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PERICOPE STUDY
CENTER FOR THEOLOGY,
LRC
First Sunday in Advent -
November 30, 2003
The Second Lesson: I Thessalonians
3:9-13
For what thanksgiving can we render to God for you, for all the joy which we feel for your sake before our God, praying earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith? Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you; and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all men, as we do to you, so that he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
1 The Apostle who begins this letter giving "thanks to God always" for these Thessalonians notes gently in this passage their yet nascent faith, now in some arrested development owing to his absence, among other things.
2 As to the dimensions yet "lacking," the fourth chapter may give a clue or two: "For this is the will of God, your sanction: that you abstain from unchastity; that each one of you know how to take a wife for himself in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like heathen who do not know God; that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we solemnly forewarned you. For God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you." (4:3-8) In the same passage he further admonishes them to "live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands … so that you may command the respect of outsiders, and be dependent on nobody." (4:11-12).
In the last chapter he "exhorts" them to "admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances …do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophesying, but test everything; hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil." (5:14-22)
3 "What is lacking" in faith today is likely to be plenty, among those in congregations. In my catechetical class of fourteen, there are about four who have sufficient knowledge of the scriptures as to have a general idea where to turn in order to search for Hosea. Or Philippians. Two of these twelve-year-olds know pretty well the order of the books … the three of us recite the books in succession, round-robin, each one taking the next book consecutively. The others will learn. But that's just basic. Seminaries now routinely have "threshold exams" in Biblical knowledge, which one must pass with a designated score in order to progress beyond the first year. Biblical illiteracy among clergy candidates reminds one of the "wretchedness" that Martin Luther beheld in his tour around Saxony churches in the winter of '28-'29: "Good God, what wretchedness I beheld…." And he sat down and wrote the catechism, for basic instruction to be taught at home, in the faith.
4 Ignorance among uneducated Saxon peasants is one thing. Ignorance in the "information age" is quite another. Let alone coming to a "mature faith." The "pop culture" knowledge is not in short supply, even though "maturity" of any sort is hard to find. But a "mature faith"? What would be the percentage of those with such maturity in faith? On what criteria would one base the measure of maturity? Theological knowledge? Ethical discernment? Biblical literacy? An acquaintance with national and international issues related to faith and ethics?
5 Every once in a while one meets someone whose curiosity about the faith is genuine, whose inquiry is more genuine than pathological. Creating a climate of life in a congregation where maturity of faith is nurtured - that's a trick. Centers of ethical and theological inquiry help. So does serious Bible study. So does substantive preaching, preaching that engages personal faith at the intersections of need and the content of who we are as baptized people of God.
6 The Apostle had not the opportunity to nurture the Thessalonians in person, so he did it by mail. We are the more blessed that he was thus deprived of face-to-face ministry. Because we can read it and be the better informed - toward the maturity of our faith.
From the Ancients
7 "supply what is lacking in your faith" - "The Truth of Faith Pastorally Taught." Augustine: But every discourse on this topic, where one's goal is that what is said may not only be believed but also understood and known, is burdensome for those still spiritually immature. These the apostle says are carnal, needing to be nourished with milk, as they do not have the strength to perceive such things and are more easily frustrated than fed. Because of this it happens that spiritual men do not in all circumstances refuse to discuss these things with the carnal, on account of the Catholic faith, which must be preached to all. Yet, having the desire to transmit some degree of truth to understandings not capable of a secure grasp, they take care to transmit these in a way that does not cause their discourse to be regarded with disdain and the truth contained therein to be completely ignored. Thus, in order to continue to nourish them despite their immaturity, [the apostle], writing to the Colossians, says, "Even if I am absent in body, in spirit I am with you, rejoicing and beholding your order and that which is lacking to your faith in Christ." And to the Thessalonians, "Night and day," he says, "more abundantly praying that we may see your face and may supply the things that are lacking to your faith." (from Tractates on John, 98.5.1)
