Always?
Sermon
Sermons On The Second Reading
Series I, Cycle A
Now there is a greeting that will knock you back a moment. "We always give thanks to God for all of you." Other translations put it: "We give thanks to God always for all of you." And maybe Paul was pouring it on a little thick, but it is a greeting that will put one on the defensive, because if we are honest, we cannot reply that we have always been praying for Paul. If we are honest, we cannot say that we are always faithful in our prayers at all. Paul tells the church at Thessalonica that he is always praying for them and giving thanks to God for them. But if we are honest we cannot tell each other that we are always praying for each other. In fact, there are days when I never get to my devotional life. So there goes "always" automatically.
Even more typically, the focus of our prayer life changes almost daily. We do not pray for the same thing over and over. We have different issues and concerns each day. We bring to God our prayers to help us deal with our daily issues, and if it takes more than two weeks for God to fix our problems, we are probably praying for something different by then. Always? Paul is praying for the church in Thessalonica always? It certainly holds up for us a standard of devotion that humbles us and embarrasses us. Few of us pray always and seldom does our agenda remain always the same. Paul says he is always giving thanks for the blessings that have been revealed in the saints at Thessalonica, and our prayers seldom touch on giving thanks for the gifts that others have received. If we pray for others, it is because of our desires that they receive a new blessing, that God may help them through a new problem, that God will give to those who are without work new jobs, that God will heal those whom we love from their illnesses.
Paul says he thanks God always for the blessings that are constantly being revealed in the life of the congregation at Thessalonica. Paul says there are three exciting witnesses to the power of God in the life of that congregation: the works of faith, the labors of love, and the endurance inspired by hope in Jesus Christ.
George Barna, president of the Barna Research Group, reported recently that a survey of active believers said their faith is consistently growing, helping them to feel connected to other people, and helping them to feel good about life and to take care of themselves and others.1 That is part of the work of faith in our lives. When Paul talks about the work of faith, Paul is talking about the effects of faith in the lives of individuals. The work of faith is the change that faith produces in the heart and mind of the believer. Faith is that which links our facts to meaning. Faith is that which leaps into the unknown by trusting the unseen. Emily Dickinson, the gentle recluse of a poet, describes the work of faith: "Faith - is the Pierless Bridge Supporting what we see Unto the scene that we do not - Too slender for the eye." The work of faith is to seek understanding; its job is to take us from the facts and carry us toward meaning.
It is the work of faith to provide us a way to live with all our contradictions into a meaningful and purposeful way. The religious newspaper writer said that "earthly life is full of contradictions and should be savored accordingly. Contradiction, true enough, is unbearable. Nobody wants too much of it. Yet, enormous spiritual work is launched every day on propositions imbedded in paradox, incongruity, contradiction. Four big ones: God is everywhere, yet invisible. Life is lived forward, as Kierkegaard said, but only understood backward. Happiness is best pursued through selflessness. The incarnation is at the center of the Christian story, but just try explaining it to a stranger."2 It is the work of faith to take our fragile pieces and hold them together in a miracle of purpose and meaning.
But not only is faith supposed to help us find a comprehensive wholeness for our pieces, the work of faith is constantly to be making our picture larger. "Belief makes the mind abundant," said W. B. Yeats. Faith's work is to open up life to larger and larger realities, to open up life on all its sides, at every level to new possibilities and new life.
Beyers Naud was a 69--year--old white clergyman in South Africa during the struggle against apartheid. He was placed under house arrest for his resistance to the governmental laws. Naude said it was his faith that changed him. "I should possibly mention that it was in four different areas where I sought light based on the light of Christ. Firstly, the whole question of the unity and diversity of the human race; secondly, on the unity and diversity of the church on earth; thirdly, the responsibility of the church in the different areas of human society; and fourthly, the necessity of the church to play a role of reconciler in situations of serious tensions."3 The work of faith moved Beyers Naud from a narrow world of white Christianity to a grander and more exciting kingdom where all people are God's children and deserving of the same love and justice. Faith is not finished with you yet. The Spirit of God is at work in you. Through faith the Spirit is at work to make you into the image of Jesus Christ. It is a work of faith that links us to the meaning that assures us that we are loved, that we matter, that what we do has significance, and that what we do for others has eternal significance.
