1Thessalonians 2:9-13

This Tuesday we will have what some are calling the most important presidential election in our generation, perhaps through out history.  For months we have heard the two candidates go at one another making the case why he is the better leader.  We have seen debates and we have watched ads.  We have heard each candidates plan for taxes, health care, education, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the failing economy.  We have heard the merits of each dissected, analyzed, and scrutinized.  I think I speak for most of

 I think that is exactly the point Paul is trying to make in the passage we just read from 1 Thessalonians.  In this passage Paul speaks of himself as being like a parent to the people of Thessalonica.  Paul says “Like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you should lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.”  In verse 7 which we did not read this morning he says “We were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own child.”  Paul’s assertion that he has been like a parent, that he has served a specific leadership role in this community, for which he has great credentials, is not about getting the people to like him or to vote for him.  Paul’s purpose in all of this is to have the people follow.  While that may sound self serving it really is not, because Paul’s ultimate desire is not that they would follow him, but that they would follow his example in the commitment he has shown following God. 

I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to say that what Paul is trying to convey to the Thessalonians and to us is, faith is not about saying we believe in God, faith is about believing in God and expressing that belief by following God’s call.  Faith is about following.  Paul is guiding his listeners toward a goal: to “lead” a life “worthy” of God. The Greek word used here peripatein and can also be translated “walk.”  In particular, Paul is here, calling on the Thessalonians to live or walk in a way that will be worthy or appropriate to the God who is calling. God is not calling them into uncertainty or nothingness; instead God is calling into the kingdom and into glory.   Paul is asserting his leadership not to have the Thessalonians follow him, but so they may, like him, follow God.  That is the paradox of leadership within the church isn’t it?  If we want to be leaders in the church, if we want to be Deacons or Elders, if we want to be Sunday School Teachers, or Choir Members, or Lay Readers, if we want to take on the mantle of leadership in any way in the church we must first become followers. 

I think this is one of the things we learn from the first passage of scripture we read this morning.  This passage is partially about a transition in leadership within the Israelite community.  Until now they have been following Moses and have looked to him as their leader, but now it is time to enter the Promised Land and Moses is no longer with them.  They are following Joshua, whom God has called to be their new leader.  Notice how Joshua’s role of leadership works, he is to: “command the priests who bear the Ark of the Covenant” but the true mark of his leadership is that the people will “know God will be with him.”  We look at the priests and say, wow what great leadership, stepping into the waters of the Jordan and making them stop so the people could pass on dry land, and then we remember they also bore the Ark of the Covenant on their shoulders, the sign of God’s presence with them.  Joshua’s and the Priest’s role as leaders was to be the bearers of God in the community and to call others to follow the way God was calling them.

As Christians we are called to be leaders in the faith, to model for others what faith looks like, the way Paul did for the Thessalonians, but what is most important about our leadership is how well we follow the nudging of God’s Spirit, the compelling example of Jesus the Christ, and the divine ordinances of the very God we call creator. Stanley Hauerwas says, “Used cars have values, people don’t.”   William Willemond goes on to say “What people have are practices, behaviors, manners. Show me how a person behaves, in the smallest, most everyday practices of life, and that tells you all you need to know about what is most valuable in that person’s life.”  We have heard a lot about values in the current election but to this point it is only talk, the real measure will be once the soon to be elected President takes office, how he performs then, the things he will do to back up his spoken values with action. 

Friends as those in the reformed faith we say we believe the doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers, that all of us are called to be God bearers, like the priests carrying the ark into the river

Leonard Bernstein was once asked which instrument was the most difficult to play. He thought for a moment and then replied, “The second fiddle. I can get plenty of first violinists, but to find someone who can play the second fiddle with enthusiasm — that’s a problem. And if we have no second fiddle, we have no harmony.”  What Paul is encouraging us to do, is as he did, get good at enthusiastically playing second fiddle to God.  We will live into our calling as priests only when we learn to enthusiastically acknowledge that God is God and we are not and allow God to use each of us in the way God sees fit.  We will find harmony with God only when we learn to not so much direct God as to allow ourselves to be directed by God. 

Susi Lockard writes in the May–June 2008 issue of The Upper Room:  “When my children were infants and I rocked them to sleep, I sang to them and prayed for them. I remember holding my 14-month-old son and praying for his future relationships with his roommates, his friends, his wife. For years, I came back to the same prayer.  When my son went off to college, I couldn’t wait to hear about his roommate. ‘Well, Mom, he is a recovering drug addict. He was sent here for a year of rehabilitation and is studying art, taking part in sports, and trying to re-enter normal life.’  I felt as if God had let me down, and my disappointment came through. ‘I don’t understand. I have prayed for 18 years for you to have a good roommate who would have a good influence in your life.’  My son, wiser than I, answered, ‘Maybe his mother was praying the same prayer.’  My son knew that he had been nurtured all his life and now had a chance to nurture a young man with serious problems.  God answers our prayers from wisdom greater than ours. I thought that my son needed a strong Christian friend; God knew that my son needed to be a strong Christian friend.”

May we live out our calling to be leaders for God by being a strong Christian friend to others and by following God, and allowing God to work through us in what we say and what we do.  In whatever we do may we always point to God and bear God’s presence out into the world.  Amen.