Parousia – the Coming
of the Lord – Part 2: Year A, Proper 25
Deuteronomy 34:1-12; Leviticus 19:1-2,
15-18; Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17; Psalm 1; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8; Matthew
22:34-46
This series of commentaries on the recommended study of 1 Thessalonians
is based on the thorough discussion provided by John Dominic Crossan
and Jonathan L. Reed in In Search of
Paul (Harper SanFrancisco, 2004) pp. 124-177.
Crossan’s interpretation is of course open to debate; nevertheless,
given John Shelby Spong’s insistence
on the necessity of changing the focus of Christian teaching, Crossan’s
work (and the work of his colleagues in the Jesus
Seminar) is a good enough place to start.
Paul’s letter leads by stages into the heart of his pastoral message,
which is meant to encourage and support the work of the community he
founded. That community – according to Crossan and Reed – was
likely a mostly Greek/pagan group of people, who may have been attached
to a synagogue in Thessolonika. These folks would have accepted
the Jewish God of the Covenant, and its insistence on justice, but
likely would have balked at the more esoteric demands of Jewish
law. (See Leviticus 1-18, and 20-26, along with the verses
skipped in Chapter 19, which are never
mentioned in the Christian Revised
Common Lectionary). Once they accepted Paul’s
interpretation of the life and teachings of Jesus, they would have run
into opposition from both the ruling Roman system and Jewish tradition.
In this week’s section of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, he
continues to remind them of their common experience together, and to
assure them of their mutual love and support in carrying on the work:“.
. . 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.” Then in verse 8 he says, “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. . . .”
The theme for the week is love, illustrated by Paul’s pastoral promise,
and emphasized by the story from Matthew, in which Jesus quotes his
contemporary teacher, the Judean Rabbi
Hillel: “You are to love the Lord your God with all you
heart and all your soul an all your mind . . . and . . . you are to
love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew’s Jesus reminds the
Pharisees that “On these two commandments hangs everything in the Law
and the Prophets.” Indeed, the Elves not only cherry pick
Leviticus to prove the point, they bring the story of the establishment
of the Covenant to an end with the death of Moses. From this
point on, we see the Hebrew people into the promised land, but the
emphasis for the remainder of Year A and the season of Advent that
opens Year B is on the prophets, who – according to Christian hegemony
– foretell the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, the ultimate fulfillment
of God’s love for humanity (see John 3:16).
We could leave the sermon at that, which would cover all the bases
usually covered by conventional Christian piety: Title: “Caring
and Sharing”; content: Love God, love your neighbors, because Jesus/God
loves you – as proved by the death of God’s only Son in order to save
us from sin. The closing hymn is St.
Anne, based on Psalm 90. We can get out early in
plenty of time to watch the game.
The words in these readings are so familiar, and so buried in
traditional theology, that it takes serious scholarly work to find out
what the message really is.
Contrary to the conclusion hinted at by the Elves, the Covenant is far
from fulfilled whether in the death of Moses, or the death of
Jesus. Paul reminds the Thessalonians of how badly he and Silas
were treated in Philippi, and apparently met the same kind of
opposition in Thessalonika.. We concentrate on the miracle in Philippi,
recorded by Luke in Acts 16:16-40, where an angel
releases them from prison, and they convert their fellow prisoners as
well as the guard. What we don’t consider is why they were arrested for
disturbing the peace in the first place. In addition, Luke/Acts
suggests in Acts 17 that what happened in
Thessalonika was a fight perpetrated by “jealous Jews.” So long
as Paul’s message is construed as trying to convince people to believe
in a resuscitated corpse, brought back to life to “save” sinners, and
so long as we concentrate on the “miracle” of earthquakes causing
prison doors to open so that the Lord’s servants can escape their
unfair imprisonment, Christianity will continue to miss the point.
The point Paul was making was that Jesus died in the service of
distributive justice-compassion, while pointing to the realm of God
instead of the Empire of Cesar. Local synagogue leaders in
Thessalonika were likely miffed when Paul came along and poached their
members away into his communities. But did those non-Jewish,
pagan “God believers” join because of belief in a dead Messiah who
promised to come again and violently overthrow the Empire? Did
they join because they could avoid the more difficult customs of Jewish
law? Or did they join because they were deeply attracted to a
radical way of life in which everything was shared in common, and from
which no one was excluded? Were they excited by a community that
offered an alternative to Roman imperial political systems that worked
to keep injustice firmly in place? Did they prefer to give their
spiritual allegiance to a covenental God instead of the all too
corruptible human Emperor?
These questions lead to answers that are still dangerous in today’s
world. When Paul writes, “we speak, not to please mortals, but to
please God who tests our hearts” he is not talking about trying to
convince people to believe, but to trust God’s justice (with all your
heart, soul, and mind) and live in a radically inclusive, radically
self-denying way (love your neighbor as yourself). The heart test
comes when the spiritual community you have been a part of all your
life throws you out because your attitude violates the rules. The
heart test comes when you lose your job for union organizing, or
calling the boss on his sexual harassment. The heart test comes
with the midnight knock on the door from the authorities, not from
intervening divine judgment.
When Paul writes, “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,”
he means that he and his fellow travelers are willing to give whatever
they have, including their lives, in order to further the work of
restoring God’s realm of distributive justice-compassion. Belief
in a future apocalyptic return of an avenging Messiah has nothing to do
with it. Paul was convinced that time was short for restoring
God’s realm of distributive justice-compassion. He was convinced
that God would act again within his lifetime, as God had with Jesus,
and that all those who signed onto the Great Work would see that
kingdom come. For many 21st Century thinkers, whether Christian
or not, the time for turning humanity from its destructive imperial
mind-set is also short. Some environmentalists now predict that
the last of the great
glaciers that provide living water for the driest portions
of the Planet will be gone by 2035. That is well within the
lifetime of the majority of folks today. The effect of such a
loss on the planetary environment and on the quality of human life is
unimaginable.
Some 21st Century Christians are beginning to realize that the old idea
that Jesus is coming again, so why worry about the condition of the
world, is not a wise position to take. “Stewardship” of the
Planet for human use is not enough. Some are beginning to realize
that life is a web, and all beings are part of it. Members of
First Century Christian communities were likely not thinking in terms
of environmental justice. Twenty-first century Christians cannot
afford to do likewise.
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