Thus there are labors of love. There are actions and deeds that we do out of love of God for other people. There are acts of compassion on behalf of other people that grow out of our understanding and vision of life that is given by faith. It is called labor because it is hard. The report from mission trips is that they do a lot of hot, sweaty, and difficult work. There were trucks to unload and food to unpack. There were pots to scrub and dishes to wash. There were hot ovens and stoves to attend. They were labors of love because they were done out of love in response to the love of God in Jesus Christ for us. The mission workers do not know the people they help. They cannot say that they do it because they love them because they were lovable people. Those were labors of love for those people out of response of love for Christ because God has shown his love for the workers. In gratitude for God's love for us, we go and do labors of love for God to those people.
Labors of love are the doing of hard things for others on lots of different levels. There is the glass of cold water to a thirsty person. There is the winter jacket for a school--age child. There are scholarships to camp from individuals. There are deeds of kindness from one person to another. Forgiveness of others is one of the most difficult labors of love we are called to do. Out of the love of God for us while we were yet sinners, we serve that love by forgiving others. The labor of love is to act toward the one who has offended as if they had not offended us. The labor of love is to look at the terrorists as if they were still human beings and to be treated with respect and dignity even while they are punished for the crimes and actions they commit. That is hard labor.
The labors of love are on a personal level. They are carried out on an institutional level as well. There are agencies and groups who are working to provide compassion and justice for all people, like local food pantries and the Red Cross. The labors of love are carried out in the political and international arena as well. There are vast and difficult forces at work in the world that result in hunger, starvation, disease, and unemployment, which can only be changed by political decisions and public will. There are labors of love which must be focused on all levels.
The work of faith and the labors of love can cause us to grow tired and discouraged. There needs to be a patience, an endurance, a steadfastness of hope that sustains faith and love through to the end. It is the conviction that what one is doing is the work and will of God and that God has a purpose and a providence that will sustain and preserve the work we do. The patience of hope, the steadfastness of hope, is joy that brightens all our work. Why are we working and doing these labors? What do we expect and what gives us the reason to believe that what we expect will happen? We can endure almost any kind of how and what when life is sustained by a why. The hope of the Christian faith is grounded in the victory of Christ over death. Our faith and our love is a response to what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, and our hope is rooted in the promise that what we have seen in Christ is God's intention for all life. Our hope never becomes exhausted because it is not grounded on our own strength or the strength of our economy or the quality of our education. Our hope comes to us from the grace of God we have seen and received in Christ Jesus. On Christ the solid rock we stand and in the wonder of God's resurrection of Jesus, we continue to plant small seeds of goodness and justice in the conviction that they will grow into huge bushes of goodness and justice. We do not become discouraged when resources become low and crowds drift away, because God raised up the one abandoned on the cross. We work in hope and confidence that where we are doing the will and purpose of God, God will not forsake or abandon. We work and live in the steadfastness of hope that the one who has given new life in Christ will be the one to whom we go in the end.
It has stayed with me through the years. The scene from the movie The Hiding Place about the ten Boom sisters. Corrie and her sister Betsie were talking with the other women in a concentration camp about the love of God and inviting the other women to share in that love. "You mean that your God of love is sitting up in heaven and cannot smell the burnt flesh of the women who are suffering and being killed down here? Look at these hands, I was first violinist for the Prague Orchestra and now they have been broken and shattered. You mean to say that God intended all this." She waves her gnarled fingers around the barracks. The camera watches as the two ten Boom sisters struggle with the work of faith to include those fingers in their understanding of meaning. But their hope is not built on the prison surroundings, but on the cross and on the Christ who was God enduring our pain, who endured the same hatred and cruelty. The patience of hope is built on the incarnation and so it remains steadfast through all the darkness and the sorrow. Betsie dies with the affirmation on her own lips, "No pit is so deep that God is not deeper." The steadfast hope in Jesus Christ fills us with the confidence that we labor on toward the morning and to the coming of the joy of God's people.
We give thanks wherever and whenever we are blessed by the works of faith, the labors of love, and the patience of hope.
