1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

This text is used for the Lectionary Year A on November 5, 2017.

Two potential sermons jump out of this text.  The first is the power of the Gospel to bring life into focus by revealing sin and empowering us.  The second is wrapped up in the feminine analogy of a nursing mother.  Here we are given the rare occasion to consider the joy of motherhood alongside the gentle work of discipleship.  Both sermon paths provide ample opportunity to reveal the character of God either in a story of powerfully overcoming the world or a story of compassionate nurturing.

The Gospel incredibly empowers us by bringing life into focus.  Verse 1 ends with a specific refocusing, “our coming to you was not in vain.”  By worldly standards, their coming would have been in vain.  Seemingly everywhere Paul went great opposition encircled him and chased him out of town. Just before visiting Thessalonica, Paul and Silas preached in Philippi.  There they were dragged before the authorities, beaten by an angry mob, thrown into prison, and bound in stocks.  The pain of Acts 16 looks like a failure but, Paul kept preaching the Gospel even though he was forced out of Thessalonica in the same way.  For others, that looks like failure, a coming in vain, but not for those empowered by the Gospel.  Being chased out of town was not a mark of failure, rather Paul saw all those men and women hearing the Gospel and knew that was success.  When God empowers us through the Gospel our hope in life changes and refocuses, what success looks like for ourselves and the church.  Verse 1 is an opportunity for the preacher to reconsider what Gospel success looks like for their role as pastor, the church’s role in the community, and the individual’s role in the Kingdom of God.  Too often, our vision of success looks too much like the world’s instead of the Gospel’s.  If like Paul, we can take hold of God’s vision of success we will know the same kind of Gospel empowerment.

Similarly, as the Gospel refocuses success, it refocuses our motives.  Paul’s ministry looked different from other teachers because Gospel motives are free of sinful influence.  Worldly teachers will always prove to be:  erroneous, impure, deceitful, speaking to flatter, greedy, seeking honor, and/or authoritative (verses 3-6).  Without the Gospel, sin births all these motives within teachers and anyone who hears them are dragged further into sin.  At this point, the preacher could consider all the impure motives that seep into the church (e.g., making the church look better than the church down the street, increasing numbers of the budget and people, business connections, title).  Impure motives constantly hinder the church if we do not name them, and move away from them as fast as we can.  We will end up like the worldly teachers when we drift away from the truth of the Gospel.  As we repent of a false sense of success and false motives, our churches will be transformed.

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Matthew 22: 34-46

This text is used for the Lectionary Year A on October 29, 2017.

The lectionary seemingly assigns us two moments in Matthew this week. In the first, Pharisees test Jesus’ legal knowledge, prompting him to offer his infamous articulation of the greatest commandment. In the second, Jesus turns the tables, quizzing his inquisitors about the Messiah, ultimately leaving them speechless. The temptation here is to pick a passage like we pick our news outlets, zeroing in on one (likely the first) to the complete exclusion of the other. However, we’d do well to receive the assignment as given and wrestle with why the lectionary lists these moments as the biblical author does, as one.

The second half of this passage gives weight to the first in a few notable ways. First, Jesus comes closer to revealing his identity here than in any of the previous chapters in Matthew. Son of David was a common messianic reference, and if you turn back a page, you’ll see this is the title the crowds he encountered on the way into Jerusalem and the children in the temple courts have already given him. In this light, the question itself implies his Messianic identity. Secondly, the fact that Jesus answers their question impressively and they are dumbstruck by his speaks both to Jesus’ credibility and authority as a teacher. Soon these elders and teachers of the law will have him arrested and put him on trial. Matthew wants us to witness this before we get to that. The higher credibility and authority of Jesus in comparison to other teachers of the law is established here. Finally, the establishment of Jesus as the teacher of highest authority combined with the implication of his messiahship calls the reader back to his response regarding the greatest commandment, because it provides us with an important interpretive resource for life, scripture and the messiahship of Jesus.

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1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

This text is used for the Lectionary Year A on October 22, 2017.

The introduction of the first letter to the Thessalonians has a structure similar to many of Paul’s introductions. It follows the typical Greco-Roman format, which begins with sender and recipient information and moves into a greeting and thanksgiving section. In 1 Thessalonians, though, Paul’s thanksgiving section is superlative in every way. “We always give thanks for all of you constantly,” Paul writes. Then he launches into a glowing recommendation of the believers’ faith, love, and endurance. My family jokingly calls me the queen of superlatives and I defend myself by saying, “Well, I just get so excited about everything that I have to amplify my language to communicate my enthusiasm clearly.” Similarly, Paul is very excited in this passage and expresses his pleasure with intensified language. He has probably just received a report on the fledgling Thessalonian church with the arrival of Timothy and is thrilled to hear that the church has survived through the persecution that plagued its members since the church’s inception.

The story of the founding of the Thessalonian church can be found in Acts 17. After considerable trouble in Philippi, Paul and Silas came to the Macedonian city of Thessalonica. Although Paul’s preaching in the synagogue only yielded some Jewish followers, there were “devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women” that were persuaded by Paul’s teaching (Acts 17:4). It is this diverse group that formed the first community of Christ-followers in that city. There was trouble for this church from the beginning. We learn in Acts 17:5-9 that a group of Jews formed a mob against the believers and even dragged one believer, Jason, from his home just for housing Paul and Silas. The believers then sent Paul and Silas away from their city, presumably to keep them safe, but it is likely that the persecution of the Thessalonian Christians continued even after the missionaries moved on.

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Matthew 22: 15-22 

This text is used for the Lectionary Year A on October 22, 2017.

This passage marks the beginning of a series of litmus tests meant not to test Jesus’ alkalinity or acidity but his legitimacy as a leader, or lack thereof. The question about paying taxes to Rome is the first of three such litmus testing questions. The second is the Sadducees’ question about the resurrection (they didn’t even believe in the resurrection), and the third is the Pharisees question about the greatest commandment, which he answers masterfully and then follows with a fourth question of his own. We’ll get to that next week. For now, it’s important to read this as the beginning of a series of Matthean moments where we’re meant to see what Jesus is made of when confronted by and compared to the respected Jewish authorities who would later be responsible for his arrest and trial.

Jesus’ inquisitors indicate Jesus’ essence before even giving him a chance to answer the first question.  “Teacher,” they said. “We know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others because you pay no attention to who they are. (vs. 16) The disciples of the Pharisees (not the Pharisees – they first sent students to do their dirty work) do not believe Jesus is actually a person of integrity. This questioning is actually meant to reveal that and discredit him. Ironically, however, these inquisitors have both revealed their intent and set us up to observe the true integrity on display. What happens when someone confronts a person of the highest integrity with malicious intent? In this case, the person of integrity confronts them right back.
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