But My Words

 

Sunday, November 30^th, 2008

Advent 1B (First of the liturgical year)

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

Mark 13:24-37

Theme: keeping “awake” – working while looking for the Kingdom

 

 “²⁴“But in those days, after that suffering,

 

the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
²⁵and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

 

²⁶Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. ²⁷Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

²⁸“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. ²⁹So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. ³⁰Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. ³¹Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

³²“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. ³⁴It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch.³⁵Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, ³⁶or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. ³⁷And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

 

What does it mean to live in Hope? 

Let’s pray.  

The Eyes of Your Heart

 

Sunday, November 23^rd, 2008

Christ the King Sunday (last of the liturgical year)

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

Ephesians 1:15-23

Theme: Seeing Christ as God has made him – Lord over all

 

 “¹⁵I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason ¹⁶I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. ¹⁷I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, ¹⁸so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, ¹⁹and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. ²⁰God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, ²¹far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. ²²And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, ²³which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

 

What is it going to take for us to truly live as though Jesus is indeed Lord of all? 

 

We speak of it on at least a weekly basis, some more, some less.  We think about it about as often.  Usually less. 

 

But do we truly live out the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives?  Do we really act as though Jesus Christ is, in fact, LORD of our everyday existence? 

 

Speaking for myself, I confess, ‘not in a consistent manner’. 

 

It’s not that we don’t intend that to be the case, it’s that we don’t live in the full meaning of what calling Christ “Lord” actually means to and for us.

 

In the first century of the Common Era, to call someone Lord actually meant something.  There was an immediacy to the title that became apparent the moment trouble arose. 

 

It is something that we as citizens of the United States living in the 21^st century are largely unfamiliar with.  We might have occasion to see it displayed in the actions of security details assigned to any given major political leader.  We have images burned into our memory of secret service agent Timothy McCarthy getting hit by a bullet that was intended for President Ronald Reagan at the end of March, 1981.  He placed his body between the assailant and his charge, the President of the United States. 

 

While that is an example of serving an earthly “Lord”, we can get our heads around the idea of what it means to simply HAVE a Lord.  In an egalitarian society, one that for the majority of it’s citizens holds to the truth that we are all, whomever we are, equal, the concept of having someone over us for whom we would submit to anything FOR is truthfully, a foreign concept.  It rubs against the grain of our national constitutional conscience that affirms that ‘all men are created equal’ to think in terms of there being someone – ANYONE – for whom we would give up such ‘rights’ as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.       

 

And yet, that is precisely the call of Christ on our lives.  In writing to the Ephesians, Paul was propounding the Lordship of Christ in its fullest sense.  Not simply inward in the manner in which it affected each individual who chooses to CALL Jesus Lord, but OUTWARDLY as well – in the long-term view of history. 

 

There is a given-ness in the passage with regards to Christ’s position in the universe.  Where the passage seems familiar is in Paul’s statement about praying for the Ephesians.  Where it becomes less familiar is where he DOESN’T stop there … he keeps going, and evolves in a few lines a view of Christ that underscores his glory and his power and his position as Lord.  Paul leaves no doubt as to how we are to view Christ, how we are to relate to Christ, and by implication, how we are to submit to Christ if we are to follow him.

 

 

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Today is the last Sunday of the Liturgical year – the church year – next Sunday will be the first Sunday of Advent, and the first Sunday of the new Church year. 

 

We are familiar with the traditional New Year’s Resolutions that are associated with January 1^st of each year.  I would invite us all to contemplate and then to MAKE a TRUE commitment in the incoming year to be as consistent as possible, to be as intentional as possible, to be as humble and courageous as possible, to be unafraid to claim Jesus as Lord of our lives, to choose when we must and when we might hesitate to make those decisions and make them FOR Christ. 

