Psalm 1, 2, 3, 4, 7; Isaiah 1:10-20; 1 Thessalonians
1:1-10; Luke 20:1-8
"We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your good work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." (I Thessalonians 1:2-3)
I tend to be a glass half-empty kind of person. I see all I don’t
have instead of all that I do and at this time of year when I am bombarded with
advertisements for things I don’t have, my glass half-empty attitude only gets
worse. After all, all I have to do is
turn on the television and the ads tell me all the things I need in order to be
a more whole and complete person. I am
told that without this or that product or service I am not good enough and so I
need to obtain it in order to achieve the wholeness of life that their product
or service offers.
But then I read today’s
reading from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians and I am reminded of a need to
see things differently. Paul begins this
and his other letters to Christian communities he has founded with a
thanksgiving for them – for who they are and what they do. In essence, Paul gives thanks for them being
enough. He gives thanks that they have
followed the example he, Silvanus, and Timothy set for them and that they now
have become an example for other believers in Macedonia and Achaia. Paul gives thanks that in spite of the
persecutions the Thessalonians have faced, in spite of challenges that have
most likely left them being less than could otherwise be, they have done well
in accomplishing the work of God. Even in the face of their persecutions Paul
commends the Thessalonians as faithful witnesses who have received the word
with joy and have accomplished much, even becoming examples to other believers.
In this reading I hear
Paul calling me to see my own world in this way. To see and give thanks for the “enoughness”
of what I and those around me have to offer.
To recognize what is available and being offered up around me as full of
possibility; instead of looking at it for what it’s not and will never be. To recognize and give thanks for God making
perfectly good and useful what I can only see as imperfect and useless.
As we watch and wait for
Christ’s coming this Advent season Paul’s letter is a reminder to look around
and see all the ways Christ is already here and alive in our midst even in the
people and the places that are imperfect.
After all, if God thought it was enough to have God’s only Son born in a
stinky stable to homeless teenage parents, then maybe I too am enough for God
to use. Maybe it
is just in those imperfect people and places where I can’t seem to see enough,
those places where I last think to look, that Christ is bursting forth into the
world.
(Karen Safstrom)
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