Village Shepherd

Now that most of the population of the UK, even in rural areas like this, have access to private transport and society is multi-cultural, there's some discussion in the Church of England as to whether the parish system has had its day. At the moment, anyone living anywhere within the UK is resident in a parish, even though some of those parishes are very small and some have lost their parish church. But the trend now is for people to choose their church according to their worship needs, rather than necessarily attending their local, parish church.

Many people choose not to attend church at all. Not necessarily because they don't believe in God or in Jesus Christ, but because they don't feel a need to worship regularly with other Christians. As someone explained to me recently, "I really only see my husband on Sundays, and church is simply not a priority for us." And there are, of course, plenty of other interesting and exciting family outings which can take place on a Sunday.

In many ways, life in the UK today resembles life in Philippi when St. Paul first went there towards the beginning of his second missionary journey in the early 50s. It was an alien culture to Paul, for until then he had only worked in Semitic countries, where the Greek culture had barely penetrated the surface. But Philippi was a Greek city which was also a Roman colony, so it was steeped in Greek culture but also strongly influenced by Rome. The people thought of themselves as Romans, spoke Latin, and worshipped a huge variety of Greek, Roman and oriental gods. Philippi was also a very wealthy city, with a history of a military stronghold guarding the nearby gold mines.

It was into this cosmopolitan, sophisticated, pick-and-mix environment that Paul came to preach the Christian gospel. There was one thing working in his favour. Amongst all the various gods which were worshipped, there was a strong cult of the dead. There were lots of private brotherhoods, most of which were burial clubs which received legacies to pay for annual burial rites in honour of the benefactor, so many of the Philippians already believed in life after death.

Interestingly, Paul's very first convert was a businesswoman nicknamed "Lydia", because she came from Thyatira, a city in Lydia. Lydia the convert bought and sold expensive purple cloth, and used her wealth to support Paul and his mission.

But typically, Paul made enemies in Philippi because he wasn't prepared to compromise the gospel in any way. When he came upon a slave-girl who was a kind of fortune-teller, he exorcised her so that she lost her supernatural powers, and needless to say her owners were furious at their loss of revenue. So Paul and his companions were thrown out of the city, although fortunately they had already firmly established the church there, and the church survived. And Paul managed to visit them again briefly on another couple of occasions.

Paul's letter to the Philippians was written some ten years later, probably when he was yet again in prison, this time in Rome. Like all his letters except the letter to the Galatians, the initial greeting is followed by thanksgiving and a prayer, which we read in today's passage.

Paul begins nearly all his letters by preparing the ground first. He starts by making quite sure he affirms his readers, by telling them how much he loves them. Listen to Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of today's opening passage from Philippians:

Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart. I am so pleased that you have continued on in this with us, believing and proclaiming God's message, from the day you heard it right up to the present. ("The Message", by Eugnene H. Peterson)

Paul continues in similar vein for the whole of today's reading. Imagine how thrilled and affirmed you'd feel if you read a letter like that from the Archbishop of Canterbury addressed specifically to your congregation!

With an opening like that, it then became possible for Paul to say in his letters what he wanted and needed to say to that particular fellowship. If he'd started by haranguing them, they would probably have thrown the letter on the nearest fire without ever reading any further.

Paul carefully prepared the way, so that his words could be heard and digested.

Advent is a time of preparation. Just as John the Baptist prepared the way for the coming of Jesus, so if we want to meet with God in a new sort of way at Christmas, then we must prepare carefully. The busyness needs to be laid aside for a while, so that we can step back into the velvety darkness of Advent, allowing ourselves time and space to wait upon God.

We don't have to do anything. Perhaps that's the point - doing nothing for a short while each day, not expecting anything or asking for anything but simply being completely quiet before God. Finding for ourselves a little oasis of space and allowing God to bless it in whatever way he thinks fit.

That would be a good preparation for a renewed celebration of Christmas, a renewed welcoming of the Lord, in a couple of weeks' time. Preparation is the keynote of Advent, as both today's gospel and today's epistle show. Perhaps we ignore it at our peril.