Finding contentment and strength in all circumstances has never been easy. That was true for Paul 2,000 years ago writing from a prison cell, and it is true now for those of us in the midst of very ordinary hard days and those of us in extraordinarily hard days. This week, Amy Julia talks about small but hopeful steps people are taking in response to the recent protests in cities and towns across the country, and she explores the final verses of Paul’s letter to the Philippians and how they can find strength and contentment. She talks about how we can find protection in who God is and how that allows us to enter into conversations and relationships with an open heart. And finally, she shares a sneak peek at the next season of The Love is Stronger Than Fear podcast, coming very soon!
Some Stories of Hope in a Week of Hardship
Ta Nehisi Coates and Ezra Klein’s interview
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Connect with me:
Thanks for listening!
Finding contentment and strength in all circumstances has never been easy. That was true for Paul 2,000 years ago writing from a prison cell, and it is true now for those of us in the midst of very ordinary hard days and those of us in extraordinarily hard days. This week, Amy Julia talks about small but hopeful steps people are taking in response to the recent protests in cities and towns across the country, and she explores the final verses of Paul’s letter to the Philippians and how they can find strength and contentment. She talks about how we can find protection in who God is and how that allows us to enter into conversations and relationships with an open heart. And finally, she shares a sneak peek at the next season of The Love is Stronger Than Fear podcast, coming very soon!
Some Stories of Hope in a Week of Hardship
Ta Nehisi Coates and Ezra Klein’s interview
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Connect with me:
Thanks for listening!
Note: This transcript is generated using speech recognition software and does contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
1 (2s):
Hello. And welcome to season two of the love is stronger than fear podcast. I'm your host, Amy Julia Becker, and each week we are going to take a look at current events,
2 (14s):
AKA the Corona virus.
1 (17s):
And we're going to consider a small portion of Paul's letter to the Philippians. Paul wrote this letter under adverse circumstances, and he wrote about how to know joy, peace, hope, and love. Not by denying the hardship of the moment, but by knowing God in the midst of that hardship, I hope that reading the Bible in our current moment of uncertainty and turmoil will help us to turn away from fear and toward love.
1 (48s):
Thank you for joining me.
2 (52s):
Oh, friends. Here we are. It is. The last episode of this season of the love is stronger than fear podcast. I'm actually about to start a new season, literally dropping next week. So there will be no break for those who you, who are following along faithfully week by week from home, but it is going to be an entirely new season. We are finishing the book of Philippians today, and I hope that you have, uh, appreciated as much as I have just the chance to live through our current moment, hand in hand with Paul's letter to this early church 2000 years ago.
2 (1m 29s):
I can't remember where I read it this week, but somewhere this week I read someone who said, okay, the pandemic, the flu pandemic of 1918, plus the great depression plus the civil unrest of the 1960s equals right now, we are living through a really intense time. And the book of Philippians is ridiculously relevant to our time. I just want to remind us of why that's the case one, because back 2000 years ago, they also experienced health insecurity every day.
2 (2m 8s):
The possibility of disease sweeping through, especially the marginalized and poor populations, but really through any population in the ancient world was just a very present danger and threat and reality. They had grave economic uncertainty far more than we do. They had famines and disease again, plagues. They had a situation of uncertainty and insecurity that actually pales in comparison even to what we're experiencing right now.
2 (2m 38s):
And they also had the experience of social division. Much of the new Testament in fact, is written about God being the one who doesn't just want to heal us and care for us and forgive us and restore us personally. But the one who wants to heal and restore and care for us collectively, and again, not just within broken family systems or broken homogenous communities, but actually to knit us together as the people of God across the boundaries of what we now call race and class and ethnicity.
2 (3m 13s):
So the Bible in part in general and Philippians in particular is really relevant to our current moment. Not only are the circumstances similar, but the Philippians were also learning how to live with hope and love in the midst of insecurity in the midst of uncertainty and in the midst of division, the word of God, Christians believe is both living and active. And so that means we can look back to these words that were written from a prison cell, probably in Rome so many years ago, and we can bring them forward and ask, how do they apply to this moment of civil unrest to this moment of economic crisis, to this moment of health pandemic, to this moment in our lives.
2 (4m 5s):
And we can come up with answers that are truly empowering and equipping us to live lives of hope and of love. 12 weeks ago, I began this podcast at the beginning of the pandemic. We had gotten through that first wave as a nation, even though it is still spreading here in the United States and certainly around the globe. We also, right now at the end of this podcast have experienced two weeks of social unrest, two weeks of peaceful protest.
2 (4m 39s):
There's also been violence along the way, but with George Floyd's murder two weeks ago, what was spurned was also a global movement. We've had over a hundred thousand coronavirus deaths here in the United States. We've witnessed the murder of George Floyd and the resulting rage and despair and protest against injustice. And yet what I think we are entering right now is a time of hope.
