Sunday, November 1, 2020

Anything Worthy of Praise: Sermon on Philippians 4:8-9

A few decades ago, on a mountain in northeastern Greece, overlooking the sea, there stood an old man. Born under the name Arsenios, in becoming a monk he'd traded that name for Paisios. And he was renowned as a wise elder, a true servant of Jesus Christ. With his flowing gray beard and black robe, he lived by himself – a hermit in his hut. And it wasn't uncommon for visitors to come see him – pilgrims bringing him their problems and their questions, inquirers indulging their curiosity, and the like. He stood, facing the glittering blue waters far below, as a young man unburdened himself of his thought life to him. Paisios had to admit to himself that it was harder for him on the days when visitors came – he'd think, after they left, “My mind is filled with all sorts of things, and it is difficult to remove them.”1 And yet, out of love for his Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Paisios would shoulder those burdens. He listened attentively to the young man who'd approached him on this great holy mountain. The young man was having disturbed and agitated thoughts, setting his mind on things that troubled him about the news of the world, reading and viewing and hearing things did not encourage him.

And Paisios spoke. “If you ask a fly,” he said, “whether there are any flowers in the area, the fly will say, 'I do not know about flowers, but over there in that heap of rubbish, you can find all the filth you want!' And it will go on to list all the unclean things it has been to. Now, if you ask a honeybee, 'Have you seen any unclean things in this area?', it will reply, 'Unclean things? No, I have not seen any; the place is full of the most fragrant flowers.' And it will go on to name all the flowers of the garden or meadow. You see, the fly only knows where the unclean things are, while the honeybee knows where the beautiful iris or hyacinth is. Some people resemble the honeybee, and some resemble the fly. Those who resemble the fly seek to find evil in every circumstance and are preoccupied with it; they see no good anywhere. But those who resemble the honeybee only see the good in everything they see. … Since you usually see everything in a negative way, place a big question mark after every single one of your thoughts, and spare a good thought for others, in order to avoid being wrong in your judgments.”2 So spoke Paisios, the Greek monk. Meanwhile, in Serbia, another monk named Thaddeus was reflecting on the world, and how we are “surrounded by many unpleasant things in life which destroy our inner peace”3 – things which will tempt us to be like the fly and flock to them, when we could be a honeybee among the flowers which God has caused to bloom in the field of his creation.

Truth is, you are what you eat – and that doesn't just go for what your stomach digests. It goes for what your mind and heart digest, the things you eat not with your mouth but with your eyes and ears. Each and every one of us, in one way or another, consumes media. Maybe books, maybe television, maybe movies, maybe radio, maybe billboards and signs; and each one of us also consumes the voices of others. And we have a tendency to fixate on some of what we consume. We digest it in our minds and hearts and souls, and its constituent pieces become parts of us, entering our thought life, entering our heart life. And if we are more fly than honeybee, if we linger over what's unclean in the world, it cannot help but hurt us.

Evidence has been mounting over sixty years, for instance, that exposure to violent media – whatever its form – increases the risk of people, be they children or adults, developing more aggressive and violent patterns of behavior over the long term; and not only that, but the effect is strong enough that violent media stands as much of a threat to public health as fattening foods or diseases or even cigarettes. And there's plenty of violence in the media many of us consume. Additionally, a few years ago it was estimated that over 80% of all movies and TV programs now have sexual content. And research is clear that heavier exposure to such media content has troubling effects: it inclines viewers to uncouple their beliefs about sex from healthy relationships, to increasingly hold men and women to different standards, to view relationships with the opposite sex in terms of competition instead of cooperation, and to act in more sexually promiscuous ways.

