1 Thessalonians 2.1-8 The apostle’s concern

Today’s passage is about looking inside yourself and learning your true motivation for your actions in ministry. What is it you are actually trying to accomplish? Why do you believe that goal is important? Do you believe the way you are going about trying to achieve that goal is the “right” way to do it?

If you answer to any of the above questions was “because the Bible says so” or “It’s what God wants” I highly encourage you to go back and read your Bible. This can never be our answer no matter how true it might be to us. It’s too vague. Even the devil believes in God. The devil uses scripture in the wilderness to tempt Jesus.

A friend of mine is a prison psychologist. On occasion, he will encounter an inmate who goes on a hunger strike for one reason or another. His cure for this is a simple one. Make a bag of microwave popcorn. Walk by someone’s cell munching on freshly made popcorn; see if they respond. The devil didn’t dangle a freshly baked loaf of bread in front of Jesus to tempt him, he recited scripture. Weaponizing Biblical passages is not what God wants nor is it the reason those words are written down for us.

Our motivation for ministry has to come from within. It must be personal; it must be specific; it must be emotional; it must be inspiring. The kind of story that puts goosebumps on your arms. A reason that touches the spirit of another and longing to experience a moment like that themselves.

I look at it as there is no amount of water, sunshine, and fertilizer that will make a plant grow if there is no seed. As Christians, we want to shove “Jesus loves you” down people’s throats as if telling someone a stranger loving them means anything at all. You might as well tell them “Bob loves them.” All you’re doing is watering dirt and making mud.

Christianity starts with connection. That connection must be made through pure motive and transparency. Your vulnerability is what makes the connection not your knowledge. Strangers grow a relationship with God through their relationship with you. You have to prepare the soil and plant the seed.

The Gospel reading this week is Matthew 22:34-46 Loving God and neighbor. 22:34-40 are words you hear me say in almost every sermon I deliver. If I don’t actually say them, they are implied. “When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, an expert in the law, asked him a question to test him.

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

However, in good Christian fashion, our forefathers decided not to end this lectionary reading there but to continue talking. Good relationships are formed when you stop talking at an appropriate place. Good sermons end when a point has been made AND the preacher stops talking. Among the many characteristics that make a “bad” is when the preacher just keeps on talking, either beating a point to death or switching to a new topic just to fill up more air.

Let’s just focus on 22:34-40. “and a second is like it.” Do you ever wonder how “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” is like “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind?” You should. Because the answer is “You shall love your neighbor with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “You shall love yourself with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

You can’t plant a seed if you aren’t producing any seeds to be planted. Love yourself with all your heart, soul, and mind. Love your neighbor with all your heart, soul, and mind. If you do this, you will love your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.

To love your neighbor as yourself means to treat your neighbor with all the love you show your God and yourself. To love your yourself means to treat your neighbor with all the love you show your God and neighbor. To love your God means to treat your God with all the love you show your neighbor and yourself.  Have I beaten the point to death yet? Are you getting it?

The apostles were not treated well by the Philippians, yet they did not carry a grudge. They did not speak ill of them, but they did not lie to protect them either. We plant seeds regardless of the quality of the soil. Our job is not to judge the quality of the soil or to discriminate but to make a connection with it. You can’t plant seeds without first producing seeds and, second, getting your hands dirty. You’ve got to touch the soil. And not just on the surface; you’ve got to create a deeper-than-surface-level relationship.

We don’t change our deeply planted belief system for a surface-level exchange of pleasantries. We can’t get to know people only by learning about them. That’s not a relationship. A relationship means I know you: You know me: We know God. We have to be vulnerable and share ourselves. We have to fertilize.

Notice that you sharing yourself is fertilizer NOT SUNSHINE! God is the sunshine. You are the fertilizer. Relationship are built by sharing shit together! The messy, stinky, foul, embarrassing, partially digested shit that makes us who we are and them who they are. If you want people to come to know God, they need to understand why they would even want to distinguish God from Bob. What does it mean to you?

Our relationship with God developed as They walked with us, talked with us, cried with us through the fertilizer. Therefore, our relationship with our neighbor is built, you guessed it by now I hope, by walking, walking, crying through the fertilizer with others.

We don’t try to trick people into believing life will be amazing and problem-free if they just believe in God. We do not deceive them into thinking our own lives are nothing but roses. A rose bush without any fertilizer is just a thorny stick. Getting through those problems, using them to better and strengthen ourselves with the help of our God is what allows us to produce seeds that we can then plant and fertilize in others.

In this shit analogy, it is important to realize that a plant cannot fertilize itself. Fertilizer comes from outside sources, aka neighbor. Those neighbors provide us with the things in life we need that we are running low on just as we provide them with essential nutrients.

I feel obligated to also throw in a short mention of crop rotation here. You’re a lot. They’re a lot. We need many friends to provide many life-sustaining components to our lives. Too much of anything is a bad thing. Make new friends don’t just keep trying to drain what you need out of the same small circle. Expand, your life will be all the richer for it.

“So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.”

The apostles shared not only the gospel of God but also themselves. Those who serve are also served. Those who give must also receive. It’s a circle not a line. Technically more like a Spirograph design than a circle really as there are multiple neighbors that need looped into the sequence. It isn’t just you, God, and a neighbor. It’s you, God, and neighborS.

Relationships have boundaries. We make demands of one another. We make demands about how we expect them to treat us. We make demands of our expectations of one another. We make demands of how we behave around one another. If for one, appreciate it when all the members of my congregation wear adequate clothing. This is a personal preference of mine that I will make known should you violate this boundary of mine. If we were in my home, I would inform you that my preference is you remove your shoes. Different boundaries exist in different contexts even within the same relationship. We make these demands of one another.

We make demands of one another based upon our beliefs. A small amount of profanity doesn’t bother me, but a large quantity or when it feels out of context does. Taking the Lord’s name in vain and certain vulgar words bother me. I will make that known to you should you use them. Doesn’t mean you have to stop, but I would prefer if you did. If you have things you prefer, I’d like to know them and will attempt to comply, provided they don’t go against my own boundaries. Doesn’t mean we can’t get along; we might just have to limit the amount of time we spend with one another, as the apostles limited the amount of time they spent in Philippi.

My willingness to work with you, get to know you, get my hands dirty with you, swap fertilizer with you, determines my ability to make Jesus Christ known to you. I want to point out that we don’t throw a list of rules and regulations about our boundaries at people before we even begin a conversation. We don’t set up stipulations before we get to know one another.

When planting a seed, you don’t just throw nitrogen or phosphates without first testing the soil to see what it needs and in what quantity. Don’t just grab a shovel and start digging. Don’t overfertilize. Don’t over-water. Don’t burn them with too much sunshine. Your motive is to build a relationship not throw one at them.

And now, I have gone on too long.

Today’s passage is about looking inside yourself and learning your true motivation for your actions in ministry. What is it you are actually trying to accomplish? Why do you believe that goal is important? Do you believe the way you are going about trying to achieve that goal is the “right” way to do it?

Ministry isn’t about you, it’s about God. Loving God, neighbor, AND yourself with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. I’ll have more advice on how to do this next week.