Be Not Shaken

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17

1 As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, 2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here. 3 Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction. 4 He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God. 5 Do you not remember that I told you these things when I was still with you?

13 But we must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. 14 For this purpose he called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15 So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter. 16 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, 17 comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.

Rev Michael Vanacore | Fort Washington Collegiate Church | 11/10/19

"Be not shaken...be not alarmed." These are the words of reassurance offered by the Apostle Paul to the church of the Thessalonians. Words written during a time of great affliction and upheaval for the church. A time of such conflict and turmoil that many warned that the apocalypse--the last battle between good and evil--had arrived. Into the midst of this panic and fear, the author steps in to issue this vital message of spiritual reassurance: be not shaken.

These words, so vital two thousand years ago, are equally needed in our modern context. Whether in our personal lives--which more and more are filled with uncertainty and struggle, or on a national and international stage--where instability and destruction threaten all forms of order and justice, we need to return to the spiritual ground upon which our faith is built: that in Christ we need not be shaken, and we need not be afraid.

The first spiritual insight offered by the author is this: that the end, which you thought had finally come crashing upon you, has not come yet! A word as true for the church now as it was then. He--or she--says, “As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here.”

The situation that the community was living in, we know from what scholars tell us, was one of serious oppression. The church was being persecuted by the Roman authorities for proclaiming that Jesus, and not the emperor in Rome, was the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. In addition, the Roman empire had become massive and corrupt; a colonial behemoth. Many Christians of the day pointed to these signs as evidence that the end of days had indeed arrived.

Today, just as was the case back then, we hear many voices sounding the alarm. You can’t open a major newspaper or journal--The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic--without reading another article despairing at the apparent destruction of our democracy. You can’t turn on the TV without seeing images of seemingly unprecedented human rights abuses, like the concentration camps on our borders. And a growing chorus of voices--including people that I follow and respect, like Naomi Klein--warn us that we are on the verge of destroying all of civilization worldwide through the ravages of climate change. But beyond the very real threats that none of us can now deny, what concerns me is the sense of overwhelmed calamity that I hear in the voices of so many of these pundits. “We are doomed!” they seem to be chanting in one voice.

You see, I think that the problem--both then and now--of this kind of negative apocalyptic thinking--is that you start to feel that you are no longer in control. That you don’t have any power over the situation any more. That all of our wills have been subsumed by these cosmic forces of evil that have eclipsed any sense of personal or collective agency.

And yet, the author of this letter affirms in no uncertain terms: the end is not yet here. Do not listen to the chorus of doom. We have not entered into some kind of mystical “end of history” out of which there is no return. Walk yourselves back from the looming ledge of fear, of despair, of spiritual defeat that they have dragged you to, for we are not finished yet.

“Let no-one deceive you,” the teacher says, “for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction.” And listen to how the text describes this “lawless one” and his “rebellion.” “He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God.” The parallels to our current political situation are uncanny.

And yet let us not be deceived, as the text says. Let us not be fooled into thinking that this lawlessness, this rebellion, this evil that we currently lament is somehow unique to our present time. Many of the injustices that we decry today--mass deportations, police violence, climate devastation, and more, were with us before this current administration took control, and they will be with us when they are gone. There are just certain times when that lawlessness, that rebellion, that sin against God, is removed from the shadows and held up to the light.

It is in moments such as these that we must not be shaken! We must not despair! For even as our faith reveals to us these systems of rebellion, our tradition also announces their destruction.

The text continues, “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming.”

Last Thursday, I went to the asylum hearing of my friend Marco Saavedra. Nearly eight years ago, in the summer of 2012, Marco and one other friend willingly turned themselves in to the Broward Transitional Center, a private, for-profit immigration detention facility, in southern Florida. They turned themselves in to expose the Obama administration, who at the time was deporting a record number of beloved immigrant brothers and sisters. The story that the Administration gave at the time was that those who were being detained and deported were “high priority”--people who had committed “violent or serious crimes,” and they represented a threat to the rest of the community. But Marco and his friends knew that this was not the case. They knew that the majority of people languishing in those jails, torn away from their families, had been picked up by local law enforcement for very minor infractions--an expired tag, a broken tail-light, driving without a license--and transferred into immigration custody for detention and removal. And so Marco and his friend infiltrated themselves into this detention center to shed light on what was really going on.

Over the course of 23 days, they encountered numerous individuals who had in fact not committed serious crimes, and who qualified for release according to the very policy of the government. And so they organized these detainees to raise these concerns from the inside, and his companions on the outside circulated petitions and built community campaigns to put pressure on ICE for their release. And over the course of those 23 days, over 70 individuals were set free, and hundreds of others were mobilized.

During his testimony, Marco described how as a result of this organizing, a wave of hope swept through these detained men. He could see them getting excited, feel the energy in the air. The movement grew so powerfully that one of the leaders, of his own accord, chose to begin a hunger strike, and 300 others immediately joined.

To me, that wave of hope, that powerful movement of solidarity, is a real-live, in-the flesh manifestation of the Holy Spirit. It was the very “breath from the mouth of Jesus” that consumed the very institution that had been erected to keep them in chains. It is that breath that is animating the people of Chile to say “No” to 46 years of Neoliberal repression. It is by that breath that we can all be set free.

And so when they tell you that all is lost, when they tell you the end is near, remember the words of the prophet: “be not shaken.” Be not shaken for we know that the end is not yet here.

Be not shaken, for you have been chosen by God as the “first fruits for salvation.”

Be not shaken for, it is “our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father who gave us eternal comfort and good hope.”

Be not shaken, for as Paul says, “Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.” And as Marco said on Thursday when they asked him if he was afraid, quoting the apostle John, "perfect love casts out all fear."