Children of Light

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 (NRSV) 5 Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. 2 For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 When they say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! 4 But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; 5 for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. 6 So, then, let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober, 7 for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. 8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober and put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet the hope of salvation. 9 For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. 11 Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing. Picture Paul is writing to the community in Thessalonica wondering, “How long will we have to wait for the return of Jesus? How long will we have to suffer?” It is often a question I ask in regards to environmental degradation, “How long will this continue? How much more violence will we inflict on the earth?” The space the first-century Thessalonians and we twenty-first-century believers occupy is both one of waiting; we must figure out what to do with ourselves in the meantime. This space of awaiting healing, freedom, and redemption, is not a burden though, not something we simply have to “get through.” It is an opportunity for deeper and richer communion with God, neighbor, and creation. Our identities in Christ are secured, and the victory of love has already been determined in the resurrection of Jesus, the firstborn of all creation. The redemption of the cosmos, which will surprise us “like a thief,” empowers and sustains our days here and now, so that we may see and taste the beauty that is still to come in full. Paul reminds his readers, “we are not of the night or of darkness,” but we “belong to the day,” as “children of light.” I find this image beautiful and essential to our understanding of ourselves and creation. While God is our mother and father, creation, day, and light themselves are where we also find true parentage, where we learn how to be. Paul uses the language of belonging, mapping our deepest selves onto the day, finding a kinship in everything that it includes. We, like the Earth, are “destined for salvation,” destined for freedom and wholeness. We have an affinity with light and warmth, and all we must do is live into it, remaining awake, alive, yearning for justice, wearing “the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet the hope of salvation." Picture We wait for the purification of our air, the restoration of our lands, and a return of biodiversity in our seas. Yet we wait for these things, not passively, but as agents, as children of the light who already contain all we need. The hardest work is already done: Jesus, the Word that gives all things being and sustains existence, has already overcome the evils that feel too difficult to face head-on in our daily lives. We recite in our creeds that Christ “descended to the dead,” meaning that he opened himself up to all the lifelessness that humanity has ever known, all the de-creation it has done, and has brought it back into “life everlasting.” The things that are left for us are simply more love, more courage, more belief in the possibilities, more announcing our place in the family of things. I will give Mary Oliver the final word as meditation for our hearts in light of 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, as an encouragement to “build up each other”: My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird-- equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums. Here the clam deep in the speckled sand. Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. The phoebe, the delphinium. The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture. Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here, which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever.