sermon for April 17

The readings

Acts 17 1- 9

After Paul and Silas had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.  And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three sabbath days argued with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This is the Messiah, Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you.” Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women.  But the Jews became jealous, and with the help of some ruffians in the marketplaces they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar. While they were searching for Paul and Silas to bring them out to the assembly, they attacked Jason’s house.  When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some believers before the city authorities, shouting, “These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has entertained them as guests. They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus.”  The people and the city officials were disturbed when they heard this, and after they had taken bail from Jason and the others, they let them go.

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace to you and peace.

 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. For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, 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 people we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place where your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.

Sermon for April 17

Today, we experience the beginning, encouragement and hope of a new church.  We just heard the story of Paul and his fellow missionaries founding the church in the city of Thessalonica as reported in the book of Acts. We also heard the first chapter of the letter Paul writes to that new church and community a few years after its start.  

I want to begin with some information about the ancient city of Thessalonica and the outline of Paul’s first letter to them.  Thessalonica was the capital city of the Roman province of Macedonia.  The city was located in a strategically important area for trade and travel since it was easily accessible by several land and water routes.  Most scholars believe that this letter is the first one that Paul writes to communicate with, encourage, guide and instruct a church community.   The letter is relatively friendly (some of Paul’s letters are actually not so friendly; there were significant issues with faith, actions and beliefs that he confronted in some of his letters). In his words to the church at Thessalonica, Paul praises their steadfast hope despite opposition and consistently faithful behavior. The letter also instructs them to continue following the models of the faithful and remember the right teachings they were taught.

Paul and Silas’ arrival in Thessalonica happened immediately after a very successful but complicated and rough experience in Phillipi. Things start off well but once Paul and Silas convert a slave girl things go bad quickly.  The young girl created a great deal of wealth for her owner through fortune telling.  After her conversion, she walks the city with Paul and Silas for days yelling out “these men are slaves of the most high God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation”.  This actually gets to the level where it interferes with their work and annoys Paul to the point that he performs an exorcism on the woman, commanding whatever spirit had possessed her to leave in the name of Jesus.  The slave girl’s owner becomes even more annoyed since her conversion meant a large financial loss for him.  With the owner’s encouragement, Paul and Silas are seized, beaten, arrested, accused of disturbing the city and teaching illegal religious ideas.  They are thrown in jail. There, God intervenes and the prison cells are unlocked.  After this, they stay in the prison anyway, convert the guard, baptize him along with his family and stay as guests in the guard’s home. In the morning, they are released anyway.  Paul and Silas were both Roman citizens by birth. This status meant that provincial authorities could do virtually nothing to them. After all this, Paul and Silas go to visit, pray with and encourage Lydia, a wealthy merchant they converted previously and leave for Thessalonica.  

That trip to Thessalonica is where our reading from Acts begins. It is the start of a repeated series of events where Paul and Silas preach and teach in the synagogues, convert a noticeable number of Jewish and non-Jewish  people, get in trouble and move on to another place.  This new faith angers Jewish authorities (after all, who wouldn’t be annoyed when people come in, teach something new and take away your faithful members).  The Jewish leaders were also enraged since the connection with Judaism was actually protecting the new Christians. (The Roman empire did not tolerate new or different religions but there was a special exemption for Judiasm since that faith predated the Roman religions.  Judaism enjoyed a certain amount of tolerance and acceptance that a new faith would not.  This stops being the case a few years later with a rebellion and the destruction of the second temple in the year 70).

This is how the early church grew and the message of God’s love revealed through the life, death and resurrection of Christ was shared.  Paul, Silas and others would go to new cities and talk with people about what they saw, heard, and experienced. In Jewish communities, they would go to the synagogue or by water (if there was no synagogue, Jewish people often gathered near water for worship).  In non-Jewish areas, they would go to wherever people gathered.  In each place, the new converts learn all they can from Jesus followers and then use their resources, homes and local connections to help their new brothers and sisters in Christ escape from city to city.  As the missionaries move on, the new converts are entrusted with the responsibilities of caring for the church, maintaining right teachings and sharing the story of God’s love revealed by Easter, through the death and resurrection of Christ.  Over the years, Paul and others come to back to visit or write to them to check in, correct, seek help, encourage and celebrate.

In many ways, I am not totally sure what this process means for us, almost 2000 years later in an absolutely different world. Our ways of communication, access to resources, populations, tolerance, transportation, scientific knowledge, laws and social organization are completely different.  Some things do remain the same and offer the same obstacles to communicating the story of God’s love. Systemic inequality and separation of people by race, class, appearance, citizenship, wealth or gender still shape and control much of our modern world.  We are also still in constant competition with other stories, other world views, other joys, and other belief systems.        

There are two lessons we can draw from the start of the church at Thessalonica. First the Christian missionaries used every resource, skill and piece of information they had available to spread the Gospel.  Paul, for instance, practices his trade as a tentmaker to support himself during the work, he freely uses his status as a Roman citizen to get out of mission ending trouble, he asks for and relies on the help and generosity of others, he uses his knowledge of rhetoric, religion and formal styles of argument in Greek areas and his knowledge of the Jewish scriptures and traditions in Jewish areas, he stresses the connection to Judiasm when it added safety and clarity to the message and ignores it when it would be an obstacle, he turns to prayer for guidance and support and he trusts new converts like Lydia and the prison guard to teach, help and maintain the church.  We are asked to do the same, to be creative, innovative, compassionate, prayerful, and intelligent in how we understand our resources and share the good news.

   

The second lesson we can draw from this story centers on speaking with others. For the early church, there were legal restrictions on sharing their faith. They faced them by being connected to Judaism, meeting in secret, quickly going from place to place, developing coded language and symbols and speaking anyway, despite very real threats of loss and death.  We live in a time and nation where there are no legal or illegal religion, where we are allowed to go up to anyone, anywhere and tell them about Jesus. There are very few official or formal restrictions on this work yet we are quiet.  There is a certain shyness that keeps us quiet, a sense of private faith, a value on respecting other beliefs and a deep desire to not be associated or confused with interpretations of the gospel we find hateful, embarrassing or inauthentic.  There is also a sense of not knowing what to say or when to say it. Those are the real obstacles we face and while they are not as dramatic as the threat of a painful death, they stop us from telling Jesus story.  I don’t really have a great, fail proof solution to these challenges.  I do know, we need to go out and speak to others, to listen (often to bad stories of exclusion, fraud, and horrible experiences and arguments on why what we believe is stupid), to learn, know, experience and tell the story of God’s love and to boldly care.