Before the Happy Ending

Luke 21:5-19
November 16, 2025
William G. Carter

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, "As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down." They asked him, "Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?" And he said, "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and, 'The time is near!' Do not go after them.

 

"When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately." Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

 

"But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name.

 

But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

 

A month ago, or so, I was flipping through the TV channels and caught the end of an old film from 2004. The film was called “National Treasure.” Remember it? Nicholas Gage plays a treasure hunter. He and his team steal the Declaration of Independence out of the archives, use it to find some clues, and discover an enormous treasure hidden beneath Trinity Church in lower Manhattan.

It’s a bit far-fetched but satisfying. The treasure is found. The criminals are arrested. The treasure hunters are rewarded. The guy gets the girl. The sidekick gets a Ferrari. An ending like that is satisfying. So satisfying that I kicked back to see what was coming on next. 

It was the sequel, “National Treasure 2 – Book of Secrets.” As that story got rolling, it was a few years later. The guy has broken up with the girl. The sidekick had his Ferrari impounded by the IRS. A good bit of the money is gone. It turns out that first ending was only a resting place. There was more to the story.

Isn’t that a lot more like real life?

It’s particularly true for church people like us. We enjoy a happy ending. We want a satisfying conclusion. We want everything to turn out well. Sometimes we will even skip the rough parts and wait for the resolution. Like the person who confessed they were going to skip out on the season of Lent. I asked, “Why are you telling me this?” She said, “You announced you were preaching a sermon series on the cross. I thought I would wait until Easter and the resurrection.” Turns out she also had a couple of weeks booked at a resort in Cabo, but I know what she was thinking.

We want the happy ending. Turn that frown upside down.

It’s the difference between the old mystery novels of Agatha Christie and P.D. James. Miss Christie spun those British tales with ingenuity. The wayward son returns home after many years. The governess blushes. The old man in the wheelchair has an unexpected heart attack. His cranky wife is the suspect. The visiting niece suspects it was more than a coronary event, especially since there was a trust fund involved. She investigates and discovers her hunch was correct. The governess is guilty of slipping Brazilian herbs in the old man’s tea. The niece discovers she isn’t actually a relative – which is good, because she has fallen in love with the wayward son. He proposes, she accepts, they inherit a seaside mansion on the coast of Devon, and they promptly become pregnant. Everything unrolls in a straight line.

That won’t do for P.D. James. Her British mysteries have far more grit. One tragedy occurs and it sets three more in motion. An answer emerges, a case is solved, but the damage created by the crimes still lingers. If there is a happy ending, it is provisional.

All this talking about treasure hunts and mystery novels provides a way into thinking about our text. Jesus says the end is coming. The mystery will be solved. Everything will work out – but not yet. There will be a lot more troubles to come. The meantime will be the meanest time.

The list of events that he gives is ominous. Jesus anticipates the Jerusalem Temple will be torn down. A charismatic leader will lead many astray. False prophets will predict the end of time. Wars will break out. Earthquakes will tumble down steeples. This will lead to famines, desolation, and widespread poverty. It’s a grim list. A lot of terrible things will happen. And every time something likes this happens, an anxious church might wave the Bible and cry, “See, he predicted this. It’s happening now. The end is near!”

What anxiety cannot perceive is that these terrible things are always happening. They always have. They always will. Jesus is not predicting these events. Rather he’s describing them. After all, in Luke’s story, Jesus says all of this within a week of being crucified. And yes – God will raise him from the dead. Easter does come – but Easter happens in a world that still creates a lot of damage. Earthquakes still happen. Good people starve. Solar flares appear in the sky and scare a lot of folks. Charismatic nut-jobs lead a lot of people astray. Has any of this changed? No, not at all. It’s always been true. It’s still true.

What has changed is that the troubles do not define us. The powers of death do not hold us captive. The dominion of evil has been cracked open. A world may be suffocating on its own lies, but that doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as the truth. Jesus says now is the time to dig in. Now is the time to stick with what’s real, not give in to what’s false. Now is the time to breathe a sigh of relief. We belong to God, and not to the chaos. We belong to Christ who has been wounded yet now is full of life. We belong to the Holy Spirit, who gives us a Word to speak when we would otherwise be speechless.

The Bible word for this is “testimony.” It is the remarkable, God-inspired ability to stand up when others are sitting down. To reach out when others have pulled back in fear. To connect when others are tempted to isolate.

