PAUL and his companions ministered to the Thessalonians by loving them tenderly and totally (1 Thessalonians 2:7b-9, 13). For Christ, community leadership means the continual integration of faith and life on the part of those called to love and to serve (Matthew 23:1-12).
Like a nursing mother
To describe to the Thessalonians how Paul, Silas and Timothy have come to love them, the apostle did not hesitate to use the metaphor of a nursing mother. Like a nursing mother caring for her children, so have the three actually loved the community of believers in Thessalonica. As a nursing mother tenderly holds a suckling baby to her breast, reassuring and calming it, so have they embraced the Thessalonians protectively and with tender love. The new converts in Thessalonica were in fact infants in the faith, needing tender, maternal care from the three missionaries. And this maternal love is not like a reward given to the Thessalonians, for the three loved them even before they became Christians.
A mother’s love for her child drives her to give to the child what she has and, indeed, what she is. The child is flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood, fashioned out of the mother’s own substance, and now nourished from her body. By analogy, Paul and his companions have wholeheartedly shared the Gospel with the faithful in Thessalonica, and have generously given of their very selves. In a unilateral relationship that does not include reciprocal giving, the mother and the missionaries give of themselves without any thought of receiving anything in return apart from the satisfaction that one has given of oneself to someone so dearly loved.
Not demanding anything for oneself
Paul and his fellow missionaries have not demanded anything in return for themselves. They could naturally expect hospitality from their converts to take care of their physical needs as traveling preachers (Luke 10:7). But they did not cash on this prerogative, instead they worked “night and day in order not to burden any” of the Thessalonians even as they were preaching the Gospel to them. They plied their respective trades, Paul as a tentmaker (Acts 18:3), to earn their own keep so as not to impose themselves financially to anybody.
Paul wrote about their “toil and drudgery” in Thessalonica that the Christians saw of them. They did not spare themselves of untiring and diligent efforts for the sake of the Gospel. They could not ask and expect the Thessalonians to accept the rigors of the Gospel and the Christian way of life if they have not witnessed their own teachers doing the same. Paul could give thanks to God unceasingly because both the teachers and their converts have received the Word of God generously and fruitfully. By the fruit it is evident that what they have preached and the people received is not human fabrication but God’s Word of life.
The servant as the greatest
The Pharisees and the scribes were clearly not the favorite people of Jesus. They have taken their seat on the chair of Moses, meaning they are the legitimate successors of Moses in interpreting the Law; that is why what they teach of the Law should be listened to and observed. Their office is authentic, but the disparity between their position and their way of life and behavior is damnable. Their personal example must not be imitated, for they do not practice what they preach. What they teach is for others only, not for themselves also. What they do is not for adoration of God, but for self-adulation. They love to be praised. They go out of their way to call attention to themselves and be given special honors and privileges.
For Jesus, such self-centeredness and pomposity should have no place among his followers. What they form is a community of equals, of “brothers and sisters”; titles for the sake of privileged status should be shunned. They have one “teacher,” one “Father,” one “master”; they should not be desirous to be so called. Instead, what each must aspire for is to be the servant, for such is the greatest among the followers of Jesus, because in the end those who exalted themselves will be humbled, while those who humbled themselves will be exalted.
Alálaong bagá, it is essential that we are not only hearers but doers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that we are not only good in talking about the Word of God but faithful in living according to it. If we do not practice what is preached to us or what we ourselves preach to others, our duplicity of life is our condemnation. Listening and acquiescing and talking are not enough; like an artist turning a mental picture into reality in oils or stone, the Christian must translate his/her inner faith into deeds and lives of love and service.
Paul and his fellow missionaries exemplified this gospel pedagogy of not merely imparting religious knowledge but gifting others with oneself—like a nursing mother literally giving of herself to her child. Like Fathers Favali and Tentorio in Mindanao not only preaching but also giving themselves that the people may have life; like any sincere public servant not in it for oneself but for the people.
Join me in meditating on the Word of God every Sunday, 5 to 6 a.m. on dwIZ 882, or by audio-streaming on www.dwiz882.com. Visit me online, http://alalaongbaga.multiply.com.
