October 16 - Proper 24, Year A (RCL)
Imagine
you’re part of an archaeological dig.
The theory is
that this place
was once a village,
a thriving community,
even though all that’s left on the surface
is a slight unevenness
in the ground
and the occasional stone
chipped square
protruding through the grass.
You’ve been working for months,
slowly digging a trench
through layers of sand and soil and clay,
lifting away rocks,
brushing away dust.
It’s slow work,
and there’s little to show for it,
little, until the day
when you feel your trowel
hit something solid,
and you carefully scrape away the soil
and brush it clear
until you find
a jar,
reddish clay and a network of cracks
and in it
some fragments of parchment.
And on that parchment, when you finally get it stabilized enough to read,
a letter
written to that very community,
and in it, a reference to an event
that you know happened
in a particular year.
It’s the first real evidence
of when this community was established,
the first real evidence
to place them
in the timeline
of history.
That’s what we have
in second reading today.
The first letter to the Thessalonians
is the earliest evidence we have
of what we now call
the Christian faith.
As far as the experts can tell,
it was written in the year
51 AD.
Less than twenty years
after Jesus died,
less than a generation.
It’s the very first time
that we have any record of
that someone put pen to paper
and wrote about
this faith we have.
Of course,
we know from later records
that Christians had been passing on the good news of Jesus
ever since he died and rose again,
and establishing communities in his name,
but it seems
that until this time
they hadn’t thought it was important
to write anything down.
This is the first actual evidence,
the first historical artifact
of the Christian church.
And so it’s enormously
important.
It’s enormously important
because here we have the first taste
of what being Christian meant
in those early days.
We know from the book of Acts,
which is a kind of history of those early years of the church,
but written a little later than 1 Thessalonians,
we know from Acts
that the church in Thessalonica
didn’t have an easy beginning.
Paul had been traveling through Asia Minor, what we now call Turkey and Syria,
preaching and teaching and establishing churches
wherever he went.
And then one night
he had a dream, a vision,
of a man pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’
And so he and Silas, also known as Sylvanus,
crossed over into Macedonia, and then followed the great Roman road, the Via Egnatia, west,
through Phillippi and Amphipolis and Apollonia, stopping off in each place to preach,
until they came to Thessalonica.
And there, as they always did when they were traveling,
they went to the synagogue on the sabbath,
and Paul got to discussing, or more likely arguing,
with the local leaders about scripture
and how Christ could be the Messiah.
And this went on for three weeks,
and it seems in between
Paul hung out in the marketplace and preached there too,
and some of the Jews were persuaded by Paul’s arguments,
and even more of the local Greeks,
and some of the wealthier ones, especially wealthy women.
And that didn’t make Paul
particularly popular.
Because of course, it didn’t take long for the local religious leaders to realize
that if their leading citizens joined this new religion,
they would lose their most generous donors.
So they hired a few of the locals who had nothing better to do with their days than loiter in the market,
and got them riled up about these immigrants with their new religion,
and soon a mob formed and began to search the city for Paul and Silas, no doubt taking the opportunity for a little looting on the way.
And when they couldn’t find Paul and Silas, they turned on one of the locals, Jason, who had been entertaining them,
along with some of the others who had been convinced by Paul’s preaching,
and accused them of treason, of betraying the emperor to follow a new king called Jesus.
And while they were sorting out the charges and bail,
Paul and Silas sneaked out of the city
and headed west to Berea,
where they had a much better
reception.
But then word got back to Thessalonica
that Paul and Silas were there
and the Thessalonians came after them
and Paul escaped south towards Athens,
telling Silas to join him as soon as he could,
and Timothy too, who had joined them on the journey west.
It wasn’t exactly
an auspicious beginning for the church in Thessalonica.
But it seems
that the opposition, if anything,
made this little newborn church
even stronger.
Because by the time Paul writes this letter to the Thessalonians, and it’s probably only a few months later, at most, no more than a year,
the church is well established,
and not only that, but news of it
has spread throughout the region,
and the Thessalonian Christians
have been hard at work
telling the travelers who pass through their town
all about Jesus
and taking the message out
to the villages around them.
And all this, even though
you might have expected them to do exactly the opposite in the face of local opposition and harassment,
to hunker down
and wait till the fuss had died down.
And so Paul is thankful for them, thankful for their faith
that has led them to work so hard for the good news of the gospel,
and their love of Christ
which shines through in everything,
and their hope
which hasn’t wavered, even in the face of persecution.
Of all churches to be the first to be recorded in historical terms,
it’s a profound honor
for it to have been the church in Thessalonica,
established
in the face of such opposition.
But it makes me wonder,
does this letter
have anything to do with us?
Because we, here in St James, in Long Island, in the United States,
we are so far in our experience
from this struggling, persecuted,
yet faithful
church in Thessalonica.
Does a letter to it
have anything to say to us?
If the people of Thessalonica
forged a faith that was strong
in the context of persecution,
what does it mean
for us to be Christian
in a world that is so accepting of us?
One of the paradoxes of the history of Christianity,
is that in times when Christianity was opposed,
the church has ben much smaller, but often disproportionally influential
in its impact.
So the early church, in its first three centuries,
spread throughout the Mediterranean and into Africa and western Asia.
But when the emperor Constantine
took on the Christian faith
and made it the official religion of the Empire
in many ways, its influence was less,
because people identified being Christian
with being a good citizen
and the distinctive call of Christian discipleship
was lost.
That’s ben true more recently too. In places where Christianity is in a minority
it often tends to be particularly vibrant.
It costs a lot
to belong,
but when you belong,
it really means something.
Because when someone threatens you
based on what you believe,
it forces you to ask the difficult question,
how important is this to me?
And people looking from the outside say,
“Huh. these people think what they believe
is worth dying for. Maybe I’ll take
another look.”
But when Christians are the majority
it’s easy to fall into the trap
of just adding faith
to the collection of other causes you support,
not expecting it
to have any real impact
in your life.
And our faith
is the weaker for it.
Next Saturday,
four of our younger members
will be confirmed.
They will be saying, yes,
I want to be part of this faith
that I was raised in. I want to be a Christian.
I’ve asked them to write about
what being confirmed means to them.
And this week,
I ask you to join them, and think
what difference
does this faith we share
make to you?
How does it shape your life?
How are you different, because you follow the Messiah,
Jesus Christ?
And is it important enough
that you would die for it?
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2010