____________
1. Adelle M. Banks "Poll: Active Churchgoers more likely to express life satisfaction," The News: Presbyterian Church (USA), Presbyterian News Service, Louisville, Kentucky, July 25, 2003, p. 5.
2. Ray Waddle, "Spell--Checking Spirit," Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, Number 37, p. 118.
3. Beyers Naud , Hope for Faith: A Conversation (The Risk book series) (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1986).
Even more typically, the focus of our prayer life changes almost daily. We do not pray for the same thing over and over. We have different issues and concerns each day. We bring to God our prayers to help us deal with our daily issues, and if it takes more than two weeks for God to fix our problems, we are probably praying for something different by then. Always? Paul is praying for the church in Thessalonica always? It certainly holds up for us a standard of devotion that humbles us and embarrasses us. Few of us pray always and seldom does our agenda remain always the same. Paul says he is always giving thanks for the blessings that have been revealed in the saints at Thessalonica, and our prayers seldom touch on giving thanks for the gifts that others have received. If we pray for others, it is because of our desires that they receive a new blessing, that God may help them through a new problem, that God will give to those who are without work new jobs, that God will heal those whom we love from their illnesses.
Paul says he thanks God always for the blessings that are constantly being revealed in the life of the congregation at Thessalonica. Paul says there are three exciting witnesses to the power of God in the life of that congregation: the works of faith, the labors of love, and the endurance inspired by hope in Jesus Christ.
George Barna, president of the Barna Research Group, reported recently that a survey of active believers said their faith is consistently growing, helping them to feel connected to other people, and helping them to feel good about life and to take care of themselves and others.1 That is part of the work of faith in our lives. When Paul talks about the work of faith, Paul is talking about the effects of faith in the lives of individuals. The work of faith is the change that faith produces in the heart and mind of the believer. Faith is that which links our facts to meaning. Faith is that which leaps into the unknown by trusting the unseen. Emily Dickinson, the gentle recluse of a poet, describes the work of faith: "Faith - is the Pierless Bridge Supporting what we see Unto the scene that we do not - Too slender for the eye." The work of faith is to seek understanding; its job is to take us from the facts and carry us toward meaning.
It is the work of faith to provide us a way to live with all our contradictions into a meaningful and purposeful way. The religious newspaper writer said that "earthly life is full of contradictions and should be savored accordingly. Contradiction, true enough, is unbearable. Nobody wants too much of it. Yet, enormous spiritual work is launched every day on propositions imbedded in paradox, incongruity, contradiction. Four big ones: God is everywhere, yet invisible. Life is lived forward, as Kierkegaard said, but only understood backward. Happiness is best pursued through selflessness. The incarnation is at the center of the Christian story, but just try explaining it to a stranger."2 It is the work of faith to take our fragile pieces and hold them together in a miracle of purpose and meaning.
But not only is faith supposed to help us find a comprehensive wholeness for our pieces, the work of faith is constantly to be making our picture larger. "Belief makes the mind abundant," said W. B. Yeats. Faith's work is to open up life to larger and larger realities, to open up life on all its sides, at every level to new possibilities and new life.
Beyers Naud was a 69--year--old white clergyman in South Africa during the struggle against apartheid. He was placed under house arrest for his resistance to the governmental laws. Naude said it was his faith that changed him. "I should possibly mention that it was in four different areas where I sought light based on the light of Christ. Firstly, the whole question of the unity and diversity of the human race; secondly, on the unity and diversity of the church on earth; thirdly, the responsibility of the church in the different areas of human society; and fourthly, the necessity of the church to play a role of reconciler in situations of serious tensions."3 The work of faith moved Beyers Naud from a narrow world of white Christianity to a grander and more exciting kingdom where all people are God's children and deserving of the same love and justice. Faith is not finished with you yet. The Spirit of God is at work in you. Through faith the Spirit is at work to make you into the image of Jesus Christ. It is a work of faith that links us to the meaning that assures us that we are loved, that we matter, that what we do has significance, and that what we do for others has eternal significance.
