Being Who We Are

2 Thessalonians 2:13-15

Robert M Watkins

November 4, 2007

Beloved by God

Today is a day about remembering--remembering where we came from as Presbyterians; remembering our families, even if they did not descend through Scottish clans; and remembering our collective identity within this church.

This sort of remembering is essential to our faith. As we are in the presence of God, the first thing to do is to remember who we are.

As Presbyterians, we tend to immediately jump to the recognition of our need for God rooted in our brokenness. This is who we are--the wayward sheep finally come within the fold of the Good Shepherd. Paul, though, takes a slightly different tack as he writes to the Thessalonian congregation. He reminds them that they are first beloved by God.

This is hard for some of us to do. It smacks of egoism. It rings of pride, that arrogant self-aggrandizement that invariably leads to suffering.

But it is true. God loves us. God loves every human being whom God fashioned and placed within creation. We may fall away from God through disobedience, but God never ceases to love us.

This is important for us to remember, for we live in a particularly brittle age. Election Day is coming this week, and, of course, the few campaigns there have been contained an edge. Candidates seek out the weaknesses of their rivals, or create them where none exists, and then destroy their foe’s character. It cuts both ways as we grow disgusted with pettiness and vile assaults on someone’s person. The thing of it is, our current campaign environment is nothing new and it is far broader than being confined to the election process. There is an edge to life. There is a lack of care. There is a lack of regard for one another. It is simply accepted that mistakes will be scoffed at and laughed at, rather than being an opportunity to help someone become better.

I sound like a Victorian prude, a voice from a bygone--and perhaps non-existent--era. But Paul is right with me. His congregations struggled to maintain themselves and mistakes were rampant--and he was quick to point out errors--but he also remembered with whom he was dealing--the beloved of God. Within the church, we remain so.

 

God Chose You

Paul also wrote, “The proof of God’s amazing love is that while we were still sinners, God sent his Son to us.” In the act of sending Jesus to be the Savior of the world, God was choosing us to be with him.

Through God’s great love, God made a choice. The Bible is clear that it did not take long for creation to fall away from the purpose and intent with which God made it. Any sensible person would have rejected the mess that became creation and started over, but God made a different choice. God chose to abide with creation, to keep tweaking it, and finally to send the Christ into it. God chose not to abandon us. God chose to keep us.

That is comfort beyond comfort. That is a source of hope for all of us. Coming from families as all of us do, we know how complicated life among human beings can be. We know full well the irony that those whom we love most dearly are also those who drive us the most crazy. We know the further irony that those whom we love most dearly are also the ones we hurt most readily, take for granted the most easily, and slight without much care. God chooses to abide with his wayward children. God chooses to stay with us. Being so, we have the opportunity to abide as well, to stand fast in the midst of chaos, and to have possibilities where none seem to exist.

God Called You

That is the importance of being a part of the church, of walking within the family of faith, for it is through this gathering of human beings that God calls to us.

Paul gives thanks for the faithful Thessalonians; Paul gives thanks that God called them; and Paul gives thanks that God called them through the preaching of the missionaries sent among them.

Some might hear Paul’s own arrogance in those words, but actually this is one of Paul’s most humbling statements. Fred Craddock, one of the greatest American preachers of the 20^th Century--a Disciple of Christ, like our own Valerie Humphreys--wrote a required text for every preacher who ever ascended the pulpit steps, As One Without Authority. Dr. Craddock makes the point that no preacher is up to the task, yet God uses them anyway. One of the most blinding fears for anyone engaged in church work of any kind is the recognition that whatever is said and done is being said and done by God! We may speak the words and do the deeds, but we are instruments of God in every case. What a responsibility to shoulder! What a load to bear! But what a grace, as well.

God is with us. God is working through us to call the world into God’s presence.

Today is a day of incredible pomp and ceremony, of pipes and ritual, but it is also a call. God calls over the tumult of the day with an invitation--Come to me! Lay down your burdens and come to me! You are mine.

If it were not so, then this would all just be noise, or as Paul also wrote--If I have not love, then I am clanging gong and a noisy cymbal.