Looking into the Lectionary
25th Sunday after Pentecost
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
November 15, 2026
My husband and I recently had new recessed lighting installed in our house. It was a project long overdue especially in our living room which was lit only by lamplight before. When the contractor was finished and we could finally turn the new lights on, I was troublingly excited about something so mundane. When I flipped the switch, my enthusiasm for our new more robust illumination was short lived.
“We really need to paint this room.”
“Those chairs are really threadbare.”
“Has there always been that much dust on the piano?!”
Dim lamplight had hidden all manner of sins.
Paul almost certainly meant his words to the fledgling community in Thessalonica to be comforting. “For you are all children of light and children of the day…” (1 Thess. 5:5 NRSV) In reality, light can be a mixed bag when you have grown accustomed to shadows and the light of Christ exponentially so.
Much has been made of the come-uppance the American church has faced for the last 70 or so years. Since the heydays of the 1950’s, so the narrative goes, we have lost ground in our culture, lost influence in the corridors of power and lost the privileged place we enjoyed for so long. Those things are surely true, but on closer inspection, what have we actually “lost?”
We still have the promises of God proclaimed in the risen Christ.
We still have the gift of the Holy Spirit who entered the fellowship of the church that first Pentecost, took up residence, and continues to inspire generations.
Still, we lament the church that was. It is tempting to look back at the church of the past and lionize it. How many of us have heard the church waxing nostalgic for the “good old days?” In truth, the church then and the church now is an imperfect human institution trying to reflect the perfect Word in the world.
Paul’s words to the Thessalonians reminding them that they — and we — are children of the light is not meant as a dig at those who are not part of the church. He certainly draws a line between those who are in the church and those who are outside it, but that is not a condemnation of the outsider. It is a reminder to those of us who are inside that despite our human temptation to live in the shadows and hide in the darkness, we are children of light.
It is no wonder that Paul immediately moves to tell them that as children of the light and day we need to be sober and prepared, dressed in “the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.” (1 Thess. 5:8 NRSV) Living in the light is not for the faint of heart or the unprepared because like it or not, the light eventually reveals all; even the truth of the cherished past.
Yes, the church of yesteryear was more powerful and influential. But it was built on white privilege, economic privilege and Christian privilege all at the expense of our neighbors pushed to the margins. And if history has taught us anything it is that a foundation of injustice inevitably fails.
Now the church is perfect, right?
Hardly.
Those same systems that supported the church then still exist now and our work is not only to see them but fight and dismantle them. Sometimes we need the light of the gospel and the benefit of hindsight to notice what had been hiding in the shadows. Now that the light of Christ has illuminated to us what we once ignored, Jane Bothwick’s words challenge;
…who dares stand idle on the harvest plain
while all around us waves the golden grain?
And to each servant does the Master say,
“Go work today.”[1]
Paul was right to tell the Thessalonians and us that we need “the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation” if we are to face the darkness of past and present.
We finally did get those chairs recovered. They weren’t a lost cause; the new lights just showed us what we needed to do to.
So, it is with the church of Jesus Christ. The light of Christ continually reveals to us the missteps and injustices of the past not to merely indict us but to help point us toward a more faithful future. May the light of Christ shine on us, lead us and teach us as we seek to be more faithful disciples.
Questions for Reflection
- What parts of the shadowy past has the light of Christ revealed to you?
- What about the past needs to be repaired or addressed to move into the future?
- Where is the light of Christ shining in your world today?
View the corresponding Order of Worship for the 25th Sunday after Pentecost.
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[1] Jane Laurie Bothwick, “Come, Labor On,” in Glory to God (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014), 719.
