Valois United Church

2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
In the years that followed Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, church leaders went from city to city, from congregation to congregation.  Paul was the most well-known of these, but not the only itinerant preacher of his generation.

And when they left one place, they did not forget it. And they did not forget the people.
Rather, they wrote letters.

They had no e-mail.  
They had no telephone.  
They had no telegraph.
No, it was back to pen and paper, or quill and scroll, to communicate from one city to another.

And while the Roman empire was generally unfriendly to the Christian movement,
the Roman transportation system favoured communication by letter - even letters of faithful people, writing to communities of faith.

There is a whole selection of letters in the Bible.  Now, generally reading other people’s mail is not very good manners - in fact illegal if you don’t have permission - but these letters were meant to be shared, and they were shared.

If you take a look at them, you’ll notice certain patterns.
They begin with greetings, and end with blessings.
They also often begin with praise and celebration for the community of faith to which it is addressed.

And then there is the BUT section in many:
    But I understand that there are divisions
            But I know that some are falling away
    But ....

And then there are directions.  When you read through the directions, you realize that behind each direction there is a situation, a concern.  It’s just like when you may have told a child “Don’t climb over that fence”, or “Look both ways before crossing”.  The first is a situation where the child is eying the fence, or clearly about to climb - the second one is in response to a general danger and emerges as a concern.

Well, when you read the writers of the letters talking about the need to stay away from immorality - you can guess that some of the believers are acting in immoral ways.  When you read about people needing to be humble, then you can guess that some are puffed up with vanity.  

Today’s reading is from 2nd Thessalonians.  It is debated whether Paul wrote this letter - 1st Thessalonians certainly came from his pen - but it matters not for its meaning.  It is written to a congregation almost 2000 years ago.  Yet it is not hard, as in the case of many of the letters, to hear today’s concerns addressed as well.

The letter begins with greetings and praise.  And then it grapples with the realities of the persecutions that the people faced, and their need not to be discouraged in a difficult time.
And, after giving blessings, it turns back to admonish:
Keep away from believers who are living in idleness
Don’t be busybodies.

Other letters deal with these personal issues, but also deal with issues of leadership, with issues of worship, and how communion is celebrated.

And I wondered: what would Paul or some of these other writers have written if they were writing to us here at Valois United Church?

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,
to the United Church in Valois
in the name of God and our Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right,
because of your faithfulness and steadfastness,
and because of your openness to embrace your future,
even though that future lies in the unknown.

Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of the Presbytery for your steadfastness and your faith-based courage in this time of challenge and change that you are living.

To this end that we always pray for you, people of the Valois United Church, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith,
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.

Now, we request that you may not be shaken from your composure or be disturbed in any way with the times in which we live.  Let no one deceive you, not even those who falsely declare that they bring truth, for there are many who seek to lead you astray because of their own selfishness for power, or because of their own blindness.

But we should always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters of Valois United, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you to be holy ones through the Spirit.

So, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold to the way of Christ.

We have heard that in this time of change that you have set for yourselves goals for today and tomorrow.  As the Spirit has worked within you to created these goals, we pray that the Spirit might be with you so that you might be able to carry them out.  You will need perseverance and boldness to do so.  

You will need to embrace each day’s challenges, knowing that you are not alone.  
You will need to constantly remind yourselves that the Spirit is wind and fire:
    that you cannot be true to the Spirit of God
        unless     you are moving with the wind of the Spirit;
        unless you are energized with the fire of the Spirit.

Moving with the Spirit of God will bring you to unfamiliar places.
But remember that the Spirit that moves you
is the Spirit that moved across the waters of creation,
bringing life where there was none,
bringing newness into the darkness.

We give thanks for your steadfastness over the many years, but we also must challenge you to look closely at yourselves and see where habits have replaced faith-filled action.  We encourage you to look back at your past, and your experiences in other communities of faith, as you seek to discover to where the Spirit of God is leading you.  Free yourselves of that which ties you down.  Move with the Spirit.

Finally, brothers and sisters, we write to reassure you that you are not alone in your endeavours.  You have each other.  You have the whole church.  You have all the saints of every age supporting your every effort.  And God, through the Holy Spirit, is dwelling in your midst.

 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our loving Parent, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope,  comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.