 

To give you an example would be to limit the scope of what it means to make Christ our Lord.  I can name things, but please don’t take this list as comprehensive; the words that come out of our mouths, the thoughts that we allow our minds to entertain, the images we permit into our minds, the attitudes of uncaring, of hatred, of bitterness and outright cruelty, the desires to acquire more and more at the expense of our fellow human beings, to disregard the wellbeing of a brother or a sister in favor of our own, the quest for prestige and acclaim in the eyes of the world at the expense of our standing as a child of God. 

 

Can you see how all these are examples of denying the Lordship of Christ on our lives?  When we choose our desires, our will, our benefit over another’s, we are in fact denying Christ an opportunity to work on us as he is working through us, and we negate the claim that we sing or pray about having him as Lord. 

 

My prayer for us all is that in the coming year – both the ecclesiastical and the secular ones – we will live a consistent ethic of being under the Lordship of the one who taught us that to truly live meant to die to ourselves, and that in order to gain the world we must lose it first.     

      

Let’s pray.  

With These Words

 

Sunday, November 9^th, 2008

Proper 27 A/ Ordinary 32 A/ Pentecost +26 (All Saints Sunday)

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Theme: Encouraging one another through the hope we have in Christ

 

 “¹³But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. ¹⁴For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. ¹⁵For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. ¹⁶For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸Therefore encourage one another with these words.”

 

It is a profoundly compelling vision, isn’t it?  To imagine what that day might look like, when Jesus comes back in all his glory, and according to Paul, with a cry of command ushers in the establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth – life as it was intended to be. 

 

It is also, at its heart, a profoundly unlikely scenario – unlikely in the sense that it is UNLIKE anything we have ever – or WILL ever – experience here on earth otherwise. 

 

But that seems to be the whole point, isn’t it?  Paul is coming from the perspective of one who over the last few years had experienced the most UNLIKELY of lives.  This vision that Paul presents to his readers in Thessalonica is one that goes beyond what they could imagine… it speaks to their longing for a day they could look forward to when there would be no more struggle, no more sorrow, no more war.  It speaks to a reality so radically different from that which they had experienced all their lives that even to contemplate it required a leap of faith. 

 

We’ve skipped some of the text of the letter.  In some ways, Paul spends what seems an inordinate amount of time in greeting and expressing his love and prayers for the Thessalonians, and it is in the fourth chapter that he begins the conclusion of the letter – and to speak to some of the issues that he has heard have arisen among the believers.  We’ve jumped to one of the issues that the folks at Thessalonica were worried about – some in their number have died since Paul had left – perhaps even been killed in the persecution they suffered that was the cause of Paul’s hasty departure from their city. 

 

Something we need to remember about the very beginnings of the church is that their sense that Jesus was going to return – literally, physically, trumpets blaring, clouds rolling, thunder clapping, the whole kit and caboodle – was understood to be expected MOMENTARILY – RIGHT NOW or maybe this afternoon, or evening, or tomorrow at the latest, and that sense of expectation translated into an excitement that was contagious, to say the least. 

 

Now, remember also, Paul was of the same generation as Jesus – he was a contemporary of Jesus’.  Even though we have no scriptural evidence of his having seen Jesus before his crucifixion, we know that he DID know OF Jesus – enough to begin persecuting his followers pretty quickly, and we also know of his encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus, when Saul the Pharisee became Paul the Apostle.  So he had an image in his mind of what Jesus looked like and sounded like.  It is easy when you KNOW what someone looks like to imagine them around you – walking into your house, or into your room, running into you at the grocery store or in the pharmacy … there’s an understanding that it would not be a big deal if you DID happen to run into that person that you are accustomed to seeing IN your daily life.  It’s kind of that with Jesus for Paul.  Christ’s presence – even though it was that one time on the road that day, was a profoundly life-changing experience for Paul, and for MOST of his ministry he spoke of Christ’s return in terms that left no doubt that he DID in fact, expect Jesus to return within his lifetime.  It’s not until he wrote to the Corinthians that we begin to see his allowing for the possibility that he MIGHT not be around when Christ comes back. 

