Very Dear To Us
Sunday, October 26th, 2008
Proper 25A/ Ordinary 30 A/ Pentecost +24
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Theme: sharing more than the Gospel – sharing our LIVES
“1You yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that our coming to you was not in vain, 2but though we had already suffered and been shamefully mistreated at Philippi, as you know, we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition.3For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery, 4but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts. 5As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed; 6nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others, 7though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. 8So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.”
We pick up where we left off last week, reading other people’s mail. To review, Paul is writing to the folks he just barely got to know and teach for about three weeks while in Thessalonica before he had to leave in a rush because of an approaching crowd that was potentially going to beat and perhaps even kill him.
He’s writing the letter for a couple of reasons. First, he wants to encourage them to continue in the faith that they first received when he came to them and presented the Gospel to them. Second, he wants to answer some of the accusations that were leveled against him by the people who were both angry at him and who incited the riot from which he had to flee, and also to head off some of the accusations he knew would be following his visit once the Judaizers – those who dogged his footsteps throughout his missionary journeys and were intent on making the gentile converts to Christianity become JEWISH in addition to being Christian – something Paul saw as nullifying the element of Grace in the salvation of the individual.
What Paul starts out doing is reminding the Thessalonians of what it was actually like when he was there with Silvanus and Timothy – what they ACTUALLY did, as opposed to what they were being ACCUSED of doing.
One way to read this passage is as a response to one accusation after another based on what the response is.
For example, we can posit that Paul and his companions were accused of futile efforts – their efforts being in vain – since his initial reply is that their visit was NOT in vain.
They may also have been accused of only preaching the Gospel in situations that were convenient or easy, or welcoming to them, since he reminds the Thessalonians that they preached the Gospel in spite of great opposition.
They had been accused of being deceitful, having hidden agendas, or being con men, since he is refuting each of those characterizations in turn.
He goes on to deny that they only told the people what they wanted to hear in order to please and flatter them, looking to make a quick buck here or there, or that they went fishing for compliments to boost their egos.
He also argues that they DIDN’T take advantage of the trump card they COULD have played – that of being an Apostle of the Lord, and therefore entitled to ask for room and board, time and probably monetary assistance with travel expenses.
There is good cause to explore the particulars, the words, the forms, the details of the letters that Paul wrote. There is much to learn in mining those riches in scripture. But we DO run the risk of losing sight of the forest for all the trees we are focusing on.
It is important to, every so often, step back a little from those minute details and take in the tone of the letter, the emotion, and the passion, with which Paul wrote to the people he was writing to.
What would have prompted him to do that? How would WE write to people we only knew for three weeks but then had to leave? If there is a deep connection that happens in the course of those few weeks, it is HIGHLY likely that we would continue to keep in touch, somehow, with people who have made a difference in our lives, don’t you think?
Do you remember Jaime and Barbara and Mishael Castellanos? They were the family that came with the youth group from
There’s a shared experience to draw on that connects, but there is an awareness that goes deeper than that. Understanding our roles as servants of the Lord, and followers, there is a sense of joy that we can readily identify with. There are also frustrations and challenges that can be shared, but that is a topic for another conversation at another time.
I don’t have any hard and fast statistics to share with you about the frequency or extent to which travel was a common practice in the first century. I suspect that there was a small minority of people, primarily sailors and merchants, soldiers and perhaps a few others, who made up the greatest part of the number of people who travelled on a regular basis at the time. With the uncertainty of the weather, and even taking into account the Pax Romana, the peace of the Roman Empire, which ALLOWED for travel to begin in earnest without seriously reduced fear of getting robbed by bandits or attacked by pirates, thanks to the might of the Roman Imperial Army, travel was still a somewhat rare endeavor for the population at large. It wasn’t done on a whim, and it wasn’t done quickly. It took time to plan and to implement. Nevertheless, Paul, in the space of a few years, undertook at least 4 major trips throughout the known world at the time. The time he took on these trips was measured in years, not days or weeks.
There is evidence to suggest that Paul was not terribly interested in drive-by evangelism on these trips. That is, he wasn’t going to breeze into town, tap into the local synagogue, grab a few converts, start to meet with them, set up a church, and move on to the next town after washing his two changes of clothes, sharing a meal in each of the new families’ homes and then packing his bags and heading into the sunset.
His pace was DEFINITELY more measured. He spent time with the people he reached. He got to know them, lived with them, found out about them, their likes and dislikes, their fears and hopes, their dreams, their families.
Paul gives us a little more than glimpse into his heart when we get to verses seven and eight.
But we were gentle among you, like a nurse (maid) tenderly caring for her own children. 8So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.
What does that mean for
What Paul is speaking about goes beyond the doctrinal issues he was addressing in the letters – whether this one or any of his others. What prompted his writing was not so much that he wanted to bring closure to the time he had with any given group of people, perhaps a little more so would be his need to address a particular subject with them, but even at that, underlying his teaching or exhortation, correction or rebuke, was a love that came from considering those who were receiving his letters as his very own children in the faith. PAUL LOVED THESE PEOPLE. He spells it out ‘you have become very dear to us.’
The Radical nature of Christian community is that we are called to voluntarily enter into relationship with people with whom we have no blood relations, and that we are to consider those relationships AS important as those we have with immediate family – in some cases where the immediate family is distant or estranged or nonexistent, even MORE so. It is that pure and simple. You may say it is neither, and at times I would agree. It is hard enough dealing with the dynamics within ONE family system, MUCH LESS TWO.
But that is ultimately what God is calling us to enter into – familial relationships with people whose primary connection to us is ONLY through the spilled blood of his son Jesus Christ. We are part of the New Covenant established BY that blood. And THROUGH that blood, we are entering into a familial relationship with God as Abba, as Poppa.
In a culture that encourages us to be self-reliant, be independent, self-sufficient … I’m not saying that those are bad, they are what they are. In a culture that encourages us … that PROVIDES us on a daily basis, if not an hourly basis, to isolate ourselves from each other by driving by ourselves in our cars, by watching television instead of engaging in conversation with each other, by living apart, it is counter-cultural to explore this calling, and to affirm this calling to BE in this close a community. It’s risky behavior. Our culture tells us to have the attitude “That’s none of their business.” Think that way: you have your life, they have their life. Christ’s call is to shared life. He calls us to worry at those barriers that we put up between ourselves. ‘Worry’ in the sense of ‘gnaw at’, ‘pick away at’.
It’s a risky call. It’s an uncomfortable call. But it is still THE call.
Lets pray.
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