Worship - 11 October 2026

This Week's Theme

There are two ways in which we learn. One, which we encounter before we are even aware of it, is by imitation. The other is through study, traditionally by reading, which is why I have always loved libraries, which are still repositories of knowledge and imagination, even in a multimedia age. Of course there’s a difference between knowledge and wisdom. The latter has an element of experience and empirical practicality to go with knowledge. 

Scripture can give us knowledge about the salvation history of the relationship between God and humanity, and open the door towards wisdom. 

There are some passages of scripture that have a particular resonance for me. This passage from Philippians is one. First of all, there’s the part that finds its way into many blessings: the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 

I remember a long time ago, when we had first started to venture into church on a regular basis, after being sporadic worshippers for a long time, that we were invited to join a study group. I can’t even remember what it was called now. But we met in the youth room of the church, which was underneath the main church building, and in which there were pillars, which of course held up the ceiling, but also provided a convenient place in which to sit when one wanted to be out of the direct line of fire of the leaders of the group. Yes, I used to lurk behind a pillar, rather uncomfortable with the idea of sharing my own spirituality with others. Except that at one point, these words from Philippians were read, and I went off into a little journey in my head. Because I suppose I was to a large extent a product of my education in science and technology, an engineer at heart, and the idea that the peace of God might be something beyond human understanding gave me - well, I suppose a sense of peace! 

We live in a world in which we like to convince ourselves that we are more and more capable of understanding how everything works, from the sub-atomic level, to the cosmos. And yet it seems that the more we know, the more there is to know. Which can either be a source of frustration, or an invitation into the realm of mystery and mysticism - beyond our understanding. It’s not just the peace of God that surpasses human understanding; time and again, in the scriptural record of the relationship between God and the human creatures made collectively in God’s image, it is made clear that no human being has all the answers. Well, except, of course, for one. 

So that set me off on a journey into the church at large which still continues - although in a way it was basically a reawakening of stirrings within from my youth, decades before. A journey of understanding that there’s more to wisdom than just knowledge. 

The second part of this scripture resonates from a different time and a different place. When my first wife, Dilys was unable to attend church, having been very weakened by her cancer treatment, a quite large group of people from the Episcopal church in whose basement I had lurked, but of which we had become regular members, came to our home and celebrated the Eucharist in the garden of our home in San Jose. It was a poignant occasion. This passage from Philippians was read, and instead of preaching a sermon or a homily, the priest simply said, ‘Well, that is why we are here.’ Because those people recognised that they had experienced someone who reflected those qualities. 

Whatever is true. Whatever is honourable. Whatever is just. Whatever is pure. Whatever is pleasing. Whatever is commendable. 

Think about these things, says the Apostle Paul.

What we choose to think about, dwell upon and turn over in our minds gradually shapes who we are, how we live and how we see the world. That might sound rather simple, but making small adjustments to what we expose ourselves to can make a difference.

For example, should we find ourselves in conflict with someone, perhaps we might pause and ask ourselves: What is true, honourable or commendable in this person? What might I understand differently if I really listened?

There’s a scene from the television drama Ted Lasso in which Ted is challenged to a darts match which the British people around him expect him to lose, because they have judged him to be American with no experience of that quintessentially British pastime. Except that now, of course it’s international. Anyway, Ted points out that his father, with whom he had played darts every Saturday for more than ten years as a child and adolescent, had taught him to be curious, rather than judgemental. Curiosity leads us to ask questions to learn about one another; being judgemental causes us to close our mind to the realm of possibility. And in so doing, quite probably to miss opportunities for rejoicing. 

Unless we make ourselves open to learning, to curiosity, we can never know anyone’s deepest struggles, or deepest strengths, or deepest weaknesses. Each of us will falter and fail, sometimes in profoundly destructive and hurtful ways, but still, everyone is probably doing the best that they can. For which we might seek to rejoice. 

Those words of Paul to the Philippians are wonderful: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice ... if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.  

Of course, when times are troubling, when life is challenging, when difficulties present themselves, when there is pain and suffering in our own lives, or those around us, it is not so easy to rejoice. Someone described this piece of scripture as Polyanna syndrome, but those who are unfamiliar with the film from 60 years ago might not quite get the point. The thing is that too often, Christians demand of each other a Pollyanna-ish cheerfulness that refuses to look the complexities of real life in the face. As if our faith, and, by extension, our God, is too fragile to handle life's dark side without a generous side serving of grinning emojis. 

What might help us to contemplate Paul's advice is to remember that he wrote this letter from prison, while awaiting trial and anticipating a likely outcome of execution. It also helps to remember that he was a man who was threatened, rejected, beaten, and shipwrecked; a man with a ‘thorn in the flesh’ that God apparently did not heal. A man whose haunted past included contempt, rage, and even violence. A man who knew firsthand the irony of a Pax Romana that left most people cringing under state-sponsored oppression. Paul was no Pollyanna; he was a tried and tested realist. 

So I wonder whether these famous verses from Philippians are not about feeling good so much as they are about cultivating the inner life of the soul. In Paul's view, peace and joy are not emotions we can conjure up within ourselves. They come from God, and the only way we can receive them is through consistent spiritual practice: prayer, supplication, gentleness, and contemplation. 

In other words, joy requires us to sidestep sentimentality and cynicism alike.

It requires us to embrace the idea that it’s not just the peace of God that surpasses human understanding, but the whole breadth and depth of the created order - and then to immerse ourselves in the mystery and mysticism of our quest - not so much for absolute answers, but for the questions that demand our life-long attention to investigate. To couple the knowledge of the divine presence in our world with the empirical pragmatism of generations of experience to draw us closer to wisdom. And to allow us to rejoice when each fresh layer of understanding is revealed.