 

So he has left the Thessalonians with the understanding of the probability of Christ’s IMMEDIATE return.  They all look at each other and go “great, it’s going to happen in the next few days or weeks at most, let’s get ready and really show what we believe by how we live.”  And they did.  But then a couple of them died.  And they know what to do with that. 

 

Remember there were some Jewish believers in Thessalonica, and there were also some Gentile God-fearers – those who believed in God but had not taken the steps to become full-blown Hebrews.  While there were SOME segments of the Hebrew Religious community that believed in the possibility of a bodily resurrection – or for that matter, life after death – it was NOT a belief that was shared by ALL Jews, and it was even LESS available as a possibility among the pagan religions of the Greco-Roman world.  My suspicion is that there may have been a larger portion of believers of gentile origin than believers of Jewish origin, just by virtue of the response Paul received in the synagogue, but I don’t know that for certain.  So if these former pagans, who were expecting Jesus to come back anytime now begin to see their friends and co-congregants begin to die off, or to be killed or executed in the continuing absence of Christ, they were not sure what that meant for them.  This is what Paul is addressing. 

 

Up until then, the concept of life that prevailed was that it ENDED at death, period. End of story.  It was foreign to them to consider the possibility that life extended beyond the grave.  And that is natural.  All our senses tell us that.  When we see something dead in the middle or on the side of the road, we have a pretty good foundation on which to assume that whatever animal it was will not be moving of it’s own accord anytime soon – in fact, EVER again.  That’s just the way it works in the world. 

 

To say that something works in such a way that your friend, your loved one – who just died – will one day, hopefully soon, rise from the ground where he or she is buried, and that YOU will join him or her in the air as you BOTH approach the returning Christ in all his glory… that is to describe something that can only be accepted through the eyes of faith because it has never happened before.  There was no point of reference in the reality in which the Thessalonians lived for them to be able to expect something like that to happen.  There WAS in Paul’s experience, because he had a direct encounter with the risen Lord. 

 

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton? 

 

A phrase I heard repeatedly over the last part of this past week was “I didn’t believe I would see it in my lifetime.” 

 

In president-elect Obama’s acceptance speech in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, he referenced a woman from Georgia who had voted on Tuesday.  She is a hundred and six years old.  Her father was a freed slave at the age of twelve.  Imagine the improbable things she has witnessed in HER life. 

 

We really don’t even have to go THAT far to think of improbabilities, do we?  Think back on the span of YOUR life.  What seemed so far-fetched to you as a child but is now commonplace? 

 

The possibility of Christ’s return happening in the next minute seems remote, this far removed from those who actually walked and talked with him.  And it is open to discussion – and conjecture – when the actual time will be.  Jesus himself didn’t know when it would be.  My thought is, if it was something that Jesus didn’t concern himself with, that’s good enough for me.  I will worry more about what it means to live out his life through me than walk around looking to the sky for any signs of trumpets and clouds rolling around … the POINT is, though I don’t know WHEN it might happen, or exactly HOW, I know it WILL.  And that gives me the encouragement I need when I see some of the less than hopeful places in the world today.

 

Knowing the end of the story IS enough.          

 

Let’s pray.  

Urging, Encouraging, Pleading

 

Sunday, November 2^nd, 2008

Proper 26 A/ Ordinary 31 A/ Pentecost +25 (All Saints Sunday)

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

1 Thessalonians 2:9-13

Theme: Being open to guidance from brothers and sisters in the faith

 

 “⁹ You remember our labor and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. ¹⁰ You are witnesses, and God also, how pure, upright, and blameless our conduct was toward you believers. ¹¹ As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, ¹² urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. ¹³ We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers.”

 

Again, we pick up where we left off last week, reading other people’s mail.

 

Paul is still in the “review and remember” phase of his letter.  He is going over, just in case the memory has faded for the folks at the church in Thessalonica, just what it was that he and Silas and Timothy did while they were there with them. 