And then there's the news. Over a century ago, some insightful journalists were already worried that the news media's penchant for sensationalism would be a corrupting influence. One troubled journalist wrote, “We do not want the imaginations of rational and decent people clouded with the horrors of some obscene insanity which has no more to do with human life than the man in Bedlam who thinks he is a chicken.”4 And yet that's exactly what news media has often given us. The news media frequently divides us, and it also wounds us. Just a 14-minute segment of sad news has been shown to not only make viewers sadder and more anxious about the topic of the broadcast, but sadder and more anxious about unrelated personal matters. The American Psychological Association did a survey and discovered that not only did a majority of Americans say that consuming news media stressed them out, but many said the news made them anxious, fatigued, even made it harder to get a good night's sleep. A year ago, 66% of Americans said they felt worn out by the relentless barrage of the news cycle. Shortly after that survey, the coronavirus came along. And by April, nearly half of all Americans said that the pace of news about it was negatively impacting their peace of mind. All of this, and you can probably verify it yourself: How often do you really feel happier and healthier after spending time watching, listening to, or reading the news?

But that's nothing new to 2020. A century ago, a Russian monk named Silouan, also noted for his Christian wisdom, said, “He who would pray freely and untroubled must keep himself in ignorance of the news in newspapers … All this fills the mind with thoughts that stain, and when one would sort them out, they further and further entangle and weary the soul.”5 And that Serbian monk Thaddeus, in our own lifetimes, added, “We read the newspapers or take a walk in the streets, and afterwards we suddenly feel that something is not quite right in our souls; we feel an emptiness; we feel sadness. That is because, by reading all sorts of things, our mind becomes distracted, and the atmosphere of Hades has access to our minds.”6 To which the Greek monk Paisios adds, “Too many concerns become like spiritual parasites that separate us from God. Like static, they get in the way, and our wireless spiritual transmitters cannot give a clear signal.”7 The media we consume, the thoughts we fixate on – not only do they impact our well-being as people, they form how we live our lives, they become us. And if we are not careful to be much more honeybee than fly, it can tangle up our souls.

In today's passage, whatever he meant to say to the Philippians, the Apostle Paul has also given us some helpful guidelines for shifting our media diets and governing our thought life. He gives instructions for the things that we should “think about” (Philippians 4:8 NIV/ESV) or “think on” (KJV) – what we should mull over, what we should fixate on, what we should give the lion's share of our brain space and our attention. And first of all, Paul recommends “whatever is true.” Not what is false. Not what is unconfirmed. Not what is distorted out of all shape and recognition. But whatever is true. Paul would not advise us to give our minds to baseless rumors, or to conspiracy theories, or to propaganda, or to 'fake news.' He would tell us that, if we're to get news at all, we should care about whether it's actually true. We should verify. Fact-check the reporters, fact-check the pundits, fact-check the politicians, fact-check the professional fact-checkers. Whatever doesn't hold up to a fact check, get rid of it. Keep in your mind only what proves to be true. Because the truth is good. The truth is more like Jesus, because he is the Truth. When confronted with the choice about whether to watch that news program, turn on that radio, listen to that friend on social media, or read that part of the paper, we can ask ourselves: “Will listening to this or reading this or dwelling on this make me a better truth-teller? Will it help me be more true to the Jesus who is the Truth?” And if the answer is yes, dive right in! If the answer is no, hold up.

Second, Paul recommends “whatever is dignified.” The King James Version will tell you 'honest,' the New International Version will tell you 'noble,' and some other translations will tell you 'honorable,' but at its core, this is something that's respectable, a thing that's serious, a thing that's dignified. It's the same word Paul uses when he says that our lives should become “godly and dignified in every way” (1 Timothy 2:2). It's the same word in Proverbs for when Wisdom herself invites us, “Listen to me, for I will talk about serious things” (Proverbs 8:6 LXX). So much of what we can yield our attention to is frivolous – things that don't matter, things that aren't serious, things that don't merit being thought about or discussed in respectful and reverential ways. And then, when it comes to matters that are serious, our culture has shifted toward treating them flippantly and sarcastically. Paul's advice to us would be the opposite of that. Consider things that have a real gravity to them: weighty things, serious things, things that deserve your respect. And then think of them and talk about them with that due gravity. When it comes to choosing whether to consume that media, we can ask ourselves: “Is it worth it to listen to this or read this or dwell on this? Is it serious enough to warrant my attention? Will it help me carry myself with dignity in life? Will it help me treat people with respect?” And if the answer is yes, dive right in! If the answer is no, hold up.

