1 Thessalonians 2:9-13
9 Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.
10 You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed.
11 For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children,
12 encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.
13 And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.
There was a professor that was looking to determine some of the differences between humans and chimps so he conducted some experiments to note the differences. One experiment had some 3-year-olds face a challenge. They had to pull together on some ropes, and when they pulled on the rope, a flood of gummy bears raining down and they got to eat a bunch of candy. Then the experiment had one child get more candy than the other. What happened when one gets more than the other? A meltdown, a tantrum or a fight? No. Surprisingly, the 3 year olds shared. If one pointed out that they had less gummy bears, they shared. A number of other studies are pointed to the same conclusion: Human beings have a desire to cooperate. Despite what you see around the world, people have an inborn desire to work jointly toward the same end. We are better together.
Duke professor Michael Tomasello is an expert in this field, and he says that his research is revealing that “we want to cooperate because it’s mutually beneficial to do so. But we also want to cooperate because we want to distribute the spoils of our joint effort fairly, because we ought to.” Tomasello elaborated on the human-chimp gap in a 2011 paper in Nature, one of the world’s leading science journals. One experiment had 2- or 3-year-old children in a room without adults; the kids had to pull together to bring a board, like a seesaw, toward them. On each end of the board were two small toys that they could reach once the board was close enough. As the children pulled, the toys rolled toward them; one child ended up with three toys, while the other ended up with one. The “lucky” child, who had three toys, gave one of the toys to the “unlucky” child, who had one — so that they ended up with the same number toys.
A parallel experiment focused on chimps. The “lucky” chimp never tipped the reward to the “unlucky” partner; the chimp took the reward for itself. For humans, it was all about restoring equity. For chimps, it was all about grabbing what was available to be grabbed. Tomasello wrote in a recent paper, “The Moral Psychology of Obligation.“The most basic comparative fact is that, in situations of free choice with rewards for both partners identical, 3-year-old children mostly collaborate with a partner, whereas chimpanzees mostly choose to go it alone,”
I also read a story about Sidney Poitier, when Poitier came to the United States he got a job as a house boy, and there was an older gentleman on the job with him that showed him how to do the job. Poitier watched how that man worked, and what that man passed on to him. Poitier said that even though he couldn’t remember the man’s name, he remembered how well that man worked and used that as a reference to how Poitier would go about his work for the rest of his life. We are Better Together
You might say that cooperation, working together deepens the sense of “we” — the notion that we’re all in this together, that we all deserve a share. Cooperation is a quality worth celebrating on All Saints’ Day, when we remember the holy men and women who have worked together to continue the ministry and mission of Jesus. In his first letter to the Thessalonians, the apostle Paul prayed that God would “so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints”
Paul was trying to tell the church we are better together in 1 Thessalonians, one of the earliest letters from Paul to a church. Paul experienced a suffering dealing with the Thessalonians similar to what he did in Philippi. Acts 16 tells us that Paul and Silas were beaten and put in prison in Pillippi for casting a demon out a woman who was fortune telling to benefit the business owners. Paul founded a church in Thessalonica, but had to leave right after the church was founded, while he was away the Thessalonians were persecuted. Paul was worried that the people might think he abandoned the church. Paul was also worried that because the Thessalonians would think Paul abandoned the church, the people of that church might abandon their faith.
The Thessalonians were being persecuted, they formed this church in an area where there were other religions. There people worshiping idols, other gods. There were trade and craft guilds that had religious elements to them, people had turned their jobs into a religion, there were also imperial cults, religions that worshiped the government. Can you imagine people wanting to worship a government leader? The people of that time were under Roman oppression, the phrase Jesus is Lord was scandalous back then because the people were saying Ceasar is Lord, and the government did not want people declaring their allegiance to anything else. Can you imagine someone wanting to put a government official that high? The Thessalonians were experiencing just that but instead of just being called unpatriotic, or someone going on a Facebook rant about it there were permanent consequences, death, torture. This was real persecution, not someone saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. The Thessalonians experienced some serious oppression. The Thessalonians were trying to do the work of God and worship with their very lives on the line.
Sometimes when you are stuck in a bad situation, the way to go forward is to look back. Paul tells them that they should remember the labor and toil, they should remember how hard everyone worked while they were with them. Paul says that in the midst of the struggle Paul and the leaders of the church worked day and night in order not to be a burden to anyone else. I looked through all the commentaries I could and all the Greek pointed to that word burden being financial…the people worked to put money into the church and to take care of themselves instead of taking money out of the church. Paul and the church leaders worked, and they preached the Gospel to others. They practiced stewardship and evangelism. The government was pressing against the people, they were surrounded by competing religions, they had trouble on all sides and their response was to keep working and preach the gospel. Rough times did not weaken the Thessalonians faith, it did not stop their walk. They were committed, they persisted, they didn’t give up and say we can’t do this anymore so there is no need to try. The people worked to support the church, and they worked to support others.
Paul has a format to his letters and there is almost always a portion of Thanksgiving, where Paul thanks God for what God has done, and even thanks the people of the church he is writing. But in this letter Paul has so much to be thankful about that it takes up most of the letter. Paul looks at the situation and thanks God continually for the work that is still going on in spite of the surrounding situation. I know it seems rough right now, but you still woke up this morning, I know it seems rough right now, but you are still in your right mind, with food on the table, clothes on your back, breath in your lungs. And most importantly you have the word of God. I don’t much else right now if I have a word. A word lets me know that weeping may endure for a night but Joy will come in the morning, a word lets me know that many are the afflictions of the righteous but the lord will deliver me from them, a word lets me know that no weapon formed against me shall prosper, a word lets me know that he who began a good work in me shall perform until completion until the day of Christ Jesus, word lets me know they that wait upon the lord, shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings of eagles, run and not grow weary, walk and not faint, the grass withers, and the flower fades but the word of God lasts forever. If Paul can thank God continually because the people received the word, then so can I.
The people of God work to support the church, work to support each other, and they work because God is at work in them. The reason the people of God back then are able to work while the world is falling apart around them is the same reason the people of God can work while the world is falling apart around them today. Because they have a power greater than them working on the inside of each and every one of them. Paul was looking to help the Thessalonians, but they already had some help they just didn’t realize it yet. If we are going to “lead a life worthy of God,” we are challenged to follow the path of Jesus and become the people that God made us to be. This means receiving the word of God, as the Thessalonians did, but also seeing that God’s word is already at work in us. God wants us to cooperate with one another, and he sends this message through both Holy Scripture and through our bodies, hearts and minds.
There is somebody watching you and how you work, and they are taking whatever work you are passing on. Are you passing on evangelism or are you passing on “I don’t want the church to get too big? Are you passing on sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone you can? Are you passing on Stewardship? Or are you passing on, the choir better sing the songs I want, the pastor better not step on my toes, I don’t need to go to church or participate in anything and they better not take me off the roll…? What kind of work are you passing on to others watching you?
As believers we have to be willing to cooperate with what God wants and cooperate with each other, the Bible tells us that the power of God is in us when we do these things. The power that help Christ live a life for us, sacrifice himself for us, raise from the dead for us, and we await his return.
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