by Rev. Dr John Evans
Exodus 33:12-23
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22
Paul writes to the infant church at Thessalonica these words:
We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Any letter has a context; and this is no exception. And for us this morning, the context is perhaps more instructive than the words actually said.
Paul had been depressed. It would seem that he had lost his drive for his missionary work. . . and what we know as his second missionary journey. (See inside cover of the Bibles in the pews for this journey.) He was in Corinth dealing with a very awkward and fractious community there. It would seem that his missionary endeavours were proving unsuccessful. As he said much later in his letter to the church at Corinth, “I came to you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.” It was a difficult time for Paul.
We need to retrace his steps to get to this point. He was travelling with Timothy and Silvanus (also known as Silas) and we pick up the story in Philippi. There they had been treated very harshly – imprisoned, beaten and run out of town. The next stop was Thessalonica. This was a large imperial port located on the great imperial highway that passed through Asia. It was a wealthy city, a commercial and cultic centre. As a religious centre, the local Macedonian deities, foreign idols and of course the Roman imperial cult – where the emperor was god – were all worshipped. By the time Paul visited Thessalonica, during the reign of the Emperor Claudius, there were already temples and statues to Caesar Augustus.
Now it is not clear whether there were Jews or a synagogue in Thessalonica. This was the standard method of operating for Paul; go to the synagogue and begin teaching. Certainly Acts 17 indicates this, but within the two letters themselves it does not seem as though he was operating in this way. He seems to be addressing just a gentile audience and not a Jewish audience. Furthermore, there is no archaeological evidence of there being a synagogue in Thessalonica. What seems to be the case is that this was a gentile house church, struggling in the context of hostile prevailing imperial culture. In 1 Thes 2:14, the next chapter of our letter, there is this verse:
For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews.
This is significant. It was not, as is often the case in Paul’s letters, a dispute between these new believers, known as Christians, and Jews. These folk were standing up to prevailing culture – Imperial Rome, and suffering for it. They were very much a counter-cultural community.
Well, back to Paul and his depression. He and the others, were driven out of Thessalonica, and they moved on to Beroea, again pursued. Paul soon moves on, although Timothy and Silvanus stay there. After a brief sojourn in Athens, he moves to Corinth. Meanwhile, he has summoned Timothy to Athens and asks him to go back to Thessalonica and find out how things were going there. As I said, Paul is in Corinth feeling this being a missionary was hard work.
A situation, I might add, not greatly dissimilar to the story we have of Moses today. Moses is again up the mountain communing with God. But Moses would also seem to be at the end of his tether. He has just smashed the commandments tablets out of frustration and anger with the children of Israel. So he challenges God, about God keeping God’s side of the bargain to take these “stiff necked people” to a promised land. Even his own sense of call seems to be wavering. He needs reassurance, proof God is with him. He wishes, no, demands to see the glory of God, to encounter God – to confirm him in his call and this amazing journey . . . well this happens with Moses hiding in crevice on Mt Sinai and God passes by.
Back to Paul: the best fillip for his depression was some good news. His own encounter with God. This came in the form of reports of what Timothy had discovered when he went back to Thessalonica. It was good news – indeed, amazing news. This house church was thriving; and what is more, the good news about Jesus had been heard through the many different parts of Macedonia. And so Paul dashes off this letter – his earliest extant letter – and so the words of our text.
We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembered before our God and Father your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
I believe all this background is relevant and challenging for our own context today. Again and again we finding ourselves, as the Church, not being at the centre of community or national life; or of being an opinion leader or whatever, and we find ourselves, our views and our priorities constantly over and against the prevailing culture. These past weeks I have found very interesting. I have taken to read to financial press, because it is like reading one’s sermons. The correspondents breathlessly seem to have discovered truths we as Christians would hold self evident. Articles pronounce on the pitfalls of greed, or extol the virtue of trust, or the need to live within one’s means – and perhaps even enjoy a simple life not based on just being a consumer and or extreme acquisition. I don’t think the church has moved to the centre of economic thought; truly understood, we are still very much counter-cultural . . . but from time to time our message will strike home and carry great weight. If ever there has been a lesson on getting swept up it the prevailing culture, this is it.
So what may we learn for this example of an early church group? It would have been very small, living in a context which put them in conflict with authorities and the culture around them. Paul suggests three things which led to their strength – their:
- Work of faith
- Labour of love; and
- Steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ
This was a thanksgiving not just for their work – their busyness, their frenzied activity, but that it was their work of faith – their work based on their faith in Jesus. It was not just their labour – which was randomly performed, it was their labour of love – showing love to others; and it was not just their steadfastness, diligence, doggedness and determination, but their constant groundedness in their hope of Christ. And the key to this was getting right their loyalties and ultimate priorities in a very different culture. Was it the emperor, or was it the God and Father of Jesus to whom they owed allegiance?
Of course this what was going on in the trick question from the Pharisees and Herodians which Jesus encountered in the last week of his life: should he pay taxes? Where does the Christian stand with respect to the state? Jesus of course answered, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God, the things that are God’s.” Our culture, our society our governing authority is significant, indeed, important – but it ultimately is not everything, it is not the basis of all our focus or life.
Another way to put this is to say that the passage does not make God and Caesar to be equals, nor are they symbolic names for separate realms. If so, one could be led to the notion that the emperor has his realm in which ultimate allegiance can be demanded, and God is relegated to another realm. Jesus, I believe, saw the opposite. Humans bear God’s image, and wherever they live and operate – whether in the social, economic, political or religious realm – they belong to God. Their primary loyalties do not switch when they move out of church and into the voting booth, or the high street.
One could see why the recent converts of Thessalonica would have encountered difficulties with the Roman authorities and pagan culture. This, however, does not begin to explain why this particular group of Christians was able to have such an impact throughout their region. Obviously Paul’s message – albeit couched in very dramatic and apocalyptic language of rescuing them from the wrath that is coming (such as in verse 10 of our reading) – was a biting critique of their age, its values and the existing order. Paul’s message was about a God who had power – different from the power of Caesar. There was a new era that had come about through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. There now could be hope in God who would one day be all in all. The fact that there might be difficulty, opposition, even persecution along the way did not deter these new believers. In fact, it was probably the fact that Paul and his leadership team were themselves persecuted that inspired this new fledgling house church. Paul’s courage in the face of persecution, rather than any words he spoke, or what we might traditionally regard as evangelism, was more effective. As Paul says:
Because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of person we proved to be among you for your sake.
It was this kind of people they proved to be in the face of the Roman imperial culture that was significant – and in turn led to their own success in the region. This was their work of faith, labour of love and hope in the steadfastness of Christ.
Today, especially in this time of economic turmoil, we realise we live by different values, have different hopes and have different ultimate loyalties. Living by our beliefs will not be easy, but as that house church in Thessalonica showed, it can still be very attractive to those around us. Indeed in times like this, we are sorely needed as people who can see past gloom and doom and great turmoil, and affirm ultimate truths of God’s love, God’s presence through the Holy Spirit and God’s hope in Christ.
