From the Daily Lectionary for Friday and Saturday in the Fourth Week of Easter
1 Thessalonians 3:1-13 (The New Jerusalem Bible)
When we could not bear it any longer, we decided it would be best to be left without a
companion in Athens, and sent our brother Timothy, who is God’s helper in spreading the gospel of Christ, to keep you firm and encourage you about your faith and prevent any of you from being unsettled by the present hardships. As you know, these are bound to come our way: indeed, when we were with you, we warned you that we are certain to have hardships to bear, and that is what has happened now, as you have found out. That is why, when I could not bear it any longer, I sent to assure myself of your faith: I was afraid the Tester might have put you to the test, and all our work might have been pointless.
However, Timothy has returned from you and has given us good news of your faith and your love, telling us that you always remember us with pleasure and want to see us quite as much as we want to see you. And so, brothers, your faith has been a great encouragement to us in the middle of our own distress and hardship; now we can breathe again, as you are holding firm in the Lord. How can we thank God enough for you, for all the joy we feel before our God on your account? We are earnestly praying night and day to be able to see you face to face again and make up any shortcomings in your faith.
May God our Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, ease our path to you. May the Lord
increase and enrich your love for each other and for all, so that it matches ours for you. And may he so confirm your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless in the sight of our God and Father when Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.
The lectionary this fourth week of Easter has us reading from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, which Paul wrote around 50 CE, fifteen to twenty years after the crucifixion of Jesus. It is considered to be the earliest of any of his letters which have been preserved, and the earliest surviving Christian writing of any kind. Having established the church in Thessalonica during Paul’s second missionary journey, Paul and Silas and Timothy were suddenly forced to leave, and headed south toward Athens and then Corinth. They were worried about what would become of the new believers in the midst of the persecution that they were experiencing, including social ostracism and shaming and possibly physical harm. Paul sent Timothy back to Thessalonica to check on them, and Timothy returned with the good news that they were standing firm in their faith in Jesus. Paul probably wrote this letter while in Corinth, and had Timothy deliver it to the Thessalonians.
In the letter Paul refers to hardships the new believers in Christ would bear, and certainly Paul was familiar with hardship. During his missionary travels while building the church throughout the Roman Empire along the Mediterranean Sea he was beaten and stoned nearly to death, imprisoned, and whipped with lashes several times. Why? Because what Paul was teaching was a direct challenge to the power structures of the world. Remember that in preaching the gospel of Christ Paul was showing the way to God to all people, including Gentiles and Jews. His was an inclusive message, that all people are children of God. He taught that our justification (right relationship with God) is through grace by faith, and not through abiding by the legal codes that had marked Israel as God’s chosen people. Not the least of these was circumcision, and Paul insisted that new Gentile believers need not be circumcised in order to be justified by God. Established Judaism could not accept and was threatened by this teaching. Further, Paul’s teachings also challenged Roman power. Calling people to a new allegiance to God threatened to weaken their allegiance to Caesar. So, Paul faced strong opposition as he preached about Jesus, and he suffered greatly and ultimately died for it. Yet, he had persevered through it all, and his teachings of over two thousand years ago still resonate today. What arose over the next several decades was a group of believers known as followers of The Way, and of course ultimately Christianity itself. Next to Jesus Paul is considered to be the most influential person for the development of Christianity. Paul’s ethics include that believers will imitate Christ by seeking the good of others rather than for themselves, as he says in his letter to the Romans: “Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, ‘How can I help?’” (Rom.15:1-2, The Message) So, the cross for Paul was the symbol not only of Christian salvation but also of Christian conduct. It was and is a communal ethics, in that all of our individual actions have consequences for others.
What message can we take from this to help us navigate through the hardships we face today, including but not limited to the pandemic? Perhaps we can recognize ourselves as members of the one body of Christ, a church with the communal ethic of looking out for the needs of one another, of prayerfully asking how we can help, and then reaching out to those in need, especially those who are isolated and alone. Perhaps we can persevere through this trial of limited physical interaction until it is safe to gather again. That day will come, and then we can celebrate!
-Bob Donnell