Third, Paul recommends “whatever is right” (Philippians 4:8 NIV/NASB) or “just” (KJV/NRSV/ESV). This is the from the same word group as Paul's favorite noun 'righteousness' or 'justice,' and his favorite verb 'justify.' Here, he's talking about things that are not just factually correct but morally correct. It's the opposite of what is morally incorrect, what is not right, what is unjust. There is a lot of injustice and unrighteousness in the world. A Christless world is “filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice..., full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness” (Romans 1:29). “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his upper rooms by injustice, who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing and does not give him his wages” and has “eyes and heart only for [his] dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, and for practicing oppression and violence” (Jeremiah 23:13,17). And we do have to expose and name injustice, expose and name unrighteousness, testify against it in the world, and most especially when we find it in the mirror. But to dwell on the images and scenes of injustice, making them more vivid to our hearts than the images and scenes of true justice and true righteousness – that will poison us. To set righteousness and justice before ourselves is healthy. Paul would advise us to fixate, not on all that's wrong with the world, not on all that's morally incorrect in the world, but on whatever we can find that is morally correct, that is right and just. “The LORD within [Zion] is righteous, he does no injustice; every morning he shows forth his justice, each dawn he does not fail, but the unjust one knows no shame” (Zephaniah 3:5). So when it comes to consuming news that purports to present the world to us, or portrayals of behavior in the radio dramas or TV programs or films we consume, we might ask simply, “Will listening to this or watching this or reading this or dwelling on this help to shape me into a man or woman of justice and righteousness?” And if the answer is yes, dive right in! If the answer is no, hold up.

Fourth, Paul recommends “whatever is pure” (Philippians 4:8). No mystery about his meaning. Elsewhere, Paul advises Timothy that, instead of “taking part in the sins of others,” he should be careful to “keep [himself] pure” (1 Timothy 5:22), like God's “works are pure” (Proverbs 21:8 LXX). Purity is what is untainted and wholesome, set over what's scurrilous or scandalous. Remember how that Russian monk Silouan observed that news media carried the risk of filling the mind with “thoughts that stain” – thoughts that impurify the mind. And, of course, sexualized content and violent content in media carry the same risk. Before we consume media, we might ask ourselves, “Will listening to this or watching this or reading this or dwelling on this help me safeguard the purity of my eyes, my ears, my heart, my mind, and my soul?” And if the answer is yes, dive right in! If the answer is no, hold up, reconsider.

Fifth, Paul recommends “whatever is lovely” (Philippians 4:8). These are things that please, things that attract, things that are winsome, things that are easy to love. They have a certain beauty about them, in some way. We know, for instance, that the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is lovely, and the music of Beethoven is lovely, and the soaring arches of a cathedral are lovely, especially when they ring with the praises of God. But we also know that some modern art is not lovely, and some music is not lovely, and the stale concrete blocks of Soviet architecture was not lovely. Beauty is not simply in the eye of the beholder. The God we serve is a God of beauty, and his creation was meant to reflect him and point to him. While nothing has been so defaced as to lack beauty altogether, some things are lovelier than others. And we should feast our eyes and ears more on the lovely than on the unlovely. We can always ask, “Will listening to this or watching this or dwelling on this deepen my hunger for authentic beauty and blessedness?” And if the answer is yes, dive right in! If the answer is no, hold up.

