A sermon shared with
First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN, October 29, 2017. This post is my
subtle reflection on Reformed Theology marking the 500th year since
Martin Luther raised his objections.
As a preface to this post,
this is an instance where reading the parallel history in Acts
helps understand the history and context of Paul’s letter. After establishing
the first congregation in Philippi, Paul started the second one in Thessalonica.
He ran into great difficulty in both places. The Christians in Philippi stopped
buying silver idols and killed the silversmith business. In addition, a slave
girl who enriched the silversmiths by telling fortunes harassed Paul as he told the
story of the Good News so he silenced her. These acts so angered the silversmiths that they beat him and his
workers, and had them jailed. When the locals realized Paul was a Roman citizen
they released him from jail and told him to leave town for Thessalonica. When he arrived there, he went to the synagogue as was his habit and for
about three weeks explained the gospel. Many believed. The Jews were angered over these conversions and the instigated a large riot against Paul and his assistants who were forced to
leave in the middle of the night. The local population continued to harass the
congregation. Paul wrote this letter to console and encourage the Thessalonians.
His principal message in the midst of this chaos and peril was “live to please
the Lord,” keeping their eye on the future grace that awaits them in the
comfort of Jesus. In our reading Paul’s appeals to the Thessalonians by describing the
reasons that caused him to come in order to ensure they know his affection for them
goes as far as risking his safety.
* * *
Why call
this post “Fool’s Gold or the Real Deal?”
You
probably know what fool’s gold is. It is iron sulfide, a mineral that looks for
all the world like a gold nugget until after you buy it and have it assayed in
a lab. Fool’s gold emphasizes the main point Paul makes in his letter to the
Thessalonians – that he is the real deal, genuine, not a huckster.
As you read all Paul’s letters you cannot
avoid his constant challenge to the listeners to know and model his behavior as theirs. My preface notes Paul’s cites his own living experiences of being
harassed by his opponents, being beaten, chased out of town, imprisoned (and
eventually executed) for proclaiming the Good News. His perseverance in
preaching the good news in the face of that hostility shows that he takes his
calling very seriously.
Certainly,
in our modern day we look more than a little suspiciously at anyone who tells
us that they are the epitome of good behavior and we should model theirs. It is
a very, very rare person who can say that with humility and be justified in
saying it. But Paul has street credibility.
Listen again
to what Paul says (I paraphrase):
“You
yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that … we had already suffered and been
shamefully mistreated at Philippi (but) had courage in our God to declare to
you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition… We didn’t try to convince you by lies, bad
intentions or trickery because God approved us to proclaim the Gospel (as our
duty) …not to please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts. As God is our witness, we never tried
to flatter you, or try to preach to you so you would give us money, and we
never sought praise from you or anyone else though we might have asked for
support as apostles of Christ. We treated you gently like a nurse treats her children
because you are so precious to us that we are determined to share with you the
gospel of God even at the risk of harm to us.”
Do you see his two main points? First, you
cannot deny that Paul and his associates came with good intentions because already
we know he had suffered in Philippi and again here in here in Thessalonica for
telling them the Good News. Why would Paul endure that and risk more abuse
unless he was called to do it and felt so positively about the Thessalonians.
Second, we should know Paul and his
workers do it because they want God to see that their actions reflect their
love of God, and show that neither lies, trickery or love of money is in their
hearts, but only love for the Thessalonians.
Most
translations muddy this message. They render the Greek in verse 4, something
like this, “we speak, not to please mortals, but to please God who tests
our hearts.” That word “tests” leads
most people to think God puts traps before us to test whether we are good or
bad. Some go further and say it means “God never gives you anything that you
can’t manage.” I think both of these ideas miss the mark completely.
I’m
reminded of a friend who regularly frets that “God is testing him.” But, think
about it. If God desires to test us by of tempting us to do wrong or right,
then it means we have the capacity to choose to do good not bad.
Paul
best answers that matter. He lamented on our inability to conform to the Law, “I
do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate...For I know that nothing
good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I
cannot do it” (Romans 7:14-25).
Now if we want to argue with Paul about that,
what do we say about these words from Jesus in response to a questioner who
called him “good,” “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God
alone. (Matt. 19:16-22, Luke 18: 14-25).
If you think about it, the idea of God testing
us to determine if we are good enough for salvation is repugnant to the whole theology of the
NT. If we could choose to do good, why would we need the grace of reconciliation
with God that Jesus brings? The very existence of the Son of God as a man
walking the earth acknowledges we have no hope of being good outside grace. We will
fail the test of a sinless life under the Law. The whole point about being
reconciled to God is that it is unmerited and comes to us by God’s grace
alone.