 

The firs issue in THIS passage, is how he, Paul, supported himself – or rather, how THEY supported THEMselves. 

 

We know even today how overwhelmingly critical the issue of hospitality is in Middle Eastern culture.  The role of the host in any given modern-day Middle Eastern or North African country has evolved and been informed by the realities of living in a somewhat marginal environment: mostly desert, dry, dusty, and unforgiving to travelers. 

 

That was even more so the case in Paul’s time.  Those expectations of graciously providing for a guest – as well as the flipside – graciously RECEIVING AS a guest the hospitality offered, were critical to the fabric of the society in which he moved about.  But what we read in verse 9 and what we READ last week in verse 7 – “though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ.” – tie together the reality of Paul’s case – that he did NOT, in the case of the Thessalonians, accept that hospitality from the people he befriended and soon made disciples there.  It would seem to be counterintuitive for him to NOT take advantage OF that hospitality offered – especially in light of the basic difficulties that would have been involved in his missionary efforts. 

 

If you’ve ever had the opportunity to travel to a foreign country, and on arrival have had the added benefit of visiting in someone’s home, depending on the country, you may have been exposed to what would be in many cases an overwhelming degree of hospitality.  Leslie and I have experienced it each time we’ve traveled to Mexico, and I have truly precious memories of our visits with friends and newly-acquired extended family members when I traveled to Chile for my brothers wedding a couple of years ago.  The point is, it is not just incumbent on the host to BE a host, it is ALSO incumbent on the GUEST to BE a GUEST; otherwise, the expectation falls apart. 

 

Paul made it fall apart.  Or so it would SEEM. 

 

You see, not only was Paul working against the general culture of the time and place in NOT accepting the hospitality of folks in Thessalonica, NEITHER was he fulfilling the role of an APOSTLE when it came to that same factor in his travels. 

 

Why would he do that?  Why would he seemingly thumb his nose at the prevailing culture, the culture that he moved around in, breathed in and out on a daily basis, and which informed and provided him with the images to preach what he is preaching, as well as to provide the wherewithal to DO what he was doing? 

 

He did it because his focus was on the people he was reaching out to. 

 

There is a sense of obligation inherent in the “hospitality exchange” that sort of locks you into how you are going to respond in a given situation. 

 

Put it this way:  you hear an apostle of a great teacher, a miracle worker, is in town and he and his friends are at the synagogue speaking.  You go, you listen, you begin to question, and you want to hear more.  You ask the man and his companions to come to your home and stay with you while they are in town.  They accept, and you are now obligated to provide them with not only room and board, but also a platform – a place where they can expound on what they were talking about initially at the synagogue.  But more than that, as their host, you are now locked into the role of advocate/ally.  To argue with what they are teaching or preaching would be dishonorable and would be bad form for any self-respecting first-century host.    You either agree with what is being taught or you lose face and standing in a VERY big way. 

 

Though Paul may have stayed with Jason and his family, as we read the week before last, he did not depend on them for sustenance, and from the way he is phrasing it in the passage for this morning, he was not taking from them what an Apostle would be within his rights to expect from his or her host – he and Silas (Silvanus) and Timothy covered their own expenses by working – probably at a stall in the local market – repairing tents and sandals.  Paul’s learned trade. 

 

What did that do, besides free Paul from the dependence on the kindness of his hosts, as well as the expectations of the hospitality rule in Middle Eastern and to be more precise, Southern European culture?  It also freed his HOSTS from the expectation on THEM to be assumed followers of the same teachings of Jesus that Paul was espousing.  

 

Let me say that another way.  Absent the freely-offered-freely-received hospitality rule, the hosts were free to accept or reject what Paul was saying.  There was no assumption, no expectation, and no socially normative pressure on them to behave a certain way because he was in their home. 