To feed others when grocery prices are high and politicians have been playing games with our food programs. What do we do? We testify.

Thank you to all who built a mountain of food to share with the hungry and to the Deacons who took the food where hungry folks can obtain it. Thanks to all of you who fed hundreds of people from the Hickory Street neighborhood just a few weeks ago. Thank you to those who have now invited forty families to come to our drive-through food pantry once a month. We could have played it safe and stuck to ourselves. But you chose to testify that God wants his children to eat. It’s not about politics, but about the Kingdom of God. That’s what we are talking about.

The Day will come, the Blessed Day, when the Table is set before us even in the presence of our enemies. All of us shall feast at God’s banquet hall. That’s the End, the Final End. Before we get there, we have work to do.

Or there’s the reality that a lot of churches are running out of fuel. The old buildings are showing their age. Communities have changed. The numbers are declining. In the words of baseball great Yogi Berra, “The future ain’t what it used to be.” It is tempting to give in, give up, and go away.

But then we hear Jesus tell his gang, “Look at the big temple over there? See how big it is? Remember how it thought it was the only show in town? And it’s coming down.” He wasn’t telling that God is dead, but he was declaring the eternal God is not bound to our buildings, our structures, and our haphazard histories. God is greater than the temples that worship him. God is not bound by our circumstances.

That reminds me of First Presbyterian Church of Hazelton. In its heyday, the sanctuary seated about six hundred souls, most of them related to the management of the thriving coal industry around that city. That was then. These days, there are a dozen Presbyterians left who gather for worship. They meet in a small room downstairs.

To make ends meet, they rented the sanctuary to a Spanish-speaking congregation. Once upon a time, the community had a huge majority of English-speaking folks; these days, 75% of Hazelton speaks Spanish. The Spanish-speaking renters meet up in the sanctuary and filled the place. Yet the Presbyterians were on the hook for a monthly heat bill of $6000 and a lot of deferred maintenance. What to do? They were stuck.

Then the Holy Spirit spoke up, gave them some words, opened a way forward. The Presbyterians said to their guests, “Why don’t we sell you the building if you wouldn’t mind letting us worship downstairs?” A reasonable price was set, the deed transferred, and new friendships forged. Both Presbyterians and Pentecostals are testifying that all are welcome, that God is worshiped in many languages, and that, in the other famous words of Yogi Berra, “It’s not over until it’s over.”[1] And it ain’t over yet!

This is a broken world. It won’t be fixed until the final day. Jesus told his twelve, “There’s a lot of trouble that will still keep coming. There’s resistance to the work that I do. Don’t be surprised by that. But don’t be lazy. And don’t give up.”

A couple of weeks ago, some of you learned about Dietrich Bonhoeffer in one of our classes. He was a brilliant thinker, earned his Ph.D. at 21. A strong Lutheran Christian, he hated the Nazis and what was happening in his German homeland. When the Nazis were closing in on him and his family, he hid some of his theological writings. Some were stashed in the attic of his parents’ home. Others were buried in the backyard.

They were mostly essays on ethics. He was not quite ready to turn them into a book. If he had survived the prison where he was later held, this is probably the book he would have written. Here was the question he was writing about: what’s the right thing to do in an imperfect world? In an unfinished world? In a broken world? There will be the ultimate conclusion of God’s final salvation. But we live in the penultimate time, he wrote, the time before the end.

We can’t pretend all is well. And we can’t deny Christ has revealed what the Jewish prophets foretold: that all things will be made well someday. So, we live in between, living in the penultimate, not the ultimate. We keep our vision on what God will finish – yet we constantly judge “what is good and necessary” as we perceive the world as it is. We won’t get it right, but we can do our best to align our words, our actions, and our hopes with what we perceive God will be doing with this imperfect world.

In other words, before the happy ending, there is work to be done. There is truth to be told and people to be fed. There are children to raise in uncertain times and commitments to be kept. There are people to love and long-term colleagues to celebrate. There are bodies to care for, and stewardship of our bodies to consider after our days here are concluded. Each of us has a testimony to tell and a Gospel to share.

And the Risen Christ – the wounded Risen Christ – will be with us until the end. Even beyond the End. He is the One who says, “By your endurance, you will gain your souls.” There are a lot of words flying around out there, but this is the good news before the happy ending.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] There’s more to this remarkable story. Read about it online at https://www.syntrinity.org/featured/a-century-later-first-hazletons-organ-goes-home-to-pasadena/

How the Righteous Live

Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
November 2, 2025
William G. Carter

The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous— therefore judgment comes forth perverted.

