Daily Devotions

“Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you.  This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.” 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

We were a little late getting the kids up for school this morning.  Better said, the kids took advantage of our tardiness in making sure they were up, given that they bear primary responsibility for getting up.  But it was chilly in the house and warm under the covers so I can hardly blame them.  In the nick of time, they were up and out and off to school.

Why do we get our kids out of bed in the morning? Why do we send them off to school each day?  Because we want them to be successful.  We want them to do their best, to be able to take care of themselves and make their own way through life.  So we send them to school so they can learn what it takes to be successful in the workplace – to get to work on time, to follow instructions from superiors, to do good work without mistakes and deliver it on time, to get along with others, and to feel good about themselves because they made a contribution that matters.

I can’t imagine how to build a society that works without those kind of values.

The first time I heard the phrase – “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” – was in an American history class studying Captain John Smith and the Jamestown Colony settlement in the pre-colonial United States.  Evidently, there were those in the fledgling attempt to gain a foothold in that new territory who weren’t doing their part.  I don’t know if Captain Smith actually said those words but it is noteworthy that we were taught that he did.

The cultural values of the United States includes the expectation that everyone has something to offer for the good of all, that everyone is expected to use those gifts for the good of all, and that every able-bodied person ought to work to make their own living.  Ambition, discipline and hard work is to be encouraged.  Laziness or becoming a burden to society is to be discouraged.

This value system wasn’t invented in the United States nor is it particularly new.  The Thessalonians evidently had problems with those unwilling to shoulder their portion of the work of the community.  So does every human community.  Certainly there is a place for remembering and rescuing those truly incapable of helping themselves – but we’re in trouble if the pendulum swings so far that the incentive leans toward giving up.

So the Thessalonians got tough with the busybodies, we got the kids out of bed, and work now awaits us all.

Let us pray:  Dear Lord, thank you for the abilities and the gifts you have given to us that enable us to add value to the lives of others through our daily work.  Forgive us for those moments of laziness or shoddiness in our work.  Draw near to those who have lost their jobs or live with the fear that they might.  Help us see the holiness in our daily callings and thus to live with gratitude.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

“And you know what is now restraining him, so that he may be revealed when his time comes. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but only until the one who now restrains it is removed. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is apparent in the working of Satan, who uses all power, signs, lying wonders, and every kind of wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion, leading them to believe what is false, so that all who have not believed the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness will be condemned.”  2 Thessalonians 2:6-12

Today’s text raises a big question:  Do you have to believe there is a “Satan” to be a Christian?  Let’s look at that.

At first sniff you ought to notice the words “have to.”  We should always be wary of such words when applied to our side of the faith.  They often turn the good news into bad news and make the faith about us rather than about what God is up to for us.  In this instance, let’s not get caught up in the rules and get to the heart of the matter – does the Christian faith require a corresponding bad guy to be true for us?

My sense is there is a broad continuum among Christians on this question.  On the one hand, there are those who are generally skeptical about anything in the Bible that looks like myth or metaphor.  They have no need whatsoever to believe in a nasty bad guy in a red suit with a pitchfork and horns sitting on a throne in the fiery pits of hell.  Much less the same bad guy showing up on our shoulder tempting us to do naughty things while the angel on the other shoulder attempts to reign in the worst of us.

And on the other hand, there are those for whom Satan is every bit as real in their lives as Jesus.  Satan talks to them, tempts them, lies to them.  Satan speaks through their television sets and movie screens.  Satan speaks the common sense language of modernity to constantly call their faith into question.  Satan uses their addictions to ruin their lives or the political power that Satan gives to allow dark and evil people to ruin the lives of their people.  Satan is the enemy, Jesus is the Victor, and life is a battleground.

And then there is all the rest of the people who don’t think too deeply about such questions.

It is crystal clear that the Apostle Paul lived with the assumption that Satan wielded the “evil anti-force” that would distract people from faithfulness and distance them from Christian community.  The faith isn’t about Satan for Paul. Paul doesn’t talk about spiritual warfare in every paragraph, but in key places in key letters like Romans and the letters to the Corinthians and here in Thessalonians, Paul lifts up the name of Satan as a foe to be destroyed.

Martin Luther would find it ridiculous that a modern person could dismiss Satan from their thinking as “out-dated.”  Luther freely employed Satan language in talking about the worldly opposition to the kingdom of God.  One tradition says that the devil was so plaguing Luther while he wrote in his room in the Warburg Castle that, at one point, Luther threw his ink pot at the devil to drive him from the room.

