 by the Rev. Jay Rundell, President
Methodist Theological Seminary of Ohio
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is a celebration of the breadth and diversity of the Christian Church. For one hundred years Christians have set aside time to recognize our connections and honor the unity that exists amidst our real or perceived differences in the Body of Christ. In essence, this time is emblematic of relationships that should exist and be nurtured continuously.
The preacher in a community of faith strives to make God real to people and people real before their God. This disclosure of the Divine and its attendant reaction and response among hearers of the Word, is no small challenge. Twenty-first century preachers face a daunting but crucial task: to understand, interpret and articulate not only text and tradition, but the world and experience of a congregation and its people as well.
The preacher committed to ecumenical work and Christian unity strives to engage the reality of a God known in many ways and by many names and invites listeners to see what can be seen in the vision of another people and hear what can be heard in the songs and proclamations of other faith communities.
While it is a privilege to prepare materials for this event and to work with Ben Witherington's rich and insightful commentary, I want to suggest that preachers should do some preliminary work on our own whenever possible. Read the passage through several times. Read the material that surrounds the immediate pericope with which you are working. Read the opening and closing chapters of the book. In the case of a short letter like First Thessalonians, read the whole thing! Even if it's been a while, do some of your own exegesis. Reading with your distinct perspective and from your unique role in the life of your congregation, you may very well gain insight that you wouldn't if you move directly to the commentary. Wrestle personally with the text a bit. When you've done some reading and basic research on your own, turn to the commentary to test your ideas and broaden the scope of your thinking.
You will discover, we begin with something of a paradox: We are celebrating the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity by focusing on a Scriptural passage from a letter written to a particular Christian community. Perhaps the earliest of Paul's work, I Thessalonians addresses specific issues of the church in Thessalonica, but does so in ways that provide a glimpse of Paul's thinking in regard to external relationships. First, Paul is likely writing while residing in another Christian community such as Corinth, thus this church is not alone unto itself. Second, the letter is characterized by a concern that the church position itself to be respected by the larger community. An appropriate backdrop for our work with this passage can be the healthy tension in our midst as we think about our own faith tradition and community as well as the larger web of important relationships.
Dr. Witherington suggests that this letter is a surrogate for Paul's own presence and sermon. Conceivably, the contemporary preacher can be a similar kind of surrogate. While not to be mistaken for having the same authority as canonized Scripture, a preacher has the solemn responsibility of creating an oral event rooted in a text intended as an oration in the first place. Remembering that a sermon is primarily an oral event rather than a printed document can help the preacher focus on the sermon as a “real time” experience in a setting of corporate worship. Undoubtedly there are many approaches to preaching this passage. Here are a few possibilities:
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Consider the functions of leadership (worker, leader, advisor) in a church. Since our theme is Christian Unity, it might be very effective to draw on stories or examples of religious leaders from neighboring churches or other faith communities as illustrations of effective leadership.
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Focus on the kinds of pastoral concerns that certainly exist in all churches as highlighted by the exhortations to “admonish the undisciplined, console the faint-hearted, stand by the weak, be patient with all.”
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A preacher might, with great care and discernment, help listeners in a stable church environment consider how the above characteristics might challenge a church community where Christians experience hardship or persecution. One must seek empathy and genuine concern, but guard against paternalism or pity.
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A passage like this which is characterized by statements and is devoid of a story-line could benefit from the kind of narrative quality that comes from story-telling. Sometimes preachers tell stories when they shouldn't and those stories end up clashing with the story-ine of the scripture. This would be a good place to add movement and a dynamic feel.
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Dr. Witherington's treatment of verse 18 in which he reminds us that the text says to “give thanks in all circumstances”, not for all circumstances is, in itself, important enough to serve as the basis for a sermon.
