1 Th 5:1-11

13 November 2005

“Don’t Fall Asleep”

“At a time when the church had grown too cozy with the ruling authorities, when faith had become a means to power and influence, some Christians who sought to live out an authentically biblical faith headed for desolate places.  They pooled their resources and dedicated themselves to a life of [simplicity] and prayer.  Most outsiders thought they were crazy.  They saw themselves as being on the narrow and difficult path of salvation, with a call to prick the conscience of the wider church about its compromises with the ‘world.’

            “I’m describing not fourth-century monks, but present-day communities of Christians who think the church in the United States has too easily accommodated itself to the consumerist and imperialist values of the culture.  Living in the corners of the American empire, they hope to be a [forerunner] of a new and radically different form of Christian practice.”[1]

            Does this sound familiar?  If it does, then you were paying attention to Banu’s sermon two weeks ago.  She didn’t use this exact quote, but she did refer to the article by North Carolina Methodist pastor Jason Byassee in the Christian Century entitled, “The New Monastics:  Alternative Christian Communities.”

            Monastic.  Now there’s a word with some big time baggage!  It conjures up all kinds of images.  You may think of John the Baptist types, who’ve been out in the desert so long that their idea of a banquet is locust pudding!  Or maybe you picture stern-faced characters, dressed in robes, solemnly stalking the corridors of stone fortress-like buildings.  That used to be my idea, like what we see in the movie, The Name of the Rose, with Sean Connery and a very young Christian Slater.

            However, when we were in Nebraska, Banu and I paid visits to a Jesuit retreat house in the Rockies overlooking Denver and to a Benedictine monastery in St. Paul, Minnesota.  We encountered people who dress and look like us.  Actually, the place in St. Paul reminded me of a hotel—minus screaming kids running down the hallway…or maybe a college dorm—minus drunk students slamming the doors.

            In any event, “monastic” is less about a look than it is about a spirit, a way of life.  Byassee’s article mentions a conference that produced something called “12 Marks of a New Monasticism.”  This is something that any Christian community, to one degree or another, can embrace.

            As for Banu and me, our heart’s desire is to be 21st century Presbyterian monastics.  But we need not get hung up on the word “monastic.”  That’s just one way to describe the kind of life Paul outlines for the church at Thessalonica.

            The first letter to the Thessalonians is believed to be the oldest of the New Testament writings, dating back to the year 50—very early in the life of the church.  The expectation of the Lord’s imminent return was a source of both assurance and anxiety.

            The apostle reminds his brothers and sisters in Christ that no one knows when that Day will arrive.  “For you yourselves know very well,” he tells them, “that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (v. 2).  People may be relaxing in what they think is “peace and security” (v. 3).  They will have lulled themselves to sleep.  He gives the example of labor pains coming upon a pregnant woman.  When the time arrives, you’d better drop everything and be ready to go—or else!

            However, Paul tells the Thessalonians, “you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief” (v. 4).  You may not know when the time comes, but it won’t catch you napping, either.  That’s because “you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness” (v. 5).  We wait for the Lord; we live in expectation.  And for that reason, don’t fall asleep!  Keep awake and be sober!  “[F]or those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night” (v. 7).

            Of course, all this imagery about light and darkness, day and night, waking and sleeping, being sober and being drunk…it all refers to spiritual life.  It all has to do with:  how aware are we?  How clear is our vision?  To what extent do the idols that surround us keep us distracted?

            Some of the people Byassee mentions in his article have seen this in their own lives.  In San Francisco, the Church of the Sojourners “traces its founding to its members’ realization that they were better at being Americans than at being Christians.”[2]  They were better at being Americans than at being Christians.

            I can definitely relate to that.  I’ve absorbed so much of my culture into who I am that it’s difficult to know where to draw the line between James the American and James the Christian.  And there is a difference between those two creatures!  But it’s not like I’m saying anything new.  For centuries, theologians have wrestled with this whole business of Christ and culture—and how they relate to each other.

            It’s been noted, “It is not difficult to find matches for the metaphors of sleep and drunkenness in today's world.  It is important to recognize the intoxicating effects of modern western society, in particular.  We can be swept up into behaviors, attitudes, values systems, and politics which are destructive for ourselves and others, without knowing it.”[3]

            “Intoxicating effects of modern western society,” indeed!  If you’ve never done so, the next time you’re at a busy shopping mall, I encourage you to conduct this experiment.  Take note of how many people you see, walking around with a distant (one might even say “glazed”) look in their eyes, oblivious to the people around them, with a single thought in mind:  “Must buy stuff!  Must buy stuff!”

