Sunday, November 19, 2023

Proper 28

The Rev. James M. L. Grace

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

So I am not Bob Merril.  Bob is not feeling well today, and so, I am here in his place.  He did send me his sermon he intended to preach today in case I wanted to preach, but I am not great at preaching my own sermons, let alone preaching someone else’s. So this morning, you all get this sermon I cooked up yesterday. 

Oddly enough, throughout my vocation as a priest, I’ve learned something.   It often appears that the less time I spend preparing sermons, the more people like them.  The more time I spend on a sermon, fretting over this and that, the more people say “meh that was okay.”  Regardless of how much time I spend preparing a sermon, I know that Don Chevalier always times them. 

Today’s sermon is on the reading from 1 Thessalonians today for two reasons, mainly.  First - this letter – 1 Thessalonians – is the oldest part of the entire New Testament.  It was written in the year 51 CE – approximately twenty years after the resurrection of Jesus.  The Apostle Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians is older than all four of the Gospels in the New Testament.  Secondly, the content of the Apostle Paul's letter is a master lesson in how to live, period. 

In the section from the letter today Paul writes about the coming "Day of the Lord" which is a term Paul throws around to describe the coming judgment of all nations.  He did not come up with this term himself, it appears multiple times throughout the Old Testament prophets in books like Daniel and Joel.  The Day of the Lord is about the end of human history when all must render an account of our lives before God.   

While the Day of the Lord is a moment in the future, it is also very much in the present.  Most people in this church today can think of a moment in their lives of bewilderment, terror, frustration, or despair.  Likely that moment in your life appeared, as Paul says, like a thief in the night.  

Things were going along fine, and then all of a sudden as with the labor pains that come upon a pregnant woman, the moment you were not prepared for arrived, and there it was.  The point Paul makes in Thessalonians is that given enough time, this moment will happen to every single one of us.  Therefore, Paul asserts, we are to be awake and to be sober, we are to put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.  I know of no better way to live than what Paul proclaims.

I recently watched the film "The Shack," a film I had avoided watching for a long time for no good reason.  I had a lot of contempt prior to investigation about it.  I thought it would be touchy feely like a Hallmark movie with forced, awkward sentimentality.  It did have some of that, but the movie taught me something.  It taught me, through a powerful scene, that we are not given the right to judge anything.  We don't have any authority when it comes to our lives to say something that happens to us is either good or bad.  We aren't the judge, though we often act as if we are.  Only God is the judge.  

And if God is our judge, then God will judge with mercy and justice.  The Day of the Lord, whether it is happening to you right now, or whether you experience it at the end of time, is something we neither get to choose or control – it belongs to God.  If you feel today that you are in a sweltering crucible of judgment – that life is unexplainably difficult, resist the temptation to judge the experience as bad.  On the other side of eternity, you might look back on this moment and see it as the greatest miracle you’ve ever encountered.    

Those people fortunate enough to find true spiritual maturity – and I’m not talking about people who just go to church on autopilot – I’m talking about people who hunger and thirst for the knowledge of God’s will and the power to carry that out.  Those are the fortunate among us –  no longer need fear God's judgment, or dread it.  They give thanks for it.  As do I.  AMEN.