...And to All

...And To All--February 15, 2019

"See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all." [1 Thessalonians 5:15]

"And to all."

Those three words (in English or the original Greek, it's still three) make a radical move that might happen so quickly we miss the seismic shift happening as Paul writes them.

Those three words make it clear (if it were not already abundantly so from, say, anything else in the New Testament) that the followers of Jesus do not just look out for one another, but for all.  That is, outsiders, too.  

This is a huge deal. 

I say that because religious folks are pretty good at looking out for in-group members.  We are great at making soup or cookies when someone else from church is not feeling well.  We do a fine job at showing sympathy when the person who sits in the pew in front of you is going through a rough time or a loss.  We can even be persuaded to help support other Christians in other countries (sometimes), if they are building a church... or need missionaries sent to them... or could use our old hymnals that we are tired of!

But sometimes we talk like these are perks only reserved for fellow Christians, but then assume that we are not supposed to offer the same level of care or concern for people outside the walls of the church.  We can (maybe) work up the nerve to forgive a fellow church member who has wronged us, or to rise above petty grudges when someone we know to be a Christian has said something to upset or offend.  But my oh my, how we change our tunes sometimes when it comes to folks outside the boundaries!

"Forgiveness has its place," we rationalize, "but it has limits, too!" Maybe I can make myself forgive (or at least not seek revenge against someone) when a neighbor who goes to another church in town accidentally backs into my mailbox pulling out of their driveway, or mows their lawn at 6:00am on my only Saturday morning to sleep in.  We can probably convince ourselves that it is prudent not to do the same things back to our neighbors, just because they live close to us and we know not to start a war over them.  Maybe we figure, "Well, my neighbors are still my kind of people, so I can overlook this.  The zinnias around the mailbox will grow back."

But the idea of extending that kind of grace to someone we don't know?  Someone outside the boundaries of church membership?  Someone who doesn't count as "one of us"?  Not just forgiving them if they accidentally slight you, but actively doing good even to the outsiders who have done me wrong?  Now we are getting pulled out of our comfort zone.

And that's just where Paul intends to take us: beyond the boundaries of our personal comfort, because the Gospel is all about the love of a God who reaches out in every direction all the time. So for Paul, it's not enough to say, "We look out for our own." For Paul, we are called to do good, not only to other people who name the name of Jesus, but also to all--and give up on the mindset that says we only take care of other club members.  Those words, "to all," are the tipping point.  It's a given that Christians will take care of one another, that we will not seek revenge against one another, and that we will not return evil for evil.  But Paul has made it clear (drawing on the teaching of Jesus here, no doubt) that we are not only called to do this for other followers of Jesus, but for everybody else, too.  Both are there in Paul's mind--we are to do good "to one another" (other Christians) AND "to all."  That means everybody else.  You can't get any clearer, really.  And yet we have spent the better part of the last two thousand years sticking our fingers in our ears for those last three words.

Those three words, "...and to all," are stubborn things.  They remind us that the scope of Christ's love is not only for people who already believe in him. They remind us that our forgiveness of another person is not grounded in whether we like them or not but in the way God has forgiven us already. They remind us that God relentlessly ripples out.

That is our hope, too--because that is how we know God's love includes us as well.  

Today, let us dare to practice the three radical words, "and to all," with and for whomever God sends across our path today as part of the "all."

Lord Jesus, let your love sink in and then flow through us. Always, always, always.