A sermon by Pastor Noel Anderson at First Presbyterian Church of Upland

         TEXT: PHILIPPIANS 4: 8  NRSV 
8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.  †

etter to light a candle than to curse the darkness,” goes the old saying, wrongly attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt by Adlai Stevenson. Actually, the saying is older than that and derives from the Chinese Proverb:

'Don't curse the darkness - light a candle.

The effect of this is to say, “Quit griping; just do something useful!” The implication is that we should have an attitude of doing something positive rather than waste time complaining about what is wrong.

It is so easy to curse the darkness! People spend a lot of time doing it. Do you ever watch the news? What is political commentary but darkness-cursing? Usually, all the darkness is cursed on the other side of the aisle! Being critical is easy, and I’ll confess, I’ve found dark pleasure in it in my past. As editor of my college newspaper, cursing the darkness was stock-in-trade for the editorial pages, and blogging has made it easy for absolutely anyone to become an inveterate darkness curser. It doesn’t bring out our best, and it certainly calls out the worst in everyone else.

Better that we should shift our focus to lighting candles. We find this same sentiment expressed in Romans 13:12:

The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

We heard the children of the church sing “This Little Light of Mine” this morning. It is a perfect lesson for us as well. Our verse from Philippians gives us seven little lights—seven candles—that we can light instead of cursing darkness.

1. whatever is TRUE

The Greek word for true is alethea. The problem with truth today is that we aren’t all agreed that there even is “a” truth. We hear instead about “my” truth and “your” truth. People “live their truth” as a way of giving themselves license for whatever they want to do.

Let’s be clear: there is “a” truth. I’m not saying anyone in particular has a handle on it, but to say that there are only our own, little, relative truths is to say that everything is chaos. If there is not a truth with a capital T, then all the little truths—yours and mine—are meaningless and matter nothing.

One of the finest things that can be said about a thinker (that’s all of us) is that he or she has an unswerving dedication to truth. As Paul calls us firstly to consider “whatever is true,” let us be the people with unswerving dedication to truth.

2. whatever is HONORABLE

The word we translate to honorable means something like serious, of good character, worthy, and/or respectable. I would like us to return to that word we’ve mentioned before: noble. When we meditate on what is noble (a worthy translation, I think), we become mindful of all that is upright and good. To consider what is noble (as well as all these virtues) is an excellent basis for Christian ethics. I’ll give you an example:

When I was a youth pastor in Oklahoma, the Session of the church proposed to make a strong pro-life statement. Although I resonate with much of their position, I opposed the measure on the grounds that it was useless. “If a 16-year-old girl gets pregnant, she’s not going to come to the Session; she’s going to come to me. Having a policy doesn’t help.” It seemed to me useless to counsel a pregnant girl by saying, “Well, you know, our Session has a strong opinion against abortion.”

Too often, asking if something is right or wrong is useless—it just gets people into an ethical debate during which each side supports itself—plus, few pregnant girls have been dissuaded by someone wagging their finger at them and saying, “But it is wrong!” The Session asked me what I would do in such a case.

While I am loathe to imagine the case, I am aware that how I feel about an issue gathered with the Session in righteous indignation over pro-choice excesses, I would feel very different while counseling a weeping girl whose trust I had fought hard to win and who trusts me to advise her in the situation.

I said to the Session: “I would like to stand with Paul in Philippians 4:8, so I would ask her, ‘What is the most noble thing you could do? As you thoughtfully and prayerfully work through this, consider the most noble, the most excellent thing you could possibly do, and I will stand with you.’”

We do well to consider what is the most noble course of action in any ethical quandary, and we are likely to arrive at a better, more useful kind of answer than to merely apply an easy legalism.

3. whatever is JUST

The word in both Greek and Hebrew that we translate to just can also be translated righteous, and vice versa. That means whenever we see the word justice, we can rightly and legitimately replace it with the word righteousness.