Thus there are labors of love. There are actions and deeds that we do out of love of God for other people. There are acts of compassion on behalf of other people that grow out of our understanding and vision of life that is given by faith. It is called labor because it is hard. The report from mission trips is that they do a lot of hot, sweaty, and difficult work. There were trucks to unload and food to unpack. There were pots to scrub and dishes to wash. There were hot ovens and stoves to attend. They were labors of love because they were done out of love in response to the love of God in Jesus Christ for us. The mission workers do not know the people they help. They cannot say that they do it because they love them because they were lovable people. Those were labors of love for those people out of response of love for Christ because God has shown his love for the workers. In gratitude for God's love for us, we go and do labors of love for God to those people.
Labors of love are the doing of hard things for others on lots of different levels. There is the glass of cold water to a thirsty person. There is the winter jacket for a school--age child. There are scholarships to camp from individuals. There are deeds of kindness from one person to another. Forgiveness of others is one of the most difficult labors of love we are called to do. Out of the love of God for us while we were yet sinners, we serve that love by forgiving others. The labor of love is to act toward the one who has offended as if they had not offended us. The labor of love is to look at the terrorists as if they were still human beings and to be treated with respect and dignity even while they are punished for the crimes and actions they commit. That is hard labor.
The labors of love are on a personal level. They are carried out on an institutional level as well. There are agencies and groups who are working to provide compassion and justice for all people, like local food pantries and the Red Cross. The labors of love are carried out in the political and international arena as well. There are vast and difficult forces at work in the world that result in hunger, starvation, disease, and unemployment, which can only be changed by political decisions and public will. There are labors of love which must be focused on all levels.
The work of faith and the labors of love can cause us to grow tired and discouraged. There needs to be a patience, an endurance, a steadfastness of hope that sustains faith and love through to the end. It is the conviction that what one is doing is the work and will of God and that God has a purpose and a providence that will sustain and preserve the work we do. The patience of hope, the steadfastness of hope, is joy that brightens all our work. Why are we working and doing these labors? What do we expect and what gives us the reason to believe that what we expect will happen? We can endure almost any kind of how and what when life is sustained by a why. The hope of the Christian faith is grounded in the victory of Christ over death. Our faith and our love is a response to what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, and our hope is rooted in the promise that what we have seen in Christ is God's intention for all life. Our hope never becomes exhausted because it is not grounded on our own strength or the strength of our economy or the quality of our education. Our hope comes to us from the grace of God we have seen and received in Christ Jesus. On Christ the solid rock we stand and in the wonder of God's resurrection of Jesus, we continue to plant small seeds of goodness and justice in the conviction that they will grow into huge bushes of goodness and justice. We do not become discouraged when resources become low and crowds drift away, because God raised up the one abandoned on the cross. We work in hope and confidence that where we are doing the will and purpose of God, God will not forsake or abandon. We work and live in the steadfastness of hope that the one who has given new life in Christ will be the one to whom we go in the end.
It has stayed with me through the years. The scene from the movie The Hiding Place about the ten Boom sisters. Corrie and her sister Betsie were talking with the other women in a concentration camp about the love of God and inviting the other women to share in that love. "You mean that your God of love is sitting up in heaven and cannot smell the burnt flesh of the women who are suffering and being killed down here? Look at these hands, I was first violinist for the Prague Orchestra and now they have been broken and shattered. You mean to say that God intended all this." She waves her gnarled fingers around the barracks. The camera watches as the two ten Boom sisters struggle with the work of faith to include those fingers in their understanding of meaning. But their hope is not built on the prison surroundings, but on the cross and on the Christ who was God enduring our pain, who endured the same hatred and cruelty. The patience of hope is built on the incarnation and so it remains steadfast through all the darkness and the sorrow. Betsie dies with the affirmation on her own lips, "No pit is so deep that God is not deeper." The steadfast hope in Jesus Christ fills us with the confidence that we labor on toward the morning and to the coming of the joy of God's people.
We give thanks wherever and whenever we are blessed by the works of faith, the labors of love, and the patience of hope.
____________
1. Adelle M. Banks "Poll: Active Churchgoers more likely to express life satisfaction," The News: Presbyterian Church (USA), Presbyterian News Service, Louisville, Kentucky, July 25, 2003, p. 5.
2. Ray Waddle, "Spell--Checking Spirit," Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, Number 37, p. 118.
3. Beyers Naud , Hope for Faith: A Conversation (The Risk book series) (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1986).