2 (5m 11s):
Let me explain. Here's a man by the name of Tanya HASI coats, you may have heard of him. He's pretty famous. Now he won the MacArthur genius grant a couple of years ago. He's actually a writer for the Atlantic. He's also a writer of Marvel comic books. He's a black man and he wrote a pretty famous article for the Atlantic. A number of years ago called the case for reparations. And then he wrote a memoir that also was a bestselling book called between the world and me. And when coats wrote between the world and me, I remember reading it and thinking I do not share his hopelessness.
2 (5m 48s):
He's an atheist. And it seemed really clear to me that he looked at the world through the lens of a man who does not believe in God. And therefore does not believe that love will win in the end. And yet it was really important for me to be willing to receive that hopelessness as a white person, who's experienced our nation very differently than his experience as a black man, I needed to be able to at least begin to understand or glimpse what it felt like for him.
2 (6m 22s):
And yet I heard an interview that Tallahassee coats did with Ezra Klein over the weekend. At least that's when I listened to it in which he said, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I feel really hopeful. I feel really hopeful right now. And we talked about the reasons he felt hopeful in the wake of these protests. And he talked about the scope of it, that this is global and across the nation, not just local in one city, not just in Minneapolis, that has been persistent.
2 (6m 53s):
Even after the police officer who killed George Floyd was indicted. The protests continued and it's been diverse. This is not just a group of black people who are protesting for their rights, but also a diverse community of white and black and other people of color who are together standing in solidarity and in protest of the systemic injustices and inequities that many African Americans have faced and people of color have faced in our nation.
2 (7m 28s):
For so many years, I share a ton of HASI coats is hope there a lot to be sad about right now. There's a lot to be angry about. There's a lot to be fearful of, but I also want to pay attention to this hopeful moment and to the hopefulness of this moment, the way I'm seeing that is in really small steps, really small steps that some of the people I know the white people I know are taking in order to participate in the undoing of injustice in our country.
2 (8m 4s):
So I'm getting emails from people, uh, from an older white man in a Bible study in Virginia, who said, you know what? We're starting to think about what's going on here in our city in terms of injustice and what it means for us to participate in the love of God instead of defending ourselves as white men. I'm seeing hope when I hear from a white woman who lives nearby and who said, you know, I heard it suggested that one of the things we could do is call police officers and express our support for them and ask if they would have conversations about their tactics to deescalate violence in their, in our communities.
2 (8m 47s):
And so she did that and she had a 45 minute conversation with someone in her local police department. And she was building bridges of care and concern for people in her community, with the police officers who are there to serve them. I heard from a young woman who has been working in corporate America for an number of years and who has been advocating for investments being made in companies that are run by people of color for years. And it's never happened this past week.
2 (9m 18s):
She told her boss that he could expect her resignation unless they were ready to move on that decision and desire to invest in those companies. I heard from friends who are on a local board of directors, who said we are unwilling to serve on a board of directors any longer. That is only represented by white people. When we say that the communities we want to serve are far more diverse than who we are. I could go on and on in talking about the people who've reached out to me on Instagram and Facebook and through Twitter and email saying, what books should I read?
2 (9m 58s):
What books should I offer to my kids? Where can I give money? What can I do to participate in this work of undoing injustice? They're all small steps. And I'm aware of that. But what I'm also aware of is that hope begins with small steps, hope begins with small steps because we're turning in a new direction. We're headed somewhere together. And so I was so encouraged to hear Tanase coats say, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I am hopeful.
2 (10m 32s):
I don't think it's just that we have reason to hope right now, but we in a somewhat collective way have reason to need God. Right now, we've just come through a time and are continuing to endure a time of great sorrow and suffering. And it's in the times of sorrow and suffering that we confront our human need, our need for each other, our need for safety and security, our need for God. Those are thin places. I used to have a blog.
2 (11m 2s):
It was called thin places, which comes from this idea out of Celtic Christianity. The idea is that there are like actual physical spaces where you can go and it's kind of like Holy or mystical. And you have some experience where having an earth touch, but I've often thought about thin places as moments or experiences or even seasons of life where having an earth seemed to touch. It was a thin place for me to be with my mother-in-law.
2 (11m 33s):
When she was dying, it was a thin place for me. When our daughter, penny was born and diagnosed with down syndrome, these edges of our human experience, death and birth and suffering and great love push us into thin places where we can actually pause a minute and see the work of God. Even if we don't have a name for it. Paul lived in a thin place 2000 years ago.
2 (12m 3s):
He was living in a jail cell again. Um, but he was living in the presence of God from that cell. And we see that and every sentence of this letter. So I want to read this final passage from Philippians chapter four, verses 10 through 23. And talk about what this has to say to us right now. There are some famous verses in this passage about Paul learning to be content and doing all things through Christ who strengthens him.
