Wisdom, Repeated
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
You yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that our coming to you was not in vain, but though we had already suffered and been shamefully maltreated at Philippi, as you know, we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition. For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts. As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed; nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others, though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.
Upon first read of this passage, Paul’s words can come across a little defensive. “…our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery…” he says, seemingly out of nowhere. Seems… a little suspicious if I do say so myself! It makes it seem as if he’s being accused of something, or that he’s trying to get ahead of something. Thankfully, that’s probably not the case. As always, we have to think of the time in which he was writing and put it in context—remember last week, we talked about how this is the very first, the very earliest written book of the New Testament, so Christianity is very young at this point. And this was also a time in which itinerant preachers and philosophers were everywhere, and their motives were often not so pure. So Paul, rather than defending against any credible accusations, is more likely attempting to differentiate himself from the scammers and manipulators of his day.
On Tuesday last week, Chris and I took the trek to Burlington to see one of our current favorite musicians, a country artist, Nick Shoulders. He’s from the Ozarks, and grew up in a pretty repressive and oppressive form of Christianity. His messages in his songs are very much rebelling against that—in one of his songs, “Appreciate’cha,” there’s a line that reads, “If this land is your land, I appreciat’cha / If abolition was your stand, I appreciate’cha / Kings and dollars, stars and bars, crosses, swastikas, and tsars / if you are skeptical of all, I appreciate’cha.” While I love this line, it also makes me so, so, so sad—that crosses, what is truly the ultimate form of liberation and sacrifice or all humankind, for some people, is associated with symbols of hate like stars and bars and swastikas. But sadly, that is the world we’re living in—a world where people have taken this faith tradition of liberation, of compassion, of love, and have turned it into something that benefits only certain groups of people, something that exclusionary, something that is honestly complete blasphemous to everything Jesus stood for.
In this regard, I can understand why Paul takes the time in this letter to make it known he’s not a bad guy. Especially in my social circles, and in this area of the country in general, I find myself saying things like, “I’m Christian, but not that kind of Christian.” And the thing is, it’s sadly necessary for me to make this clear because I have queer people in my social circles who have been hurt by the church, who do, heartbreakingly, associate Christianity with exclusion and hatred. And sadly, you don’t have to have been personally hurt by the church to associate Christianity with hatred and violence. In the news, we see the new speaker of the house using his supposed faith to lobby against gay rights, using dangerously radical rhetoric and reasoning to do so, painting queer folks at predators, as bad people, making them even more susceptible to vitriol and violence. So Paul was differentiating himself from the scammers, con artists, and false prophets of his day, and it seems that we, sadly, have to do the same thing.
But it’s not just in words that we must differentiate ourselves. We have to do so in our actions, and with our love, and Paul knew that as well. “…we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children,” he says. This is wildly poignant in many different ways—one is that when Paul says “nurse” here, he means wet nurse, someone who provides comfort and sustenance to the infants of the community; wet nurses were incredibly important figures in ancient life, and well-respected; but Paul takes this metaphor a step further by specifying that this nurse is caring for her own children, insinuating not just a nurse caring for and feeding a child, but providing wholly unconditional love that parents feel towards their child—mirroring the wholly unconditional love that we receive from God. And maybe the most interesting and perplexing thing about this verse is when it’s written “We were gentle among you…” because the correct, original translation was likely “We were infants among you.” Scholars and translators still aren’t quite sure what Paul was trying to say here, by going immediately from being infants to being an unconditionally loving mother feeding an infant—it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense on the surface.
But remember, these were the very earliest days of Christianity—this Jesus movement was in its infancy. Also, remember that for Jesus, and therefore also for Paul and the apostles, hierarchies were unacceptable. So my reading of this is that Paul was making it clear that he and the apostles are on the same playing field as their new friends in Thessalonica—but at the same time, they were capable of providing them with the unconditional love and support of a parent. It’s a bit of a contradiction, sure, but I think it works. And it absolutely goes against the oppressive norms of the time—between the wildly oppressive, hierarchical, classist Roman Empire and the sketchy itinerant preachers and philosophers who were trying to scam, manipulate, and control people for their own gain.
So Paul is giving the Thessalonians encouragement—encouragement that he and his co-workers, the other apostles, will be there to unconditionally support, guide, and love them along this new journey as Christ-followers. It’s a promise.
