1 Thessalonians 2.13-16
Sometimes I wonder why you’re here. What makes you spend a sizable slice of your weekend doing this? Or what moves you to serve in our church, or turn up to a Life Group, or the Youth Network? Why are you here? Is it because someone was nice to you, or the coffee’s good, or the music’s pleasing, or the chairs are comfortable, or the routine is helpful? Or is it just that you’re looking for something to do? Are you killing time? Why are you here?
I’m being a little facetious. But sometimes I do wonder what on earth draws us. And I’m becoming increasingly convinced that our faith, what happens in us and among us, must in some way actually matter to us. We might enjoy the pleasantries in the lobby, or the music, but these things can be found in other non-churchy places. We’re here because, on some level, something of the ancient good news of Jesus has taken root. Of course, at times we’re dulled and distracted by what our commercially-obsessed, entertainment-addicted society has on offer, but in the end we’re still desperate for more truth, more love, more direction in what it means to be human. And we’ve put our hope in Jesus to find these things, convinced enough that we need to turn up for one another to find what is, in Paul’s words, “at work in us”. We’re not content with a church service for the sake of it. Give us what Jesus promised, life to the full, a life in the Spirit, God moving around among us, sometimes obviously sometimes with great subtlety. If God isn’t at work among us, we may as well pack up and go home.
The sign over the door as you came in read: “You Are Welcome”, and so you are. But we’re only welcome together because of another sign written in the Spirit over every group of Christian sisters and brothers everywhere which reads: God at work.
Today’s portion of Paul’s letter to the first Christians in Thessalonica holds an awareness of this sentiment – an influence at work, drawing, unifying and growing people up into a fuller humanity. As we heard, in some ways this a strange bit part of the letter, and we’ll come to that, but it’s also an entirely fitting text for today, just one week after Pentecost. Why? Because this is where Paul sticks the landing of his preceding words about why his message about Jesus can be trusted. And he doesn’t make a case for logic, or press his credentials. It’s not been his work, but God’s work. He tells the Thessalonians that they can trust what they’ve received because of what they see going on among them. Let’s walk through it.
More Thanks!
The first thing to notice in this development of the letter is again Paul’s gratitude to God. I have a little game with our four-year-old where I call and say, “I have something to tell you!”, and she scurries over, I take her in my arms and say, “I love you!” It’s beginning to wear on her, “Dad, you told me that yesterday. I’ll tell you when I forget and you can tell me again.” Paul’s routine thankfulness feels a little like that – “Oh, and did I forget to tell you how thankful I am to God for you?”
A couple of weeks ago Rikk made note that Paul was a great leader by example, and this is especially clear when it came to thankfulness. In all his letters, especially 1 Thessalonians, we find Paul’s constant gratitude on display, in this case again for what God was up to and how the Thessalonians were responding. Later in the letter Paul writes, “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5.18). Not to get ahead of ourselves, but it does seem a common theme among post-modern Christians is an obsession with finding out what “God’s will” is for our lives. Of course, it’s reasonable to want God’s direction in all kinds of matters. But I’m not sure I’ve heard many people identify God’s will for them first being that they should be thankful in all circumstances. And I wonder what shape our lives might take under that refrain. What does a consistent practice of thankfulness to God do in us? Well, to state the blindingly obvious, it directs us to God, when our focus can be pulled elsewhere very easily. Simple thankfulness to God pulls us into a state of always being on the lookout for God. Our society is trying to tap into more of this, as we’ve seen with the meteoric rise in the sale of gratitude journals. That said, every time I hear someone say they have a gratitude practice I feel like asking, “but to who?” Humans seem designed to worship, and within that is giving thanks. Thankfulness to God breeds a remembrance of God, making way for obedience to God.
So one discipleship takeaway from this whole letter is to follow in Paul’s example of constantly giving thanks to God, especially for those in the faith he has surrounded us with. If we were to do that more often we might be surprised by the maturity we grow into as sisters and brothers. (So, I have something to tell you… “I’m so thankful for you”)
At Work in You
As mentioned, this moment in the letter is where Paul sticks the landing of a long argument about why the Thessalonians can trust the message about Jesus, even though he’s had to move on and can’t come visit them. Something is going on in them that went beyond human power and ideas. Yes, Paul and Silas acted with great care and selflessness (they didn’t fleece anyone for anything), but Paul’s final note on what has happened in the forming of this new community is not how gentle, generous or clever a teacher he was. Instead, he points to what the Thessalonians can’t deny. There is something at work in them beyond human words and ideas – the very word of God to them. This is why Paul is thankful. He’s not sold them a self-help package, he and Silas have acted as conduits of God’s message of grace and life among the Thessalonians. If it was just a bunch of slick new ideas, and Paul was just an dynamic speaker, then the Thessalonians wouldn’t be enduring against all odds. So, on those dark, dangerous nights, huddled together in love and prayer, when they were asking “Is Paul to be trusted? Is his message to be trusted?”, then Paul’s response is “Take a look at yourselves! Can you deny what’s happened in you and among you? You didn’t adopt any old curriculum. I’m not even with you. The proof is in the pudding! Look at you go!” Which leads us to the next section.