 

I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint. Then the Lord answered me and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.

We don’t hear a lot from the prophet Habakkuk, A text like this appears only once every three years if the church is lucky and the preacher is daring. There is a section of the Old Testament called the “minor prophets.” That’s where Habakkuk resides. He is one of the more minor of the minor prophets. The record of his life’s work takes up just a couple of pages from the sixth century B.C. 

But his words matter a great deal. Did you hear his opening cry? “O Lord, are you listening? I cry for help, and it feels like you’re not there. I see violence on the streets, and you don’t rescue. I see destruction, violence, and division. Nobody’s paying attention to the law, and the wicked are getting their way.”  

Here is a prophet who sees the world going amuck. There’s nothing he can do about it. He has the courage to speak up, and that counts for something. He voices his complaint which certainly is not his complaint alone. Habakkuk speaks for his people. They live in chaos and disorder. All the old certainties have crumbled. All the voices of good judgment have been muted. There’s danger. There is corruption. The nation – which in this case is God’s nation – is coming unraveled. So, he shakes his fast at heaven. “Why aren’t you coming to help?”

We don’t hear it in the cutting of our text, but God does answer. And it doesn’t get any better. In short, God says, “I’m raising up the Babylonians to come and teach your country a lesson.” Ouch! And that did happen. Rather than surveying the history lesson, I’m interested in the conversation. For Habakkuk declares, “God, how can you let this happen? You are a God of holiness. Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil.”

He goes on a good bit further with some slightly obscure Hebrew poetry. Then Habakkuk folds his arms and says, “I’m going to stand here and watch for an answer. I’m going to wait until God answers me.” And he stands there, and he stands there, and he waits…

Then the Voice of heaven comes in a whisper. “There is a vision, a holy vision. There is an end of suffering yet to come. Write that down. Write it down in 72-point font. Make it obvious. Make it clear. Habakkuk, can you see the vision?” (And I’m sure the prophet says to himself, “Oh yes, I can see it. I can see the vision – but when is it coming, this end of suffering?”) The Lord Almighty says, “Wait for it. It’s coming. Wait for it.”    

Then, after what I can only guess was an hour-long interlude, God speaks again, “The righteous live by faith.” That’s really the message of the book. “The righteous live by faith.” To tell you the truth, that’s the invitation that God sets before us all.

The world is a mess. In the time of Habakkuk, it was a mess. Looking around our own time, it’s still a mess. So we may remember a time when things worked out pretty well, the sun was out, the flowers were blooming, the family was happy, everybody was well. I’ll bet you can remember a time like that. It was pretty good, wasn’t it?

But why didn’t it last? Precisely because the world is a mess. We have these seasons of goodness, and they are interrupted by seasons of evil. They come; they go. One person’s goodness may prompt another person’s evil. Life is complicated like that – because we are complicated by that.

No sooner does Habakkuk write down the vision, God’s glorious vision of healing and well-being, he begins to diagnose why life goes afoul. You can guess what he sees: greed that plunders other people, arrogance that shrugs off responsibility, violence that sidesteps accountability, self-indulgence that wallows in its own self-indulgence. As someone translates the prophet’s diagnosis, “Look at the one who is full of himself but soul-empty.”[1] It was true then. It’s true now.

Yet “the righteous live by faith.”

Faith in what? Faith in God. Every time something terrible happens, a lot of us will say, “That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.” People are not supposed to go hungry while politicians throw a Halloween party. A little schoolgirl in Dunmore is not supposed to have her father snatched away by the immigration police. Good people are not supposed to be taken from us by gunshots or unpredictable illness. Bad people are not supposed to plunder and cheat and live by their own corruption. Not the way it’s supposed to be!

The reason we can say, “That’s not the way it’s supposed to be” is because we have seen the vision – God’s vision, written plain for all to see. There is a benchmark for human behavior – to live in loyalty to God and love for one another. To offer an alternative to selfishness. To offer an antidote to isolation. To look higher and work for the benefit of all. To make financial sacrifices so that others can flourish. To lift up those who have been stepped on far too long. To sit with those who are diminished. To pledge that no person goes to bed hungry, especially while others are feasting.

We live by faith in a God who teaches us how to live. If, from time to time, we grumble at God as Habakkuk did, we still have the vision. It has been written down, and it is clear. Heaven waits to see if we will live by love of God and love of neighbor. That is the continuing invitation.

