“Give encouragement to each other, and keep strengthening each other, as you do already” (1 Thessalonians 5:11)
Reflection for Tuesday the 31st of August 2021 in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time
I have been observing a trend of pastoral stories building up in the Nigerian Churches, especially in the protestant churches. One of such stories is the recent relief of a pastor from ministry with the argument that he fails to build up an increasing number of faithful. In other words, the pastor is unfruitful in recruiting new followers to the Church and sustaining existing adherents. Given this pastoral background, a story is told about a man who goes to see his pastor to tell him that he wants to stop coming to the church. The pastor surprisingly becomes curious, wondering why he wants to stop coming to the church. He proceeds to ask the man why he wants to stop coming to the Church. The answer the man gives is surprising. The man says, “I see people on their cell phones during church service, some of them are gossiping, some of them are not living right, and they are all hypocrites.”
The Pastor grows silent to think a bit about the man’s reasons for wanting to stop coming to Church. The Pastor then says to the man, “before I advise you on what you could possibly do, could you do something for me? Take a glass of water and walk two times around the church.” “Please, do not let a drop of water fall from the glass,” the pastor added. The man answers “yes I can do that.”
After some minutes, the man comes back and says it is done. Then the pastor asks him three questions: (1) while you were carrying out this exercise, did you see anybody on their phone? (2) Did you see anybody gossiping? (3) Did you see anybody living wrong? The man replies, “I didn’t see anything because I was focused on carrying out the exercise, so as not to let out a drop of water.” The pastor finally advises him, “if you come to the church, you should focus on Jesus, so as not to let the actions of others draw you away from Jesus.”
As I reflect on the first reading from the first letter of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, I am moved to share with you on building up a culture of encouragement within and for our community. Building up a culture of encouragement within ourselves is bringing alive hope or confidence to ourselves, bringing life to ourselves, and sharing the life with our community and those around us. It presupposes that we consciously create a personality that is life-giving and shows traits of appreciation, gratitude, and goodwill towards others.
St. Paul tells us that we do not need anything written to us as to the times and the seasons that Jesus will come because we know within ourselves that Jesus will come (1 Thess. 5:1-2). Why is St. Paul appealing to self-evident truth, as opposed to giving us reasons? Isn’t it straight-thinking to give us reasons? I would like to suggest that St. Paul wants to shift our attention from thinking of dates, times, and seasons to thinking about how well we are building a culture of encouragement within ourselves and for those around us so that through it we obtain salvation and live with Jesus who died for us (1 Thess. 5:9-10). In other words, it becomes a question of have we built up a culture of encouragement for our community? Are we building a culture of encouragement for those around us? And will those coming behind us find us worthy to have built a culture of encouragement?
Like the man in our story who becomes preoccupied with the lifestyle of other people, we could fall into the temptation of being preoccupied with the lives of others, so much so that we end up living their lives for them and fail to motivate ourselves to take up a course of action or continue doing something beneficial to us. Our focus should be on Jesus who invites us to build a culture of encouragement within ourselves and for those around us.
As Jesuits in formation, we could be out of touch with what might be happening to our brothers in the same community. The temptation would be overidentifying with brothers in our province. We could also be out of touch with why we desire to be Jesuits? What kind of Jesuits do we desire to become? And how do we desire to become such Jesuits? In other words, we could be out of touch with our identity.
Today, St. Paul invites us, through the first reading, to build up a culture of encouragement within and for our community. He invites us to bring alive hope, confidence, or courage to those around us and to share it in our community. He invites us to co-create with him a personality that is life-giving and shows traits of appreciation, gratitude, and goodwill. He invites us to turn our eyes and gaze upon Jesus.
We pray for the grace to “give encouragement to one another, and to keep strengthening one another, as we do already” Lord hear us!
By Michael Akashi Ikpodon SJ