No, no. I don’t have any grandkids. So, all those who were about to be up in arms about teen age parents, just relax. It’s just a bumper sticker I spotted again this week. I say again because you used to see this sort of thing a lot. But now not so much. Yet, there was one in front of me as I was driving around Fort Wayne this past week. “Ask me about my Grandkids!”
Of course, I doubt if anyone ever does. It would be just asking for trouble. And there are those grandparents who don’t need to be asked. They manage to work it into whatever the conversation was about. They just can’t help themselves.
And why not? Aren’t there some things worth boasting about? Grandkids being but one of those things. Your church being another. Seriously. Any time I have been a part of a growing church, it wasn’t because it had a specific plan for evangelism. It wasn’t because it had a certain kind of music or building. It wasn’t a program of any kind. It was simply because the members couldn’t stop talking about their church. They boasted about what they loved about it. They told anyone and everyone what it meant to them to belong there. And there were invitations aplenty. “Come and see.” “Join us,” they would say. “You don’t want to miss this!”
That is the secret to church growth, a membership that boasts about their church. And no less a biblical figure than St. Paul himself was the model for this. On this All Saints Sunday celebration, we turn to Paul for boasting directions. Take a look.
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing. 4 Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring. ... 11 To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul was always warning about boasting, and then would do it every chance he got. You can’t blame him really. He was proud of these churches that he helped to launch. He traveled all over the known world at the time and started little communities of faith. And then he kept in touch with them as he moved on. It wasn’t so much “out of sight, out of mind” for Paul. If it were, there would be big gaps in our New Testaments. We read story after story, letter after letter, of Paul and others trying to keep in touch with these communities. Trying to help them sort out difficulties. Trying to help them combat confusion and obfuscation. Trying to keep them on track with where Christ would have them be.
We don’t know what was going on in the church at Thessalonika. All the letter tells us is that there were difficult times in front of them. We know that the persecutions of the early church were terrible and wide-spread. We know that each time one of these communities gathered for worship they would end with a benediction - a good word - that would send them out into the darkness knowing that when they gathered again, some of their number would be missing. We know that there were times and there were nations who were so threatened by these upstart Christians that any mistreatment of those identified as belonging to that group was tolerated - from ridicule and ostracism to enslavement, imprisonment and torture. We don’t know what the church of the Thessalonians was enduring at the time of Paul’s writing. All we know was that Paul was proud of them. Proud of their faith and proud of their love and community spirit. This is a church, he was declaring, this is the true community, a reflection of the Kingdom of God living among us. Why wouldn’t you boast about that? Why wouldn’t you want everyone to know what was going on there? That lives were being redeemed, that meaning was discovered, that hope was declared.
Paul knew that his letters would be shared. He knew that others would hear and learn from the instruction he gave to the churches he served even from a distance. And Paul was admitting his relationship, his authority or paternity over these bodies. He was claiming them. So, in effect Paul was saying “Ask me about my Grandkids!”
Which is what makes it an appropriate passage for All Saints Sunday. Sorry. Did I lose you there? This Sunday, this All Hallows Eve, we are jumping ahead to All Hallows Day. Hallows – Hallowed – Holy – Saints. Follow the drift there? Halloween was originally a pointer toward a glorious celebration of the people of faith. All Hallows Even was the night before All Saints Day. OK, somewhere along the line it got mixed up with all sorts of other observances, “Samhain” the end of summer or a borderline day when the dividers between this world and the next became a little more thin, for one. And since All Saints was in part a reminder of those of our number who were no longer among us, the ghosts and goblins of the pagan celebrations leaked into the early observance.
I’m not going to take the time to argue the rightness or wrongness of the popular observance of Halloween in this space. Maybe next year, if anyone is really interested. Instead I want to move us toward All Saints. Which is, I’m arguing, a time of boasting!
Or should be anyway. It is a time for us to remember and to tell the stories of those who have gone before. And to tell them with pride. To tell the stories of faith in our communities, of the obstacles overcome, of the setbacks that didn’t thwart us. It is a time to celebrate the living examples of faith among us as well, to look around and see who we can boast about in our midst. And it is also a time to welcome new saints into our midst, those whose stories are still being written. The new chapters of our witness of faith.
It is a busy, a full and rich time. No wonder John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, called All Saints his favorite Christian observance. “How superstitious are they who scruple giving God solemn thanks for the lives and deaths of his saints,” he wrote. It is a time of thankfulness and, yes of boasting.