When this church invites you to make an offering of yourself, it’s asking for more than kicking in for the heat bill. It’s a pledge to support everything that happens in and through this building and these people. It’s more than buying the communion bread and paying for a preacher to break it. It’s a pledge to sing and pray and struggle together as the body of Christ broken to feed the world. It's a commitment to keep growing, learning, and loving.

When we say yes to the things of God – we say no to anything false that demeans, divides, or destroys. “Write down the vision,” God says to the prophet. Live it to the end. Stay at it. Persevere with all patience. And don’t be swayed by all the nonsense that the world throws at you to scare you or lead you astray. The righteous live by their faith.

There’s a great line from Wendell Berry, poet, tobacco farmer, and social critic. In his poem, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” Berry proposes an extensive list of alternatives to the insanity of the world. Here’s one of my favorites: “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”[2] In the face of a twisted and tormented world, this is not a simple solution, nor is it a finished answer. But it hints at how God calls us to live – with eyes wide open, with hearts wide open, with trust, hope, commitment, and joy.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Eugene Peterson’s translation of Habakkuk 2:3 in The Message.

[2] Wendell Berry, in Collected Poems (San Francisco: North Point, 1984) 151-152.

Rescued From the Lion’s Mouth

2 Timothy 4:6-22
Ordinary 33
October 26, 2025
William G. Carter

As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

Do your best to come to me soon, for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful in my ministry. I have sent Tychicus to

above all the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will pay him back for his deeds. You also must beware of him, for he strongly opposed our message.

At my first defense no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them! But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. Erastus remained in Corinth; Trophimus I left ill in Miletus. Do your best to come before winter. Eubulus sends greetings to you, as do Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brothers and sisters. The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.

I don’t know about you, but we often receive mail that was not intended for us. If it’s a credit card statement or a utility bill, we take it back to the post office and ask them to get it right. If it’s an advertising flyer, my tendency is to throw it in the recycling bin unless it’s interesting. Then, I might take a peek. It’s extremely rare to get personal letters at all, much less letters that are misdelivered. 

When we read the New Testament letters of Paul, we are reading letters that were never intended for us. At some point, the church decided we have something to learn by overhearing this personal correspondence. Paul mentions people we do not know. He says, “Tell Prisca and Aquila that I said hello. Greet the household of Onesiphorus.” We don’t know who that is. But we keep looking over his shoulder. Today, unlike most of Paul’s other letters, we listen in to somebody who has traveled a very bumpy road.

In this letter, Paul is an old man, far from home. He's tired. He’s cold. He is worn out. In an uncharacteristic moment, he admits about how other people have let him down. He usually doesn't grumble like this. Paul frequently stays upbeat and positive, and usually takes the high road. Yet today we hear a twinge of weariness in his voice.

"Dear Timothy," he writes, "do your best to come and see me. Demas ran off to Thessalonica, chasing after the pleasures of this world. Crescens has gone to Galatia. Titus disappeared in Dalmatia. I sent Tychicus back home to Ephesus. Now I'm stuck here all alone, with only Luke to keep me company."

Paul says, "Bring that cloak I left behind in the fellowship hall at Troas. Pack up my books and my parchments. Bring them too." Here is a man who is summing up his life at the close of day.  He says, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race. The time of my departure has come."

This is a remarkable moment of self-reflection. Maybe that's why the apostle sizes up his successes and failures. Like Alexander the coppersmith. We don't know much about him, except that Paul was ready to write him off. "He did me great harm," said Paul, "and the Lord will pay him back for his deeds."  Then he gets on his high horse: "You also must beware of him, for he strongly opposed our message."  Then he starts wagging his finger, "At my first defense, no one came to my support. Everybody deserted me."

These are the words of somebody who comes up short. According to the accounts, nobody worked as hard as the apostle. Paul traveled throughout the known world, preaching the good news about Jesus, debating in the synagogues, starting churches, training the next generation of leadership, working tirelessly. There was opposition along the way – of course there was resistance and opposition – but he accomplished so much.

At the end, most of his closest companions had left him. Everything he worked so hard to accomplish seems at risk. His entire life’s work might be circling around the drain. In this letter, he gave a lot of encouragement to young Timothy. It sounds like he could use bit in return. He’s disappointed. Anybody knows how he feels?

