A homily by Fr. Gene
Tucker, given at Trinity
Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, October 23, 2011.
“A LIFE BROKEN OPEN AND SHARED WITH ALL”
(Homily text: I Thessalonians 2: 1 - 8)
In past
homilies, we’ve explored the idea of a gift that comes from God, which is then
broken open and shared with everyone present.
We’ve done
that by remembering that God’s word is His gift to us. When a sermon or homily is given, its intent
ought to be that the sacred text is broken open and shared with everyone who
hears (or reads).
The same is
true of the Holy Communion. The bread
and the wine are God’s gifts to us, reminders of His love for us in Christ
Jesus. The bread is broken, and both it
and the wine are shared with all who receive.
Now, let’s
apply this concept to the life of one who is in some sort of spiritual
leadership. Such a person might be a
priest or pastor, a nun, or someone who’s dedicated their life to the service
of God by serving others, or perhaps a missionary. Such a person might be someone who leads
Morning or Evening Prayer. Such a person
could be a Bible teacher, one who receives the gift of God’s word written, who
immerses him/herself in its truths, one who comes into intimate contact with
God through the written word, one who then shares the benefits and the results
of such dedication with all who hear or read.
In each of these cases, a singular focus and dedication to God allows
for an intimate relationship through which God’s gifts are received, and
through which God’s gifts are broken open and shared with all.
(As we
apply the idea of breaking and sharing to a person’s life, we would do well to
remember that there is a subtle difference in the breaking and sharing that we
experience with God’s word, with the communion bread, and with a person’s
life. In the first two instances, the
very gift (the word, the bread) are broken and shared. In the last case, however, the breaking open
of a person’s life allows God’s gift to be seen and shared. The individual’s life becomes a carrier of
the divine gift, not the gift itself.)
The text
before us this morning, from the second chapter of St. Paul’s first letter to
the Thessalonians, outlines just these sorts of principles. To be clear about them, let’s enumerate what
we’ve already said in outline form:
1. God
gives gifts to those whom He loves.
2. God’s
gifts are received and absorbed by one who enters into a dedicated, deep and
abiding relationship with God.
3. The
results of this deep relationship are broken open and shared with all.
Turning now to our text, Paul
first describes the gifts of God. Here,
Paul has in mind one great, central gift:
The gospel is the great gift that
God gives, the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Notice that Paul uses the word in verse two, in verse four, and again in
verse eight. The deeper realization
here lies in the truth that, in the
sending of Jesus Christ, God the Father has given the ultimate gift: His very self in the person of His Son, who
came not only to instruct us in all righteousness, but to secure the salvation
of our souls, to our benefit in this life, and in the life of the world to come.
Next, we
see that Paul describes the relationship that he and his fellow workers (the
others were Silas and Timothy) have with God.
He states that this team: 1. Is approved by God, 2. Seeks
God’s approval, not that of human beings, 3.
Knows that God examines their hearts (and their motives) and 4. Knows that God will be their witness.
Then, the
results of this deep and abiding relationship with God is shown in the manner
of life that the team exhibits. Not only in their personal behavior, but in the
disposition of their hearts, can we see the evidence of God’s life-changing
presence. Paul reminds the Thessalonians
that: 1.
They persevered in spite of the severe hardships that they endured in
Philippi, 2. They did not use methods
which involved deception or guile to win the hearts of the Thessalonian
Christians, 3. They did not seek to
flatter or to seek personal gain, 4.
They did not “throw their weight around”,[1]
using their status as apostles, and 5.
They became as servants (Paul uses the word “nurses”) to the
Thessalonians.
Personally,
I believe that this text ought to be “required reading”[2]
for anyone who’s engaged in any sort of spiritual leadership (see the list
given on page one). This text reminds us
of the centrality of knowing God’s gifts, and the requirement to receive those
gifts deeply and personally. It would be
good practice for those in positions of spiritual leadership to remind
themselves periodically of these basic realities.
How then
might any one of us who finds him/herself apply St. Paul’s wisdom as we conduct
the ministries that belong to God, but which are entrusted to us, to our
behavior?
The
question is an excellent one, which prompts the following observations:
1. Discovering
God’s gifts is paramount: God’s gifts
are timeless, unchanging. The discovery of these truths never ends, no matter
how much study is applied to them. For
example, evidence of the Holy Spirit’s presence in the pages of sacred
Scripture lies, in part, in the fact that the deeper one digs into the Bible,
the more and more depth of truth there is to be found there, layers upon layers
of truth.
2. Discovery
of God’s gifts and God’s truth requires a personal, intimate, abiding
relationship with the giver of all good and perfect gifts, God: Simply put, we cannot share with others what
we ourselves do not possess personally and deeply. This truth is especially important in the
life of faith, for a spiritual leader who possesses God’s truths and God’s gifts
as intellectual concepts only will lack the integrity of being that the
integration of such truths and such gifts allows in the inner life of the
soul. (Take a moment to return to the
text before us today and notice how many times and in how many ways Paul
mentions pure motives and pure actions, all motivated by self-giving[3]
love.
3. Sharing
the gifts is the natural outcome of both knowing God and His gifts: Notice how Paul says that the missionary team
shared their “own souls” (The Greek here is “souls”, not “selves”, as the
Revised Standard Version puts it). By
breaking open his/her very inner being, the spiritual leader allows everyone to
see the most intimate aspects of God’s truth, which have been received and
folded into the very fiber of one’s being.
This last aspect of the progression from knowing God’s gifts, and of
receiving and appropriating them into one’s life, is the natural goal of the
entire process. For just as God does not hoard nor reserve to Himself the gifts
His very nature possesses, but shares them with all who come into a
relationship with Him, so too are we called to share those blessings and those
benefits with all who will see and hear and experience.
Thanks be
to God, the giver of all good gifts, for those, His servants, who come to
receive these gifts, and for lives broken open in service to God and to God’s
people!
AMEN.
[1] This is Eugene Peterson’s rendering of the
Greek, as we find it in his paraphrase of the New Testament The
Message. His sense of the Greek is
much closer to the original meaning that the Revised Standard Version’s “though
we might have made demands as apostles of Christ”.
[2] Another excellent addition to a “required
reading” list for Christian leaders might include I Peter 5: 1 – 5, which is
read in our tradition at ordination services.
[3] Paul uses the Greek word agape to describe the self-giving,
self-emptying love that he and his companions had for the Thessalonians.
