Once a month, usually at my house, a group of clergy and their families gather to eat a meal and socialize. On a Saturday evening each month, folks will arrive with a dish to share and children running around. We gather around what’s often a taco bar or other Mexican fare. Quickly, all of Carter’s paw patrol toys are all over the house, as two of the children in particular love paw patrol. In fact, for a while we were the, “paw patrol house.” I make entirely too many bad puns. Can we taco bout that? The children run feral, in the words of one of the clergy, in and out of the house. My chess set becomes a war zone. The decanters on my bar gradually drain. 

And through it all, we share life together. We talk shop a bit, share about the similar struggles we face with kids’ schedules and expenses, with church struggles and difficulties, share stories, laugh together, and when there’s challenge, we support each other. It’s a small group or a Sunday School class by another name. And it’s one of the highlights of the month for me. 

Rejoice! Paul says in our scripture. And then he says, “I will say it again, Rejoice!” And together as clergy families, we do rejoice. For a time, anxieties melt away and we know the peace of God that guards our hearts and our minds. Because of our fellowship, we are better equipped to go and serve the world, bringing the peace of God that guards our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.

That’s the power of sharing life together with good friends. 

Let’s hear our scripture for this morning from Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, chapter 4. 

Scripture

Across the country, there’s a crisis of loneliness unfolding. You may have caught some of the same articles I have expressing this. People experiencing loneliness tend to experience high levels of anxiety and depression. Loneliness is also linked to higher levels of stress in life and thus can be thought of as a proximate cause of stress-related diseases like hypertension. Loneliness is growing, too, and that’s especially true the younger you are. 

Article after article expresses that we’re becoming more lonely as a society. Some are starting to talk about a crisis, or an epidemic, of loneliness, expressing concern for both the mental and physical health of Americans across the country. I read an article just this morning about this phenomenon. The author shares that for most people, friendships are forged at work or when engaged in activities like travel ball or board meetings. And when we change those activities, which we as Americans tend to do frequently, when we leave the board or our child stops playing that sport or we change jobs, we lose our friendships. Such that when crisis comes, many of us have few friends to whom we can turn. 

Certainly, in my line of work, I encounter loneliness more and more often. Psychologists and sociologists say we need an average of four close friends for our mental and spiritual health. And that most Americans, most of us, have fewer than that number. These data resonate with my lived experience from working in a helping profession.

But we must ask ourselves: how can loneliness be on the rise when most of us are more connected than ever? 

We’re connected through all sorts of channels. We have social media that keeps us connected. Not that long ago, if you wanted to talk to someone, the only means you had was to call their house or office or stop by in person. Now, you can text them, email them, DM them, or call them. It’s infinitely easier to reach someone today and for us to be reached by others. We’re more connected than ever.

Then, we’re busier than ever, interacting with people in all of our busy ways. We have more obligations, more functions, more board meetings, more community leadership to attend to. We may have more meetings that ever at work. If we have children or grandchildren, we are busier than ever rushing them from thing to thing to thing.  

And in all of those meetings and obligations, we see people. We might chat with someone at the soccer field while our kids play. We see board members at the table and chat with them. We have coworkers. We say hi to folks at the store. And if we’re not chatting with the people we see, then we’re probably on our phones, responding to emails or texts from other people or scrolling social media, seeing what others are doing. We’re more connected to others than ever before.

In so many ways, we’re connected to other people. And yet, the truth remains that we as Americans are becoming lonelier, and experiencing all the negative side-effects that go with loneliness: depression, anxiety, hopelessness, tribalism even, hypertension, and above all more and more stress, along with all the ways stress impacts the body. 

With all the ways we’re connected, how can that be? 

Paul’s words here in our scripture this morning are famous. Growing up, whenever I was worried about something, someone would quote these verses to me. My primary friend group in high school was mostly girls and I’d often get little notes from them that had this verse decorated with flowers and in some sparkly gel ink. I’ve heard this scripture from pulpits and in bible studies as a formula for how to not worry: take everything to God in prayer, choose to not worry, and God’s peace will dwell with you. And I’m sure you, like me, have discovered that such a formula is not very effective. 

We usually cite and quote this scripture to ourselves or others to talk about individual worries and stressors. Things that are giving me or you trouble internally.