Some of us raise our kids, teach them to stand up and be productive. We encourage them to be independent. And they are so good at being independent that they never call, forget to keep in touch, make other plans at Thanksgiving. It’s disappointing.

Or there was the dream job. From the moment it’s posted, you imagine how good it would be: more money, better hours, more vacation time, greater responsibility, in an excellent location. And then you get the job, and it’s all those things – and it’s also a whole lot less. As a wise old sage said, “If it looks like the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, just remember it’s still grass. It’s only grass.” That can be disappointing.

Others of us can’t wait for the holiday catalogs to arrive. All these wonderful things we never thought to purchase, and here they are in glossy splendor, with the enticing tag line, “Free shipping.” So we put together the wish list, give out quiet hints, live in patient hope. Christmas comes, and there is the perfectly shaped package. Rip open the paper, squeal in delight, and it’s the wrong size, or the wrong color, or nothing like we expected.

How do we deal with disappointment? Sometimes the best way is to push through it, stay positive, spin the situation in an affirming way. Squeeze that lemon into lemonade. Turn that frown upside down. Accentuate the positive.

Or in Paul’s situation, begin by listing your accomplishments. How does he spin the situation of weariness, abandonment, and disillusion? He says, “I’ve fought the good fight, finished the race, kept the faith, and I know there is a crown of righteousness waiting for me. And you can have that crown, too!”

Yet it sounds empty when the next words out of his mouth are, “Demas has abandoned me, Alexander the silversmith has done me wrong.” Which is it, Paul? The good fight or the lingering resentment? A good place to stand is in the honesty of that ambivalence, and say, “All the above, and I’m a tangled mess.”

Of course, another time-honored approach to disappointment is to reduce our expectations. The runner-up to the contest says, “The winner was a lot better than me.” Or the graduate with below-modest grades says, “I wasn’t valedictorian material anyway.” Or the bar-room romantic describes his girlfriend by singing the old country song, “She wasn’t much to look at except through the bottom of a beer glass.” Hear all of that? Reduced expectations.

Sometimes it’s called “putting cushions on the floor,” a softening of the outcome. Yesterday, I married off my nephew near Ithaca, New York. At the hotel yesterday morning, there was a swarm of young women, most of them six feet tall or taller. Women’s basketball team? No, the Columbia University volleyball team. They were in town to play Cornell. I looked them up on the internet – Columbia was 2-15.

I checked last night. Columbia is now 2-16. We can imagine the pep talk on the bus ride home. “At least we won two. There are more games to come.”

Sometimes the best way to salvage a disappointment is to look for the blessing in the middle of the experience. It can be a way of parenting. The beloved girlfriend dumps the sophomore, and me, and Mom might say, “Well, wait for the right one.” Thanks, Mom, even though there is little consolation. Or a six-point buck kissed your bumper on a Friday night, Dad says, “The car can be replaced but not you.” The intent is there.

Someone calls this, “Looking for the grace in the grit.” That’s a great phrase. There may be flecks of gold in the mud, so look again.

It sounds like the advice of Yoda to Luke Skywalker. In one of the Star Wars movies to say, “Pass on what you have learned. Strength, mastery, hmm… but weakness, folly, failure also. Yes: failure, most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is. Luke, we are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.” True enough.

And if we look at Paul’s final words, we see plenty of grace in the grit, blessing in the brokenness, and mercy in the mess. He laments how everybody ran out on him. “They all ran away,” he says. “Everybody deserted me.” Did he remember that happened to Jesus, too? Thugs came to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane while everybody else ran away. Yet Jesus had the graciousness to say, “Father, forgive them. Forgive them all.” There’s Gospel there.

So, Paul takes a breath. He has been abandoned, and he prays, “I hope these things aren't counted against them." It's a remarkable turn, a turn toward mercy. Sometimes the Gospel appears in the small details.

And then, as Paul unloads about how weak he feels, how abandoned he is, how there’s nobody except Luke by his side – what does he do? He names all the people he still loves. They are out there somewhere, cheering him on, grateful for his life’s work, affirming what he cannot see in himself on that cloudy day.

There’s Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. Then he adds, "Eubulus sends greetings to you, as do Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brothers and sisters." We don’t know any of those people, either, but isn’t it striking that Paul, who cries “boo hoo” that nobody is with him --- still has people with him. Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and “all the brothers and sisters.”

It's a good reminder that the circle of support is always larger than he think it is. There are cheerleaders on your side of the field. Today they are all around you.

