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Christ Church Uniting
Disciples and Presbyterians
1300 Kailua Rd.
Kailua, HI 96734
262-6911
UNASHAMED
2 Timothy 2:8-15
In prison. This time Paul expects to die. He has been in prison before. He has walked out before. According to Saint Luke in the Book of Acts of the Apostles, Paul’s former jailer even took him into the jailer’s own home, cleaned him up, begged his forgiveness, and fed him. Not this time. This time Paul is confident. He expects to die. And yet.
The Apostle writes like someone who has won the race, like someone who will soon stand tall between the silver and bronze medallists. He writes like someone confident he ran a good race, kept his eye on the prize. He writes like a proud farmer fully expecting to enjoy a bountiful harvest.
He writes like a field commander still mentoring his troops even after he’s handed over command, even as he jumps into the chopper headed for his new promotion and assignment. Remember what I’ve taught you. Pass it on to others who will teach as well. Paul in is prison. He doesn’t expect any miracle extraction and yet, and yet he’s unashamed.
What might account for Paul’s uncommon, other affirming and courageous behavior? Maybe he’s in denial? I know something about denial. We all do. You see things but you don’t see them. You see two and two but you don’t add them up. You hear a cry of pain but you don’t comprehend and respond.
We all use denial. Sometimes it seems to help. Being in denial about one difficulty might help us focus on a more important one, or so it seems. Mostly, denial leads us into paths of unwelcome surprise and dire straits. It’s just about never helpful to avoid your pain or someone else’s. It’s just about never helpful to turn a blind eye to abuse or destructive behavior, regardless of your position in the pecking order. Paul, however, seems to be in possession of the basic facts of his situation. He doesn’t turn a blind eye. He understands the consequences of his imprisonment well enough. Doesn’t seem like denial.
Perhaps he is putting on a good face for the children, for young and impressionable Timothy? We do this. Sometimes it’s important to do so, especially when the situation we face is something we are working on, something with which a child is incapable of dealing at his or her stage of cognitive or emotional development.
The problem comes, doesn’t it, when we put on the game face, when we put on a good face, not because our friends can deal with what we are facing (more often than not, they can), but because we can’t deal with what we’re facing. This deprives us of the wisdom, love and support of those around us. And it deprives others of valuable truths about real life experience.
Paul seems to have the same face for everyone. He is realistic both in his assessment of his situation and his hope. He hides nothing. He even invites young Timothy to join him in the race, in the jihad, that necessarily involves suffering, for Jesus’ sake.
Perhaps he’s manic-depressive? Is he acutely optimist and effusive one minute and morosely distraught and despairing the next? We know people so afflicted. It’s maddening to those around them. It’s not a moral failing, however, it’s chemical. There’s help.
Does he believe that suffering is a good thing in its own right, suffering has its own reward? Is that why he’s confident in the face of his impending demise? We’ve known people who indulge in suffering, who get off on being the victim, who act as though their suffering gives them the right to trash others, to opt out of life, or to receive special treatment. What can you do with such people? Stay in touch. Don’t let their attitude infect your own.
Nevertheless, this doesn’t sound like the Apostle Paul. He seems to think that being a Christian, like a running a race, or soldiering, or farming, involves hard work, discipline, and even sacrifice. It’s part of the picture of being a Christian, of following Jesus. And there are good reasons, Paul believes, for pressing on.
Is Paul just relieved at being in prison, as though he deserved it all along?. No, Paul feels that the grace he has received, the life he enjoys and expects to enjoy in God’s mercy far outweighs any negative circumstances he presently endures or might endure along the way. Perhaps he thinks that’s just the way life is---that hurting is normal. It’s OK to be hit. This does sound like something some of us learned as children but there’s nothing in Paul to suggest it’s his experience or his teaching.
How does Paul account for his stance? He counts it a privilege to walk the path Jesus walked. He recognizes that the world is in need of change and that walking with Jesus, standing for change, being an agent and beacon of transformation necessarily involves suffering the slings and arrows of those who resist change, who benefit, even without realizing it, from the status quo.
In other words, for the Apostle, this is what it’s all about. Soldiering according to the plan. Running the race according to the rules. Farming is a discipline. Standing with Jesus involves risk and requires boundless energy. He once stood with the oppressors, those who sought to eliminate the Jesus movement. His blindness was revealed. He once stood with the exclusivists. He became an apostle to the gentiles.