Sixth, Paul recommends “whatever is commendable” (Philippians 4:8 NASB/NRSV/ESV), “admirable” (NIV) or “of good report” (KJV). Literally, it's whatever is 'good-sounding.' These aren't the faults in things; they're the opposite: the parts of things we can positively commend, the things we can hold up for admiration, the parts of life we can make a good report on. The Greek monk Paisios suggested that, for the health of our mind and our emotions, we should “always try to have good thoughts, to avoid being scandalized easily and to view the faults of others with leniency and love.”8 Now, this is difficult advice to follow when we live in a culture that's so obsessed with fault-finding. There are movements afoot to identify, not just glaring faults, but the hidden and 'micro' faults in any action, any name, any memory. And we also are awash in attack ads and acrimony! But think what a refreshing fragrance it would be, what a lovely flower in the junkyard of the political scene, to have someone focused on accenting the positive and praiseworthy? To be able to speak well for something, seeing the good, instead of to constantly be speaking against? And so, when choosing to consume media, we might ask ourselves, “Will listening to this, watching this, reading this, or dwelling on this make me readier to search for things to commend and praise?” And if the answer is yes, dive right in! If the answer is no, hold up.

Paul caps this off by saying: “If there is any excellence [or virtue], if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8). That's more general, it ties up everything he's said and broadens it. Focus on what's virtuous, focus on what's excellent, focus on anything that can fairly be praised before the face of the Lord Jesus Christ! And that's why, four election cycles ago, one British Bible scholar had to admit that this verse “runs directly opposite to the habits of mind instilled by the modern media. Read the newspapers: their stock-in-trade is anything that is untrue, unholy, unjust, impure, ugly, of ill repute, vicious, and blameworthy. Is that a true representation of God's good and beautiful world? How are you going to celebrate the goodness of the creator if you feed your mind only on the places in the world which humans have made ugly? How are you going to take steps to fill your mind instead with all the things that God has given us to be legitimately pleased with, and to enjoy and celebrate?”9

You might ask, “So how do we live out that verse?” Good question! And it has to start with Jesus Christ. At its summit, Jesus is all these things. Jesus is true, Jesus is noble, Jesus is right, Jesus is pure, Jesus is lovely, Jesus is commendable, Jesus is all excellence and all praise. His crucifixion, while it may have been human injustice and human ugliness, was, in a divine perspective, the enthronement of the good and beautiful love of the Lord; and his resurrection radiates everything good. The gospel is the true news that answers all our rumors and lies. The gospel is the weighty news that confronts our flippant and sinful ways. The gospel is the justice of God in a world of unrighteousness. The gospel is the purity that scrubs away our stains. The gospel is the loveliest story, the tale of redemption for a universe turned vicious, the saga of sacrifice that offers ultimate beauty for prodigal sons and daughters, the archetype of everything wonderful. The gospel is of infinitely good report, admirable to the extreme. The healthiest media diet we could be on is to fix our dials to the Jesus Network – all Jesus, all the time. To let Christ loom largest in our mind's eye, to let him be the central and all-consuming attachment of our heart, to dwell constantly on his gospel – that is perfect health. To consume Jesus-centered media – re-read his Gospels; listen to his teachings and his witnesses; watch his life and death and life played out in film and in the liturgies of the church and in service to the poor – that is the cornerstone of a healthy media diet.

To build on that, we add a diet of what imitates him. Paul asks the Philippians to keep in view “what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me” (Philippians 4:9). What we hear and see in the life of Paul the Apostle, that should be a key fixture of our media diet, he's telling us, because he's transmitting what he learned from Jesus. And the Apostle Paul isn't alone in that. The church has long remembered certain believers under titles like 'venerable' and 'blessed' and 'saint.' And one reason for that is that the entire church has come to recognize that they were, in some special way, imitation-worthy imitators of Christ. They are held up as special examples, not merely for a local church here or a local church there, but accepted by the whole church. Down throughout history, the church has remembered many believers as saints, and has retold their stories, portraying them in poems and paintings, in songs and sculptures. And that's because they are the heroes of the Christian life. Their lives and deaths form, or should form, the 'pop culture' of the church. Today, for about 1200 years or so, has long been recognized as the Feast of All Saints, or All Hallows' Day – which is why the night before is All Hallows' Evening, or “Hallowe'en.” It's a day to celebrate all those whose stories we ought to be recommitted to, whose examples are offered by the church to the church for our collective imitation. What we “have learned and received and heard and seen” in them should be a key way of rounding out our media diet; it would be healthy if we spent more time consuming saintly media than worldly.