All of this brings us to the final insight. It’s best summarized in one of our old hymns:

“Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer!
 In his arms he'll take and shield you; you will find a solace there.

Friends can be helpful. Or they can be fickle. But Christ himself stands with us. Paul can finally confess it: “The Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.” He got through it. By the grace of God, he got through it.

Maybe you remember that poem, “Footprints in the Sand”? Some of you may have that printed and posted on the living room wall. Someone has a dream, sees two sets of footprints in the sand. It’s a sign the Lord has been walking alongside. Then the dreamer sees a section of the sand with only one set of footprints, and says, “Lord, did you abandon me when things got tough?” “No, my child,” comes the reply, “I was carrying you.”

There is a variation on that little poem. According to the variation, Christ says, “My child, I never left you. Those places with one set of footprints? It was then that I carried you. And that long groove over there is when I dragged you for a while.” That sounds a good bit more accurate.

Walking beside, carrying, or dragging us – it’s all a good reminder that life is not really about us. It’s about Christ, the Christ who rescues and saves. Paul looks back upon his life, names his disappointments, names his friends, names his needs – and reaffirms he couldn’t have gotten through all of it without the invisible, incomprehensible grace that holds us when we feel weak and all seems lost.

The good news of the Gospel is that God finishes what we cannot. The saving is not up to us. Paul has the clarity to finally say, “the Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever.”

And in case we need it said again, he says it again. “The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.” That is always the final word.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

Do Your Ears Itch?

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
October 19, 2025
William G. Carter

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it,  and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

 

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.

 

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.

Today’s memory verse is inscribed on our bulletin cover. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. It’s quite the verse. There’s nothing quite like it in the Bible.

Today’s Psalm is close. Psalm 119 is a long meditation on the value of God’s teaching. It has 176 verses, all of them grouped by a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. God instructs us by wisdom through the texts of the teaching. We heard only eight verses from that psalm, which constitutes the longest chapter of the Bible. If there is a singular theme, it is: God’s words are good for us. The Torah – that is, the Instruction – saves our lives.

Today’s prophetic text takes this understanding forward. The prophet Jeremiah has taken note that, just because there’s a Bible, that doesn’t mean anybody reads it. Or that they follow it. Or that they understand it. Lamenting that this lack of engagement has led his nation into ruin, the prophet foresees a day when all of God’s people will know the Torah and understand the Torah. Not because it is written in a book, but because God has inscribed it upon their hearts.

Then we have this text, this memory text, from the second letter from an old pastor to a young preacher. We will call the old pastor “Paul.” The young preacher’s name is “Timothy.” It is clear they share a high regard for scripture. Paul speaks of the “sacred writings,” plural. He alludes that these writings come from different times, through different authors, addressing different topics in diverse ways.

Yet the scriptures share some common purposes. They are useful for teaching, that is, teaching the ways of God. They are texts intended for training – “training in righteousness,” he says. That is, they teach us how to live. Not just what to think but what to do. And then, Paul says something dramatic: “All scripture is breathed by God.”

For some, that’s why this is the memory verse. They believe God blew words onto the page; the text doesn’t specify this, but some folks have a high enough view of the Bible that this is what they believe. They overlook that that the original texts were written down in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, or that there are scores of competing translations, or that there are several wrinkles in the manuscripts. Some of those handwritten manuscripts disagree with others. A few are missing a verse or two. The Gospel of Mark has at least three different endings. And so on.

None of this undermines what Paul is saying. He is saying God “breathes.” The inspiration is the respiration. When we ordain elders, deacons, and pastors, we ask in effect, “Do you accept the Scriptures to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ – and God’s Word to you?” It’s that phrase “by the Holy Spirit” that matters. God’s Spirit breathes upon the text, within the text, and then upon us – and that’s how the words get written upon our hearts. God’s respiration is our inspiration.

The bottom line is that what we need to know is in the Book. By the Spirit of God, it can be a living Book. A life-giving Book. A saving, salvaging Book. That’s why we honor it.

And I have to say, the more we read the book, the more hidden treasures we find. I’m not talking about secret codes or ancient treasures, but treasures. Some of them are so human they are a hoot. Like Proverbs 22: “Make no friends with hotheads, lest you learn their ways and entangle yourself in a snare.” (22:24-25) Good advice! Given that, I can think of a few television channels to turn off.