Are these simply conventions of language or evidence of psychological imbalance or are the “modern among us” missing something important by dropping the devil from their thinking about the faith?  For such thinking assures us of two things that are both true – that Jesus ultimately wins in the end, and that the life of faith will feel like a battle between now and then.  This is most certainly true.

Let us pray:  Gracious Lord, the simple truth is that sometimes we are victims of our times, of our learning.  Language changes, how we look at the world changes, culture changes.  We know you and your love for us never changes but how we think about that seems to.  Today not all people view life as the kind of spiritual battleground described in the Bible.  Help us see what we need to see, to know what we need to know, to be faithful even in such changing times.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

“As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here. Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction. He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God. Do you not remember that I told you these things when I was still with you?”  2 Thessalonians 2:1-5

Evidently – whether Paul wrote this second letter himself or whether someone else was writing in Paul’s name – the people in the Thessalonian church were quite in a tizzy about the end of time and the final appearing of Jesus.  In both letters the issue is raised although in quite different ways.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11, the point seems to be a word of encouragement to those afraid that they had already missed the boat, or that those among them who had already died would be left behind.  Here, in 2 Thessalonians, the “end” is pictured in the language of a cosmic battle rather than a “thief in the night.”  In both readings, Jesus is the one in charge and people do well to put their trust in him.

Each time I hear this language in scripture it takes me back to the summer after 6^th grade, to Inspiration Point Bible Camp, to the movie they showed on Wednesday night entitled, “The Thief In The Night.”  It was a second coming movie about a woman left behind after the rapture because she refused to join her husband in coming to faith.  The movie ends with her jumping off a bridge to evade the stormtroopers of the anti-christ because she refused to be stamped with the identifying “666.”  She jumps…then suddenly wakes up in bed and realizes that the whole nightmare had been a dream…until she hears the same radio report that she heard in her dream…and the movie ends.

After the movie was over, and I was thoroughly and absolutely terrified (remember, this was shown to a bunch of 6^th and 7^th graders), the camp director asked all of the Christians, those who KNEW and were ABSOLUTELY SURE that if Jesus came back today he would DEFINITELY take you to heaven, to leave the room.  But those who were in the LEAST LITTLE BIT UNCERTAIN or who had not ACCEPTED JESUS AS THEIR SAVIOR AND LORD were to stay behind in the room with him.

I left the room.  I was a little heathen, not the least bit ABSOLUTELY SURE, but I WAS absolutely sure that I wasn’t going to admit it.  I ACCEPTED Jesus later that night and every other time I was invited to do so since that day but I’m still not sure that the scars of that night will ever completely leave.

And now that I’m older, I can just hear that camp director reporting to a board meeting all the “decisions for Christ” that were made that summer!   No wonder!  It would have hardly been less manipulating to use old fashioned turn or burn corporal punishment.

So there we have it.  Fear is certainly a motivator.  Doubt is sown much easier in a person’s life than faith.  Selfishness and wanting to be included is certainly an easier sell than selfless service and stepping back to allow someone else to go ahead of you.  Maybe both are legitimate ways of sharing the faith….but I don’t think so.  And, it seems, by the end of his career and his final letter to the Romans, neither did Paul.

Let us pray:  Dear Jesus, many people have been deeply wounded and manipulated by people who frightened them into everything from selling their property to wait for you on a hill to buying indulgences to pretending to believe something just to fit in.  Give us hearts of simple trust, lives of servant faith, and help us trust more deeply in you than in the doubts which assail us.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

“This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, and is intended to make you worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering. For it is indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to the afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marveled at on that day among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  2 Thessalonians 1:5-12

If you read these verses closely, and slowly, and let the mental images they paint dance across your mind – you will be surprised.

If you think of God as a kindly old man who wouldn’t hurt a flea, you will have a tough time with “it is indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you.”

If your image of Jesus is the gentle robed shepherd with children of all different colors on his lap it might be hard to also see Jesus “with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel.”

If your vision of eternal life is happy people with new wings playing hards on cotton clouds above streets of gold, you might be struck by “These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”

And if you have come to the point of trusting that you are being saved by grace through faith in Jesus, you just might end up, like I do, stubbing our “faith toes” on the lines which open and close this passage, “asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith.”  (If the faith is about our being worthy rather than God being gracious, we’re probably in trouble.)

So what do we do with these verses?  Here are the choices people have arrived at through the years.  We might choose to firmly believe them and just leave the fact that Paul completely contradicts himself in other places up in the air as a mystery of the faith.  We might argue (as I did last week) that this is how Paul thought earlier in his career but that his thinking evolved over time.  We might argue, as the introduction to this letter in my study Bible does, that Paul might not have actually written 2 Thessalonians but that it might have been written in his name by someone else. Or, as do the vast majority of Christians who never really actually study the Bible, we might just ignore it.

I don’t believe in ignoring the Bible.  But I also believe that what the Bible DOES is as important, if not more so, than what the Bible SAYS.  This morning, I hear these verses as good news in my life.  It is helpful this morning to know that Jesus hasn’t forgotten me, that I’m included among the faithful this morning, and that the ultimate destiny I share – whatever it looks like – will be good.  This morning I heard these verses as gospel.

There are lots of other mornings when I have woken in a very different place and verses like these would have shivered my timbers.  They would have driven me to confession for fear of being left behind because of my own unworthiness.  I would have heard theses very same verses as law.

However you might have heard these verses, they certainly woke us up on a Monday.

Let us pray:  Dear Lord, we hear so many different images of you in the scriptures, some kindly, some fearful, some welcomed, some not so much.  Keep us mindful this day and this week of who you are, who you are for us, and who we are on your behalf to the world we will encounter along the way.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

(The daily devotions will soon only be available here at this site. You can put a bookmark to this page and access the devotions via the internet OR you can click here to re-subscribe to the devotions by email.  They don’t get sent out until a little later in the day but the service is free.)

“But we appeal to you, brothers and sisters, to respect those who labor among you, and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you; esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil…I solemnly command you by the Lord that this letter be read to all of them.”  1 Thessalonians 5:12-22,27

These closing ethical exhortations read like Paul was running out of paper.  He certainly packs a whole lot into a very few words.  And they are very revealing words.

Each of these phrases teaches us something about the character of the Thessalonian Christian community as well as our own.  Some things have changed, others have stayed the same.

A word to respect those who “labor among you” is a reminder that the relationship between pastor and people, between leader and led, can often be a tenuous one.  Respect goes both ways.  That Paul lifts this up is an indication that working out this type of relationship has always been something of an issue.

The note to be at peace suggests that peace isn’t necessarily the normal state of affairs.  The reminder to admonish and encourage those who aren’t keeping up their end of things – but to do so in a spirit of patience – tells us that the 20/80 principle is probably not a modern invention.

The phrases “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances” can, in my opinion, be misunderstood.  If we hear them as “law”, as a series of “thou shalts”, then they will be anything but encouraging.  They will be seriously discouraging and they invite us to practice pretending in our lives.  But if we hear them as good news, as an invitation to view life through the lens of God’s love, we hear them differently.  There is always something to rejoice about – it is always a good time to pray – we can always be thankful about something.  And this is true.

Paul also encourages his readers to be open-minded to newness (do not quench the Spirit) but also not to be gullible (test everything.)  This is good advice in every age and not always heeded.

And finally, in verse 27, Paul commands that what he has written be publicly read.  That little line, at least for me, is very significant in how I listen to Paul’s letters.  It is widely agreed that this is the first of Paul’s letters, his earliest preserved writing and the thus the first and earliest book of the New Testament.  This tells us that, from the very beginning, Paul was teaching on purpose.  It wasn’t like his letters were preserved out of sentimentality or affection.  From the very beginning, Paul intended them to be used as teaching materials to shape the life and theology of the Christian community.  That is how they functioned from the beginning – in our reading of them, that is how they function still.

We too are on Paul’s team.

Let us pray:  Dear Lord, we stand on the shoulders of giants, tracing the footprints of those who have gone before us.  We pray that we might continue to faithfully carry on our lives in Christian community, as Paul and so many others did before us.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

(The daily devotions will soon only be available here on this blog.  You can put a bookmark to this page and access the devotions via the internet OR you can click here to re-subscribe to the devotions by email.  They don’t get sent out until a little later in the day but the service is free.)

“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”  1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

It is one thing to experience gratitude for a shared life as Paul has been doing thus far through this first letter to the Thessalonians.  But what about those who are no longer there?  What about those who have died?  It is a real question that Timothy has brought back to Paul from his friends in Macedonia.

Why are they so concerned?  In “modern day” Christianity, if we are concerned about the eternal destiny of anyone, it seems to be for those who are still alive, not those who have died.  Why are the Thessalonians then so concerned about those who have already died?

In short, because the faith evolved.

Paul expected Jesus to come back any day, any minute.  He thought the end was coming soon.  Just around the corner.  My guess is that he preached “get ready for the end” sermons, “time is short” sermons.  Sermons that comforted and encouraged those who were already “on the boat” and perhaps frightened, at least convicted, those who were outside of the faith.

But it didn’t happen.  Days stretched into weeks into months into years and still Jesus didn’t come back.  He didn’t right all the wrongs.  He didn’t do in all the bad guys.  He didn’t take all believers to heaven via the elevator through the clouds.  He STILL didn’t set up shop in Jerusalem and usher in a new golden age.  And Paul began to change.

By the time Paul wrote Romans, he had settled in a bit more for the long haul.  The END was still clear for him (we belong to God, nothing can separate us from the love of God, God will not let us go and God will bring us home) but the MEANS (trumpet sounds and rushing angels and flying through the clouds) were a bit more…cloudy?…up in the air?

In short, over time and as he matured, Paul became more certain than ever in the lordship of Jesus and less and less certain about how all of that would work out.

Obviously, we all have to sort these kind of questions out for ourselves.  There are plenty of preachers who still make hay with “time is short” sermons.  The “Left Behind” series sold like hotcakes and even motivated a few people to attend a few worship services.  But the simple truth of the faith is that even Jesus seemed far more interested in the condition of people’s lives on earth than he was punching their ticket for eternity. 

He took care of eternity for us, to set us free to exercise care and seek justice and do our lives well in the here and now.  The problem is, we still tend to live only for today, rather than seeing our daily lives as a garden that needs to be tended for the long haul.

Let us pray:  Gracious Lord, bring us to yourself at the end of our time through the grace and mercy of Jesus.  But until then, keep us devoted to you, to our calling to be your people, and to the care of these lives you have given us.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

“But Timothy has just now come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love. He has told us also that you always remember us kindly and long to see us—just as we long to see you. For this reason, brothers and sisters, during all our distress and persecution we have been encouraged about you through your faith. For we now live, if you continue to stand firm in the Lord. How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith.”  1 Thessalonians 3:6-10

We have one retired pastor who is a member of Covenant.  Whenever I’ve “talked shop” with him and the conversation has turned back to the past, he always has a memory or story about the congregation he served in Wisconsin.  He served many other places through the years, but quite clearly the highlight of his ministry was the time he spent in Wisconsin.

In the same way, we come across many people through our lifetimes, but some people have become friends in a way that most others don’t.  Those are the friends with whom time is irrelevant.  You might not see each other for years but, when you do, you pick right back up where you left off as if you had never been apart.

Maybe it is just chemistry that our lives get marked to such depth on those occasions.  Maybe it is just luck or blind fate.  But if you take a moment and reflect you will see that there was something else going on.  You “went through” something significant with those never lost friends.  My pastor friend went through some great joys and struggles, both with his family and with the congregation, during those years in Wisconsin.  It wasn’t simply the people and the place, their personalities or their plights, but it was the depth of the shared journey that roots them in our minds.

In the same way, Paul’s time with the Thessalonians was a special time, a time of endurance in the face of struggles and great joy to be doing it together.  When Timothy comes back to Paul with good news about the on-going life of the Thessalonian church, Paul just had to write back to share his joy.

Is it sad, that a pastor should remember so fondly only one congregation after decades of ministry, or that we should look back and see a small handful of people who we claim as our deepest friends?  I don’t think so.  I think it is enough.  I use salt to season my food but I don’t sit down to a meal of salt alone.

Those moments, those memories, those people – realizing of course that we could be living in the midst of those moments and those people right now – are what sustain us through all of the other moments and people of our lives.

Remember – Jesus doesn’t call us to HAVE those moments or people, he calls us to BE them.  For we are the salt of the earth.

Let us pray:  Dear Lord, we join Paul in his gratitude for his shared memories and joy at hearing about the faith of the Thessalonians.  It reminds us of those people and those times that have deeply marked our lives.  We too are grateful, not only for those people or those times, but for you for bringing us to them, and through them.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

“For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery, but 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. As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed; nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others, though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. 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, because you have become very dear to us.”  1 Thessalonians 2:3-8

I had a friend in the seminary who was one year ahead of me.  He did his internship year in town so we were able to keep in touch.  I’ll never forget one comment he made to me that has echoed in my memory for all these years.  Talking about his work at the church, he said, “I feel like a social prostitute.  People pay me to be nice to them.”  Ouch.

That line comes back to me whenever I hear Paul saying lines such as “we never came with words of flattery…nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others…”  Paul would also have rejected the idea that Christian leadership is about getting paid to be “nice” to people.  According to Paul in 2 Timothy, a Christian leader’s calling is to:

“Proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.”

By the way, that door swings both ways.  Just as the partnership that is Christian community means that pastors don’t get paid to be “nice” to people, it also means that members of congregations are not obligated to be “nice” to their pastors.  That doesn’t mean the declaration of an open season for meanness and hostility, but it does mean that mutual encouragement often looks like the painful work of speaking the truth in love, of openly challenging and confronting and seeking a greater relational depth.  It means engaging in constructive conflict rather than destructive gossip. 

When we take the time to do that with and for one another, we discover the kind of deep community Paul experienced with the Thessalonians.  They were united, not merely by shared affections (although that was there as well), but by a deeper sense of purpose.  They were being and doing life as the people of God for the sake of the world.

Maybe one of the problems of the Christian movement in the United States today is that we focus too much on being “nice” to one another and too little on gaining clarity about our shared purpose or challenging one another when we get off track.

Let us pray:  Dear Lord, may your Spirit have free reign among people of faith, both leaders and followers.  Bind us together in love but more than that, bind us together with the willingness to walk together down the paths of servanthood and sacrifice, for the sake of the world.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

I’m glad to announce that we are now one step closer to this blog page being the “one stop shop” for the Daily Devotions.  The new buttons just to the right will allow subscribers to choose between retaining an email subscription (they just have to follow the instructions to re-subscribe to the devotions) OR they can choose to use an RSS reader.  

I’m hopeful that the vast majority of subscribers will transfer their subscriptions to the blog site by the middle of January and then I will quit sending out the devotions via the old (and expensive) email list service I’ve used in the past.

The wonders of modern technology!

“We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.” 1 Thessalonians 1:2-7

The beginning of a new year feels like a turning point.  We take time to look back and we take time to look forward.  We remember the noteworthy events and people of the year gone by and we anticipate, often nervously, what we hope will happen in the year to come.

In many ways, the letters of Paul feel like such turning points.  He normally begins with the traditional salutation and words of gratitude and praise.  That is how he opens this first letter to the Thessalonians, the earliest letter Paul wrote, and thus the first “book” written in the New Testament.  His gratitude for the church of the Thessalonians is rooted in their shared experiences reaching back to Paul’s initial work among them.

Later Paul will offer encouragement and more teaching – we’ll get to that later in the week – but for now, let’s allow Paul to help us open this new year with a sense of gratitude.

Do you remember your earliest introduction to the Christian faith?  How was it shared?  Through lullaby songs in the arms of your parents or grandparents?  Through Sunday School classes with cut-out characters reenacting Bible stories on a felt board?  Through Sunday morning worship where all the songs ended with “Amen” and you had to sit in your seat while the adults went forward for communion?

Were there adults outside of your family circle who were influential to you?  Family friends or Sunday School teachers or youth leaders or pastors?

Did you share those experiences with a common group of friends?  Did you have any special “friends in the faith” along the way who encouraged you or shared significant time during retreats or summer camp or other kinds of Christian gatherings?

If you are part of a Christian congregation or have been through the years, are there people there whom you have worked with, fellowshipped with, worshipped with, maybe cried or even argued with?

Thinking through all of this, remembering faces and places and events, however foggy and sketchy, is to feel gratitude.  Gratitude for God’s love which comes to us through Christian community.  Gratitude to know we are continuing to grow up in the faith.  Gratitude for our role models.  Gratitude for our stories.

Let us pray:  Dear Lord, we begin this new year with a sense of deep gratitude for the ways you have touched our lives through other people.  As you created community around Paul in Thessalonica, you have also created community around us through the years.  For that, and so much more, we begin a new year by giving you our thanks.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.