The 4th Sunday in Incarnation
Read 1 Thessalonians 2
1.
Faith in the God embodied in Jesus Christ is going to change your life. It’s going to change the way you spend your time and your money, for starters. But just as importantly it’s going to rewire your heart a bit, or maybe more than a bit, so that you care about people in a different way, and you read the morning news in a different way, and you watch the sun setting or the moon rising in a whole new way.
Vulnerability. That’s what faith does.
And that’s maybe the first and most arresting message of this letter Paul writes to the church in Thessaloniki. My faith in Jesus, he says, causes me to step out into the open, even when that means danger and uncertainty in my life. Because this Love fills me with courage. My faith in Jesus, he says, leads me into new alliances and new relationships, and moves me to build new churches in new places. Because this Love fills me with hope.
Along the way, Paul’s suffered physical attacks, imprisonment and derision from dear ones he once trusted and needed. But now, this break in the expected trajectory of his life. Now, this intrusion of a Lover so unpredictable and forgiving, this intrusion of a Love so delightful and immense. And it’s broken his heart wildly wide open. And now every breath is vulnerability and grace.
And after all, the great American novelist Flannery O’Connor was exactly and prophetically right, when she said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Misquoting Jesus, of course, in the Gospel of John. “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Every breath is vulnerability and grace.
2.
There’s more to say about Paul, the apostle, the teacher, the builder of beloved communities; and there’s more to say about this letter to the Thessalonians which is, in all likelihood, the first of his recorded letters in the New Testament. But this notion of holy vulnerability and broken hearts, and the whole world falling in: it reminds me of the Guns to Gardens event we hosted here at the church just last weekend. The oddly constructed community of disciples who pulled that event together. Ran the chop saw. Directed cars through the lot. Handed out gift cards. And the strange mix of vulnerability, uncertainty, hope and even desire that permeated that little group for four hours on a cold and windy Saturday morning.
I was aware that morning, and I believe others were as well, of the unseen presence of so many saints. The children and teachers of Newtown, Connecticut. The queer community of dancers and lovers at the Pulse night club in Orlando, Florida. Jewish worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg. And friends, a couple of mine and a few of yours, who’ve used guns in ending their own lives far too tragically, and way too soon. I was aware of their presence. And their prayers. Bending near to join our own. It was a morning unlike any other out here.
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| Guns Dismantled, Photo, Becky Field |
3.
So the faith. The faith itself makes us odd, right? It rewires our hearts and makes us a little strange, and even a little vulnerable, in the process.
As we were planning the event, we wanted very much to get the word out. And for several reasons, right? We wanted to get the word out so that neighbors on the Seacoast could take advantage of the opportunity. But we also wanted our friends to see what’s possible when a community like ours—careful, kind and brave—commits to a vision of a world beyond violence and fear. And maybe symbols matter. Maybe they do. We are not consigned to a future of fear and bluster and violence as our only protection. We are not limited to a version of democracy in which every stranger is a threat, and every new encounter a crisis. We are made for life together, that’s our gospel, that’s our faith. We are made for life together, not fortresses and castles, but life together.
So we put up flyers all over the Seacoast, and we posted as much as we could to Facebook and Instagram and all the usual sites online. And, while some of our neighbors were appreciative, I have to admit I was taken aback by a bunch of others. Because there were others who reacted to our dismantling of guns with a mixture of dismissive sarcasm, angry vitriol or (even worse) homophobic ranting. One said: “You’re ruining our country.” Another said: “You’re just a bunch of (and you can insert here a homophobic slur)…” And still another said: “Great. Don’t blame us when they come for your kids.” And I’m not exactly sure what he or she meant by ‘come for your kids’—but it seemed like a vision of a world where the only way we keep one another safe is with guns in the closet. Or in our pockets, I guess. We’ve given up on justice, civility, relationship and neighborly trust.
And the homophobia? Are we consigned to a world of such toxic masculinity—such brazen contempt for life—that peace is mocked and compassion considered an affront to greatness and strength? Scrolling through some of this madness online, I’m reminded of Charlton Heston’s menacing quote in 2000, when he stood before a national NRA meeting, with a rifle high above his head. He was responding to another attempt (which turned out to be another failed attempt) at meaningful gun control in Congress. And he said with a sneering smile—you remember this—to the cameras in the hall: “I'll give you my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands." Is this the best we can do? Is this the best democracy can do? “I'll give you my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands." Of course, not.
And here, my friends, is where you and I have to step out into the open. With Paul and his partners in ministry. And the Thessalonian church. In a world where Charlton Heston seems to have won the argument, we’re called by God to step out into the open with good news and grace. And it’s not going to be easy. And we’re going to face some derision, even some contempt.