Except, now that I think about it, maybe our bumper sticker should read a little differently. Since we are celebrating those who have gone before, our predecessors in the faith, maybe our All Saints Day bumper stickers should read “Ask Me About My Grandparents!”
Shalom,
Derek
Of course, I doubt if anyone ever does. It would be just asking for trouble. And there are those grandparents who don’t need to be asked. They manage to work it into whatever the conversation was about. They just can’t help themselves.
And why not? Aren’t there some things worth boasting about? Grandkids being but one of those things. Your church being another. Seriously. Any time I have been a part of a growing church, it wasn’t because it had a specific plan for evangelism. It wasn’t because it had a certain kind of music or building. It wasn’t a program of any kind. It was simply because the members couldn’t stop talking about their church. They boasted about what they loved about it. They told anyone and everyone what it meant to them to belong there. And there were invitations aplenty. “Come and see.” “Join us,” they would say. “You don’t want to miss this!”
That is the secret to church growth, a membership that boasts about their church. And no less a biblical figure than St. Paul himself was the model for this. On this All Saints Sunday celebration, we turn to Paul for boasting directions. Take a look.
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing. 4 Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring. ... 11 To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul was always warning about boasting, and then would do it every chance he got. You can’t blame him really. He was proud of these churches that he helped to launch. He traveled all over the known world at the time and started little communities of faith. And then he kept in touch with them as he moved on. It wasn’t so much “out of sight, out of mind” for Paul. If it were, there would be big gaps in our New Testaments. We read story after story, letter after letter, of Paul and others trying to keep in touch with these communities. Trying to help them sort out difficulties. Trying to help them combat confusion and obfuscation. Trying to keep them on track with where Christ would have them be.
We don’t know what was going on in the church at Thessalonika. All the letter tells us is that there were difficult times in front of them. We know that the persecutions of the early church were terrible and wide-spread. We know that each time one of these communities gathered for worship they would end with a benediction - a good word - that would send them out into the darkness knowing that when they gathered again, some of their number would be missing. We know that there were times and there were nations who were so threatened by these upstart Christians that any mistreatment of those identified as belonging to that group was tolerated - from ridicule and ostracism to enslavement, imprisonment and torture. We don’t know what the church of the Thessalonians was enduring at the time of Paul’s writing. All we know was that Paul was proud of them. Proud of their faith and proud of their love and community spirit. This is a church, he was declaring, this is the true community, a reflection of the Kingdom of God living among us. Why wouldn’t you boast about that? Why wouldn’t you want everyone to know what was going on there? That lives were being redeemed, that meaning was discovered, that hope was declared.
Paul knew that his letters would be shared. He knew that others would hear and learn from the instruction he gave to the churches he served even from a distance. And Paul was admitting his relationship, his authority or paternity over these bodies. He was claiming them. So, in effect Paul was saying “Ask me about my Grandkids!”
Which is what makes it an appropriate passage for All Saints Sunday. Sorry. Did I lose you there? This Sunday, this All Hallows Eve, we are jumping ahead to All Hallows Day. Hallows – Hallowed – Holy – Saints. Follow the drift there? Halloween was originally a pointer toward a glorious celebration of the people of faith. All Hallows Even was the night before All Saints Day. OK, somewhere along the line it got mixed up with all sorts of other observances, “Samhain” the end of summer or a borderline day when the dividers between this world and the next became a little more thin, for one. And since All Saints was in part a reminder of those of our number who were no longer among us, the ghosts and goblins of the pagan celebrations leaked into the early observance.
I’m not going to take the time to argue the rightness or wrongness of the popular observance of Halloween in this space. Maybe next year, if anyone is really interested. Instead I want to move us toward All Saints. Which is, I’m arguing, a time of boasting!
Or should be anyway. It is a time for us to remember and to tell the stories of those who have gone before. And to tell them with pride. To tell the stories of faith in our communities, of the obstacles overcome, of the setbacks that didn’t thwart us. It is a time to celebrate the living examples of faith among us as well, to look around and see who we can boast about in our midst. And it is also a time to welcome new saints into our midst, those whose stories are still being written. The new chapters of our witness of faith.
It is a busy, a full and rich time. No wonder John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, called All Saints his favorite Christian observance. “How superstitious are they who scruple giving God solemn thanks for the lives and deaths of his saints,” he wrote. It is a time of thankfulness and, yes of boasting.
Except, now that I think about it, maybe our bumper sticker should read a little differently. Since we are celebrating those who have gone before, our predecessors in the faith, maybe our All Saints Day bumper stickers should read “Ask Me About My Grandparents!”
Shalom,
Derek
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