Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on October 2, 2022, World Communion Sunday. Based on 2 Timothy 1:1-18.
Before I jump into the lesson for the day, I’d like to give a little background on Second Timothy. A good fraction of the New Testament was allegedly written by Paul. Some letters are uncontested—Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, First Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon. There are a few others that may be authentic and at least reflect Pauline theology. Then there are the Pastoral Epistles: First and Second Timothy and Titus. They are called “pastoral” because their contents refer to church organization and administration, and also because they are written to particular individuals who are known to be pastors. Many scholars reject all three, and I would probably never preach from First Timothy or Titus. However, Second Timothy is the most likely of the three to be authentic, and when I read today’s passage, it spoke to me. It reflects a time in Paul’s life that I think has a lesson for our church today. Also, incidentally, like Timothy, my own grandmother’s name was Lois.
Paul is nearing the end of his life. Let’s think about what he has done. He started out a Pharisee, a deeply committed practitioner of Judaism, and to borrow a term from modern discourse, perhaps he was a fundamentalist. He was conservative, at least, in his beliefs and practices, and so he persecuted those who sought to change the focus from Temple worship to following Jesus Christ. After a miraculous encounter on the road to Damascus, followed by days of blindness and then a healing by one of Jesus’s followers, Paul instead became the leading proponent of a new way of following God. As he wrote in today’s passage, he was still committed to following the God of his ancestors; he just had a new understanding of what that meant.
His ministry included several trips around the Mediterranean. He tried to convince Jews to follow Jesus, but eventually determined that his particular calling was to Gentiles. Paul never stopped being a Jew and never stopped believing that his fellow Jews should follow Jesus, but he focused his energy on spreading the Good News of God’s kingdom to those who had previously been locked out of it, but were now welcomed because of Jesus’s saving life, death, and resurrection.
New ideas always give rise to opposition, and Paul’s ministry put him into direct conflict with both Jewish and Gentile leaders. He had a hard life. He was shipwrecked a few times, jailed several times, and flogged. He made good use of his time in prison—many of his letters were written while he was imprisoned, including this farewell message to Timothy. But you can tell from the tone of his writing that he was feeling dejected. He had labored for years to bring Gentiles into God’s kingdom, to spread a message of radical inclusion. Would it all be for naught? We read at the end of today’s passage that “all who are in Asia have turned away” from him. Now, that’s a bit of hyperbole, but Paul was feeling like everyone was abandoning the message that he had taught. He considered himself “a herald and an apostle and a teacher,” and yet his pronouncement and teachings were being forgotten and ignored. He knew his life was coming to an end. He surely believed that he would soon be with his Lord, and yet he cared deeply for the people still living lives separated from God. Would his work die with him?
Well, he could hold on to one hope: that Timothy would carry on the faith. As far as we know, Paul was never married and had no biological children, but he did have spiritual children. He considered Timothy to be like a son to him. The way Paul talks about him is intimate and physical, not just spiritual. It is incarnational.
We modern Christians owe a lot of our belief system to Greek philosophy, including a dualistic belief that the spiritual and material worlds are totally separate, and that the spiritual world is fundamentally superior. Paul didn’t believe that and didn’t teach that. The Jewish belief system that Paul’s Christian theology grew out of is fundamentally incarnational. He didn’t believe that the material world was something terrible to be escaped, but instead was something broken that needed to be healed. One day, this world will be fully transformed into God’s kingdom. In the meantime, Paul taught us to work towards its transformation on a small scale. We cannot change everything for everyone, but we can change the world in a small way for one person at a time.
Paul effected that transformation through deeply personal relationships. He relied on God of course, and particularly on his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but he also needed people like Timothy and Onesiphorus to sustain him.
In the same way, we all need to live incarnational lives. Too often, we separate the spiritual from the material worlds. We pray for mercy on Sunday and work for retributive justice on Monday. We pray for peace but pursue war. We pray for an end to hunger but perpetuate systems that keep people around the world in abject poverty.
We need instead to live an embodied faith. I’ve listened to a few podcasts that interviewed “embodiment coaches.” I found a good explanation of what that means from Michelle Neumann on embodiedpresencenc.com:
An Embodiment Coach is someone who supports you in creating ways of living more consciously and consistently in your body, embracing the present moment, setting intentions and goals from this embodied space, and listening to and following the wisdom your body has to share with you!
Michelle Neumann
This is basically a new term for an old concept. Monastic orders have long taught that we need to live in the present, not dwelling on past heartbreaks or worrying about the future, but simply being in the present moment, seeing God in all things, living in our bodies that are a part of Christ’s body. And what do we do with those bodies? We embody the faith that we have been taught, by Abraham and Moses and Amos and Jesus and Paul. Susan shared a quote a few weeks ago that really resonated with me, because it was also on the wall of my grandma’s house. Etienne de Grellet, a Quaker missionary, once wrote:
I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
Etienne de Grellet
Live in the present moment. See where God is calling you to act, and do it. Each moment comes but once, and if we miss it, it’s gone forever. Take advantage of every opportunity to embody the faith of our ancestors.