Imitation Game
Imitation, an example to follow, is a big part of what it means to be a Christian. These early documents from our Christians ancestors, the New Testament letters, remind us of how our faith works. We aren’t simply downloaded a way of thinking and being from the cloud. God works through person to person. It’s not magic. This is how the real God-stuff works, life to life. There is a God-power at work, but it’s at work within our relations one to the other. I was praying with a couple of long-time friends last week, people who’ve played no small part in shaping me, and one of them began their prayer by saying, “Lord, we thank you for our little brother”. That’s how the prayer began, and rightly so, because when it comes to our development and maturity God does not wave a magic wand over us, he gives us examples. Big sisters, little sisters, big brothers, little brothers. He gives us one another to model and encourage in following Jesus. (Who is coming to your mind right now? Prison baptisms!)
So, the Thessalonian Christians are following Jesus’ example through the examples of those who had been following Jesus first. And here Paul shows the direct line of their Christian heritage, and helps to manage some expectations. First, the gospel came to the Jewish people, as the story of God unfolded through their history. And, as with some of Israel’s ancient history, the word of God was not received but rejected. So it was with Jesus and his gospel. Jesus was rejected and killed by some, and his followers in Judea were also rejected and persecuted. Paul’s logic is then: don’t be surprised if you as Jesus-followers experience what the leader did. You have to wonder if this was of some comfort to the Thessalonian Christians. If they were being harassed and alienated by their people in their city, they might take solace that this has been the name of the game for those devoted to God all along. In other words, suffering persecution wasn’t a sign that they were in the wrong, or had been cursed, but that they were in the right – they were following the example of what had come before them. The pushback they were receiving was from idolatrous attitudes unwilling to recognize God’s authority and message. Just like those in Judea who had welcomed Jesus and his gospel, the Thessalonians are not suffering because God has forgotten them, but because they have remembered God in a society that had forgotten and was even hostile to their Creator.
Displeasing God, Hostile to Everyone
Next, Paul pulls no punches here when speaking of some of his own on this matter. And scholars note that this is a startingly emotional, even odd moment in the letter. But a moment like this reminds us of the dividing line Jesus was in these early days of the Christian movment. Paul had gone from hunting Jewish Christians to now being God’s spokesperson for the gospel to the rest of the world. Some get nervous around a passage like this as Paul has been horribly misinterpreted over the centuries as being anti-Jewish. It’s true that passages like this have been used to justify mistreatment of Jewish people, which is terribly wrong, both morally and historically. But Paul is not anti-Jewish. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Paul was Jewish himself, and wherever he took the gospel, his first stop was always the Jewish synagogue. Paul wants his people, the Israelite people, to know and be fully reconciled to God. Even though he had been called to take the message about Jesus to non-Jewish world, if there was a Jewish presence in a city Paul would always start there. This is the case in Thessalonica as his first and only stop in sharing the gospel was the synagogue there. Paul was not out scrap Israel’s story or future – he saw Jesus as the fulfilment. So, the Christian community, a mix of Jewish and non-Jewish people, was growing up around in and around this tradition. We should also add that in this passage Paul is not speaking of all Jewish people in general, but of those in Judea at that time who had rejected Jesus and were opposing the gospel. Paul is simply so convinced that Israel’s God had revealed himself to them, and yet again some were so blinded by their idolatry that they rejected and opposed God’s revelation to them in Jesus.
You’ve heard the phrase “being on the wrong side of history”, Paul’s take, as a card-carrying Israelite, a former member of the Sanhedrin even, is that some of his fellow Israelites are finding themselves now on the wrong side of God, as he once was. And the result is, God’s wrath is upon them, since they have not only rejected God but are actively opposing the spread of God’s message to the rest of the world. These have been hard words for scholars to explain, because the wrath of God in this sense seems elsewhere in scripture something reserved for a later date. One scholar simply puts it this way: “The most likely suggestion is that… Paul is so certain of God’s soon-coming judgement on his ancient people that he speaks of it – future thought it still is – as an event that has already taken place”[i] That’s pretty heavy. As thankful as Paul is for the Thessalonians welcome and receiving of God and his word to them (and he is ecstatic throughout the letter as we are seeing), he’s equally serious about those who have rejected and opposed God’s work in the world. Our takeaway here? For Paul, the rejection of Jesus, and getting in the way of the gospel going to others, has serious repercussions. But, let’s remember, this hasn’t been the Thessalonian’s path, and if we’ve said yes to Jesus it’s not ours either. As with other hard words in scripture, if we’re at all worried about being on the wrong side of God, we’re not on the wrong side of God.