 

These were all things Paul had been and would be accused of in the course of his travels, including there in Thessalonica.  Of abusing his role as an apostle for the sake of personal gain, of buttering up the people he came in touch with to make his trip easy and to not have to work TOO hard – to not say ‘at all’ in the course of his trip, and basically just live off the fat of the land. 

 

Paul has already said he COULD have, but he has chosen NOT to play his ‘apostle’ card (v7).  What has been happening is that people have been attacking Paul’s motives. Those making the attacks know that the Gospel is incredibly appealing to the gentile populations of Greece and Turkey.  They KNOW that people are responding to the Gospel in ways and in numbers that they couldn’t even imagine.  Paul has seen the power of those arguments and the sway they can have on the people of the churches he has established.  He knows the power of persuasion, and he also knows the reality of HIS situation in NOT being able to be there in person to respond to each of the attacks on his character.  So he has, to put it in somewhat modern terminology, an established procedure, a policy, if you will, that will head off some of that argument on its own.  He gets accused of being a freeloader, his folks can come back with ‘but he didn’t accept anything from us without paying us for it or buying it himself.’  He gets accused of being lazy, and taking advantage of the people who he’s convinced of the Gospel and they can point to the fact that he worked from early – sometimes before dawn – until dark – that is what ‘labor and toil’ means – in order to sustain himself and his friends.  There was no freeloading going on.                         

 

Last week Paul provided us the image of a nursemaid with her baby at her breast, today we have the image of a father with his children, “urging and encouraging, pleading that you lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.”

 

You know, it’s the parenting illustrations that do the most to convict me when I read scripture.  When I read of Paul’s urging and encouraging and pleading with the new believers to live a life worthy of God, that in and of itself, apart from the explicit understanding it provides me in reference to how I am to be and to act with believers – new or old – that I come in contact with in the dailyness of life – calls me to an IMplicit understanding of how I am to be with my own children.  So I read over that verse and I asked myself “do I ‘urge, encourage and plead’ with MY children to live lives worthy of the God?” 

 

What does all that have to do with Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

 

Something I shared with the group that was here on Wednesday evening at our Bible study following our prayer and share time was that I don’t really in any way think of them – of YOU – as my children.  We are very much ‘fellow pilgrims on a journey’, as the hymn ‘The Servant Song’ says, but the call to urge, encourage and plead with you to live lives worthy of God still applies.  And it is not a one-way call, it is a two-way street.  The call applies to me as much as it applies to anyone else here this morning. 

 

What I find incredibly encouraging about this passage is that in verse 13 it centers down on the fact that, although the message we are receiving has been passed down through human voice and words, that it has never stopped being so much MORE than JUST human voice and words – that it is the word of GOD – and when Paul says that “it is also at work in you believers”, that word that has been translated as work is energeitai – the same word we now translate as ‘energizes’.  It speaks to the fact that it is not simply something of which we are recipients, it is also – and maybe even MORE so – speaking to something that is happening to US as WE receive the Gospel – truly take it into our hearts and lives and live it out.  In this particular form, it is in the present tense – keep in mind that Paul is writing to them AFTER he has left Thessalonica – he is underscoring the fact that this living out the Gospel is an ongoing thing – not just a boost to be received and to coast along afterwards … it is an ongoing transformative event in the lives of the new believers in Thessalonica … and in OUR lives as followers of Christ.       

 

What Paul is underscoring is that what he came with, what he was living out and teaching, what he spent his days talking about and his evenings teaching about was a Gospel rooted in love.  A Gospel that wasn’t banking on the established norms of Middle Eastern culture to carry it along, but a message of love and grace freely offered and freely received – with no attached expectations save that of a transformed life.  Just as the invitation God extends to us is totally dependent on our free will to accept or reject, so was Paul’s presentation of the Gospel THEN.

 

May we be as receptive as the believers of Thessalonica.  

 

Let’s pray.  

