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The Tale of Euodia and SyntycheCarlos E. WiltonA sermon preached at the Point Pleasant Presbyterian Church, Point Pleasant
Beach, New Jersey
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Sometimes, in reading the letters of Paul, you get the distinct feeling you're eavesdropping on someone's personal conversation... |
"I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord." - Philippians 4:2 Sometimes, in reading the letters of Paul, you get the distinct feeling you're eavesdropping on someone's personal conversation... Most of his letters, of course, are addressed to churches. They're designed to be read aloud. Yet at the end of these letters, we often discover personal messages, two millennia old... "I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord." Who are these two, Euodia and Syntyche? Well, we know they're women: for these are women's names. We can also figure out that these women have a long-standing disagreement. What the argument is about, we have no idea. Paul's not telling. Yet their quarrel must have been bitter enough, and long-standing enough, to attract his attention from far off. About the only other thing we can discover about Euodia and Syntyche is that Paul thinks very highly of them both. "Help them," he implores a third party: "for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel." Paul goes on to call the two "co-workers, whose names are in the book of life." Euodia and Syntyche ˆ the principal combatants in this feud ˆ are devoted Christians. Their names are in the book of life. Their disagreement represents a rift, a schism, in the church at Philippi. I wonder what Euodia and Syntyche might find to disagree about if they lived today...
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It had all started the month before, at circle meeting. Bible study had ended, and the circle members were sitting around over crumb cake and coffee. |
Euodia Macalester looked up to see Syntyche Brown standing at the sink beside her. When she saw her lifelong friend and fellow-elder, a pile of dirty plates from the PW dinner in her hands, she cringed inside. The two of them had managed to avoid each other all evening, the first time they'd seen each other in weeks. Syntyche glanced over and realized, a half-second later, who it was, standing at the sink beside her. She looked away immediately, pretending there was something intensely interesting out the window, before plunging her hands into the soapy water and letting the stack of dishes descend slowly to the bottom of the sink. It had all started the month before, at circle meeting. Bible study had ended, and the circle members were sitting around over crumb cake and coffee. "Isn't it just awful," Euodia had complained"what's been
going on at General Assembly! Those people are so out of touch. Can you
believe they're debating homosexuality again? Don't those people have
any respect for God's word?" Euodia continued. "It's perversion, that's what it is. The Bible calls it an 'abomination.' It says people who do nasty things like that should be put to death. I was just reading about it the other day, in the book I ordered from the Presbyterian Layman!" "Well," said Syntyche, turning to her friend, "I guess that word 'abomination' applies to you and me as well." "What on earth are you talking about?" "I'm talking about last week, when you and I went out to lunch. Both of us ordered shrimp salad. That very same chapter of Leviticus calls it an 'abomination' to eat food that's not kosher. "Oh, come on," replied Euodia. "You can't be putting homosexuality in the same category as shrimp salad!" "I'm not putting it in the same category," Syntyche shot back. "It's the Bible that puts it in the same category. And while we're at it, let's talk about dwarves and hunchbacks and people who walk with a limp ˆ even those who've broken their hands. People like that are supposed to be banned from making sacrifices in the Temple! Do you really want to say that our pastor can't preach if he comes in some Sunday with his hand in a cast?" "Well," admitted Euodia, "maybe the Old Testament isn't
the best place to look. We're living under the new covenant, after all.
But there is that passage in Romans 1. Paul talks about women "exchanging
natural intercourse for unnatural," and men "consumed with passion
for one another." That's not some ancient Jewish law code: that's
the New Testament!" Euodia had forgotten about Alice. Alice had grown up in their church; Euodia had taught her in fourth-grade Sunday School. Alice lived in the city now, sharing a house with that woman she calls her "partner." "I'm surprised they'd study that passage at all in her church! Doesn't Alice belong to one of those "More Light" Presbyterian churches ˆ the ones that ordain people like her as elders or deacons?" "Well, yes, as a matter of fact, she does. They've even ordained her, you know. Alice is a deacon; but she may not be for long, if that amendment to the Book of Order gets passed by the presbyteries." "Anyway," Syntyche continued, "Alice had me look not just at those couple of verses, but at the larger context of the chapter. Paul's talking about people who worship idols, and live very promiscuous lives. I don't exactly call Alice and Mary promiscuous. They've been together ten years. They're just like any other couple. I just don't see Paul talking about that kind of stable, committed relationship."