What is holding us back? What is holding YOU back? Well, maybe this isn’t true for you, but one thing that commonly holds Christians back is shame. Society has rules and uses shame to enforce them. One rule is to never discuss religion or politics in polite company. Generations of that rule have left us unable to discuss them politely. People assume that if you bring up politics, it’s either to reinforce your bond over shared beliefs or to argue, strenuously, to get them to change their minds. It’s really difficult to have a calm, rational discussion about world events that have a political dimension. Too often, we lapse into sound bites that we have heard from our favorite political commentators, and wind up talking past each other.
In a similar way, people assume that if you are talking about religion, your goal is to browbeat them into changing their minds. Evangelism has become a dirty word, tarnished by decades of aggressive proselytizers. Christians with a particular worldview have gone forth with their Four Spiritual Laws to convert sinners into saints. Do you all know about the four laws? The first one is, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” I can get on board with that. Where it goes off the rails is the second law, “Humanity is tainted by sin and is therefore separated from God. As a result, we cannot know God’s wonderful plan for our lives.” Basically, the Four Laws teaching is that we are all sinful, terrible creatures that need to REPENT! We are worthless but can be saved if we say the sinner’s prayer. Well, for more than fifty years, this has been the most vocal evangelistic message. So if you bring up Christianity, people are on guard. They put up walls and end the discussion.
Most of us respond by just never bringing it up. We don’t want to be rejected because of our beliefs, so we hide our beliefs. We cede the public conversation to those who preach hate in the name of a loving God, and then we’re surprised that nobody wants to come to church. We hide ourselves from the world, and then we’re surprised that nobody knows where to find us when they need the God we worship and adore.
Paul told Timothy, “I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard the deposit I have entrusted to him.” As I said, Paul had a hard life. He could have just put all of his time and energy into tent-making and had a much easier time. But in a culture where shame could mean death, he was unashamed to preach the Good News of God’s inclusive kingdom. He was unashamed to make enemies of both the conservative Jewish synagogue leaders and the Gentile political leaders. He had no fear of making enemies across all social strata. He knew that God’s kingdom was greater than the limited vision the Jewish rabbis taught about, and greater than the powerful Roman empire.
Paul went on to praise Onesiphorus because “he often refreshed [Paul] and was not ashamed of [his] chain.” Paul brought shame upon himself and got himself flogged and imprisoned. Yet he formed relationships through the power of the Holy Spirit that transcended these merely mortal concerns. He was able to find people who understood his mission, who understood that God’s kingdom would transform and transcend this broken world. Paul counseled Timothy, too, to rekindle the gift of God that was within him, a spirit not of cowardice but of power and love and self-discipline. He said, “Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel.”
Paul’s challenge to Timothy is also a challenge to us today. Do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord. But how shall we testify? I suppose I could find a street corner and harangue passersby like some traveling preachers do, but I’m pretty sure that would hurt more than help. That’s what has given evangelism such a bad name. What is the fundamental message of the Gospel? The arrival of God’s kingdom, which is the transformation of this world into a place where everyone knows and loves God, and loves their neighbors as themselves. So the best way to share the Gospel is to share love.
Who should we love? Let me turn that around. Who shouldn’t we love? Who should we reject, revile, and hate in God’s name? Well, I would be hard pressed to identify anyone that Jesus said should be kept out of his kingdom. If I had to name someone, it would be hypocrites and those who ignored the needs of the sick, the poor, and the prisoner. Jesus only ever chastised those who made other people’s lives worse instead of better. So let’s strive to make this world a better place, one person and one relationship at a time. Let’s strive to invite everyone, EVERYONE, into God’s kingdom.
That was Paul’s message. He traveled the Near East preaching a message of radical inclusion. He became like a Jew to the Jews and like a Gentile to the Gentiles. He taught that being circumcised or uncircumcised made no difference. He taught that nothing could ever come between us and God. And yet despite this message of inclusion, or more likely because of his message of inclusion, he was rejected. As he approached the end of his life, he feared that his work would end with him.
Impact. He looked back on his life and wondered, did it matter? Did his work really change anyone’s hearts or minds? Two thousand years later, we can confidently say yes: Paul’s life mattered. He gave his whole self to God, pursuing his calling as a herald, apostle, and teacher. He risked everything for the sake of that calling, likely dying in prison. He had faith that the calling was worth the risk. He relied on the grace of God, promised from before the ages began, to sustain him in this life and the next. He knew that if he gave his whole self to God, his self-sacrifice would matter. His challenge to Timothy is his challenge to us today. Give your whole self to God. Let go of fear and shame, and go forth as a herald, proclaiming God’s all-inclusive, all-loving kingdom. If we do that, if we turn away from a spirit of cowardice, we can be sure that we will be sustained by God’s spirit of power and of love and that we will be a part of God’s kingdom right here, right now, and in the world to come. Amen.
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