Sunday at First Lectionarian

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

9 How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? 10 Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith.

11 Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. 12 And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. 13 And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

We can be quick to criticize and dismiss Christians who prooftext Scripture, quoting Bible verses out of context to prove a point or as the basis for doctrine. A relative once told me that he was saved and sure for heaven because the Bible says “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9) and that he had said it and believed it and so was saved. Having grown up with a notion of the Way of the Cross as the Way of Life and leaving whatever comes next to God, what my relative believed struck me as shallow religion if the object is to get into heaven, and an easy way to save oneself if what is required is to say something and claim to believe it.

Indeed, Christianity whose object is to get into heaven does seem selfish, and finding a Bible verse that proves one is in seems simplistic, but my complaint was about prooftexting, and we scoffing lectionarians do it too if more subtly. We also have a creed to say and claim to believe.

Our second lesson for Advent Sunday is from First Thessalonians, Paul’s earliest extant letter. In eighty-nine verses Paul writes back to the members of a Church he founded, among other things assuaging their anxiety by assuring them that their friends and loved ones who died before the expected Second Coming have not lost out, but will be included in its promised benefits. In our inimitable style, we lectionarians have lifted five verses out of context to read, along with a snippet from Jeremiah that alludes to the day of the Lord, and a snippet from Luke’s little apocalypse; and we think we’ve given ourselves a thorough dousing in Scripture, when what we’ve actually done is check off our tradition of having a reading from the OT, and another from an Epistle, and a third from a Gospel, all molded into a common theme for the day. Yet we have learned nothing about Jeremiah and his prophecy, or about Paul and what he was saying to his friends at Thessalonica, or about what Luke has Jesus saying to his disciples outside the Temple, or about what Jeremiah or Paul or Luke and Jesus have to say that might be relevant and helpful to us. Somehow or other the preacher is expected to pick one to preach about or to draw all this together into the Advent theme if he/she is so inclined. But this coming Sunday the cat will be away, so the mouse may just introduce Saint Nicholas and invite members of the congregation to come up and sit on his lap and tell him what they want for Christmas.

TW+