|
An Early Thanksgiving Keith McFarren October 18, 2026 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 We’re going to start our Thanksgiving celebration a little early this year. We’re going to start before the turkey and the mashed potatoes and gravy and the dressing and the pumpkin pie. We’re even going to start before halloween and all the trick or treaters. Before all of this, we are going to celebrate with the opening salutation of Paul’s letter of thanksgiving to the Thessalonians. The letter in which he writes, “We always give thanks to God for all of you and constantly mention you in our prayers.” It’s always nice when a friend of a friend meets you, and says, “I have heard so many good things about you.” A statement like that always gives you a good feeling inside. I would have to think that this is how the Thessalonians felt when they received Paul’s thanksgiving letter. Before Paul begins to discuss them being chosen by God, he claims them as friends, as family, as brothers and sisters in Christ…and then he remembers them with thanksgiving. Not with turkey and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie, but with prayers and the feeling of connection he has with them as family and as a community of faith, even though there is a great distance between them. Paul calls the Christians in Thessalonica “beloved by God” and says that God has chosen them which, after being persecuted and going through a lot of hard and difficult times, should have made them feel pretty good about themselves. We know what it feels like to be chosen. Chosen for a team or chosen for a committee. But then again, we may also know of the hurt and the pain that comes with not being chosen. We know what it’s like to be included, to perhaps be chosen first…and at the same time we know what it feels like to be excluded as we think back to the times we were chosen last or maybe not even chosen at all. We understand what it feels like to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, while at the same time we know what it feels like to want to be included in a group that we were turned away from. Here is the reason for Paul’s thankfulness, for his intercessory prayer and for remembering the Thessalonians before God for their faith and their labor of love and for their steadfastness in their hope. It’s because God chose them, a one time tiny handful of non-believers living in a pagan city and practicing all sorts of pagan rituals, and because they responded by answering God’s call…and the choice they made…the choice to follow God’s call, has been validated by the way in which they live their lives and by all the good works that they do. That’s what Paul is talking about today…he’s talking about being included, about our being a part of something that’s bigger than we are; he’s talking about our participation as individuals and as a community of faith in the kingdom of God. The Thessalonians were non-Jews. They were people who had heard God’s word through Paul and Silvanus and Timothy to the point that they opened their hearts and received Jesus into their lives. That’ what God does, you see. God comes searching for these people just as he comes searching for us… and regardless of who they were or where they originally came from, God loved these everyday, ordinary people and God included them into his family as his children. They were born in God’s image and they were deemed God’s children. The Thessalonians had become Christian believers, not just because they were persuaded by the words of Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, but because they opened their hearts and minds to the Spirt of God, an experience that then changed their lives. I find it amazing as to what God will do. We have to wonder. Why did God select the tiny nation of Israel from all the other nations of the world to reveal his truth and bring his light into the gentile world? Why did the early church feel that God had selected it to follow in the foot steps of Israel, to be, as Peter puts it, “a chosen race, a holy nation that you may declare the wonder funded of Jesus? (1 Peter 2:9). Why have certain people over the centuries been set aside by God for specific higher purposes? Why, when we look into the 11th chapter of Hebrews, the chapter often called God’s Hall of Faith, do we find stories of Abraham and Sarah? Stories of Jacob and Joseph and Moses. How could it be that the Red Sea parted and the nation of Israel walked through it only to have it come back together again and drown the Egyptian army? Why did Israel march around Jericho for seven days, and the walls then came crashing down? Why did Rahab, the town prostitute, survive when the rest of her people and the city around her was destroyed? We don’t really know for sure. But one thing we do know about these celebrities, these heroes and heroines, is that they all answered God’s call and they all had faith that he would take care of them. Ordinary people. People like you and me. They had faith in God and they were willing to step up and they were willing to play the role that God wanted them to play. All this is good because we need people to look up to. We need the Abrahams and the Moses’ and we need the Rahab’s. We need models to emulate and to imitate because on our own we can’t come close to being like any of them or even identifying with them. That’s what we have to do. We have to find a way to identify ourselves as Christians. In today’s world, people use all sorts of identity markers. Think about it. Some people use tattoos to identify themselves. Others pierce themselves. Some people put stickers in the windows or on the bumpers of their cars. Some people wear clothes with specific logos that identify with some status symbol. Others wear engraved bracelets or wear hats that identify with certain groups or missions. Some groups even have secret markings or a secret handshake. Then again, many early Christians often signaled their identity by drawing the mark of a “fish” in the sand or on their home. From the earliest of times, people have identified and expressed themselves, their faith, their values and their affiliations through the use of metaphors and images. I’ve been here at Bethel long enough and I think I know all of you well enough, and you know me well enough to know that none of us have ever done anything that makes us biblically worthy of finding our name in the 11th Chapter of Hebrews…in the biblical Hall of Faith. Let’s face it, we don’t rank up there with the Abraham’ s and the Moses’ and the Rahab’s and the Mary’s and Joseph’s. We are just everyday ordinary people who are trying to make it through life one day at a time, through good times and through bad times. But there is nothing wrong with that because along with the Thessalonians, we are the ones whom Paul celebrates today. We are the ones to whom Paul is giving thanks to. He giving thanks for us because despite all the problems and all the distractions that we run into on a daily basis, we continue to march forward and to quietly live our lives as a community of faith, a community that both individually and as a group, continues to live our faith and grow in our faith and act out our faith for the world around us in so many ways. And because we quietly live out our faith, others are encouraged by us and lives are changed because of us…because of what others see and what others hear and by the example you are setting and by the hope that you are living. The way we live our lives is like the ripple that is created when a stone is thrown into the water. You have been given the gift of God’s spirit and with that spirit you are to go out and change the world…not just locally, but all over the world. You are an influence to those around you…you are to be the light on the hill that Jesus talked about…and what you do and what you say and how you act serves as an example of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Did you know that there are people all around us, people in our neighborhoods and people in our community, that wonder what all this Jesus stuff is about…and they wonder what it’s like to follow Jesus. They could go to church to find out…but they choose not to. Instead, all they have to do is look at you. They see you as an example of what it’s like to follow Jesus. They see how you act and they hear what you say. They see how you treat others. They look at you to see if you really do love your neighbor as you love yourself outside the walls of the church. They look to you to see what it’s like being a follower of God’s kingdom instead of a follower of today’s worldly culture. Paul gives thanks to God for all of us. For people like us who have heard God’s word and then responded to his call. And for people like us today, the unfailing truth of God’s promises continues to provide us with a foundation that will never wash away. When wells dry up, when famine comes, when disaster ruins all that is around us, the word of God remains a ready and reliable resource for all those who trust in his promises. We join Paul this morning in his thankfulness and we give thanks for God’s call in our lives and for all those around us who stand with us to help us spread the good news of God’s word. We give thanks for the little ripples that our lives produce that will in some way and in some place lift up those around us, open their hearts and change their lives. We give thanks for the gift of life itself today and the blessings we receive just by living in the world that God has created. |
Bethel United Methodist Church
|
|