Relatable and Not so Relatable
I find this whole passage both highly relatable and also not relatable at all. We’ve seen Paul’s example of thankfulness, and the importance of example setting itself in a life of faith. And we’ve heard about the word of God among us, powerful, unifying, life changing as it moves from person to person. That I can get on board with. Life together in Christ is not merely human work, but the very words and work of God among us. Why else would we be here, and still be here today? We have received the very word of God, and it’s running rampant with hope, joy and love among us, day to day and life to life.
On the other hand, I struggle to identify with the suffering themes of this letter, because the kind of suffering the Thessalonians faced is strange to me. It might be helpful to point out what we mean here by suffering. There are three categories of suffering. First, we suffer because we live in a broken world. The rain falls on the just and the unjust, and so does suffering in a word torn by sin – in a world like this to suffer is to be human. We might call this general suffering. Born of this first kind of suffering is the second: we suffer because we’ve made a mess of things personally and are reaping what we sow. I should not have eaten that ice crème cake at midnight in the cold light of my fridge, and now I’m paying the price. We could call this a suffering of consequence. Third, following a similar pattern, is a suffering because of the decisions of others: abuses and traumas to varying degrees. This is also a suffering of consequence, only we’re not paying the price for what we’ve brought on ourselves, but of what others have brought on us. Within this third category of suffering is where we find the Thessalonian’s experience. They are living in a broken world, a broken city, and are suffering at the hands of others by way of persecution for their faith. Hardship is at the door because they are living against the grain.
For some of us, maybe not all, at first reading this is hard to identify with. But if you read the letter in its entirety, we might find that Paul either directly or indirectly speaks to all three of categories of suffering. Later in the letter he’ll address the sadness and worries the Thessalonians have because some among them have died. What is his response? “We do not grieve without hope.” Death and loss are part and parcel of human experience, and who knows why or how some among them have died. But he tells them there is hope. That death doesn’t hold the trump card – there is a good end to the story because of Jesus’ power over death. Paul also indirectly speaks to that suffering which from poor decision making on their part. This is where he gives instruction about right living. Living against God’s grain is only going to cause us problems, so go God’s way on these issues – we’ll cover those later in the letter. Not all our suffering is down to that fact we’re not following God’s lead, but some of it is, so be sure to listen to what God has to say on how to be human! And of course, as we see here and have already covered, Paul speaks to the suffering faced at the hands of others because of persecution – to which he says, this kind of suffering is to be expected at times if you’ve signed up to follow a crucified Jesus. So, in a roundabout way, I do see Paul’s words can be applied to different kinds of suffering. What we should return to, which brings us back to Paul’s main point in this part of the letter, what has changed the Thessalonians, what will sustain them in life, even in the face of various experiences of suffering is one thing: the word of God at work in and among them.
The word of God to them – the message of Jesus. Not just an idea, but the activity of the Holy Spirit, drawing and unifying people who have no business calling one another sister or brother otherwise. So what does the word of God, the gospel, bring us? It brings forgiveness and peace to the worst offenses. It brings unity and harmony where that should be impossible. It causes us to face suffering, pain and even death with some confidence and hope. It helps us to endure and mature.
Remember how the Bible begins, “in the beginning God created…”, and how do they describe that action – with words. Remember the beginning of John’s gospel, “In the beginning was the word…” When we talk about the message of at work God among us, as familiar with that language as we may be, we’re talking about the most creative, powerful and loving stuff in the universe. And the same word of God among them, has been among us right now, in that prison down the road, in the high school prayer group.
So, let’s end how we started. Why are we here? We’re here to tune in to the frequency of the Spirit, to hear what we don’t through the news or social media. The very word of God in us: we’re made and loved, welcomed and forgiven. We’re the temple of the Holy Spirit. We’re the hands of feet and Jesus.
We’re not just killing time. Be attentive today to what is at work in you and among you. Spirit-refreshing, hope-building, courage-making. May what you received from God bring you through, hold you together, fill you with purpose for another day. And as we wrap up, I invite you stand, and say to someone next to you: I know why you’re here, I know why we’re together – I think God might actually be at work in us and between us.
[i] Gordon Fee, 1 Thessalonians
Luke Knight 