On this All Saints Sunday, I think things may feel especially heavy today, with all the loss this church has had over the past year. Five people, just over my maternity leave alone. So in thinking of All Saints, and in thinking of today’s passage, and this encouragement and promise that Paul is making to his friends, it got me wondering what kind of promise we can make to those we loved who have passed—those who kept promises to us and to this church, volunteering, pledging, providing love and support to all of us. It got me thinking of how we can continue the incredible legacies our beloved communities members have left.
The maternal imagery feels especially touching, not just because of my own new role as a mother, but also because of the unconditional love and support those we’ve lost gave to one another and this community, regardless of their gender. Remember our last Roast Beef Supper last Winter, when our ovens started malfunctioning when we had dozens more rolls to bake—Carol Mowry let a constant parade of people in and out of her house next door to make sure every single one of her guests that night got one of our delicious dinner rolls. And thinking about Joe Reilly and Jane Gordon, two of the kindest people I’ve ever met, both with careers in the medical caring profession—vocations that were perfect for their compassionate and warm personalities—with soft-spoken skills and wisdom that translated so perfectly to their work in this church. Marjorie Royce, Jean Day, and Roberta Hurlburt, three incredible women whose passions for education and learning shaped this church; and in the case of Marjorie and Jean, the entire community thanks to their work at the Hartland Public Library.
The list of deaths goes on, the lists of accomplishments and beautiful examples of dedication and community service go on even longer.
When we think of these incredible lives we’ve lost over this past year, we must think of how to honor them. We must think of the type of work we have to keep doing so that the work they did in their lives was not in vain.
I hate that every single Sunday in every single sermon, there seems to always be a need to recognize the fact that this world is so broken right now. If we’re not getting news of increasing violence in Palestine, we’re getting news of another mass shooting, this time, far, far too close to home. There’s much to grieve this year— here in Hartland grieving the lives we’ve lost, grieving the passing of a generation; across this country, grieving the ever-rising number of senseless deaths due to gun violence; and abroad as senseless war escalates more and more, despite so many calling for a cease-fire. But we can’t spend our lives only grieving. We can let ourselves fall into pits of despair.
We have to work. And believe it or not, we have to celebrate. We have to celebrate the lives of those we have loved in addition to grieving their deaths. We have to celebrate and remember the values they stood for in order to continue their legacies onto the next generations—legacies of service, of compassion, of love. And we do this by working. We do this by not giving up on the things they held dear. We do this by not giving into those who would try to twist this faith tradition into something exclusionary and cruel. We do this by being kind and giving to all who enter this building the same way as dearly departed loved ones. We do this by being the type of Christian Jesus actually calls us to be. Those we lost this year were true Christians. They were giving and loving; they valued community and service. They exemplified the type of Christianity that sadly, so many people don’t even realizes exists these days—the type of Christianity that is inclusive, comforting, and nurturing.
This is why we can’t let those legacies die. This is why have to continue to labor on—to nurture one another, to work to sustain this community in that lovely, maternal way, working side-by-side, on equal footing. It’s not right that we have to work so hard to not be associated with white supremacy, with anti-queer rhetoric; it’s not right that we have consider the fact that people associate the cross with symbols of hate. But it’s the reality we live in, and we can’t give into those associations. We fight against them by living lives of Love and service that Jesus calls to live; and we can be inspired by the lives of those we lost.
There’s a blessing I read this week, A Blessing for and Aging Activist—and there was one section that really spoke to me.
When we younger folk, in fury, disregard the breaches you’ve already repaired—when we, in frustration, don’t think to clasp your hands and gaze into your eyes—the communion of saints bears you witness. History repeats itself. Injustice repeats itself. But so does wisdom.
So we will repeat the wisdom of the saints that are now in God’s kingdom. We will work for the earth as it is in heaven that they worked for. We will nurture and sustain one another and communities like this one with the unconditional love of a parent. We will separate ourselves from the loud, hateful voices of this country who sinfully claim their hate in the name of Jesus, not by defensiveness, but by repeating and building upon the wisdom and love of our ancestors.
Let’s do right by the saints; let’s do right by those we’ve lost and continue to show the true Christian tenants of service, of inclusion, of radical hospitality, and of love—together, as one. Amen.