My
friend who worries over being tested, like so many of us, struggles with guilt,
just as Paul did. We struggle with the idea that our unrighteous acts and
thoughts mean we are not good enough for God. We are harder on our self that
God is. We have a hard time accepting the fact that God loves and forgives us
even though we are sinners. I suspect we have trouble accepting God’s
forgiveness because often we cannot forgive others as God forgives us. That may
be the root of the problem. We hold grudges and we beat ourselves up with guilt.
But we are forgiven.
Paul, if
he were here, would be shouting “Amen” at these words and probably yell, “If we are
forgiven, does that mean we should sin boldly because we have an out?”
That
question goes to the real meaning of “test” in these words to the
Thessalonians. The context of this Greek word that is translated “test” in the
NRSV actually has two meanings dealing with the senses. It can mean assay the
quality of something - what the test lab does when we bring in a piece of gold
jewelry. The lab assays it to determine if it is pure gold, a diluted10 caret
gold, gold plated metal, or iron pyrite - “Fool’s Gold.” It carries also the
sense of discovering something is genuine by actually using it. This is the
sense Paul has. It doesn’t carry the
sense of challenging a person to choose to do good or evil, it means God looks at
(examines) Paul to see if he is genuine, “walking the talk.”
Paul tells
the Thessalonians that he knows God has called his cohorts and him to ministry
of the Gospel, to take care of the spiritual life of the Thessalonians. He
knows God observes him and his workers in action to discover the righteousness in
their hearts. That is what “test” means here.
You may
think it is a subtle difference - and it is. But it is an important subtle
difference. God is well aware of human frailty. Jesus came to earth to free
us from sin, to create a desire in us, to hear “go and sin no more,” as
forgiveness and a call to live the Christian life.
God
isn’t sitting in heaven tossing stumbling blocks at you as you walk in the
world to test whether you are pure. The world has enough stumbling blocks
simply by its existence to attract us to putting love of self above human relationships
and our relationship with God. God does not need to add more trouble to our mix.
Paul’s message flows from the
message last week about giving what belongs to Caesar to Caesar and to God what
belongs to God – you have to serve somebody.
I pray
you do not, but you may find yourself in a predicament far beyond what you can
deal with. Eventually Paul did but Paul never lost the encouragement of his
faith. He tells us repeatedly that no matter what misery the world piles on us,
every Christian has a guaranteed lifeline. We will see glory and we will enjoy
God’s grace forever.
There is
no doubt we face challenging tasks as Christians. These challenges aren’t there
to trick us, or test if we can do the right thing. They are part of the world. Paul
and Jesus tell us that when God looks at us, it is not to judge, but to see how
well we seek to keep compassion in our heart for our brothers and sisters as we
face those challenges in the world. Remember the benediction I sometimes use, “May
the Lord bless you and keep you, may he look upon you and smile?” Our actions
reveal to God what is in our heart. We are called to live a life of action that
reveals the good news to others – that is what makes the Lord smile. That is
what “testing” meant to Paul.
When you
start beating yourself up over your shortcomings, remember that God loves you
and forgives you through Jesus Christ.
Paul
makes the point in a way I hope you appreciate. He uses legal language. When
you are alleged to have broken a law, or arrested, a grand jury may consider if
the charges merit a trial. That is the way the law works in America. Paul says God’s
forgiveness, this reconciliation through Jesus means our faith reckons us
righteous. To be reckoned righteous means that you are absolved of any guilt
even before you are dragged to a grand jury. It is as if the sin never
happened.
That is
a hard thing to get your head around. It is why it is so hard to forgive our
self. Even if we do, forgiveness does not give you a license to sin boldly, but
it gives you a pure heart, a clean slate and a desire to work every day to be a
more righteous person.
October
31 is the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s launching of the Reformation,
so let’s put these ideas in that context. When I say,”Jesus Christ reconciled
us to God,” it means we are justified before God as his beloved children, just
like Paul described the Thessalonians. The key word is justified – the slate is
wiped clean. Then, every day we have the opportunity to grow spiritually, to
work at being a better Christian person, to make every effort to love our neighbor
as a habit. This means we are justified by our faith in God and we work to
become a more sanctified, or righteous Christian who loves not judges. The key
words are being justified and sanctified.
We are
justified before God by Jesus, and we have it as our duty to become more
sanctified as Christians. As Jesus said, the road is narrow and hard. You’ll
have good days and bad days, but as a Christian, Jesus is always there with an
outstretched, helping hand.
It boils
down to the same question that I asked a few weeks back. Are you ensuring your
faith is genuine by living it? Paul did something that few humans have the
courage and strength to do in the 21st Century. We make a big
mistake not to take his words in this passage to heart as describing how we
should live with our fellow Christians. I paraphrase it, “So deeply do we care
for you that we are determined to share with you the gospel of God as if you
were our beloved children, even if doing so threatens to harm us.”
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