Thessaloniki (sermon)
Good morning again, as you may have noticed, the church lectionary puts the Caesar’s Coin gospel here in Stewardship Season so we can preach a pledging and tithing sermon. But I did that quite enough over my years, including a number of times here with you. So, hoping you might be a student for a few minutes, I shall teach about 1st Thessalonians. I will be repetitive so you “get it” - - and there will be homework, so listen up! I shall speak in the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You may be seated.
You know this: First Thessalonians is Paul’s oldest “extant” epistle, his oldest letter we have. Paul may have written earlier to this or other churches, but this is Paul's oldest letter that was saved. What happened is that, as the Gospel began to spread, in no small part because of Paul’s missionary journeys, Paul going city to city establishing house churches, staying awhile, and moving on - - Paul would write back later: we don't have the other side of any correspondence, only Paul’s, but by rumor, letter or messenger, word would come to Paul from a church he’d founded, that there were problems, a question, an occasion for advice of some sort, and he would write them a letter of wisdom, theology and guidance. Some of his letters are angry, harsh, bitter. Some, like 1Thess, are soothing, assuring. There were various occasions, which, because we don't have the other side of the conversation, we have to reconstruct from the nature, content and tone of Paul’s letters that we do have. I won’t go into other letters, including Philippians that last Sunday we finished reading in church on four successive Sunday mornings, but I’ll go into 1Thess a little bit because we’ll be reading bits from it the next four or five Sundays.
First I admit disliking that the church reads Paul’s letters in bits and pieces, lectionary snippets, like a butcher chopping up an animal so it’s impossible, short of dedicated study, to recognize the whole thing, to understand what Paul is saying, and why. Unlike how we read them in church today, in Paul’s day, when a letter arrived, everyone in the church was told, and they knew it was Paul’s answer to their situation, and they gathered to hear the messenger read it aloud from start to finish.
The churches began to save Paul’s letters, and copy them, and send them round to other churches that Paul had founded, sharing his guidance, and reminiscing what a blessing it had been when he was with them in person. Eventually Paul’s letters came to be read in worship as we still do today. Over time, every letter that was known or thought to be from Paul was collected into the New Testament canon as we now have it.
The church at Thessalonica, Thessalonika, or "Thessaloniki" as thirty-odd years ago Jimmie Nichols taught me to say it in proper Greek, Thessaloniki had an occasion, as we can discern from Paul’s answer that we have as “First Thessalonians.” You can read this letter in ten minutes, by the way, and, seeing this is Paul’s first letter, and it shows his theology at the beginning of his ministry, and if you are interested in God and the Christian faith that you claim to believe and live by, you ought to read it sometime. In fact, do it this week, that’s your homework: read 1Thessalonians this week.
Here’s what happened. Paul was missing the friends he’d made and loved in the church he had formed in Thessaloniki, missing them and worrying whether they were sticking to the gospel, the Way of the Cross, the life of love and sacrifice the faith demands of us. Paul wants to go back and see them, but keeps getting delayed, so he sends Timothy to check. Timothy comes back to Paul with good news: all is well, they still love Paul and, to Paul’s delight, are living by Paul’s guidance. But some have died, and there’s the rub that presents the “occasion” for this epistle..
Unfortunately, some have died, and those still alive wonder why everything is not happening as Paul prophesied; they are anxious about whether those who have died, and those who will yet die before Christ returns again: will those who have died, and those who yet will die before Jesus comes as Paul promised, will they inherit the kingdom with those who are still alive at the Second Coming? Listen and watch as this starts to become Christian doctrine, remember “He will come again to judge the quick and the dead” as we used to say in the Creed. That doctrine starts right here.
See, Paul the strict monotheist Pharisaic Jew is also an apocalypticist. Paul believes and teaches that the Eschaton, the End Time, is at hand, God's "Wrath to Come." That Jesus will return in their lifetimes, in Paul’s own lifetime God will send Jesus from heaven back to earth to establish the Kingdom of God on earth, and rule over it as God’s regent for ever. When that happens, those who have the faith of Jesus, that is Jesus’ faith, the Jewish faith in the One True Creating God of Israel, will be saved into the Kingdom. Paul’s ministry is to bring Gentiles, before it’s too late, under what I like to call the umbrella that is the faith of Jesus Christ, whose faith is in the One True Creating God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses.
So Timothy returns from his Thessalonian visit assures Paul that their faith is strong, but brings Paul their anxious question: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again,” but what will happen to those who die before he comes again?” Later for Paul there are many other problems, questions, occasions, issues that develop and are addressed by Paul in other letters, but not here. Questions such as, “Do converted Gentiles have to be circumcised into Jews?” and “Do converted Gentiles have to follow Jewish dietary and other laws as required in the Torah by the Law of Moses?” Paul is writing maybe about 50 A.D. long before other New Testament books, long before Mark and the synoptics, long before the Book of Revelation. Paul is a monotheist Jew who knows Jesus as the Son of God but knows nothing of Gospel John’s doctrine of Jesus as God the Son, two entirely different theological concepts, Gospel John’s high Christology is decades in the future, after Paul’s martyrdom in Rome. Paul knows nothing about the Virgin Birth or the Nativity Stories of Bethlehem, Shepherds and Wise Men; those traditions develop and are proclaimed nearly a half century later by Matthew and Luke. Nor does Paul the 1st Century monotheist Jew know the Trinity Doctrine that the Nicene Fathers do not settle until the 4th Century.
So the sole question that occasions First Thessalonians is “What happens to those faithful who die before Jesus comes again: will they have a place in the new kingdom of God on earth?” Paul assures them, “No worries. Those believers who are dead, those faithful who have died, Jesus will bring them back with him when he comes, and Living and Dead will all meet up in the clouds.” In the meantime, you are to continue living your lives that are so pleasing to God. How you live now will make a difference then. See Christian doctrine starting to develop? this little epistle is an important document.
So that’s First Thessalonians. It’s in the standard form of a first century letter, and there’s other stuff in it, but the issue is “What about those who die before Jesus comes?” And Paul gives what will become the church’s doctrine: they also will be saved into God’s new kingdom; as for you, continue in the faith.
1Thess is an “occasional letter,” as are all of Paul’s letters occasional letters to address particular occasions, questions, problems, issues.
I am not smart: it took me seven minutes to read First Thessalonians again this week. You can read it in ten minutes or less while you drink your morning coffee.
Generally, I avoid reading Paul, the most boring writer ever, long, incomprehensible sentences. Romans and First & Second Corinthians will cure your insomnia. But 1Thess is a quick and fascinating look at what Paul believed and taught early in his ministry, and especially, for us, his exhortation that we are to live lives pleasing to God.
Paul and his thinking evolve over time, in part as the Second Coming is delayed and delayed and delayed, and from Thessalonians to Romans we see evolution in Paul’s thinking, but he is always faithful to the God of Jesus Christ, encouraging us to have the faith of Jesus, and 1stThess is the place to start.
My first intent for this morning was to deal briefly with Paul to Thessalonians (which I have failed, I was not brief) then spend my pulpit time with today’s Collect and Exodus figuring out “the Glory of God,” “God’s Glory,” what that means, and how and why God shows Moses his glory not face to face, but tucks Moses behind a rock to peak out while God flashes his rear end (that’s what the Bible says), the Glory of God. We’ll talk about it another time.
Sermon in Trinity Episcopal Church, Apalachicola, Florida. Sunday, October 22, 2017. The Reverend Tom Weller. Precipitating text: First Thessalonians 1:1-10. Why post: Just keeping a promise.