History
For the tradition connected with St. Philip the Deacon, we want to first recall what our Lutheran Confessions say about honoring the saints. Those confessions outline a threefold approach to celebrating these great, albeit sinful, men and women. As we mention in this earlier post, these three aspects are giving thanks for God’s mercy as shown in the saint, gaining strength for our own faith, and imitating their faith and virtues.
Given that there is sparse information about how Christians might have celebrated St. Philip the Deacon outside of these three ways, we wanted to dive back into how we do know to celebrate him, especially the practice of imitation. One way to do this is reflecting on the role of service within our individual and collective Christian lives.
Serving Tables
“And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, ‘It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.'” (Acts 6:2-3)
Acts tells us about who St. Philip was and the reason why he was called. He was placed in an auxiliary role to the apostles, who wanted to continue devoting themselves to preaching God’s Word. So St. Philip was called first and foremost in order to see to it that the congregants were not neglected; he later went on to preach and is esteemed to this day not only as “deacon” but also as “Philip the Evangelist” (thus the confusion between him and Philip the Apostle).
As we think about how we might imitate the faith and virtue of Philip who, we are also told, was of good repute and full of the Spirit and of Wisdom, we suggest that St. Philip the Deacon Day is a wonderful occasion to devote ourselves even more intentionally to our neighbors through works of service.
Some ideas for this include organizing a time when you and your family could volunteer at the church to help clean or organize. Perhaps you are aware of a family in need of a meal or encouragement and company.
When thinking about where to start, we do well to remember St. Paul’s words to the Galatians:
“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (6:9-10)
Of course, we should do good to everyone, but if you’re looking for a place to start, our good deeds can be directed somewhere as close as those who are in our local household of faith, the Church. So you might try to think first of your brothers and sisters in your local congregation and consider their needs.
May the Lord grant us all endurance and humility as we try to do good for everyone. The commemoration of St. Philip is one special day in which we can consider how we can be of service to our neighbor (and, Lord-willing, be a godly example for our little ones). We pray that will our admiration and imitation of St. Philip’s faith begun on this day would spill over into all the rest of our days!