Very Dear To Us

 

Sunday, October 26^th, 2008

Proper 25A/ Ordinary 30 A/ Pentecost +24

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

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 Italy in the summer of 2006 and stayed with us for two weeks and worked in the sports camps alongside the youth from Thalia Lynn.  Though we don’t keep in CONSTANT contact, we are keeping in touch, sending each other periodic emails just to let each other know we are thinking and praying for each other.  Asking how the families are doing. 

 

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 Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton? 

 

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. 

Not in Word Only

 

Sunday, October 19^th, 2008

Proper 24A/ Ordinary 29 A/ Pentecost +23

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Theme: Faith making a DIFFERENCE in our lives

 

 “¹Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and (/even) the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.

²We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly ³remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, ⁵because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake.

⁶And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, ⁷so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. ⁸For the word of the Lord has sounded (echoed/trumpeted/ been broadcast /thundered) forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. ⁹For the people of those regions report about (around) us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, ¹⁰and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues (present tense) us from the wrath that is coming.”

 

Imagine you are Paul: kind of short, balding, thorn in your side, the whole nine yards. 

 

You are on your second missionary journey, you started out from Jerusalem, went through Salamis and Antioch in northern Syria, then on to Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, Antioch of Pisidia, then on to Troas and along the Aegean seacoast to Neapolis and Phillipi, and you finally land in Thessalonica – a city that has the distinction of being a ‘free’ city – one of relatively few so designated – and so trusted – by Rome in the first century as to be allowed to govern itself. 

 

Thessalonica is on the Egnatian Way, the main land route across the north of Greece, close to halfway across modern-day Greece.  There is a significant Jewish presence, enough for the Jewish merchants to have an influence on the local government, as well as to attract God-fearers – people who admired the monotheism (the worship of one God) and high moral standard of the Jewish faith, as compared to the confusing mix of polytheism and varying degrees of moral standards among the other religions being espoused around the city. 

 

As is your custom, you first stop in at the local synagogue and spend several days presenting your case to the leaders there, trying to convince them of the fact that Jesus was the expected Messiah – that he HAD to suffer and die in order to bring about the new covenant.  You have mixed results.  Some of those God-fearers, gentiles who were attending but had not yet converted to Judaism, are persuaded, even a few of the Jews become convinced, along with some of the leading women in the city – that is significant because women enjoyed a higher esteem than was the norm in other areas of Greece.  The freedom that the Gospel of Christ presents appeals to the unconverted but believing gentiles, to those who were already converted, and to people off the street. 

 

You begin to meet with them separately; teaching them about the good news of Jesus Christ and seeing others come to faith as well. 

 

Predictably, as has been the case in other places, this upsets the synagogue leaders, and, according to Acts chapter 17, they incite a riot and you get word of the crowd coming after you and get away just in time. 

 

Unable to find you, the crowd attacks the home of Jason, where you and your friends had been staying.  You find out later that Jason and a group of other believers, who probably happened to be meeting there at the time were hauled before the authorities and accused of treason – of claiming there was a king other than Caesar; namely, Jesus.  They are made to post bail, and then are released. 

 

Total time spent in Thessalonica: maybe as little as three weeks.  Total number of converts:  few enough to be able to name them all.  Probably less than were here last Sunday (28 in worship). 

 

You continue on your journey, walking as quickly as you can, occasionally looking behind you to see if anyone is chasing after you from Thessalonica.  You carry on semi-breathless conversations with Silvanus and Timothy, taking advantage of the time you have as you walk the miles between cities, occasionally stopping to rest at the wells that are the rest areas along the road that the Romans built that have been so helpful to you as you’ve travelled around over the last few years … and you finally arrive in Corinth, another booming metropolis. 

 

You meet a couple, already believers, who happen to be tentmakers just like you – it’s what you do to support yourself on these trips.  Their names are Priscilla and Aquila, and you just CLICK with them.  Aside from the more profound sharing you have in calling Jesus Lord, you laugh at the same jokes, you like the same foods, you end up at the same tentmaker hangouts … you get the picture.  But when you FIRST meet, a funny thing happens; when you introduce yourself, they look at each other and then back at you and say “you’re the guy from Thessalonica!” … and they begin to tell you about what happened to Jason and the other believers, how they stood up in court and didn’t cave to the folks who had dragged them in or to the governing authorities, and how they took the opportunity to proclaim the Gospel even there, and it’s just been a few days since you had to run to get away from the riot!