“Paul encourages us to stand back and recognize [the effects].  There were pressures in his day as there are in ours.  People need to keep just as awake today as they needed to then, perhaps even more so, because we are being constantly bombarded and manipulated by subtle strategies of persuasion, ‘spin’ of all kinds, including political ‘spin.’”[4]

            Thus the advent of what’s been called the emerging church in North America.  One such community, the Church of the Servant King in Eugene, Oregon, tries to live the spirit of humility implicit in its name.  When Jon Stock, one of its leaders, is asked “whether he considers his community a model for the rest of the church, he almost visibly [shudders]:  ‘I’m much more comfortable talking about the mistakes we’ve made.’”[5]

            When I encounter other Presbyterian and other mainline church pastors, I notice how often their first question is, “How many members are there in your church?”  The unspoken rule is that the higher the number, the greater the level of respect.  That’s the kind of stuff we Presbyterians tend to focus on.

When I was in the Assemblies of God, people would brag about how spectacular the worship services were.  They’d mention stuff like how many people were baptized in the Holy Spirit (with the evidence of speaking in tongues), how many people were healed, and so on.  The youth pastor at our church in Tennessee once told me that that’s how the minister’s meetings he attended would go.  I suggested something that might put an end to all that.  Just say, “So what?  We raised somebody from the dead!”

Anyway, my point is that we easily get caught up with definitions of success that aren’t really…God’s definitions.  And because of that, we often fall prey to the temptation to play it safe, like the fellow in our gospel reading who hid his master’s money in the ground (Mt 25:14-30).

Last weekend, Banu and I led a retreat at a camp in Ligonier, Pennsylvania.  During one of the sessions I led, I mentioned Beethoven, who realized that he was going deaf.  That would be a shocking discovery for anyone, especially for a musician!  But Beethoven’s reply was, “I will take life by the throat.”[6]  Beethoven didn’t play it safe; he didn’t hide from life and wait for death.  Still, I must admit it—I, too, have often decided to play it safe.

When I hear about people younger than me doing wonderful things that bring hope and joy into the world, I confess to having mixed feelings.  On the one hand, I feel inspired and thank God for them.  But on the other hand, I wonder, “What have I done to compare with that?”

Then I hear of people older than me who’ve gotten tired of playing it safe—of hiding from life and waiting for death.  And I realize, “There’s hope for me yet!”

I also asked the people at Ligonier a question I posed to all of you back in September.  That was the one about the seven deadly sins of the medieval church:  envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth, and wrath.  (There’s a tasty menu!)  I asked them:  which is the greatest temptation for you?  Which do you think is the deadliest?  That started a rather lively conversation, and a number of them felt, as I do, that sloth is the worst of the lot!

Remember, sloth is not mere laziness.  It’s not the refusal to get off your butt and go take out the trash!  Sloth is resistance to the Holy Spirit, an unwillingness to go and do what the Lord has shown us.  Sloth tells us, “It’s too much bother to go visit—or to go and help So-and-So.”

I told the people that sloth is the enemy of hope.  Sloth is the enemy of hope.  Then I shared some stuff by Jürgen Moltmann, a man who’s probably written more about hope than anyone alive.  (Though not that that means he’s the greatest!  I remember what I said about that competition among ministers!)

“People who accept the darkness of their lives resist the light of God which drives out the night.  Through the power of hope, we don’t give up, and don’t give ourselves up; we remain unreconciled and unaccepting in an unjust and deadly world…The temptation today is not so much that human beings want to play God.  It is much more that they no longer have confidence in the humanity which God expects of them.”[7]

You know, the only truly human life that was ever lived was lived by Jesus.  To the extent that we live a life less than Christ-like, to that same extent we live a life that is less than human.  We miss the mark that God intends for us.  We have to be awakened.

In a little while, we’ll continue our discussion concerning our options here at Westminster.  One view might be, with our diminishing endowment fund, that there is no hope.  We might as well say, “It’s been a good run, but maybe it’s time to close down the church.”

I have a different take on this, and it’s based on the vision that hope gives us.  In verse 8, Paul refers to faith and love as a breastplate; he calls the hope of salvation a helmet.  That’s armor; that’s protection.

We can see our situation as hopeless, or we can see it for what I think it really is—a gift.  I’ve heard ministers from many different denominations say that having an endowment fund is a good way to kill a church, and I can believe it.  The tendency to rely on that money is very strong, so strong that it easily becomes an idol.

I think we’re being pushed into the life that Jesus wants us to live!  That’s a life that’s not so inwardly-focused, but rather, a life that looks outward, offering hope to a community and to a world that desperately needs it.

            I want to finish with some thoughts from the oblate commitment ceremony that Banu and I attended last month.  If you didn’t already know, we’re oblates at Mount St. Benedict in Erie.  Oblates are people who associate themselves with a particular monastic community, without taking the same vows the sisters or brothers do, but still living by the spirit of those vows.

            During the worship service, we made this pledge:  “Blessed by God and this community, I…promise to enter into a year of commitment with joy and expectation…We understand the mutuality of our commitment with this community / and we respond with trust and love.  This relationship is grounded in hope; / hope for the transformation of each other / and ultimately the transformation of the world.”

            Afterwards, the prioress, Sister Christine Vladimiroff, asked everyone to look around the chapel—to look at everyone there.  Then she said, “Sisters and oblates, this is what hope looks like.”

            Our epistle reading ends with verse 11:  “Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.”  Friends, look around you.  This is what hope looks like!

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