Philippians 2:1–13
If there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
We begin today with a story. Well, more of a fable. The title is, “The Storm.” Once upon a time, in the Southeast region of Wales is a small village, roughly halfway between Abergavenny and Newport, near the eastern edge of the historic county of Monmouthshire. In this village lived three brothers. The oldest was the ferryman; the middle one, the miller; and the youngest the forester, who looked after the game preserve belonging to their lord.
These brothers had done well for themselves. They had much to be proud of. But they were far from happy. None of them had ever found anyone to share his life with. They lived solitary lives. Once a week they would gather at the village tavern for some venison stew and a flagon of ale, but they spoke few words. Each brother seemed lost in his dark thoughts.
That is, until the day a terrible storm struck. For many hours before, the air had grown heavy and humid. Strange white seabirds were sighted, soaring over meadows. Charcoal-gray storm clouds gathered overhead. The songbirds fell silent.
The three brothers rushed to their own houses. The storm began at dusk, with howling winds, torrential rain and the creaking of trees bent over at unnatural angles. The darkness was complete, the sort of darkness that fills a person with fear.
The forester, snug in his stone cottage, was aware of what the storm could do. Walking back to his house, he’d mentally noted a large, dead beech tree a short distance from his front door. He was sure it would fall. He hoped and prayed it would miss his house. A chill wind was moaning through his chimney. Then he heard the noise he’d dreaded, splintering wood. With a mighty thump, the trunk of the great tree crashed to the ground. It barely missed his house. But then, in the silence after, he heard another sound, one he’d never expected to hear. It was the sound of a child crying.
This couldn’t be. It had to be an illusion, a trick of the mind. But then the forester heard it again: the cry of a youngster, just outside his thick, oaken door. Should he risk going out? Only a madman would go out on a night like this. But the child’s cries summoned him.
He finally ventured out towards the fallen tree. He couldn’t see the child, but he could hear him. Reaching into the tangled branches, he felt a small, wet face. Touching the boy’s chest, he could feel a furiously beating heart. He eased the little boy free from the tangled branches, clutched him to his chest and fought the wind all the way back to the house. Who was this mysterious child? He was no more than two or three years old. And how had he found his way into the branches of the fallen tree? There wasn’t time to think about that now, so, he wrapped the boy in warm blankets and hugged him to himself until he felt the little one’s breathing slow. The two of them fell into a peaceful sleep.
He was awakened by the sunlight and the singing of birds. The door of his cottage was wide open. And there was no sign of the child he had rescued. “Little one! Where are you?” Only the songbirds answered. Then he noticed the destruction of his beloved forest. His next thought was of his brothers and the other villagers and ran off to help them.
Breathless, he arrived at the house of his brother, the miller. Pounding on the door, he called out his brother’s name. When his brother answered, the forester poured out the story of the strange child he’d found cradled in the branches of a fallen tree and how he’d vanished the next morning.
Will wonders never cease? his brother said. I, too, was behind closed doors in my cottage, burrowed deep into the blankets on my bed, when I heard a child crying. I threw on my coat and went down the path as fast as I could. Right by the edge of the millpond, I found him, very close to the water! I scooped him up, brought him home and fed him hot broth from the pot on the stove. But the next morning, he was gone!
The two of them rushed out, then, to the home of their brother, the ferryman. They discovered he, too, had had a similar experience. He’d heard cries coming from the opposite side of the river, driven his boat across and rescued the little boy. But when morning came, he was gone.
The three brothers looked at each other in stunned silence. Then they took in the storm’s devastation all around. But their hearts were mysteriously light. They noticed the bright sunshine. It was a day of rare beauty.
It was the same with each of them; they reached out to the child and now the world is newly made. No one worked harder than they to help their neighbors rebuild. Everywhere one of the brothers showed up, sorrow was gone, hope and unaccountable warmth crept into every heart.
Starting on that day, the three brothers were different men. Their lives had once been sadness and unhappiness, now they had contagious joy. The miller sang at his work, something he’d rarely done before. The forester always had a child from the village by his side, as he walked through the woods. As for the ferryman, he delighted in giving children free rides across the river.
The joy of the three brothers spread to everyone. Travelers who knew the place admired how the very atmosphere had changed. No one went hungry or cold. No one suffered loneliness or fear. It was as though a new kind of joy had been set loose. It was during the great storm that everything changed, unexpectedly, joy came to them, and the world was new made.
As we heard earlier, Paul wrote to the Christians of Philippi. Make my joy complete, Be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
It’s an extraordinary statement, when you truly consider it. Having a common mind is one thing a rare gift, in and of itself. But “having the same love? What does Paul mean by that?
Most often we tend to read this passage as though it were a letter written to individuals. But it wasn’t. Our English language, unlike many others, uses the same, second-person pronoun, “you,” for both the singular and the plural. It’s hard for English-speakers to distinguish between different unless we know the context. That’s not so of New Testament Greek, as Paul’s addresses the entire community. Our closest English equivalent may be the word “y’all.” Imagine Paul saying to the Philippians, “Y’all have the same love.” That’s how the Philippians understood it.
It’s rare that two people share the same love, but an entire community? For this to happen, such love must have some independent existence, outside our individual lives. We’re so used to thinking of love as something we create for ourselves a treasure to be guarded and protected, or we lose it. It boggles the mind to think of love as freely, lavishly and endlessly distributed throughout an entire community. But that’s exactly what Paul believes is possible. Such love is not so much an individual possession “yours and mine” as it is “yours, mine and ours.”
The love of Christ is bigger than any one of us, even any two of us. It’s more of a great sea in which we all swim. And so, we can be confident it will never run out.
Such is the discovery many survivors of hurricanes, floods and tornadoes have made. A storm has a way of bringing love out in a community. Suddenly, neighbors who barely know each other, who would barely nod to one another in passing, find they have something in common. They’ve been fighting the storm together. The storm has stripped away not only the leaves from the trees. It has stripped away their separation.
You never have to be afraid that love will run out, for, in Christ, God has arranged for us a limitless supply. Individual relationships may sometimes disappoint, but the love that flows forth from the Almighty through Christ into our hearts has no limit. May we never hesitate to share Christ’s love with others, for truly it is without measure and without price!