"An Enrichment, Not an Addition." - Augustine: Let the admonition of the most blessed apostle not depart from your hearts, "If anyone preaches to you a gospel besides that which you have received, let him be anathema" (Gal. 1:9) He did not say "more than you received" but "besides that which you have received." For if he said the former, he himself would be prejudging himself, who desired to come to the Thessalonians that he might supply what things were lacking to their faith. But he who supplies adds to what was smaller, he does not take away what was there. But he who goes beyond the rule of faith does not go forward in the way but goes back to the way. (from Tractates on John, 98.7.4)
8 Our God and Father and Our Lord (3:11) - "their Work is One" - Ambrose: Again, this is said that you may know that the Father is, and the Son is, and that the work of the Father and the Son is one. Note the saying of the apostle, " Now may God himself, and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you." Both Father and Son are named, but there is unity of direction, because there is unity of power. So also in another place we read, "Now may our Lord himself, Jesus Christ, and God and our Father, who has loved us, and given us eternal consolation, and good hope in grace, console and strengthen your hearts." How perfect a unity it is that the apostle presents to us, insomuch that the fountain of consolation is one fountain, not many. Let doubt be silenced, then, or if it will not be overcome by reason, let the thought of our '"Lord's gracious kindness incline it in the right direction. (from Of the Christian Faith, 2.10.87)
"Their Grace Is One" - Athanasius: For one and the same grace is from the Father in the Son, as the light of the sun and the sun's radiance is one, and as the sun's illumination is effected through the radiance. So too when Paul prays for the Thessalonians, in saying, "Now God himself our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, may he direct our way to you," he has guarded the unity of the Father and of the Son. For he has not said, "May they direct," as if a double grace were given from two sources … but "May he direct," to show that the Father gives grace through the Son - at which these irreligious ones will not blush, though they well might. (from Discourses Against the Arians, 3.25.11)
9 Increase and Abound in Love - "The Unrestrained Overflowing in Love" - Chrysostom: This is a proof of superabundant love, that he not only prays for them by himself but even inserts his prayer in his epistles. Paul's prayers demonstrate a fervent soul unable to restrain his love. The mention of his prayers also proves that Paul and Silvanus' failure to visit them was not voluntary nor the result of indolence. It is as though Paul said, "May God himself shorten the trials that constantly distract us, so that we may come directly to you. And the Lord make you to increase and abound'" Do you see the unrestrained madness of love that is shown by these words? (from Homilies on I Thessalonians 4)
"Always His Love for Us First." - Augustine: Suppose we first loved him so as to merit his love in return. Then wouldn't we first choose him so as to merit our being chosen by him? But he who is Truth itself says otherwise and openly contradicts human vanity by declaring, "You have not chosen me." (John 15:16) Consequently, if it is not you who have chosen, then it is certainly not you who have loved; for how could they choose him whom they did not love? "But it is I," he says, " who have chosen you." And how could they possibly fail to choose him afterward or fail to prefer him to all the goods of this world? It was because they were chosen that they chose him. They were not chosen because they had chosen him. There would be no merit in men's choosing him unless the action of God's grace in choosing them had gone before. That is why in imparting his blessing to the Thessalonians the apostle Paul declares, "And may the Lord make you to increase and abound in charity toward one another and toward all men." He who gave this blessing to love one another is the same who gave us the love to love one another. (from: Grace and Free Will, 38).
All quotes from the ancients are from: Oden, Tomas C. and Hall, Christopher H., general editors; Peter Gorday, volume editor . Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament, Vol. IX Colossians, 1-2 Thessalonians, 1-2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1998.
JLY - 11.25.03
The Gospel: St. Luke 21:25-36 (see the text)
1. With this pericope, from the Third Evangelist's account of the Gospel story, Advent begins less with the initial appearance of the Messiah than with his Final Coming. Jesus rehearses the conventional "signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves." To a people accustomed to being, as Schweitzer famously wrote about Jesus Himself, "hopelessly shrouded in Jewish apocalyptic," (in The Quest of the Historical Jesus, 1906), comes the warning that "people will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory." But Jesus announces these events as promise and consolation, rather than as terror, for the ones faithful to God's covenant: "Now when these begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."
