of the empire, as though the more real things are the meanness and division, status and power, winning and losing, looking for the bad in the world and each other and having no problem finding it.
Remember, nothing is the same because of Jesus. We are citizens of a different kingdom. No matter how scary, or painful, or desperately sad the circumstances in which we find ourselves, we are not alone, Jesus came into this situation, alongside us, with and for us and brought to life a new reality, and not even death can break the love of God that holds us fast.
When Paul writes to the Philippians, from his imprisonment under house arrest, Rejoice! Again, I say, rejoice! He’s not just giving pithy advice for getting along or ways to be good people. He’s not just saying, cheer up! Think of good things not bad! Think of happy, not sad! Dig deeper try harder be better!
He is saying we’ve died and been raised to new life, so Be filled with joy! I repeat, be filled with joy! Pour out all our worries and fears to God, and God will hear us and give us peace. Give our precious and limited attention to what is good and beautiful in the world. Let gratitude well up and spill out because Thank you is the language of the real. Keep noticing hope, and recognizing love, lifting up forgiveness and living sacrifice, keep being open to delight and wonder, beauty and awe. Be one in this mindset of resurrected people, that baffles empires and makes no sense to earthly powers. Help each other keep living here, as the dead who’ve been raised, surrendering our lives to God and giving ourselves to others.
Keep on doing what we’re doing. And the God of peace will be with us.
Amen.
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