But such wasn’t Paul’s intention when writing. He wasn’t talking to an individual, nor giving individuals a formula for how to not worry. No; his purpose was quite different.

At the start of the scripture, we meet two women: Euodia and Syntyche. I want you to know, I practiced saying those names out loud. Euodia and Syntyche have apparently been stirring up trouble with what they’re preaching. The church in Philippi was probably started as a women’s prayer group by Lydia, the famous dealer in purple cloth from Acts 16. The church grew and Paul began to shepherd it. Euodia and Syntyche, we hear from Paul, have been co-laborers for the gospel with him. They’re leaders. Perhaps they’re pastors. And they’ve come to believe or do something that has stirred up dissension and division in the church in Philippi. 

Apparently, some people in the church want to kick these two out. They think that there’s no reengaging them. The church is torn up about what to do. Factions have broken out. Relationships are broken. Hurt and harm are being done. Certainly, we can relate to this: we’ve all known of churches who have bickered and fought and the harm that comes of that. And the Philippian church is no different: they’re struggling, they have anxiety about their future, they’re worried about how to resolve this division. 

Paul writes to them, says to keep Euodia and Syntyche in the church because they’ve been such good co-laborers, and then says the famous words, “rejoice!…do not be anxious about anything…present your requests to God…and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds…” 

Paul’s words here are directed to the whole church. How do they get over their division? How do they move past their dissension? Rejoice! Celebrate what’s going right! Pray together about what’s going wrong. And experience the peace of Christ, the one that passes all understandings, even divisions over having the right understandings. In rejoicing in community, together, as one church, they will come to experience the peace of Christ that will guard their hearts and their minds against further division and dissension. 

They lived in an anxious time. Paul’s prescription was to live life in community, sharing in life together by celebrating what’s going right and praying together about what’s going wrong. That’s the power of sharing life together with good friends.

We also live in an anxious time. And increasingly so as we become more lonely. Paul’s prescription to us is the same as to the church in Philippi: share in life together with good friends, by celebrating what’s going right and praying together about what’s going wrong. That’s the power even for us today of having people with whom we can share our lives; relationships that stay constant despite our ever-changing jobs, obligations, and commitments.

This scripture, often presented as about individual worries and anxieties, is actually about how to find relief from what ails us, from depression and stress, through sharing life together in community. What we’ve thought of as a formula for release of our cares on an individual basis is actually a call to be sure we’re in close communion with others; that we have close friends with whom we can share in all of life’s ups and downs. 

God created us as social beings. To know the peace of Christ, the one that Paul speaks so elegantly of in our scripture this morning, we must have good friends who are present in our lives regardless of our ever-shifting obligations, commitments, and jobs.

When we gather as clergy families once a month, anxiety does dissipate. Sometimes, we talk about things that we cannot talk about with anyone else because we as clergy uniquely understand the challenges and difficulties. When we do, anxiety dissipates and peace reigns. Sometimes, we talk about challenges we’re experiencing. When we do, anxiety dissipates and peace reigns. That’s the power of gathering in community; the power of sharing life with good friends.

The same is true for my S3 group. This is a group of seven of us who share life together, along with our families. We’ve been together eight years now and become like brothers. When we share in each other’s struggles, anxiety dissipates and peace reigns. 

While none of us live in the same town, we still make the effort to stay connected to each other. All of us have changed churches, many of us have had significant life changes, and yet we’ve remained in close friendship with each other. Because that’s how God designed us to work: we need each other and we need those firm friendships that last regardless of our obligations and workplaces. We need friendships that transcend our busy lifestyles. 

That’s especially true when hardship strikes. All of us have known and will know tragedy in our lives. All of us have known and will know division and terrible conflict in our lives. All of us have known and will know suffering. And God designed us to get through those times of struggle, those hardships, by having a group of close friends, a community of support like a Sunday School class or a small group.

When we gather in this way, when we make time for socializing and sharing life together, when we celebrate together and pray together, anxiety dissipates, peace reigns, and we experience the power of Paul’s words here. 

