Serving God with joy!
SERMON OCTOBER 18, 2026, TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
1 THESSALONIANS 1:1-10
From the Epistle: in spite of persecution you received the word with joy from the Holy Spirit
We begin this morning with the opening of Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians. This is the initiation of his pastoral relationship with the congregation there. He has been traveling, with Silvanus (Luke calls him Silas) and Timothy, and he stays in the home of Jason.
They are on a route described in the Acts of the Apostles: from Philippi through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica, then Berea, Athens and Corinth. This was not random missionary wandering. Paul was moving through strategically connected cities, especially along major Roman roads and maritime trade routes.
This is a house church, in a metropolis – a major city and seaport, with the Via Egnatia as the great Roman road connecting Macedonian cities east-to-west. Imagine the noise: carts, animals, merchants, workshops, sailors, soldiers, vendors, languages and accents from around the Mediterranean. Thessalonia was a major port, but it was not a Roman colony. As a free city it enjoyed considerable local self-government.
Paul founded the church in Thessalonia around the year 50 CE. He began by preaching in the local synagogue, where what he had to say attracted some Jews, and also a substantial number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few of the leading women. (Acts 17:1-9)
As for the congregation there, Paul addresses former Greek worshipers of traditional gods: how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath. We can also infer that there were Jewish Christians, accustomed to gathering in the synagogue.
Among the congregation we find: someone who grew up Jewish and knows the Scriptures; someone else who grew up making sacrifices to idols; someone whose family still does this; one person who is prosperous; another who works with his hands. All support the church, those with means doing so, and others working with their hands to earn cash for the mutual endeavor. Paul even reminds them that he worked night and day so as not to burden them. (2:9) Work is respected here.
The question in Thessalonia is: how to build a Christian community inside a city obsessed with status? After all, Christ laid down his godship to become an ordinary man. The Creator willingly becomes a creature. He puts behind him all heavenly kingly status and glory, to which he is actually due. In Thessalonia this self-abnegation runs contrary to the social theme of the city.
For a Gentile Thessalonian, turning from idols can affect far more than Sunday worship. Religion permeates ancient life. Gods belong to households, cities, festivals, meals and associations. So now you have become a follower of Jesus Christ, and your family holds a feast honoring a local deity, or your trade association hosts a banquet connected with a god. How do you reorder your social and working relationships? Do you attend these events? If you don’t what does this mean for your place in the family, or how you relate to your trade buddies? If you do attend, better only eat vegetables and grain – not meat that has been sacrificed to the local god. Actually, you may not have a choice: you may be shunned.
Paul encourages his church by remembering them constantly in his prayers. Presenting before God your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. Work, and labor, and steadfastness: The church in Thessalonia did not just magically appear! It took work, and labor, and this over a long time of steadfastness.
We know this at St. Francis! It takes work, and labor and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. When we trust in Jesus, we follow him with confidence. And what does it mean for us to hope in our Lord Jesus Christ? It means that we believe the whole Jesus event, from inception to birth to his ministry, to his humiliating and painful torture and death on a cross. And it does not stop there: we believe without doubt that Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, and that as he promised will come again.
This we affirm Sunday by Sunday when we confess our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed. And we open out hearts and souls when we offer our own sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving in the Holy Eucharist.
And how does following Jesus open up for each of us new paths of life? We begin to live in the Kingdom of God, which is a kingdom of plenty, not scarcity. With God there is always enough, more than enough. The plenty may come in forms we don’t expect – just as the manna that sustained the Israelites for forty years in the desert was new and unexpected.
What if we spend money for our hunger ministry, without fear of running out? More than once, we have unexpectedly been blessed by Sunday offerings for the work we do in Jesus’ name: feeding young families who have precisely no food at all, and people whose one meal of the day comes from the Community Soup Kitchen. And folks who are unable because of age or infirmity to shop and cook for themselves, and so depend upon Meals on Wheels. We praise and thank God when this happens.
Plenty comes to each of us when we realize that all we have is from the open generosity and grace of God. Then it is for us to pray over how to meet our own needs and those of others, through St. Francis Church. Or, as has been suggested, pray over how to meet the needs of God in St. Francis Church first, then sort out how to pay our own bills, buy gas, and put food on the table. When we had a young family of four and only my husband was working, I became adept at making food dollars stretch. Couscous, rice and beans, pastas and soups were very successful, especially when produce was purchased seasonally. Making my own bread, and stocks from leftover bones and meat. Actually delicious!
Paul praises the Thessalonians when he observes how they became imitators of us and of the Lord. Imitating Christ is the surest way along the path that God opens for us. Jesus healed many, many people. Healing, making the person whole, has to do with disease and physical hurts. I suggest that it may take many forms as well.
For example, the other day I came upon a man huddled up against the wall of Walgreen’s. I stopped and greeted him. I asked if he were having a good day, and he made it clear that he was having an awful day. “I need new pants, he said.” And he certainly did. The pair he wore was so old that the stitches had given way in the crotch, exposing a fourteen-inch embarrassing opening. He told me the places he had gone – including Religious Community Services – to find a new pair he could afford. I always have a $20 bill for things like this. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I can help you.” Which I did.
I see this as a kind of healing, making whole the man’s self-esteem, and redeeming him to move among society properly clothed. He said there would be enough money left over for some food as well. Who knows how come he was down on his luck? It doesn’t matter. He had a need, and I was able to respond.
In this small way, I imitated Jesus’ generosity and healing touch. I treated the man as if he were Jesus, our Lord, himself. Yes, my wallet was lighter, but I could handle this better than the man I was talking with. I say this not in self-praise, but just as a small example of how any of us can imitate Christ, as Paul recognized in the Thessalonians. Soli deo Gracia. To God be the glory.
I began this sermon with a quote from Thessalonians: in spite of persecution you received the word with joy from the Holy Spirit. You have heard me speak of St. Francis serving with joy. We do this not in spite of persecution, but in spite of the many pressures and demands of and fears of everyday life. These things need not inhibit opening our hearts and souls and hands to receive joy, a grace that only comes from God. When we serve with joy, showing generosity as God does, joy is transforming. It lights up our faces and puts a cushion under our steps.
THANKS BE TO GOD. Amen.