 

Then they introduce you to some other believers who are passing through town coming from other cities, and THEY do that same double take when they hear your name.  And all you can do is stand in wonder at how the Thessalonians received the Gospel and how they are living it.  So your heart swells with love and with pride, and with Joy, and you decide to sit down and write them a letter.  You want to tell them what you’ve heard over the month or so since you had to get out of Dodge, and to encourage them and lift them up … and to maybe try to put some other things to right – things you didn’t quite get to tell them when you were face-to-face, since you left so suddenly, and you realize that, in the business you are in, you may not get a chance to get back there – period. 

 

So this is your letter.  Your time with Jason and the other believers was short but incredibly sweet – made all the more so by what you have been hearing.  You saw some go from worshipping idols in one or more of the multitude of temples to worshipping and praising THE one true God through the Lord Jesus Christ … a transformation so radical that you have almost – ALMOST, but not QUITE gotten used to seeing it … even in yourself when you sit back and think on what the last several years have been since that day on the road to Damascus. 

 

You talk about how it feels to hear about what they are doing, you praise them for their dedication and their faith, for the way they have not fallen away and renounced their faith in your absence, and especially in the face of persecution.  You work on remembering what you had told them, what you had taught them, and try to touch on those things that are most central, most critical. 

 

So you pray again that God’s peace would continue to be with them, regardless of what they are going through, and you share with them that you’ve been astounded at what you have heard about them from people they don’t even know – that the stories of THEIR faith and THEIR courage, THEIR strength in the face of trials has ALREADY spread throughout the area.  And then you get to what you wanted to get to:  that no matter what they are facing, no matter what persecution might come their way, God’s action on the cross through Jesus Christ did, is and will continue to rescue them from not just the superficial, temporary persecution they did suffer or might suffer, but ultimately, that perpetual movement of God to overcome evil in the world … to heal the sick, to make the broken whole again, to free the captives, and proclaim the freedom that is found in Christ.      

 

You pace as you dictate the letter, and Silvanus has to stop you over and over and over again just so he can get everything you are saying so quickly down on papyrus.  Timothy is sitting in the windowsill, watching the people go by outside, and here and there interjects a correction of how you said something, or to give you a name of a place or a person, and he keeps chuckling as Sylvanus is getting more and more frustrated with you for going so fast, until finally he just stops writing and you go on for several sentences before you realize that he’s just looking at you with this completely exasperated look on his face, and you just stand and stare at him for several seconds, until you realize the humor in the situation, and you start to chuckle, then shake with laughter, then you all burst out laughing and keep laughing until tears are streaming down your faces.   

 

What, you may ask, does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton, nearly a full 2000 years from the date of the letter? 

 

We treasure scripture.  We hold it to be Holy.  We consider it to be inspired; we go to it for all kinds of guidance, and correction, for reflection, for illumination in our darkest times. 

 

When we take words that were written thousands of years ago, and put them beside other words that were written centuries before THAT, we have a natural inclination to let the passage of those centuries do what would happen to anything preserved in desert monasteries and clay jars in Cliffside caves around the world – we let them dry out.  We need to be reminded every now and then that, when it came down to it, people like you and me were sitting down and putting God’s thoughts, working through their minds, down in ink and sending what they wrote to OTHER people JUST like you and me, who had their own quirks and warts, funny views and flawed lives, but who all, one way or another, were figuring out what it means to serve God and the Lord Jesus in real, tangible, significant ways – and putting that into practice in ways that have touched people’s lives all over the world.     

 

“Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Emmertonians in God the Father and (/even) the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.”

 

Lets pray.