Thessalonica AD 49 IV: A Higher Path 
By The Rev. David McMaster
July 22, 2007
Text: I Thessalonians 5:12-28
Over the last few weeks, we have been looking at St. Paul's letter to the Thessalonians and getting an introduction to the city of Thessaloniki. The other day I was down at Emmanuel College and, when I left, I started to go home along Bloor Street, over the bridge onto the Danforth. Just as I got on to the Danforth, I did one of those double-takes. There was a building on the right with a sign that said something like, “The new home of The Thessaloniki Society.” “My, my,” I thought, as I scribbled down the web site: www.thesoc.org. When I got home I looked at the site and found out that there are actually significant links between Thessaloniki and Toronto.
As if that wasn't enough, as I proceeded home, I went up Coxwell Avenue and a few other streets, then on to my street. On that street, almost directly across from the house of one of our choir members, is the house that has been immortalized in the film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, with its pillars and Greek façade. Of course, as I'd been travelling, there were all sorts of blue and white flags. It struck me that I was, indeed, in Greek-town. It struck me further that we may be closer to Thessaloniki than we think. And, who knows, perhaps even in our city, there are very distant relatives of those to whom the Apostle Paul spoke centuries and centuries ago.
Some months ago, when I determined to engage First Thessalonians in this summer series, I picked out four themes for us to think about. We have already talked about coming to faith, about standing firm in the faith, and about the future of the faith - dying and rising in the resurrection. Now we come to the fourth theme that Paul has in this letter, and it has to do with the present: how we live - faith lived in the world today. Paul calls those who follow Christ to a certain way of life, a higher path. “Live on this higher path while on this earthly journey,” he says to us.
The call to a higher path comes to us in very broad terms - In Chapter 2 he says, “Live lives worthy of God.” (2:12) In Chapters 1 and 3, “Live with faith, love and hope.” (1:3; 3:8) In Chapter 4, “Love one another more and more.” (4:10) Then in Chapters 4 and 5, he says, “It is God's will that you be sanctified completely.” (4:3; 5:23)
“Sanctified!” - now, that's not a word that we use very often these days. It derives from the Latin, sanctus, which means “holy” and facere, which means “to make,” together meaning “to make holy.” Perhaps more to the point, the Greek antecedent, hagiazo means “to hallow.” It means, “to make holy;” “to set apart unto God;” “to purify;” “to consecrate.” In the nominal cognate form hagioi, it is usually translated in the Scriptures as “holy ones” or “saints,” and thus we might say that Paul is telling us, “be saintly as you live in the world. Be a saint.”
When I hear the word “saint,” I am reminded of a story about a town drunk. This man was quite a boozer, and the word was that he ran with the ladies. One day he passed away, and his brother came to the minister and said,
“I hope you won't be too hard on my brother. In fact, if during his funeral you would call him a saint, I will make a significant contribution to the church - $10,000 or more.”
The minister said he would have to think about it. A couple of days later, at the funeral, he got up and began his homily with these words:
“We all know that Charlie was a terrible boozer and was unfaithful to his wife. But compared to his brother here, he was almost a saint.”
“Saint!” Paul is more or less saying that it is God's will that you live as a saint. (4:3) I can hear your minds turning. I think part of our problem with understanding this concept is that, when we hear it, we automatically begin to think of people who are locked up in cloisters: monks, or nuns or something; recluses who go off into the wilderness and think spiritual thoughts for years; individuals who are so spiritually - minded that they are no earthly good. But when it comes to Paul's words in Thessalonians, he's not suggesting anything like that. He is suggesting to Christ's followers that you live for Christ and follow Christ - not off in a cloister, not off in the wilderness, but in the midst of the world, “Be holy!” Be completely holy wherever you are. Be holy in Thessalonica; be holy in Toronto; be holy in the marketplace, in the street, when you are at home, at the city gate. In all places, strive to be like Christ. There are indications in the text that God will help us to live like this. (5:23)
Now, when I first read Thessalonians I wasn't sure that, if Paul were around today, he would make a very good minister. You see, ministers today - especially in North America - seem to have to go out of their way to make things easy for people to come to church, get involved in church and feel part of it. And if they don't make it easy for them, people will go elsewhere. When you put that thought together with the fact that success in the church is often gauged by how large the congregation is, or how heavy the offering plate is each Sunday, it is easy to see how modern-day ministers must work to keep people happy in order to get as many people through the doors as possible. Emphasize grace! Keep the requirements low! That is their job.
Yet, here is Paul with demands and expectations. It's not just about grace, he intimates, “turn - turn now. Live lives worthy of God; be holy; be sanctified.” Then he continues, and I'll make into a list all the things I came across of this nature in Thessalonians:
Be holy and blameless
Love one another
Avoid sexual immorality
Lead a quiet life
Mind your own business
Work with your hands
Acknowledge those who work hard among you, and hold them in the highest regard
Live in peace
Warn those who are idle and disruptive
Encourage the disheartened
Help the weak
Be patient with everyone
Don't pay back wrong for wrong
Strive to do what is good for everyone
Be joyful
Keep praying
Do not put out the spirit's fire or make light of prophecies
Again, be sanctified
Perhaps, for the person who has been a Christian all of his or her life, these things might be more or less expected. But to the person who has no Christian background, this list is onerous.
“Be patient with everyone,” he says.
“Why?” some might ask, and I am not just talking about those who do not suffer fools gladly. There are many of us who struggle with patience, particularly with some individuals. Perhaps you know someone like that. Perhaps someone who is struggling in life wants to talk to you. At first it's fine, you think you might be of some help. But then they want to talk again, and again, and again. You've given advice and it has not been followed and they want to talk again, rehash the same stuff.
“Be patient with one another,” says Paul.
Are you kidding? Be patient!
What of the words on sexuality that are in Chapter 4? The society that Paul was in, in AD 49, had few qualms about promiscuity. I came across a book 10 or 12 years ago - a Ph.D. thesis on Greek and Roman artefacts that are housed in the British Museum, but in the back rooms. They were stored away because, in the Victorian era, the drawings and paintings on the artefacts were deemed much too promiscuous and graphic for the average person to view. There are many vases and bowls, some of the best material that we have from archaeology, paintings on stone - hundreds of them stored away, but not for public display.
This thesis outlined how Greek and Roman societies were sexually charged in ways that would still shock some. Into that environment came Paul. In a place where such promiscuity was viewed as normal, and Paul said, “No more of that, control yourselves!”
“Control your body in holiness and honour . . . Do not wrong or exploit a brother or sister in this matter. It is God's will that you be sanctified.” (4:3-8)
Avoid sexual immorality, and there must have been people there shaking their heads in bewilderment.
Then he said, “Don't pay back wrong for wrong.”
“Are you kidding?” some would ask.
I want to go back to the film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The plot hangs around a relationship between a Greek woman and a non-Greek man. In a culture that says if you are Greek, you marry Greek, this was neither deemed appropriate or “cool.” It was a bit of a stretch for the family, but finally when they got their heads around it, they had a party. It was one of those loud, joyous parties, and the non-Greek fellow was there. His girlfriend's brother sidled up beside him and said, “Do you like my sister? Good. You hurt her, I kill you. I make it look like an accident!”
“Don't pay back wrong with wrong,” says Paul. But what about those who hurt our sisters? What about the cab driver who backed up into my car last week? He said he was going to pay for it. I've tried calling him - he's vanished. I'm out of pocket. If I find him!!! The Apostle Paul says, “Don't pay back wrong for wrong.”
Ouch. This is costing me!
With belief, it seems there are expectations. Paul calls us to live as Christ lived, and this is not easy. Whatever happened to all that talk of grace? What's with these expectations? As I said, I'm not sure Paul would make a very good minister today. Too many demands - what church would have him?
Yet, as we think about what Paul says, there is truth. There is something here that is consistent with what we know deep down within ourselves. As we think about what Paul is saying, all these specifics, are they not really just examples of a broader picture marked by love and respect for other human beings? Haven't we learned in places like Northern Ireland and South Africa that love and restorative justice do more good than paying back wrong for wrong - getting even, tit for tat killings and bombings - those human ideas of retribution? Are not love and restorative justice working better? Is it not true that the Fred Victor Centres, the Yonge Street Missions, the social agencies in the city, leave this world a better place? Who knows what evil they curtail because we are looking after the weak? More could be done, but we are doing something. And sexuality - is that not better expressed within healthy, committed relationships where love is at the core than in promiscuous relations? When we get down to it, Paul's words are words of love, teaching us how to live in love in this world.
Tom Wright, who is the Bishop of Durham and one of my favourite writers on the New Testament, has been reminding Christians for many years that the end of God's savings plan is not heaven, but the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth. It is about God setting right the whole creation, renewing it, establishing his kingdom of glory on earth and setting up his dwelling place with us. Wright says that those who follow God and are born of his spirit are as the first fruits of what is to come. He says that, as first fruits, God summons his people to live in the present as if they were already in the future; to be lights of the future now.
“Christian ethics,” Wright says, “is practising the tunes we shall sing in God's new world.” It is dying to the present state of the world, which is out of tune with God's ultimate intention, and rising above it. It is glimpsing what is to come, and living as if it were already here. God wants his people to be a little bit of heaven, a little bit of his future kingdom on earth, now.
I'm not sure this is the easiest time in history to do that. My sense is that the effect of the mass media makes this one of the most difficult times to live for Christ. It is so easy to be influenced by it, to be caught up in society's web. It's so easy to let this form of peer pressure dictate how we will live. Pressures abound, whether they are in personal life or business life, to maximize self, maximize profit and forget others; forget the weak. On-screen violence and sexuality eat at our very souls, and cause many to think that this is normal living as the media mainstream what is sometimes deviant. It is into this environment that Paul comes again with a call to something higher: a call to holiness, a call to love. When few others in the world care, it is difficult for us. When the pressures of conformity are greater than ever, it is not easy, but the call is there.
Back on June 18, 1940, Winston Churchill addressed the British Parliament. He was talking about the fall of France and the state of the British forces in the face of the Nazi threat. For him, and for the British people, those were not easy days. He said:
What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us, therefore, brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.
Winston Churchill, in the midst of trial, was encouraging Britain. Each time we gather on a Sunday for worship, we pray the Lord's Prayer, and in that we say the words, “Thy kingdom come.” We do not know when Christ will return. We don't know when the kingdom will come, whether it be tomorrow or a thousand years from tomorrow. But the call to live a sanctified life goes out still to the whole church. It is a call to walk on a higher path - to be a little bit of heaven, or a little bit of God's kingdom, in the present.
It may not be easy in this day, but let us “brace ourselves to our duties,” as Winston Churchill said. With the help of God, who knows, even if the church lasts for another thousand years; may future generations say of us, “This was their finest hour,” because we were worthy of God. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.