Fast forward about 1300 years from the setting for the first reading on Saturday to today’s first reading. We are back in the New Testament. Since early summer we have traveled with the people of Israel from the birth of Moses through the exodus and journey of 40 years into the Promised Land. We read a few stories of its settling, ending with the story of Ruth and Boaz—key people in the genealogy of King David—and Jesus.
Today’s reading is from 1 Thessalonians. It is believed to be the first book of the New Testament ever written. The apostle Paul traveled with companions to Thessalonica on his second missionary journey around 50 AD and established a toe-hold Christian community there. Thessalonica was the capital of Macedonia. It was a port city and major trade center in what today is northern Greece.
The Gospel Comes to Europe
It is exciting to put today’s reading together with information in Acts 16 and 17. Paul’s second missionary journey began in Asia Minor. Then in Troas he had a vision in the night of a “man from Macedonia standing pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’” Scripture goes on to say, “And when he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”
So Paul and companions went into Macedonia. This call was not an easy one to answer. In Derbe, Paul and Silas were beaten and imprisoned after they cast a profitable-to-her owner evil spirit out of a slave girl. God got them out via an earthquake and the immediate conversion of the jailer. (Acts 16: 16-40) When Paul got to Thessalonica, in a matter of a month he “turned the world upside down.”
It was upside down enough Paul and Silas had to leave town quickly. 1 Thessalonians was likely written a few months later from Corinth. Visitors had told Paul that the small Thessalonian Christian community was thriving. He was overjoyed and wrote the letter we begin reading today.
As you read through this letter over the next 10 days, picture a small, on fire Christian community where faith is center of everything. It is under some persecution. There is some church politics going on. There are many people who have come to faith who have no background in understanding the God of the Hebrews–or of mixing moral behavior with faith.
It is not Christendom. They are a pocket community
The Letter—Applied to Us Now
Today’s passage is the beginning of Paul’s letter. Without the background information, it may seem to be mostly formality. But the background helps me see some real meat to chew on.
Paul says, “knowing, brothers and sisters loved by God, how you were chosen. For our Gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.”
We could say that Paul’s vision and mission to Macedonia was like going into North Korea or China today. When I see it that way, I think, “Oh, wow!” I’m impressed, but the message is still distant.
But then I put it in the here and now. Again and again in my communion to the carebound ministry I encounter a faithful Catholic who has loved and served God within her church for a lifetime. She dies—and her no-longer-Catholic children bury her without a Catholic funeral. It happened against last week.
My heart breaks. As Catholics, we live to die–to enter into eternal life with God. Our deaths are our victory!
But what do I do about this? What do we as church do? Somehow, today, my world seems like Macedonia. It seems like Thessalonica. Paul only stayed in Thessalonica about a month. Yet he established an active, vibrant community there. Somewhat Jewish, but mostly Greek, the community lived and grew through the action of the Holy Spirit in them. God came in word and power and conviction.
Often when I bring communion to someone who is dying I have a month or so. I interact with family—but how do I make a faith difference in that family? How do I do what Paul did?
And What About Schools, Businesses, Offices—and Our Own Families?
Where are you called to witness faith? If you close your eyes and pray for a moment today, saying to God, “Where is my Thessalonica?” what image comes in your mind?
To be honest, just now, my family came to mind. Hmm. It is true—while my family knows my faith is the center of my life and grew up Catholic, they do not share the faith now. We had a lovely time at a family dinner Friday night. Sometimes we get into good conversations about faith matters. But my children believe what our pastor preached about this weekend from Sunday’s readings: they believe everybody goes to heaven…immediately…forever. So active faith and relationship with God is not necessary, not important in terms of final destiny.
That is not Catholic teaching. It is not scriptural.
There is a lot more in our culture that people generally believe—that is not Catholic teaching. It is not scriptural.
The more I wander around in scripture and catechism to write for A Catholic Moment and to teach two carebound groups, the more I am impressed by the beauty and power and spirit of our Catholic faith. It is mass and prayer and scripture and 2000 years of exquisitely beautiful, logical, deep understanding of how to walk with God and each other in communion/community.
Yet too often on TV, youtube, Twitter, and Facebook, we who have this great treasure of faith squander it by attacking others who differ from us about details. Satan has us chasing our tails as we behave as if the Beatitudes and Sermon on the Mount were not the Word of God.
Meanwhile, our children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, coworkers, and neighbors live in spiritual Macedonia. They are not impressed. They can too often point to what is in print and honestly say, “Your faith in the God you believe does little to impress me with a reason to have your faith. Humanism is kinder, more civilized, more tolerant, gives more meaning that I want to have to my life.”
As Jesus says today,
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You lock the Kingdom of heaven before men.”
Do we? Do I, when I get all hot and bothered about details of faith?
Prayer:
Lord, I would go to Thessalonica. But how? I’m afraid enough of rejection or further distancing people from faith that I certainly do not preach like Paul. I get so discouraged by the controversies and lack of faith at times that I fail to do what I can do—radiate Christ. What vision of Macedonia would you give me? Where is my Thessalonica? How can I reach my family and the families of those I visit? Lead me, guide me, Lord.