Sometimes faithfulness to the passage for the preacher requires the treatment of the whole text. Leaving something out because we disagree with it can rob us and our congregation of the important experience of struggling with our beliefs. At other times, treating an entire passage may bog us down in something that is too big for a single approach. The occasion and passage at hand suggest this may be a time when the preacher can seize from the overall passage an inspirational thought and then run with it. This passage is an epideictic oration, ceremonial and demonstrative without formal arguments and lends itself to preaching that is affirming and encouraging of a life of prayer rooted in community. If I were preaching on this passage for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, I think I might focus on verse 17: “Pray without ceasing”. The peroration in verses 16-22 isn't so much a summarizing conclusion as it is a sort of final encouragement which could provide a solid foundation for a pastoral sermon.
As pointed out by Dr. Witherington, verse 17 does not necessarily suggest endless prayer, but it certainly allows for the possibility that prayer is an ongoing endeavor. If unity is our goal then relationship is our challenge. What kind of prayer might be needed at a time such as this? A sermon could play with several possibilities. A preacher who knows her or his congregation can surely think of many kinds of “active” prayer that can build connections within a congregation and between congregations. I would start with the idea that praying without ceasing could be realized through:
To commit oneself to study is to acknowledge before self and God that one's knowledge and understanding are not complete. If prayer involves intentional reflection on our relationship with God, then prayer as study affirms the importance of thoughts and ideas beyond our own as vital to our relationship to God. Prayer as study broadens our relationship to God by including others in the relationship. Such relationship does not in itself make for unity, but it is certainly an important step.
A close colleague with whom I served for several years in parish ministry prayed and studied with a faithful fervor unlike anything I have seen since. Committed to prayer in solitude and company, she seemed most at one with the sacred when she had a book in hand, as student or teacher. An interesting characteristic of this prayerfully studious woman was that while one might expect her to have been the one with all the answers, it was the questions she asked of the rest of us that made the difference.
I am the sort of person that has a hard time sitting still for any length of time, even for something as important as prayer. That characteristic has proved challenging in developing spiritual discipline. Once while on retreat at a Benedictine monastery in Snowmass Colorado, I shared my plight with a monk, explaining that I found prayer to be a lot of work. While not letting me off the spiritual hook, but recognizing that people are different, one from another, this wise sage suggested that if my prayer had become work, then perhaps I should try making work my prayer. I immediately redirected a period of the following summer that I had set aside for rest and renewal, something I was dreading, as a time of holy labor. It had been years since I had worked with my hands. I spent a month planting seedling spruce trees in a forest surrounding a church camp. Working with intentionality toward vocation and purpose, I discovered that shoveling let me think about what needed some digging in my life. As the small trees began to fill the landscape around me, I was able to acknowledge how my efforts, contrary to what I had been coming to believe in my ministry, really do make a difference. I walk through that forest in my mind from time to time, reminding myself that mind and spirit and body can be connected and made whole through prayerful work.
Last January, I delivered the invocation at a Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday celebration in Delaware, Ohio. Held on a college campus and co-sponsored by several civic organizations, the event drew a large and rather diverse crowd. We were many different kinds of people who had come together from many different directions and walks of life. It was a prayer breakfast, so I assumed people expected prayer, but I couldn't help but think that we would be poorly served by bowing our heads in prayer to a God that we imaged solely in personal and private ways. We were gathered amidst a beautiful display of people, each different and yet each created in the image of a common God. So I invited the crowd to prayer but asked that eyes be kept open. When we got past the discomfort of doing something new, it seemed people were genuinely moved to pray to God while looking at neighbor. If I am willing to really look at someone else and see God,
I may well be praying without ceasing. If I'm listening while I'm seeing, I may hear something of God that comes from outside my own experience of God and even that of my community's.
Now that you have thought about this preaching opportunity in light of your own context and situation and before you make any further plans, I invite you to reach out beyond your own community, perhaps even beyond your typical ecumenical connections, and invite conversation and connection for this celebration of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity!
(Jay Rundell is President of Methodist Theological School in Ohio where he also teaches homiletics. He is a graduate of Augustana College and Iliff School of Theology. He is an ordained United Methodist Pastor and has spent most of his ministry in the parish).
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