2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
Proper 27 (32) - Year C
It is interesting to listen to these words in the context of an election, particularly one that is a statistical dead-heat (as far as has been reported).
Has a rebellion come? Was it by the incumbent? By the challenger?
Is the lawless one revealed? Is it the incumbent or the challenger?
Who has the temerity to declare themselves as God, a maker of no mistakes? The incumbent? The challenger?
[then we miss the apocalyptic section about the big lie, the powerful delusion, and the pleasure of falseness]
We return to an image of the successful campaign manager calling out to their political base to hold fast to their tradition and vote according to it.
The end of all this is to bless us with a standardized blessing that for Paul is the equivalent of "God bless America."
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How, then, does this play out today from Dixville Notch/Absentee/Early balloters to closing time in Hawaii? Will we find comfort for our hearts and strength for good work in such a contentious activity as a seemingly 50/50 election?
It would be fun for someone to do a riff on a theology of election using the 2004 presidential campaign. I'm not up to it, but someone out there may be.
I suspect there is enough lawlessness and deception to go around and so this is appropriately an exercise in the lesser of two evils. Since that is where we are, instead of trying to turn this reality into an dramatic either/or, savior/heretic, hero/traitor format I hope folks will spend the energy necessary to draw finer distinctions than usual and vote accordingly. Triumphalism, the cover for the necessity of evil, has never lasted any longer than an empire and might even be a factor in their/our eventual fall.
As for me and my house we claim evil enough has been done and a fresh start on acknowledging the need for repentance/conversion is in order. How is it in your house?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/november2004.html
Do you hear an election victory speech in here? Hold fast to the traditions we trained you in. Don't let anyone take the blinders off. There is nothing new that will ever change our believing, and thus our thinking. God bless us and God bless ours.
The missing part (verses 6-12) is the consequential part of not engaging with the world and risking our lives being taken by it, but removing ourselves from that interaction as though God were somehow sullied by such contact. This separation (only a choice between red and blue - no rainbow promise here) does energize and work for awhile, but another tradition has it that such unity attempts to build itself into heaven and eventually topples (or so says Babel). In this view the Lawless one is revealed as the enemy we cannot defeat, the one that is us.
The opposite is not equal fervor in an equal but opposite direction, but spiritual jujitsu known at Pentecost. This tradition is one that we need to remember here at the end of an ordinary season. Yes, there are birthings and livings and dyings, but it is the pentecostal spirit that brings any or all of them to loving relationships beyond expectation.
So, let us begin learning how to speak Republican and Literalism that they might better know the power of G*D beyond their limited view. Let us begin learning to speak Radial and Prophetic that we might better know the power of G*D beyond our limited view.
In the face of this challenge may your comfortable heart be strengthened for every work and word needed to reveal falsehood of self and revel in better hope.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/november2004.html
A key element of our faith and lack thereof is found in the issue of tradition. Just what was the tradition that was taught by Paul? How large or small was it?
Is the tradition of Paul that of inclusion of all into one community? Was it focused on details of an apocalypse? Did it have to do with rules and regulations about who could talk and when and where? Perhaps it was simply encouragement to not connect the present with the future too tightly because our projections would soon overtake us and lead to an idolatry of now that would keep us from a better tomorrow?
If Paul's tradition was most focused on Jesus' glory of connection with G*D that was also available to become our glory, then we have a wonderful freedom to live together as disciples, adding glory to glory.
If Paul's tradition was more focused on control of disciples to keep them from harm's way, thus to constrain them from straying from a given straight-and-narrow, then we have a much stricter path to tread.
What do you see Paul's tradition to be?
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eternal comfort
good hope
come our way unbidden
rise up from within
for no good reason
so comforted
so strengthened
these energies
are transformed
to word and work