More Than Cliches--October 23, 2023

More Than Cliches--October 23, 2023

"We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." [1 Thessalonians 1:2-3]

Be honest--at 90% of the weddings you have attended, someone has read those familiar words from 1 Corinthians 13 about "faith, hope, and love," haven't they? And while we're being honest, let's admit that for a substantial number of those weddings, we just let those words, faith, hope, and love go in one ear, and right out the other. Our ears are almost numb to the power of those words, doesn't it seem? Or at least, we can barely hear anything more in them than some nice verbal window dressing to round out a wedding ceremony. By the time you hear, "faith, hope, and love," after all, you're halfway through and can start planning how you'll get to the reception.

Those words almost have the feel now, for so many of us, of the cliche message on the inside of a greeting card--you don't really bother to read the store-bought message very often, do you? Maybe you look for a handwritten note or salutation, but the poems inside greeting cards almost seem like a formality--something that makes for nice verbal window dressing, but not much more. And the trouble, then, is that maybe we come to think that's all Saint Paul had in mind when he wrote those words to the Corinthians, "And now, faith, hope, and love abide, these three..." Maybe, we think, Paul was just trying his hand at writing some fluffy stuff for weddings. If that's all that Paul had in mind, after all, we don't need to pay much attention to those words or what they mean for us. If all Paul was doing was writing some 1st-century greeting card filler in his old age, then his words are nice and tame and will leave us as we are.

We do not, however, read the opening verses of 1 Thessalonians at weddings very often, for whatever reason. But here in this verse for today, those same three words appear: "faith... love... and hope..." Okay, a different order than he chose for 1 Corinthians, but there they are, those same three words again, and here it's pretty clear that Paul isn't just writing a greeting card. He is talking about a way of life. He is talking about something with teeth. He is talking about, or rather talking to, people who have sought to be people of faith, of hope, and of love for the long haul. None of this is cliche wedding-ceremony stuff--it is about work and labor and steadfastness here. There is nothing sentimental or fluffy in this verse--there is instead, well-deserved thanks for a life-long commitment of brothers and sisters in Christ to live as disciples. To hear these three words, faith, love, and hope, spoken here, without the distraction of dresses with puffy sleeves and flower arrangements, we can't just let them in one ear and out the other. In this verse, we hear about faith, love, and hope, not as poetic filler, but as perspectives. This is what love that endures looks like.

In all fairness to Paul, he did write both passages, and he never intended for his words in 1 Corinthians to be reduced to a bit of flowery prose read before the vows by whoever didn't make the cut of the bridesmaid list. In both 1 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians, Paul is writing to whole communities, groups of disciples who are seeking to live the distinctive and peculiar life of followers of Jesus. We are people who believe certain things about God (that is, we have faith), but who live differently because we believe that we are not the commanders of our own destiny or captains of our own fate. We are people who love others--strangely enough, even strangers and enemies--even when it is a labor to care for others or put their needs before our own. And we are people who live in light of God's promise to restore all things and to mend what is broken in creation--in other words, we have hope, even when the rest of the world would tell us we can only rely on ourselves. These words are not merely nice ideas or abstract concepts--they are virtues and habits that we practice as part of our alternative way of living in the world. They are part of how we make the world sit up and turn its head, because the world around us cannot make sense of such deeply-rooted faith, hope, and love.

So maybe today we need the less familiar setting of this lesser-known letter for us to recapture the power of Paul's words when we have let them get stale from casual use. Maybe today we can hear again that our message, the Christian Gospel, is more than greeting card filler--it is a perspective, and a way of life that will carry us through for the long haul. Today, thinking deeply about what these words really mean for us today, let us be people of working faith, laboring love, and steadfast hope.

Lord Jesus, living Word of God, speak again to us and give us ears to hear what you are saying. Surprise us and catch us off guard, so that even while you keep speaking the same words you have spoken to your people all these years, we will understand with new insight and new passion the life you are calling us into. Make us your people of faith, of love, and of hope, so the world will watch and take notice.