But every saint's story started somewhere, somewhere local. And so, while they may not come to the attention of the church universal in the same way as those remembered with the title of 'saint,' there have been many who, to one degree or another, set before us an example worth dwelling on and imitating. You've seen Christians run a successful race to the finish line. You've seen believers keep the faith right to the end. Some are parents and mentors. Some are friends. Some are pastors. The other day, our pastor emeritus finished fighting his good fight. He finished running the bases. He's slid into home. His story is worth our telling and our retelling here; his memory is worth our mulling over. And you could perhaps hear him whisper to you the words of the Apostle: “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me – practice these things” (Philippians 4:9). He taught you much during his faithful years of ministry, he gave you much, and you heard and saw much in him. Think about and practice these things.

With our media diet and thought life built on the cornerstone of Jesus Christ and his gospel, filled with the 'pop culture' of the saints, and sprinkled with the memories and examples of those who locally lived out the example of Christ among us, we can then open our eyes and ears to the world. And there in the world, we're encouraged to search out and fixate on whatever we can find there that's true, whatever we can find that's dignified and just and pure, whatever is lovely and commendable – in short, if there's anything out there that's excellent, anything out there that's worthy of praise, then feel free to absorb that into your media diet, into your thought life. It, too, will merit some portion of your attention.

In some seasons, that's admittedly harder to find. There's a lot out there that isn't excellent. It's quite difficult to curate a healthy media diet when it comes to the influences in our environment. We look out and behold all the negativity of the coronavirus crisis, all the negativity of the political atmosphere, all the negativity of the world – it presses in against us, it presents itself relentlessly to our eyes and ears. A great deal of what clamors for our attention doesn't deserve it, at least not in the form and way it seeks to barge in. We must be discerning, but the barrage of the radio, the barrage of the television, the barrage of the silver screen, the barrage of newsprint, the barrage of signs and posters, the barrage of social media and word of mouth, the barrage even of our own minds within us, can present us with a trash tsunami. A tsunami against which only the surpassing peace of our God can guard our hearts and minds effectively (Philippians 4:7).

All the more reason, then, intentionally to be the virtue, to be the excellence. All the more reason to live so that those around you – brothers and sisters in the church, neighbors in the community – will find it easier to settle their minds on something true, settle their minds on something dignified, settle their minds on something right and pure and lovely and commendable – because they'll know you, and Jesus in you. And that's a lot easier to do as a honeybee than as a fly. Guard your media diet like this, govern your thoughts like this, practice this, “and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:9). Amen.

 

1  Elder Paisios of Mount Athos, Spiritual Counsels I: With Pain and Love for Contemporary Man (Holy Monastery 'Evangelist John the Theologian,' 2011 [1996]), 223.

2  Elder Paisios of Mount Athos, Spiritual Counsels III: Spiritual Struggle (Holy Monastery 'Evangelist John the Theologian,' 2014 [2001]), 29-30, 70.

3  Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica (Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2012 [2009]), 64.

4  G. K. Chesterton, “Censoring the Press,” The Illustrated London News, 19 October 1907, in The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton 27:574.

5  Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov, Saint Silouan the Athonite (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1991), 443.

6  Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica (Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2012 [2009]), 66.

7  Elder Paisios of Mount Athos, Spiritual Counsels I: With Pain and Love for Contemporary Man (Holy Monastery 'Evangelist John the Theologian,' 2011 [1996]), 224.

8  Elder Paisios of Mount Athos, Spiritual Counsels III: Spiritual Struggle (Holy Monastery 'Evangelist John the Theologian,' 2014 [2001]), 68-69.

9  N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon (Westminster John Knox Press, 2004 [2002]), 131-132.

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