Hell on earth.

It’s what you get when you combine a hard-rock roadhouse, an aging heavy-metal band, and a pyrotechnics show.  When the fireworks went off in a Rhode Island nightclub last February, fire leapt from the stage and quickly spread across the acoustical foam in the ceiling, filling the club with black smoke.  Members of the audience struggled to escape, but they couldn’t see clearly enough to find their way out.  

A man named Harold Panciera was outside the building, and was able to help a trapped concertgoer get out.  Panciera said he and the trapped man could not see one another but they could hear one another's voices.

“ I started throwing snowballs in there and I said, 'Can you feel the snow?  Crawl towards the snow.'  And he did," Panciera said.  "Then I could see him, and he was severely burned all over his upper extremities.  I pulled him out.  And there were people laying all over the parking lot."  (CNN, “Survivors recount crushing, fiery escapes,”February 21, 2003,www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast/02/21/nightclub.fire.reax/)

What a nightmare it was, as 99 people quickly perished and dozens more were severely maimed.  It was a horrible tragedy, but in the midst of the panic there were examples of incredible heroism.  Saidone survivor from her hospital bed, "Everything was OK until somebody tried to jump over my head and a bunch of us pretty much got knocked down."  She might have died in the crush, had it not been for the strength of a man who reached in and pulled her out, right along with his girlfriend.

Even in the middle of a hell on earth, there can be a touch of heaven.

In today’s passage of Scripture, the apostle Paul is inclined to think the best of the Christians in Philippi, not the worst.  “I thank my God every time I remember you,” he writes, “because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now” (Philippians 1:3, 5).  He knows that life is not easy for Christians in this small city of Romans and Greeks, for Paul himself had once been thrown into prison in Philippi.  He had been jailed for “advocating customs” that are not lawful for Romans to adopt or observe (Acts 16:21). In this first-century Roman colony, you run the risk of being beaten and thrown into jail if you turn away from worship of the Roman emperor and declare that Jesus Christ is Lord.

With this danger associated with following Jesus, you would certainly understand if the brutal floggings of the imperial police generate widespread panic in the Christian community.  But there is no evidence that this is the case.  In fact, Paul points out that all of the Philippians “share in God’s grace” with him, and share this not only in Paul’s imprisonment in Rome, but in “the defense and confirmation of the gospel” (v. 7).  Paul is thankful that the Christians in Philippi have remained true to him, true to God, and true to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  In the face of the same kinds of challenges that Paul himself is experiencing, the Philippians are embracing God’s grace and defending the gospel.

Truth is, the threat of pain and death does not have to lead to panic.  Our assumption that people will inevitably lose control is nothing less than a Panic Myth.

Some recent research is revealing that a fire in a crowded building does not have to cause terror, injury and death.  This is not to say that there was no panic in that Rhode Island nightclub, or that there was not a horrible crush near the exits.  But in a crisis, people behave better than you might assume. Think of Harold Panciera, throwing snowballs to lead a smoke-blinded concertgoer to safety, or the unnamed hero who rescued his girlfriend and a total stranger.

" People die in the same way they live, with friends, loved ones, and colleagues -- in communities."  So writes Lee Clarke in the magazine Contexts (Fall 2002). "When danger arises, the rule -- as in normal situations -- is for people to help those next to them before they help themselves."

No wonder Paul writes, “I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you” (vv. 3-4).  The Philippians are helping Paul and each other, and in the process they are exceeding Paul’s expectations. 

There is absolutely no reason for us to think that people can’t do the very same today.

By giving the boot to the Panic Myth, we can reclaim a much more positive attitude about ourselves and others.  Lee Clarke argues that “If people generally act well under the most trying of circumstances … it gives us reason to look for the good and the sensible in them at other times as well.” Like the apostle Paul, we should try to think the best of each other, not the worst.  We should make the assumption that we are going to be faithful and loving and generous and altruistic, not untrusting and hateful and greedy and selfish.  (Jacqueline White, “The Panic Myth,” Utne, March-April 2003, 14-15)

This was certainly the assumption I had about all of you at FPC when I preached my candidating sermon here exactly three years ago.  Are you aware that I came before you on this Sunday in the year 2000, and preached a sermon on this very same passage from Philippians?  My sermon that day was called “Dry Stone Church,” and I talked about how we needed to build a church that resembled a dry stone wall – a church made up of a strong and diverse collection of living stones; stones that can stand together and also shift together. 

I never would have preached a sermon called “The Panic Myth” as a candidating sermon, because … well … I might have panicked.  Preaching to 400 strangers was a scary thing!

My point is, you have not disappointed me.  You have turned out to be a congregation that is faithful and loving and generous and altruistic.  You have refused to panic in the face of challenges, but have acted well under the most trying of circumstances.  You have been good and sensible and faithful and loving in your practice of worship, in your pursuit of Christian education, in your efforts to do mission work, and in your care for me, and for one another.  I can only join the apostle Paul in praying that “your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight” (v. 9), and I must say that I like the way that Paul makes a connection here between love and full insight.  That link seems to fit you very well here at FPC, because you have not seen love and knowledge as being opposite qualities within the Christian life.  Instead, you have found ways to keep your hearts and your minds together, and to practice the ways in which love expands knowledge and knowledge enhances love. 

Of course, God isn’t finished with you yet, just as he still has a lot of work to do with me.  But we can trust our Lord to be continuing his work of deepening our faith, expanding our understandings, increasing our hope, and enriching our love.  “I am confident of this,” wrote Paul in his letter, “that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ” (v. 6).  And then Paul goes on to pray that our love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help us to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ we may be pure and blameless (vv. 9-10).  God is laboring to bring his “good work” to completion in us, and Paul prays that this effort will cause our love to overflow and our knowledge to grow, so that we will end up pure and blameless in the day of Jesus Christ.

None of us is a finished product.  None of us has yet completed the growth that God has planned for us.  We’re Christians under construction, and our Lord is always working to make us more faithful and loving, more generous and altruistic, more knowledgeable and insightful.  We’re not there yet, but we’re on our way – and that’s no myth.   

The challenge for us is to grow and become stronger, just as Jesus did after his birth in Bethlehem.  In just a few weeks we’ll be celebrating Christmas, that day which brought the grace and truth and life of God into the very middle of human existence.  But even as we rejoice in Christ’s birth, we should remember that Jesus was not a finished product when he appeared in the manger.  As a child he “grew and became strong, filled with wisdom,” says Luke, and as a teen he “increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor” (Luke 2:40, 52). 

God was not finished with Jesus in Bethlehem, and he’s not finished with us today.  He’s going to continue to work with us, and – as we say in our FPC mission statement – awaken, surprise, and support us.  He’s going to continue to offer us new understandings about ourselves and others, and lead us in new directions as individuals and as a congregation.  He’s going to continue to shape us and refine us, so that when challenges arise we’ll be able to rise to the challenge.  He’s going to bring us to the point at which we’ll radiate peace, not panic.  Love, not hatred.  Sacrifice, instead of selfishness.

Then, when people look at us, they’ll see heaven – not hell – on earth.  Amen.

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