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Euodia didn't look at all convinced |
Euodia didn't look at all convinced. Syntyche continued, "Paul didn't have any conception that there could even be people who might be born differently, who feel a different sort of attraction. Why, it's only been the last few decades that anyone at all has believed that. Alice is a psychologist, you know; she says the American Psychological Association stopped calling homosexuality an illness way back in the 1970s." "Well, now that you mention it," interrupted Euodia, "that's
the other thing that really bothers me. What's our standard, anyway: the
American Psychological Association, or the word of God? Paul says, 'Be
not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your
minds.' Who cares what the psychologists think? God's word doesn't change!" Well, that about did it. Euodia felt so insulted, she charged Syntyche with supporting immorality. Syntyche charged her, in turn, with being closed-minded and prejudiced. Euodia said that, once you take one step along the slippery slope of questioning the Bible, you lose all moral standards, and don't we know perfectly well, we need all the standards we can get in this sinful age! Syntyche shot back that Euodia just can't deal with change, never could, never will. They left their circle leader's house in a huff. Haven't spoken since. Now they find themselves standing beside each other, at the church kitchen sink. What would you do, if you were one of them?
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How does one get to the point of "having the same mind?" |
Paul's pretty clear what he would have Christians do, in a time of conflict: strive to have "the same mind in the Lord." It's a phrase he's repeated several times already, throughout this short letter. How does one get to the point of "having the same mind?" Paul doesn't say. He doesn't take sides in the dispute between Euodia and Syntyche. No, he reminds them that they continue to be his "co-workers," and that their names are in "the book of life." He simply tells them to strive for a common mind. But Paul does gives just a little hint of how to get there. In verses 4 and 5 he says, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone." Paul is advising the two women, first, to rejoice in the Lord. It's similar to what he said a couple of chapters back: "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves....Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus..." Paul then goes on to quote the words of one of the greatest hymns of the early church: how Christ set aside equality with God and emptied himself, taking the form of a slave ˆ being humbled even to the point of death on a cross. Yet this same Jesus, the hymn proclaims, is the one God has raised from the dead, and highly exalted! Those are the words of a hymn ˆ and what Paul's saying in quoting that hymn is very significant. You and I gain a common mind by "rejoicing in the Lord": through worshiping together. If you find yourself in conflict with a fellow Christian, the worst thing you can do ˆ bar none ˆ is to stay away from worship and stew in your own juices. No, the only way to reconciliation is to walk right over to your adversary's pew and share a hymnal with that person: to join the voices of your praise together, despite your differences. For Euodia Macalester and Syntyche Brown, maybe that means one washes and the other dries... The second way to a common mind is through what the New Revised Standard Version calls "gentleness": "Let your gentleness be known to everyone." The old RSV translated that word "forbearance": "Let all people know your forbearance."
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When churches set aside the law of love, when they grasp tightly the law that leads to condemnation, the consequences can be tragic. |
Neither English word does a very good job of rendering the Greek word, epieikes. The great Bible teacher William Barclay says epieikes has to do with moderation in administering justice, with flexibility in applying the law, remaining sensitive to the complexities of human life: "The [person] who is epieikes knows that there are times when a thing may be legally completely justified and yet morally completely wrong. The person who is epieikes knows when to relax the law under the compulsion of a force that is higher and greater than law. [Such a person] knows when the time to stand on his [or her] rights would unquestionably be legal, and would just as unquestionably be completely unchristian." The model for epieikes, Barclay says, is God -and, we can assume also, Jesus Christ. Remember that Jesus is the one who, in the words of that very same hymn Paul quotes... "...did not regard equality with God Jesus could have had it all - Jesus did have it all, in heaven with God before creation - but he gave it up, to be born of Mary and to bear a cross. Jesus set aside his rights under the law, and thereby obeyed a higher law, the law of love. When churches set aside the law of love, when they grasp tightly the law that leads to condemnation, the consequences can be tragic. Here's Barclay again: "Again and again we have seen congregations torn by strife and reduced to tragic unhappiness because men and women, committees and courts stood on the letter of the law....A new world would arise in society and in the Church if [people] ceased to base their actions on law and on legal rights and prayed to God to give them epieikeia."
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What I'm hoping we will all take away from this place...is a new awareness of the complexity of this issue - and how desperately Presbyterians all across the church need to discover that common mind |
I don't know where you all stand on the homosexuality issue: with Euodia Macalester or with Syntyche Brown. I've struggled mightily with this issue in recent years, and have come to a place, myself, that's closer to Syntyche than Euodia ˆ but it's not my desire today to convince you to join us. What I'm hoping we will all take away from this place, whatever side of the controversy we find ourselves on, is a new awareness of the complexity of this issue - and how desperately Presbyterians all across the church need to discover that common mind: to find a way to "rejoice in the Lord" together, letting their "gentleness," their epieikeia, "be known to everyone." I'd like to close with the words of Eugene Peterson, from his version of this passage, in his paraphrase, The Message: "Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you're on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute! "Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ replaces worry at the center of your life." I think we could all stand to worry a bit less about the future of the larger church, and to trust the Holy Spirit a little more to bring peace and understanding out of the whole situation. Let us learn to live in unity. |
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