Fellow Travelers
Philippians 4:12-13

August 10, 2003

Fellow travelers of Jesus Christ, do you believe in Resurrection? The answer has to be yes. And the stock boy’s answer was “Good.” His boss answered “because that aunt whose funeral you attended yesterday is downstairs waiting for you.”

Abase and abound are two words that appear alphabetically in the concise Oxford dictionary. It gave no acknowledgment of their use by Paul in yet another letter written to generous supporters from jail. I looked them in a concordance and in Philippians, as I started a letter to my sister. Three years younger than I, we are fellow travelers in the Gay-Courtice-Everson family clan. She has written to let us know that the medical crisis experienced in London, Ontario, where she was a attending a choir handbell school is safely in the past. Abase and abound. Life’s highs and lows can be as far apart as the human condition permits. Paul and his Philippian friends. Fellow travelers all. In the 1950’s Senator Joseph McCarthy pinned that charge of being fellow travelers on and blacklisted the careers of any actor, actress, or professional who would admit to being a member, supporting a member or working with a member of a communist party or activity.

But we are fellow travelers…In our faith, our congregation, our worship and our opportunities to follow our elder brother, Jesus.

The two words are front and centre in the twelfth verse of Philippians, chapter four. Abase and abound lead us to Paul’s stirring statement of faith: “I know both how to be abased and how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.” He continues and we thrill to hear: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthened me” (King James translation). Two verses (12 & 13) yoked together in Paul’s experience and the fourth chapter of Philippians. The abasement like the imprisonment is real. Abase and abound. Tied together. For fellow travelers in Christ.

Every sermon starts with a children’s story. Today is no exception. East Germany was like a jail to our western understanding or misunderstanding of freedom. I’d never heard of the Baltic seaport Warenmunde until it appeared on the Holland American NOORDAM’s itinerary. Our young east German tour guide described the solitary confinement that met one family member’s attempt at escape to the west. It served to introduce her own account as a twelve year old of the day the border was opened. She and her younger sister were picked up by their family at the end of the school day to join the world’s longest traffic jam. West Germans brought out tea, coffee, and sandwiches to welcome them. They visited their west German auntie for the very first time. The bowl of bananas on her table were the first our young guide had ever experienced. And she ate so many, her nickname to this day is “monkey.” And the next day the array of candy in a west German shop was so bewildering that both girls could not deci

de which to buy. Abase and abound. Scarcity and abundance. Fellow countrymen reunited.

Good things about east Germany continue as well. Her university education is free. Every student spends one semester in another country’s university for only its $75.00 student fee. If you need a student loan for basic support – 80% is forgiven upon graduation. WEST German investment is everywhere building luxury east Germans who lost their communist ship building monopoly cannot afford.

Abase and abound. How could that young Montreal father leave his child in his car the Metro swirled him into the labyrinth of his career? Sparing no expense on the funeral trappings. Police charges pending. We don’t want to share his feelings. Yet we are his fellow Canadians, fellow travelers, we must.

Abase and abound and the beating death of a celebrated Canadian photojournalist in a Philippian kind of jail in Iran. Are we their fellow travelers too, from biblical to current times?

Yes, because we are all fellow travelers on this planet earth, orbiting the same solar star.

What personal witness can I offer as your tour guide this morning?

At the beginning of my poverty ministry, CUT (Canadian Urban Training) challenged inner city ministers to take a plunge -–five dollars in your pocket – I did buy a coffee – at 5:00 a.m. it comes with milk and sugar already added – and an emergency phone number – to see ho wth epoor are treated by the churches and institutions that they approach for help. The debriefing afterwards tries to solidify the learnings. And expand our understanding. Abase and abound.

Can others ever understand the decisions a single mom on welfare must make at the beginning and end of her welfare month? Our misunderstanding and lack of good will add to poverty’s burden. A National Anti-Poverty activist in Vancouver calls it Poor Bashing and says it paves the way to welfare cuts and restrictions that increase the opposition.

One social service minister actually accepted her challenge to live on his department’s level of welfare for one month. But it and our plunge weren’t real enough. Think about it. He had too many political perks, free lunches, snacks in boardrooms, and other excuses to help him get by in a single room with its mattress, bare bulb and radio. I give him credit for trying. And admit my plunge was similarly buffered by good health, attitude, outlook, friends, family and supports that I could fall back on.

Abase and abound. A Baltic cruise on our 45th anniversary was a plunge up. Equally disorienting. Perhaps my sister can use her holiday touring and recent recovery of health to help me debrief those ten days of luxury. Three dining attendants waited on every table of eight for each of the two evening sittins in the ship’s formal dining room. I didn’t life a chair or put a napkin on my own lap for ten days! An upscale floating hotel for 1200 passengers in an exciting part of the world I’ve always wanted to see.

The two plunges, up and down, are shallow imitations of Paul’s reality imprisonments. Put together, my down and ups raise questions for me. Why some have so much money they could bore and exhaust themselves with a lifetime of luxury cruises. Others want to try it at least once. And for most it is beyond their wildest dreams. Which may be why people, even poor people buy lottery tickets. Why that young welfare mom suppresses her own hunger pangs with the exhilaration of her last cigarette that month! Can we understand? Should we try?

The clue to Paul’s abasement is where he is again and to whom he is writing. No downward and upward plunge, no looking back at his former life as Saul who had all the answers and the power of letters to seek out and destroy this Christian cause he now champions. To throw them in jail as he is now jailed. The Iranian prison’s brutality echoes his danger. Without the food and I imagine bribes provided by his young Christian converts – Paul would not have survived. Could not have gained his release. Or had the freedom and materials to write us and thank them.

If his abounding is not in his past. If it is not future pie in the sky wishfulness. It is at the very heart of his abasement. It is right there, real, immediate, lifting his thoughts and spirit to know God given theological heights in the very depth of his extremity. The great example of this is the way the thirteenth verse soars to new heights. “To do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Many imprisonments and much support gratefully received. St. Andrew’s United Church at Athol and Dewdney and Knox-Metropolitan at Lorne and Victoria each have proud roots. Fellow congregational travelers, of course. St. Andrew’s is not closed despite the rumours of some who couldn’t accept the abase-abound nature of our mission. Which cleared the way for those who remained to continue to use their sanctuary every Sunday. Their continuance as a church was essential. So that Wascana Presbytery chair, Paul Dillman, could broker with the mayor’s foundation, the corporate dollars to underwrite their building and maintenance costs and to welcome this fall four staff who will open Regina’s first Boys and Girls Club for after school membership programming.

What does this say to Knox-Metropolitan? Same presbytery/ Greater resources. Different opportunities. The jury, as they say, is still out.

Balanced budgets are important to all congregations. None can reach out in new ways unless we help each other grow in our will to serve. Inward investment and rewards can only be justified on a social balance sheet. How far along the Old Testament prophet Micah’s road are we willing to go: “God has show you what is good; to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

I admit and confess that the answer is closer to that weekend plunge and its lessons than a two week cruise and its photographs. Unless we can intertwine both as renewed steps toward a faithfulness that dares to make a difference. Amen.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan