Rejoice Always!

Yesterday, on The Third Sunday of Advent, I preached at St. Andrew's Church in Longmeadow, MA. The service was live-streamed here: 

What follows is the manuscript for the sermon I preached. 

St. Paul was a pastoral theologian. He’s trying to find where God is in the midst of particular places at a particular time around the Mediterranean Sea, where the good news was spreading and taking hold. That happens a little bit differently in Rome than in Corinth or Galatia. He’s not trying to set forth an abstract theology that is true-for-all-time and places. He’s in the weeds with the conflicts and alliances: Apollos and Chloe and others are a part of the narrative. There is therefore more than a little irony that we lean in and listen for a “word of the Lord” when we hear these letters read in our own day.

What I mean to say is simply that context mattered a great deal to Paul. And context continues to matter to us. It matters that we are gathered here at St. Andrew’s virtually because of this pandemic, in this year of our Lord, 2020. We aren’t in Williamstown or Worcester; and it’s not 1954. We are here, now on this third Sunday of Advent as we near the shortest day of the year in this hemisphere, when the darkness seems to envelope us. We are here, in this time and place. And so is the risen Christ, because wherever two or three are gathered, he is in our midst.

St. Paul models something for us, I think, by responding to very specific challenges within those particular faith communities, each with their own gifts and shortcomings. Because while it’s true that wherever two or three are gathered together in Jesus’ name he is in the midst of them, it is also true that wherever two or three are gathered together there will be all of the interesting challenges of our common humanity. He comes to his work and to each letter with some core principles that take shape differently as that congregation seeks and serves Christ and tries, with God’s help, to love God and to love neighbor.

So today’s epistle reading is addressed to those early followers of the Jesus movement in Thessalonica, the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia. The notes in my New Oxford Annotated Bible begin with these words to help frame that context:

First Thessalonians is a friendly, exhortative letter of encouragement. Paul extends affectionate praise for the audience’s steadfast hope and consistent behavior.

Now this kind of praise might have come as quite a surprise to the Corinthian Christians, with whom Paul was far more combative. That’s because they were a very conflicted congregation that has been fighting about just about everything; Paul suggests at one point that they sound like noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. By the time he gets to the thirteenth chapter of that much less friendly and affectionate letter, what’s he’s really saying is: get it together gang! Knowledge puffs up but love builds up! This is what it’s about: faith, hope, and love—but the greatest of these is love.

So let me not put too fine a point on this: being with you, St. Andrew’s, feels a lot more like coming to Thessalonica than Corinth. You are one of our shining lights in this diocese. When I last spent time among you it was during a clergy transition as you said goodbyes to Derek and his family. I vividly remember meeting in this space and hearing your genuine concerns about the future. Would there be life after Derek?

And then an interim period which included lots of good work, and some challenges as well. And then a whole faithful process of exploration, of learning and listening, of writing a truthful profile and then interviewing candidates. And then a call to Charlotte and her family who got here, ready to get to work. Well done!

And then COVID-19.

Through it all, I’ve seen resiliency and adaptability and hard work continue. I see your wardens and your new rector showing up at diocesan town halls. Like Paul and the Thessalonians, I have nothing but affectionate praise for your steadfast hope and consistent behavior.

The letter to the Church in Thessalonica is earlier than Corinthians. In fact, it is almost certain that this letter is the oldest document in the New Testament, about twenty years before the earliest of the gospels, Mark, was written: Yet here, too, Paul is thinking about how faith, hope, and love are the marks of authentic Christian community. They are always his core principles. But here it’s because he notices what happens when communities do put these at the heart of their mission and purpose.

We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before God your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope… (I Thessalonians 1:2-3)

Paul believes that the end of the world is coming soon, that Christ’s return is imminent. So this short letter is dealing with questions about how the community can “keep alert” and be ready for that day. That is why it makes such good reading in Advent. How do we live in a way that is prepared for the end of the world as we know it? Again, the Thessalonians have their act together:  

Now concerning the times and the seasons, you do not need to have anything written to you, for you yourselves know very well that the day of   the Lord will come like a thief in the night. (I Thessalonians 5:1-2)

Paul being Paul, of course, he does have a little bit more to say. But once again it is a word of encouragement. “Because you are children of the light,” he tells them, “you know to put on the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet of hope.” There is that trio again: how do you get ready for the end of days? How do you prepare for the coming of Christ into the world? That answer is the same in good times and in bad times: by living with faith, hope, and love! And then, these incredible words of advice:

• respect one another
• esteem one another
• be at peace with one another  
• admonish the idlers
• encourage the fainthearted
• help the weak
• be patient with everyone
• don’t escalate conflicts by repaying evil with evil; respond to evil by doing good!
  
  
  It’s a short letter. I’ve already gotten to the words we heard today. Let me return to those:
  
  
• rejoice always
• pray without ceasing
• give thanks in all circumstances
• do not quench the Spirit
• do not despise the words of prophets
• test everything
• hold fast to what is good
• abstain from evil

Whether the end of the world as we know it is imminent or thousands of years away, on this third week of Advent in this incredibly difficult year for our nation and the world, I do hear a Word of the Lord here, thanks be to God. And I pray you hear it with me. The world is in tough shape right now on so many fronts. But it is in times like these that it is most clear why we need the Church ourselves even if we must gather virtually, and just as importantly why the world needs for us to be the Church even when our use of the building is limited. We need you to keep on keeping on with faith, hope, and love. As you have been…

Things will get better. I won’t say they will return to normal and that’s not really the goal. But God is definitely doing something new among us and you, St. Andrew’s, have been early adaptors to that new reality. And even with the doors closed you have remembered that Longmeadow Loves. Faith, hope, and love – but especially love.

So this weekend we light the third candle in our wreaths: the rose candle. This third Sunday of Advent is often called Gaudete Sunday – from the Latin word that means “rejoice.” That is our liturgical work, today: to rejoice. It’s in that short epistle reading: rejoice always. That may seem easy for Paul to do with his beloved friends in Thessalonica, but you will remember that in another time and place – a different context – he writes the same words to the followers of Jesus in Philippi: rejoice, again I say, rejoice! And in that letter, he’s writing from a prison cell. I think we practice rejoicing without ceasing, so that whatever may come our way it’s become second nature to us.

The late Joseph Campbell once said, “Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.” It’s a reminder to me that joy is not really a synonym for “happy.” We can feel happy or sad and a whole array of emotions. But joy is not an emotion. Joy is a commitment to being fully alive – of knowing God-with-us. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel has come to thee, O Israel! O, Longmeadow!  

It’s been a hard long pandemic and that no doubt shapes this Advent 2020, as we prepare not only to celebrate our dear Savior’s birth but also to get ready for a long, hard winter. But lighting this rose candle- and speaking of joy today is not an act of denial! It is an act of resilience, and a commitment to faith, hope, and love. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. And give thanks in all circumstances.