But we feel the demands of obligation and the pressures of commitments we’ve made. That can lead to having our priorities upside down: placing obligations ahead of sharing life together with others. When that happens, loneliness and all its accoutrements settles in. We feel alone in the ways we struggle, we feel alone with the challenges we face, we feel alone in the depths of our souls. Our interactions with others in board rooms, on soccer fields, via social media, and all the ways we’re connected are shallow. We need a group with whom we can be deep, sharing in life together, supporting each other. We need a small group, a Sunday School class; a group of people in a similar stage of life with whom we can share life. And when we do, we grow in our ability to offer peace to the world because we experience that peace in a way that can only come through being in community with good friends. 

The wisdom of Paul’s words to the church in Philippi comes through for us today: it’s in sharing life together that we find the strength to face the challenges of life. It’s in sharing life together that we find release from the anxieties that press in. It’s in sharing life together that we find the peace that we’re all searching for. It’s in sharing life together that we grow stronger as a family. It’s in sharing life together that we grow as healers, so that we can go and bring the presence of Christ into our community. 

Loneliness is a real problem. But here at church, we have the solution; the means to heal this broken place. Small groups and Sunday School classes are a great way to experience the power of growing with others, discovering peace and reason to rejoice as Paul says here. The clergy group I mentioned and my S3 group are small groups for me. These are primary communities where I share life together; where anxiety dissipates and the peace of God reigns. They are several of my close friendships. We need these kinds of groups and, here at Mulberry, we have several and we stand ready to form new ones so that each of us can experience the peace of Christ that comes from sharing life together with good friends.

Grow is the focus of stewardship for this week. Last week, we called each other to be present in worship weekly; to be transformed by our regular encounter with God in worship. This week, the call is to grow in our faith by joining a small group or a Sunday School class. We expect every Mulberrian to be a part of a small group or Sunday School class. That, like last week, is a high standard, but we are setting high standards because we believe not only in what we do here, but in the power of living together as a community. 

This may require that we reorient our lives by prioritizing small group times or Sunday School at the expense of obligations. When I became convicted that I needed this and reordered my life, it required that I quit some boards and other obligations. Such is hard, but from my experience, I share with you that it’s worth it. It’s much better to do less, to be less of a leader, to have our children be less involved, to say no more often than we say yes to obligations, so that we can say yes to our friends, yes to a small group or Sunday School class, and find a life that is marked by greater peace and the friendships that will sustain us through life’s hardships. That’s a radical reordering of life if we’ve been more prone to sacrifice church or times to hang out with friends because of our schedules. But, in the end, I have no doubt we’ll find that it’s worth it.

As with last week, we have a survey for you to complete. Here’s a problem I would love to have: to have so many of you respond that you want a group like this that we have to form several new ones. Give me that problem to solve. These groups are so important because it’s here that we not only combat loneliness, it’s in these kinds of groups that we grow as people because we find healing for the woes of our soul. To grow as healers, as our stewardship theme says, we must grow with others by sharing life together. For its in those bonds that we find healing for what ails us and can then go and offer that healing, that peace, to others.

And, if you have not already done so, make a pledge for your gift to the church next year. The more funding we have, the better we can support these small groups and Sunday School classes. With your monthly gift, we can provide childcare services, a stipend for food, curricula, and other needs as they arise. It would be great to give each new small group a small budget, so they can dream about what they can do together. But that requires regular giving by each of us. Pledge cards are available at usher stations, were mailed to you about two weeks ago now, and are available online at mulberrymethodist.org/stewardship. Please return by dropping in the offering plate, dropping off at the office, mailing it back to us, or completing the online form. In fact, I highly recommend the online form because it makes regular giving super simple.

If you’ve got a group already that fits the bill, a group of people with whom you share life, hold them close. Make them a priority. Don’t let other obligations get in the way. And if you don’t have a group, choose to radically reorder your life. Complete the survey in your bulletin, sign up for one today, and make attendance there a high priority.

God designed us to live in community with one another. God designed us like the church in Philippi: to share life together, even if that means sometimes the group has discord or division. God designed us to discover the peace of God and a release of anxiety from sharing our struggles and celebrating our triumphs together in community. God designed us to grow as healers for others by being healed through sharing life together with good friends. 

When we do, when we have such a community, our hearts will naturally say with the apostle Paul, “Rejoice! I will say it again, rejoice!” 

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Amen.