2. "Your redemption is drawing near" - The notion of "redemption" presupposes, of course, a debt. Or bondage, from which one needs release. Or some estrangement that wants reconciliation as a resolution. Or some piece of salvage that snatches, if not victory, at least some meaning, from the jaws of defeat. At the most desirable, freedom from bonds of slavery or servitude.
It was not a difficult notion for humanity to grasp, among the ancients, whose inclinations ran toward appeasement of the gods - by sacrifice, most commonly. Among even the most barbaric, there was a sense of human trespass into the territory of the divine, to be addressed by reverence for totems, or sacred places. Among those both sophisticated and barbaric, there was a sense of human breach of divine decrees, offenses both intentional and unintentional that needed some intervention or restitution from priests or priestesses to address and placate the gods.(1)
3. But there was also resident in human nature a having come to terms with God or the gods, once the required rituals had been performed. Animal offerings, cereal offerings, gold in coffins, human sacrifice … all things in proper order to put the ancient heart at ease, or at least at some level of safety, vis-à-vis his Maker. As is evident from the Hebrew prophets, even the chosen people of the covenant had the common impression that all was well in Zion, so long as the feasts, solemn assemblies, burnt offerings, and grain offerings were observed and the songs and the harps played (Amos 5:22-24). Their understanding of redemption was couched more in the ritual form of appeasement than in the radical nature of estrangement.
4. Jesus understood the radical need for redemption, and, finally, what was necessary to accomplish it. His discourse with the "Jews who had believed in him" in John 8 is instructive, both to his understanding of the redemption and to their lack of it. "Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, 'If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.' They answered him, 'We are descendants of Abraham and have never been in bondage to anyone. What do you mean by saying "You will be made free"'? Jesus answered them, "Very truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not continue in the house forever; the son continues forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.'" Even those men, whose covenant status and understanding defined them as persons in debt to God, in need of redemption, did not grasp the radical nature of their need. Their understanding of the plight was understated, even frivolous. Slaves? Slaves, indeed!
5. It is a long way from self-satisfied Pharisees and other Judean religious elite to contemporary American humanity. Redemption is not a concept at the front of religious concern, or even tentative exploration. Self-fulfillment, sampling the devotional smorgasbord of the global religions, praise-worship in contemporary idioms, relevance moving beyond the narrow ethical restrictions of the Bible and past…. Self-fulfillment! Now the ruling from Massachusetts…. Political causes linked to ethical laxity. The center of contemporary religious sensibility is the believing self, not a devotion to God, or to Jesus Christ. Schleiermacher's shift of the theological focus from the self-disclosing God of revelation to the self-fulfilling believer of perception and privilege has made its effective journey from 1820s Berlin to the 21st century, sometimes quiet, more recently clamorous. An effective invasion. What Schleiermacher intended as a barrier against the hegemony of reason over against faith has become instead the fortress of anthropocentric religion - the hegemony of the individual, the person, the self. At the heart of the popular enterprise is what inspires me, what motivates me, what I can understand. And, above all, my rights. And so, ad nauseum.
6. Are only those redeemed who are looking for redemption? I see very little evidence of an understanding of guilt, much less preoccupation with it. The cult of the self has succeeded, in one or two generations, in virtually eliminating the notion of guilt, as concerning sinning against God. Or sinning against fellow humanity. Especially over against God and what God commands. The Law has been relativized as to its authority, impugned even as to its continued existence--relegated to the cultural milieu of the latter part of the second millennium BC. Before we can "stand up and raise (our) heads redemption is drawing near," we first have to understand that we are in need of redemption. We have raised a generation, even two, who in the large do not understand that. Hence their disdain for the Law. Hence their radical need for self-justification, for legitimation. Where is Luther, with his anguished search for a gracious God? We have painted a God who is not so much grace as Santa Claus. A God whose purpose is to assure inclusion. A God of our own creation. Kyrie eleison!
JLY - 11.28.00 (rev. 11.25.03)
1 As St. Paul notes in Romans 2:14-16 - "When Gentiles, who do not possess the laws, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all."
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