Justice—which we all love, I would hope—has taken on enormous political cargo in our time. The Presbyterian Book of Order upholds as one of its great ends: The Promotion of Social Righteousness. In practice, many Presbyterians inwardly translate this as the promotion of Social Justice, which is legitimate, though I fear its full understanding is reduced to its popular, limited incarnations.

We need a new word: justice/righteousness or righteousness/justice. This would properly represent the biblical witness, we need to keep these notions wedded inseparably together. There is no justice that is not also righteousness—alignment with God’s will and Word—and there is no righteousness that is not also embodied in justice. Wedding these two terms together into one demands that we not merely seek the good of human flourishing without equally pursuing the will and glorification of God. Something to think about.

4. whatever is PURE

Purity can be thought of as chastity, integrity, or innocence. It contains all three, but I’d like to focus on innocence.

The world doesn’t believe much in innocence; they call it naivety. Modern culture has made big business out of violating innocence: we call it entertainment.

For over fifty years, “serious” movies deliver their impact precisely by violating the innocence of viewers, and as we become inured, our sensitivities weaken and fall away altogether.

When Clark Gable, in Gone With the Wind, said, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn,” newspapers reported that viewers had fainted in the theater aisles across the country. Today? Well, I just used it in a sermon and not a single eyebrow raised.

Innocence is not naivety but a virtue. It is that which enables us to feel shock or wonder. The good news is that no matter what your past or past experience, God can restore your innocence—he can refill your soul’s tank with childlike wonder. We should long for this innocence, protect it in our children and grandchildren (as is our instinct), and promote it in American culture.

Innocence is a goodness. It is a purity, and worthy of our meditations as well as our unswerving defense.

5. whatever is LOVELY

This is a great word, but it doesn’t mean lovely as in rather pretty; it means pleasant, or that which moves toward love.

I love Jimmy Stewart. Because it doesn’t matter, I won’t mention that he was a lifelong Presbyterian, but his favorite role in his favorite movie was playing Elwood in Harvey. There’s a brilliant scene wherein Elwood is being tracked down and he is calm as a cucumber. It is revealed he has advanced academic degrees, though he seems like something of a simpleton. When confronted, he says:

“My mother used to say to me that in this world you either have to be extremely smart or extremely pleasant. I started out with smart, but now I’d rather be pleasant. My advice to you is to be pleasant, and you can quote me on that.”

I spent too many years enjoying being a snarky college writer and after that a snarky blogger. I’m done with that as well. I’d rather be pleasant, and I think we all enjoy an improved world and existence if we are to consider “whatever is lovely,” and keep ourselves and others moving toward love.

6. whatever is GRACIOUS

The Greek word is euphemy, which is kind of the anti-word to blasphemy. Whatever is gracious refers to things worthy of commendation, a positive word, and a good dose of praise. To praise what is good is a direct way of lighting a candle in the darkness. As much as we may like to call attention to things that are wrong or off-base, we do better to focus on the things which we and others are glad to lift up, honor, and extol.

7. if there is any EXCELLENCE or anything WORTHY of PRAISE

The word for excellence is literally virtue, which fits into this series perfectly. That which is good is  worthy of our meditation and judgment. We are to consider what is excellent and worthy of praise, holding these things up as lights in the darkness.

THINK ABOUT THESE

Paul says “think about” these, but it is much more than thinking about things. The tense of the Greek verb denotes a continuous practice of consideration. We don’t just think about them today, but tomorrow, next month, next year, and next decade. We are in fact to dwell on these things. To dwell on them means to set up these things—these seven candles of virtue—as the way we look at the world and at one another.

In dwelling upon these virtues, something happens to us. We find our appetites changing. We seek these things and we find them, and once we find them, we eat and are fulfilled and satisfied. These things—these good things—are our true soul food. They are the things that truly satisfy us and as they become our diet, we become a new kind of people, transformed the work of these things in our lives.

All the abundance Jesus intends for us is made available to us here at his table. We are told to take and to eat—in so doing we partake of the mysteries of the Holy Spirit. We are fed and become complete. We can trust this meal; it is made for us!†