There was a bad joke in Christian circles about twenty-five years ago that said that the word ‘Bible’ was an acronym for “Basic Instructions before Leaving Earth.” (I told you it was a bad joke.) It’s a joke that annoyed me even at the time, because so little of what the Bible teaches is ‘basic’ and none of its about ‘leaving Earth’. But today’s Epistle reading, 1 Thessalonians 5.16-24, can actually be considered to be offering ‘basic instructions’ that we would all do well to learn, take to heart, and live out in the short-but-long years we have on this planet. If Advent is a season of preparing ourselves for the fulfillment of God’s Kingdom, this text is a good place to start.
1. “Rejoice always”
As I noted the other day, it is one of Christianity’s great failures that we have so rarely been known as a joyful people. But to summarize that post: Joy is one of the fruit of the Spirit, and should be in evidence in all of our lives. The thing about joy is that it has little to do with material or circumstantial happiness. Many of the most joyful people I’ve met were not ‘charmed’ by life, but were rather able to find joy in any and every circumstance. This is strongly connected to gratitude (More on that again below), but is really about appreciating the little things in life. I say this as someone for whom joy does not naturally. Cultivating joy is a sacred practice for me, and I know that it works. The times in my life I connect with the most joy are those times when I simply had eyes to see the beauty and goodness around me.
2. “Pray without ceasing”
Prayer is hard to talk about because it’s so many things: praise, intercession, supplication, confession, thanksgiving, contemplation, and on and on. But at its simplest level, all prayer is nothing more nor less than opening up the lines of communication with God. It’s about opening up our hearts to God, expressing our needs, wants, hopes, and fears for ourselves, our loved ones, our communities, and the world, but also listening. Because everything we do and see in the world has the potential to be a place of theophany (divine encounter), this instruction from Paul is not hyperbole. We can indeed pray without ceasing.
3. “Give thanks in all circumstances”
I’ve long been convinced that there is no greater tool for the life of faith and general wellbeing in the world than an attitude of gratitude. Using a definition from positive psychology, “gratitude involves feeling and expressing a deep sense of thankfulness in life, and more specifically, taking the time to genuinely express thankfulness to others” (VIA Institute on Character Strengths). Thinking about what we don’t have or the things that aren’t working is so much easier for us — we really are a culture of entitlement — but it’s not conducive to our wellbeing. Rather, orienting our hearts and minds to focus on what we do have and what is working is the greatest key we have to unlocking joy in our lives. I don’t think that giving thanks “in all circumstances” means that we have to give thanks for all circumstances. No, that would just be spiritual bypassing to the extreme and it’s not healthy or true. But, it is about finding things to be grateful for the midst of even bad circumstances. I had a small example of this in my own life last year when I broke the elbow of my dominant arm in a freak accident. It was painful, inconvenient, and made doing even the most basic tasks much more difficult. To make matters worse, it happened just a couple days before an ice storm that made getting around even harder. This was not a situation for which I was grateful! But, within that situation I was grateful for so much: A shorter-than-feared wait at the Emergency Room, socialized medicine that meant that I didn’t have to worry about hospital bills, not needing a cast or surgery, the fact that I had just bought groceries before my accident so had a full fridge and pantry, the concern and care demonstrated by so many people who reached out to me, and access to wonderful audiobooks, to name just a few of the things that stood out even in the moment. It was a wonderful reminder of just how powerful gratitude can be in shaping our perceptions of the world.
4. “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything”
Both sides of this are so important. It’s of the utmost importance for us to be open to what God is doing around us. We shouldn’t stop our ears and shut our eyes to ideas or messages that challenge our assumptions or the status quo. But that doesn’t mean everything people say is from God. We need to test everything against all the authorities at our disposal: Scripture and tradition, yes, absolutely, but, to follow Jesus’ own teaching, we need to look most of all at the fruit an idea or message bears in the world. Is it sowing division, anger, and anxiety? Does it help the rich get richer and the poor poorer? Then it’s most certainly not from God.
5. “Hold fast to what is good”
I think there are two sides to this instruction. Most obviously (from the context of the next instruction), it’s about doing good and making the right choices. If you aren’t sure what the good looks like, today’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah offers a wonderful insight into the heart of God (which Jesus himself takes up as his own manifesto):
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favour, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion — to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. (Isaiah 61.1-4)
But it’s also about focusing our attention on what is good in the world too. If we just watch the news reports, it would be easy to think the world is a terrible and brutal place devoid of kindness. But, while it definitely can be that, it is also a place filled with goodness, kindness, and love. There are people in the world who are freeing oppressed peoples, healing the brokenhearted, and bringing freedom and joy. These are the things we need to remember as we go about life in a world that makes it easy to become cynical and misanthropic.
6. “Abstain from every form of evil”
The flip side of holding fast to what is good is letting go of what isn’t. When we see an expression like this, it’s easy to jump to a kind of purity culture mindset where righteousness is defined by a list of dos and don’ts. But, as we’ve seen so often, this isn’t the way of Jesus. He cares less about specific acts of piety than he does about the impact of our actions on others. Once again, Christianity should have no collateral damage. Abstaining from evil means not breaking faith with others, especially the outcasts and marginalized.
Paul ends this section with a beautiful prayer to summarize all of this:
May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.
This is to say, we are all called to live holy lives. And, if we aren’t sure what holiness looks like, the six instructions above offer us a great place to begin: Rejoice, keep the lines of communication with God open at all times, have an attitude of gratitude, be open to what God is doing and saying (but make sure what you’re hearing is really from God!), keep your eyes, ears, and hands on what is good and does good in the world and avoid what does harm. These are our basic instructions in holiness. This week and this Advent season, may we all take them to heart.
To this end, I’d like to end this with a challenge: Take one of the instructions above, whichever leaps out to you, and be intentional about living it out this week as a Sacred Practice. It may seem daunting, but the only way to do anything is to begin.
Matthew Root 