2 (12m 33s):
And I want to talk about what those mean and how they apply to us now. So here it is, verse 10. I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived your concern for me, indeed. You were concerned for me, but had no opportunity to show it. Not that I am referring to being in need for, I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty in any and all circumstances. I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry of having plenty and of being in need.
2 (13m 9s):
I can do all things through him who strengthens me in any case, it was kind of you to share my distress. You Philippians indeed know that in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you alone. For even when I was in Thessaloniki, I, you sent me help for my needs more than once. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit that accumulates to your account, or I have been paid in full and have more than enough.
2 (13m 42s):
I am fully satisfied. Now that I have received from a puffer, ditis the gifts you sent a fragrant, offering a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours. According to his riches in glory, in Christ Jesus, to our God and father be glory forever and ever amen. Greet every Saint in Christ Jesus, the friends who are with me greet you, all of the saints greet you, especially those of the emperor's household, the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ, be with your spirit as always.
2 (14m 25s):
There's a lot that we could talk about in this passage, but I just want to hone in on a couple of verses. The first is this idea that Paul has learned how to be content, whatever he has, the word contentment actually is related back to the word contained contentment contained. It has a sense of being held together. So instead of letting circumstances, good or bad, uh, terrorists apart, instead of letting circumstances help have us unravel.
2 (14m 58s):
So you can imagine circumstances. I've had both of these in my life that feel like they're tearing us apart, that they're painfully pulling us out of sorts with ourselves and indicates in disorder. Or you can imagine potentially more of a slow burn, right? Where we're just unraveling day after day after day, the things are just dropping and falling apart. Contentment is a sense of being held together, being held together by what indoors, by what remains.
2 (15m 28s):
And so that really is again, pointing in just an indirect way to the love of God that which always remains in, which always holds us, even when we do not have the eyes to see it. And how is it that Paul is able to be content in a prison cell, not knowing whether he will live or die? Well, he says that the secret is that he can do all things through him who strengthens me. There are a couple of things implied in that passage, which I'm pretty sure when I was a teenager I had on like a little hard taped to a mirror in my room.
2 (16m 7s):
But I think I understand it better now as an adult, what does it mean to do all things? What does it mean to be strengthened by God? Well, there are couple of things, at least that it means one is that I'm not strengthened by myself. There's an admission of weakness and of need that Paul is doing by saying that he's strengthened by Christ and all of us come to a place where we feel as though we are not content, we are falling apart.
2 (16m 37s):
It is unraveling for many of us. That's what this season has been. And it's in that place of neediness that we can come face to face with God and ask the question. Are you big enough to put it back together? Are you big enough to hold me and hold this world and hold these relationships and hold this brokenness and mend it. If we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, then we have to admit our own weakness and our own need.
2 (17m 11s):
But then from that place of weakness and need, we tap into the power of God. Whenever Paul is talking about the power of God, he's talking about this power that raised Jesus from the dead. It is a creative power, like nothing we've ever seen before. It is the power of new life. It is the power of resurrection. And so of course, even the hardest circumstances can be faced with contentment with a sense of, yes, I have still been held together, even in the midst of my need.
2 (17m 48s):
The last thing I'll say about this first, I can do all things through him who strengthens me is that it is personal. The strengthening that God gives is for us, it's not vague and abstract and general it's for us as communities and it's for us as individuals. And I think about what it means for God to be the one who strengthens us. And I think there are at least three aspects to what it means to be strengthened by God. One is to be protected where there is a strength that comes through the same protection that guards, our hearts and minds.
2 (18m 25s):
We talked about that last week, the same protection that the psalmists pray for when they pray that God would hide them in the shadow of his wings or in the shelter of his tower. God, as a refuge, God, as a fortress God as a protector, that's part of what it means to be strengthened by God is to be protected by God. But when we are protected by God, we can be vulnerable. There's almost an irony there, but there's a freedom.
2 (18m 57s):
When we know that protection, as Paul is writing about here to be needy, there's a freedom to not have every material desire, satisfied, and even to be hungry or to be homeless or to be in prison. All of those things, you can still be held together and strengthened by the power of God's love, but it allows us to be in that vulnerable place. Open-hearted ready to give love, ready to suffer alongside other people and not to withdraw into protecting ourselves.
2 (19m 38s):
It allows us to be openhearted in the sense of a readiness to receive criticism and correction and to new ideas, new, exciting ideas as well. And I'm wondering, I might be stretching things here, but I think this works, that when we are protected by God, we actually are free because we don't have to protect ourselves. We're free to love in a different way. We're free to love.
2 (20m 8s):
And I think this comes up in two different ways of being openhearted to other people. One is we're open to the criticisms of other people, open to the new ideas that others might bring our way open to correction. Like we're open to receive because we don't have to defend ourselves. The strength we have is coming from God and not from our own sense of accomplishment or perfection or goodness, but from who God is, and God's deep love for us.
2 (20m 41s):
So we are openhearted in that sense, but also openhearted in the sense that we're ready to give love. Because again, the, and the power of that love is coming from God, into us, through us and out to other people. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. It's an admission of weakness and need, it's an opportunity to tap into God's power. And it is a way to be both protected and open hearted, open to what is happening in and through our own lives and in, and through the lives of those around us.
2 (21m 21s):
So Paul writes about contentment. He writes about this source of strength and he kind of says, Hey, I'm all set. I don't need anything. All I need is the love of Christ and the power of God. I'm I'm, I'm good. And then he says in this kind of convoluted passage, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Because you cared for me. You sent me money and nobody else has done that. You have sent help for my needs more than once. And we look back at all the times throughout this letter, when Paul has called them his beloved and has expressed his joy in partnership with the Philippians.
2 (22m 1s):
And we see that that comes up here because yes, Christ is sufficient. Jesus has given him all he needs. God has strengthened him. God has protected him. And guess what? While God is everything that he needs, he also needs other people. And this is a theme that runs throughout Philippians. And we've been able to talk about it here. The centrality of who God is. It all comes back to who God is, father, son, and spirit.
2 (22m 34s):
The love that fuels the universe that has been made manifest to us most, particularly in Jesus, in his life and in his sacrificial death of humble love for humankind and did his resurrection by the power of love. So that's a central theme of Philippians, the centrality of Christ, but then we've also got this sense of mutual love for one another as human beings who make up the body of Christ.
2 (23m 5s):
And we see that again in this passage that Paul is dependent solely upon God for all that he needs. And he knows that the way God works is through other people. And so he needs those other people too. And so do we, if there's anything that I think this season in American life has shown it is that we need one another. And that the ways in which we have torn the social fabric over many generations, that we want it to be repaired.
2 (23m 40s):
And I pray, especially for Christians, especially for people who claim the same source of strength, of protection, of contentment, and of love that we can bind one another up, that we can see the ways in which God wants to heal our divisions and hold us together. That's our task. As we move forward, small steps towards hope and healing, small steps towards a world in which we glorify the God of love.
2 (24m 19s):
I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, that I'm going to be starting a new season, which is somewhat unexpected. I'll be honest. I thought that I was going to be taking a summer vacation from the podcast and working on a new book, actually. And then when George Floyd was murdered a couple of weeks ago, I realized that the book I wrote a couple of years ago, white picket fences was really relevant again. And a lot of people are bringing it to their churches and to their communities and saying, we need to talk about this.
2 (24m 53s):
We need to talk about race and class and disability and privilege, and we need to do it in a gentle way. We need to do it through a story. That's the thing about white picket fence is it's a book that tells my story and I hope invites other people into that story without judgment. But if you can find yourself there, then maybe you can take, again, some of your own steps towards acknowledging the harm that these social divisions have done to each of us personally, and to us collectively, and see that the point of acknowledging that harm is to be able to move together towards healing.
2 (25m 31s):
So I've had this dream for a long time of doing a podcast season around white picket fences, where each chapter corresponds with an interview with someone who is either in the chapter that it corresponds to, or I've had conversations that reflect those themes. And I'm really excited because that's what I'm going to get to do. I'm going to get to practice interviewing you all will get to hear me practice interviewing, but I'm going to get to have conversations with some friends about race and class and disability and privilege and the love of God and what it means to embrace our common humanity and celebrate the diverse expressions of that humanity.
2 (26m 17s):
And it's going to be an opportunity to ask the question and I hope to come together in an even more clear way on the answer that love is stronger than fear. There'll be a trailer for white picket fences that drops for those of you who subscribe to this podcast later this week. And then next Tuesday, the first interview with my friend, David Bailey, who is a black man from Richmond, Virginia, who does reconciliation work churches. That first interview will drop next Tuesday.
2 (26m 47s):
I hope you'll tune in. Share with your friends, tell other people about this new season. And also if you haven't already by white picket fences, start reading, tell other people about that and possibly consider a summer book club, a summer discussion group. This is a way to engage the issues of injustice, social division, and all that harms us in our current cultural moment and to do so with an eye towards love and hope and healing.
2 (27m 21s):
I'm really excited about this. I'm very nervous for it, and I hope you'll join me. Thanks so much for listening.
1 (27m 33s):
Thanks again for tuning in to the love is stronger than fear podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast, you can find more resources at my website, Amy, Julia, becker.com. And if you found today's episode helpful, please share it with friends and take a minute to rate and review it wherever you find your podcasts. See you next week.