A Sermon for Advent II, Year C 

 

 I thank my God every time I remember you constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you because of your partnership in the Gospel from the first day until now.  I am confident of this: that the One who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.  [1]

 

St Paul starts his letter to the Philippians as he begins most of his letters –  by giving thanks to God for those to whom he writes. In this case, he gives thanks for something very specific: the partnership that he and the Philippians share in the Gospel. Their partnership of deep affection has included shared prayer and shared work for the spread of the Good News.  It has also included financial support for Paul as he traveled around Greece proclaiming the Good News. Now, when Paul is in prison, the Philippians have sent one of their members to bring a gift for his needs and to offer him care. Such prayerful, practical partnership is a joy to Paul –  and not only for the obvious benefits its brings to him and his work.  Paul rejoices in this partnership because it is an expression of the love of God that is at the heart of the Gospel he spends his life proclaiming.

 

Paul writes also of the confidence that he has: the confidence that the One who began a good work among the Philippians will bring it to completion. Faithful as the Philippians have been, Paul’s ultimate confidence dos not lie in them, but in God working in and through them.  The good work the Philippians have done they haven’t done by themselves.  Along with Paul and the Philippians, there is another Partner in this enterprise of living and spreading the Gospel: God. The shared partnership of God and faithful people, Paul knows, is what makes living and spreading the Gospel possible for him and the Philippians.  Their fruitful partnership in the Gospel is part of their larger partnership with God.

 

One of my mentors, the Rev. Martin Smith, has a wonderful way of talking about the partnership we have with one another and with God in doing God's work.  Martin says that Christian life is a co-creative partnership between ourselves and God, a partnership rooted in God’s creativity, the divine desire that brought us into being. Since we are made in God’s image, we have a share of that creativity ourselves; and when we work in partnership with God and each other, a marvelous synergy occurs as we create together.  

 

This co-creativity, Martin says, is a shared flowed of energy between us and God -- an energy that our bodies often register better than our minds do.  Think for a moment back to some act of creativity you were recently involved in with other people.  It need not have been spectacular, hugely original, or of cosmic significance.  It could have been cooking an ordinary meal or perhaps Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family, solving a problem with colleagues at work, doing a puzzle with a child, fixing something around the house, or, for some of us, making music.  Think back to what it felt like in your body when you had the sense something new was being made; that the creative juices were flowing; that something was cooking.  As like as not, you felt in your body a sense of being alive; a physical delight, a column of energy within, perhaps, an energy shared with whoever your partners in this act of creation were. 

That shared flow of energy is a participation in the Divine Desire that created the world.  Christians have a name for that Holy Energy – we call it the Holy Spirit that comes to live in us in Baptism. The experience of that shared energy in our bodies bears witness that we are made to be co-creating partners with the Divine. We live as co-creators with God daily, whether we know it or not, for God is our partner in creation whenever we are creating -- on our own, and even more, with others. [2]

 

The joy Paul felt in his partnership with the Philippians is a sign of that co-creative energy at work. That same energy lives in Christian communities to this day as we seek to live and share the Gospel – including this community called St. Francis.  Our life and ministry, past, present and future, is a partnership with each other and with God. Whatever has been accomplished here over the years has been the result of your co-creative partnership with each other and with God.  I know you’ve experienced that, because I’ve heard you talk about it.

 

When we held the Growing Together Stewardship conversations earlier this fall, I was struck by how many of you named a time of working together on some project here as the experiences you deeply valued in your life at St. Francis. For some it was work around the buildings, for others the Altar Guild, singing in the Choir, preparing food at Grace's Kitchen, a Vestry retreat or some moving moment of worship.  AS told these stories, you spoke of the joy and satisfaction you felt working together in these tasks and ministries.  I'd submit that what you were experiencing, whether you knew it or not, was the co-creative partnership I've been describing – partnership not only with your fellow parishioners, but with God.  God has been your partner in creating the life and ministry of this congregation for generations, and in that you can and should take joy.

 

That partnership is there, too, whenever a congregation faces challenges in its life, when resources, human or financial, seem meager; when difficult decisions must be made; when disappointment, conflict, stress or instability are ongoing facts of life.  St. Francis has had its share of such times in the not too distant past and chances are we will face them again at some point in the future. 

 

When dealing with such challenging times, it is important to trust that the co-creative presence of God is still with us – and that working with our Divine Partner new life can be created out of whatever death has occurred.  Why?  Because we are never doing the work of the Gospel alone.  We have the co-creative energy of God we call the Holy Spirit and we have each other – and as another of my mentors was fond of saying, God seems to think that is enough.  For with the creative energy of the Holy Spirit and each other co-creative partnership is always possible.

 

Both sides of this co-creative partnership are key – we doing our part, trusting God to do God’s part.  Here Paul's words to the Philippians help again.  Later in this letter, Paul writes these words: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling…”  Well, where’s the partnership in that?  That sounds like it all depends on us, doesn’t it?   But listen to the rest of the sentence: “God is at work in you, enabling you to will and to work for what God desires.”  [3] There’s the partnership –  God at work in us as we do our work.

 

 “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for God is at work in you, enabling you to will and to work for what God desires.”   

 

So here’s how it goes: “work your own salvation” –  that means our side of the partnership is essential; what we do really does matter.  If we are to live our partnership with God in the Gospel, commitment of our time, energy and finances are necessary. Having confidence that God will bring God’s good work to completion does not mean we can sit back and do nothing –  God is counting on us!  The living and spreading of the Gospel will not get done without us, without our work, our commitment, our generosity, and our prayer.

 

But we aren’t in this work by ourselves: "for God is at work in us, enabling us to will and to work for what God desires.”   It is God who gives us the will and desire to do what God wants.  It is God who energizes us, God who gives us life and hope; God who calls us to action and to generosity; God who empowers us to work for the Gospel. What we do matters; what God does matters.  Both are needed.  That’s what it means to be partners, after all!

 

The mutuality of this shared partnership is summed up in two familiar sayings and one provocative question I want to leave you with, and I hope you’ll remember at least one of them if you don’t know them already.  Here’s the first saying:

 

Without God, we cannot; without us, God will not.

Without God, we cannot; without us, God will not.

 

In other words, without God working in us, we cannot live the Gospel effectively; but without our partnership, neither will God bring the Gospel to fruition –  for in Christ, God has chosen us to be partners in that work.  

 

Here’s the second saying:

 

Act as if everything depended on you; pray as if everything depended on God.

Act as if everything depended on you; pray as if everything depended on God.

 

That’s how our partnership with God in the Gospel works.  We are to act as if everything depended on us.  We are to pray in full confidence to the One who is at work in us, the One who began a good work in us and who will bring it to completion.  .

 

Finally, the provocative question:

 

What would you do if you were absolutely confident that God was with you?

What would you do if you were absolutely confident that God was with you?

 

How would you –  how would we at St. Francis –  act if we fully trusted in the presence and creative power of our  Divine Partner?  What risks would we take?  What challenges would we embrace? What new ministry would we create?  

 

When we live in that in God’s presence and work in co-creative partnership with God, all sorts of remarkable things can happen.  You shared stories of some of those remarkable things in our Growing Together Conversations.  I am confident that there will be more in the future.  Of course, I can’t tell you what new things we and God will create together because that will depend on how we and God live that partnership in the weeks, months and years to come.  What I can tell you is that it if we live our side of the partnership faithfully and  if we trust in full confidence that the One who began a good work in us will bring it to completion, together we and God will create some pretty exciting stuff. 

 

The Rev. Jack Zamboni

December 6, 2010