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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