But know this. The good news of God’s love arrives in Jesus to liberate us from any fantasy, any addiction, any shame that translates fear into purpose. The good news of God’s love arrives in Jesus to liberate us from the kind of pride that says my anger is more important than your safety. And this is where Paul—and I would hasten to add, early Paul, Paul before Paul was interpreted and softened and made suitable for empire—this is where Paul throws the doors of our hearts wide open indeed. We need not live in fear any longer. We need not dread God’s punishment, God’s vengeance any longer. We need not resent our differences, or scapegoat one another, or envy one another anymore. For God’s love comes in Jesus to liberate us: to wipe away every anxious worry, to clear our minds of every kind of resentment, and then to light the flame of love so bright in our hearts that we love one another even as Jesus did. That we love one another even as Jesus did. Cherishing our differences. Reconciling in seasons of hurt and harm. Building day by day a beloved community that shines with trust and grace.
So is Charlton Heston the best we can do? Of course, not.
We shall beat swords into plowshares, says the prophet. And our spears into pruning hooks. Our nations shall not lift up sword (or fly deadly drones) over other nations. Neither shall we study war anymore. If the church has a future on this continent, we’ve got to step out into the open with that good news, with that gospel; for faith is nothing if not the promise of grace in a world transformed by love. Turning madness into music.
4.
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| Paul of Tarsus |
First Thessalonians captures some of Paul’s earliest experiences organizing beloved community, and nurturing a ministry among converts to the gospel. And I’m moved by what we’re reading this morning—because Paul himself is so clearly moved by the relationships in which he’s invested so much energy and love. You can hear it in his language, in the quasi-poetic character of this letter. “What in the end is our true hope?” he asks. “What is our true joy, our victor’s crown in all this?” And then answering his own question, he lovingly writes, “It is nothing if it isn’t you standing before our Lord Jesus the Anointed as he walks among you. You are our glory! You are our joy!” He’s an evangelist who is hardly going through the motions, not simply mailing it in. He loves the church he’s building. He loves who they are becoming together. “You are our glory!” he says. “You are our joy!”
And isn’t it this the kind of love—for God and for God’s people—that motivates a man (or a team) to step into the open with God’s gospel, with the good news of God’s liberation and Jesus’ promise of new life? “Because of God,” Paul says, “because of God, we stepped into the open...” to love you all, to break down every wall and barrier, to join your marvelous diversity in the body of Christ. To lay aside every weapon.
Whatever else the first generations of Paul’s interpreters have done to his legacy—and many have diminished and distorted it—we can see here that this is a pastor who loved his people, who was brave on behalf of their liberation, who chose radical vulnerability that they might know God and walk in the ways of Jesus himself. The imagery, by the way, is intentionally joyous and decidedly, even stunningly inclusive: “We proved to be gentle among you,” Paul says, “like a nursing mother caring for her own children…” And then again: “We comforted and consoled each of you, as a father soothes his own children…” Not only is there no misogyny in this Paul. This apostle is transformed by a God who moves through any and all genders to nurture, soothe, reconcile and make whole. “In Christ,” he might say, “there is no male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free.” “But all are one in the Body of Christ.”
This, my friends, is Paul’s theology of grace in its infancy, so to speak. It’s the kind of grace that frees a man for maternal instincts. It’s the kind of grace that emboldens within another a paternal kind of soothing and comforting. Jesus changes this Paul for wild mercy and sweet liberation. There is no other Jesus for this Paul. Grace—for him, and I’d suggest for you and me—means shedding all the shame that clings to our souls, all the shame that binds our histories in regret; and then it means receiving the kind of liberating spirit, the kind of holy and liberating spirit, that chooses love and empowerment and communion and community, day after day, season by season. And then, and then that liberating spirit works in us, through us, to bless lives and change the world!
There is no solidarity without this spirituality of freedom. There is no liberation without the grace of Jesus Christ. That’s Paul in his radical, inclusive, wildly unmanageable glory.
5.
And, of course, that paradox works in both directions. As you know. As you become vulnerable to God, disarmingly open to God’s vision, to God’s passion, to God’s love for you, this very vulnerability becomes something like your spiritual strength. The vitality that makes you a shining light, a beacon of hope, a friend to the friendless.
And maybe the paradox is the cross itself. The way Jesus lives. The heart that breaks in love. The spirit that soars with gratitude. So go with that. Step out into the open with that. And see where it takes you. See what it does for the rest of us too.
Amen and Ashe.