What sorts of circumstances threaten our confidence in the gospel? Evil things happening to good people threaten our confidence in the gospel. Paul Haring thinks about this a lot. He is teaching an adult class on suffering before worship for the next several weeks. How about this: Good things happen evil people. Doesn’t this threaten our confidence in the gospel? Why don’t those who, consciously or unconsciously, behave hatefully, or deceitfully, or hurtfully in the world get their comeuppance? What ever happened to karma? Doesn’t it bother you? It bothers me.
What about "burn out"? Doesn’t this threaten our confidence in the gospel? I guess it doesn’t really matter what has brought on the condition of mental, emotional and spiritual exhaustion in which many of us find ourselves. It’s in the air: overwork, overextension, lack of trust in others to do their tasks. It’s as though there are no longer any reasonable boundaries. Others know how to do my job better than I do. I think I have a better idea how you should do your job than you do.
It’s hard to be a church officer, or a parent, or just about anything in today’s culture of "everybody’s an expert on everyone else’s business." In the final analysis, we do it to ourselves. Each of us is saving the world, and we are fried, and the gospel becomes just another pain in the butt thing to worry about. Burn out, overwork, hypersensitivity: these experiences surely threaten our confidence in the Gospel.
The way some people use the gospel to justify horrible things definitely threatens my confidence in the gospel. It bothers me when Jesus is used, or the Bible is used, to justify hateful prejudice to exclude people, to preclude options, to privilege some to the detriment of others.
When childhood faith doesn’t fit what going on in the real world, our confidence in the gospel is threatened. More than one person has looked me straight in the eye and with no small amount of pride said, "I met Jesus as a child and my faith hasn’t changed one bit since then." More’s the pity. Jesus said to meet life with the openness, hope and trust of a child. As children we encountered, explored and embraced the real world around us with an energy and enthusiasm to be envied. Jesus did not say, "Have a childish faith!" Jesus did not say, "Have the faith you had as a child."
I was going to say that a stock market plunge can threaten our faith in the gospel. But that would only make sense for people who thought that the previous bull market in which they realized incredible wealth through their investments was a sign of God’s blessing them since they were basically good people. Right.
When good people treat each other like dirt in the name of Jesus. And where does this happen most commonly? In churches. Doesn’t this bother you and threaten your confidence in the gospel?
Of what then are we unashamed? I am unashamed of God’s inclusive love for all people: regardless of any human condition. I am unashamed of God’s love for Osama bin Laden (whose name was first mentioned in the sanctuary last week by a child. As the scripture says, "A little child shall lead them.") I am unashamed of Jesus’ call to love our enemies, to be a neighbor, to live for justice, to die, if need be, for Shalom, but never never to kill for justice.
I don’t do these things well. I find it difficult to love my enemies. I’m too busy to be a neighbor. I’m unsure how to go about living for justice, to work for God’s reign of peace in the 21st century. I’m afraid of being bashed for speaking about God’s inclusive love for all people whether they are rich or poor, gay or straight, Islam, Buddhist or atheist. I am incomplete. I need further growth and transformation as a Christian and as a pastor. Of this I am aware and unashamed.
We are a small church. We never seem to have enough. Whether it’s money to carry out a mission challenge set before us or leaders to carry off the work God calls us to do, there’s never quite enough. We are always stretching. The work we attempt is greater than we are. We may lose ourselves in the process. I know this and I am unashamed. "If we die with Jesus," Paul wrote to Timothy, "we will also live with him.
Our congregation needs transition graces. We need the grace to welcome new people, to pray with each other, and to support the best thinking of the leadership we have chosen. Right now, we are on the brink. We can follow our leaders and God’s calling into greater service as a strong, small church. People you elected to be church leaders are before your today. Men and women with busy lives of their own who were willing to assume the responsibilities to which you elected them are before you asking for funding for a consultant to help us grow in grace and in ministry. We are on the brink. We can grow forward or we can fall back. I am aware we are on the brink. For this I am grateful and I am unashamed.
I thank God that we acknowledge our need. As the Chinese saying goes, "When the student is ready, the teacher appears." When the child asks for bread, the parent will not hold out a serpent. Neither does God. When we hope and pray for grace and strength, God will not disappoint. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. Those who are well have no need of Jesus. We need God’s spirit in our midst. I am unashamed of our present need for Jesus and the power of God’s transforming spirit in our community life.
We are not in prison. We are not about to be executed but we are on the brink. Praise God, encourage one another and be unashamed!
The Rev. Fabian M. "Buddy " Summers, Pastor,
Christ Church Uniting Disciples and Presbyterians,
Kailua, HI 96734, October 7, 2001
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