Sunday, Dec 14, 2008AD
Third Sunday of Advent
Gaudete Sunday
Is Everybody Happy?
St Paul offers curious words to the house churches in Thessalonica (present day Salonika) and the house churches of Armonk as well. He urges his audience, then and now, to “rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances. This is what God expects of you in Christ Jesus.”
St Paul’s words were preserved by the Jesus Movement and incorporated into the Christian Scriptures (aka the New Testament). His audience, then, found his words worth saving and worth reflection again and again. Yet, the same words seem utopian and unreal to most people today. How can one rejoice always, for example? What does St Paul mean by the phrase that he used over 150 times in his letters, in Christ Jesus?
In addition, biblical scholars tell us that St Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, whence our second reading today is excerpted, is the earliest preserved document that we have in the Christian Scriptures. It is dated around 50AD, no more than 20 years after the death and Resurrection of the Lord, Dated around 30AD). Then, too, again, the audience bought the message, as if they had an insight into its truth.
St Paul’s methodology was to establish house churches of the Jesus Movement in major cities around the Meditterrean Sea. He stayed about two years in the venue and then, moved to another place. He prided himself on going to places where the Jesus Movement had not yet been established. Examples of some of the churches which he established were in Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica and Galatia.
His target audience was the non-Jewish Gentiles who frequented the Jewish synagogues in these cities. We know of a group of Gentiles attracted to the logic of monotheism, the higher ethics and value placed upon the human person, within Judaism, viz., where else in the world was everyone (no exceptions) was seen as created in the image and likeness of God; male and female God created them?
Paul thought of himself until the day of his death as a Jewish missionary who was bringing God fearing Gentiles into the Jewish matrix through their acceptance that Jesus is Lord. (Not all Jews nor Jewish Christians agreed with Paul’s reasoning.) It was in St Paul’s interest as well as the Jesus Movement to maintain a low profile within the “system”. In essence, in their acceptance of the Gospel of Jesus and the proclamation of God’s non-violent New World Order, seen as a leaven or catalyst for change within the Roman world.
Using modern language, we can update the view of reality that St Paul proclaimed then (and now.) Basically, St Paul and his Jesus Movements in their various house churches believed that God in Christ Jesus lived in each and every person. They believed that God in Christ Jesus was present in every scenario. Since God was the God of Life and the God of Love, everything ultimately is oriented to Life and Love. This orientation is programmed through the Paschal Mystery of death and Transformation (aka Resurrection) in what modern quantum physicists call the “conservation of energy,” viz., nothing is wasted in the universe. This orientation is lived in a cosmic web in which everyone and everything is connected. Recall Albert Einstein’s “theory of relativity”, that nothing in reality can be understood completely unless it is understood in relationship to everything else in reality. It is not for nothing that the very first paragraph of 1 Thessalonians refers quite unembarrassedly to the Trinitarian relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Thessalonian Jesus Movement had no problem with St Paul’s frequent and favored use of in Christ Jesus in his inspired correspondence. Modern physicists speak of the “Christ Quantum,” the vibrational field established in the Incarnation of the Archetype of Creation, as St Paul calls Jesus. (Col 1.18).
If a group of people, 2000 years ago, could buy into a new view of reality that transformed their lives, their Catholic descendents today (that’s us) need to ask for the gift of faith in Christ Jesus not to gulp when we hear St Paul says to us, one more time, there is no such thing as a bad day. Everyday is a good one because it is a gift from the God of Life and Love. (That is why we call it “the Present”!!). Granted, some days may be better than others. Our Thessalonian ancestors in the Jesus movement would agree and urge us to ask for the same faith in Christ Jesus that sustained them. Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus!!... Emmanuel! God is with us!! For the Jesus Movement, then and now, it is always Advent; it is always Christmas!! 121408AD jfq