Or there’s my favorite story of the prophet Elisha. Some Cub Scouts made fun of his bald head, so Elisha utters a curse. A mama bear comes out of the woods to teach them a lesson. Point is, don’t make fun of God’s prophet. Or else! The tale probably began as a campfire story to warn the kids.

There are little treasures, highly human. Last Thursday the Men’s Breakfast group finished an exhaustive reading of the Acts of the Apostles. We decided to read next one of the letters by Paul. So, we’ll start with the letter to the Philippians. I can’t wait to tell them there’s a swear word in chapter three (don’t look for it now). His point is not the swear word – he was writing about Jesus and how everything else smells like the stuff you scape off your shoe.

The point is God’s holiness is imparted to everyday humanness. There is holiness. And there is humanness. Just like Jesus, they are bound together as one. Let’s not tint the pages of this book in gold and put spotlights on it without reading it. The Bible is only as good as our engagement with it. Are we sinking into the pages so that God’s wisdom can sink into us? That’s what counts.

Our worship committee recently surveyed the Bibles in our pews. Some of them are worn out. That’s a great problem to have! A sanctuary with Bibles that are falling apart. I imagine you’ll help us replace them when the appeal is made. Because the Bible is good for us. When God breathes the ancient words of alive, we come alive. Faith, hope, and love come alive.

So, you might ask, why all this emphasis on the Bible? I’m glad you asked. Good question. Paul brings up the Bible because he knows all the other messages out there in the world. Without God’s instruction, a world left to its own impulses becomes ugly and twisted out of shape. Right before our text, right before Paul speaks so glowingly of the Bible, he describes what he calls his own “distressing times.” Here’s the list, from the beginning of chapter three:

For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unfeeling, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. (2 Timothy 3:2-5)

This is how he describes those who live without God. They are totally turned in upon themselves. They abuse others. They build themselves up while they tear others down. Some of them are so intoxicated by their selfishness that they wrap themselves in religious talk as they cut down their neighbors. Pretty horrifying, isn’t it? And it needs to be said that all of us are prone to turn in upon ourselves. Without God, without God’s instruction, that’s who we could become. That’s the human condition.

That’s the canine condition, too. Let me explain. We have two Springer spaniels in our home. Both are getting up in years, but they are lovely companions. They both like to have their ears rubbed. I mention that because that’s the phrase Paul uses to describe the beastly tendencies of the human animal – they have itchy ears.

Well, Pippa and Oakley like to have their ears scratched. It’s intoxicating. It gives them great pleasure. It’s the dog version of catnip. Scratch their ears. If you stop, they tap you with a paw. “Keep going! Don’t stop. Ooh, that feels so good. Yes, that’s it. Right there.”

And Paul says this is how some people are. They want their ears scratched. They listen only to what they want to hear. They change the channel if an adverse word is spoken. Either that, or they say, “You can’t trust the news” or “I have my own set of facts.” Or worse they say, “Just keep scratching my ears.” Keep me intoxicated by my own insulated experiences. Don’t try to teach me anything that would make me a better person. No, scratch my ears. Keep me entertained.

I was in the check out line at the market, buying some yogurt, and I noticed all the ear-scratching headlines of the tabloids. Elvis consorted with Martians, and the offspring walk among us. The here-today-and-gone-tomorrow celebrities are divorcing and remarrying. There are secret ingredients in your pantry to eliminate diabetes. There are flying saucers mentioned in the Bible. And so forth. Who pays any attention to these things? Those with itchy ears. 

Paul’s counsel, woven all through this letter to Timothy, is to stay grounded in what he calls “sound doctrine.” This is that body of material that have its gravitational center in the love and justice of the God we know through Jesus Christ. It’s an anchor when the waves are pounding against the boat. It’s the call to love your neighbor when others are trying to divide you. It’s the invitation to trust in God and his ways when there are so many liars, scammers, and doomsayers.

Sound doctrine is when we join together to speak the truth we have inherited, “We trust in God who creates everybody in the divine image. We trust in Jesus Christ, who gave his life to cancel the power of evil and has been raised from the dead to rule over all. We trust in the Holy Spirit who can refresh us and renew us if only we would get over ourselves and stop acting as if we know what we are doing. 

The great reformer John Calvin said it best. The moment of his transformation began, he said, when God showed him he was teachable.[1] He took on an attitude of grateful receptivity. God has something to say. God has something to teach. We are not left to ourselves. Just like us, Calvin didn’t have to rely on his own wits to get through the day or sleep through the night. There is a greater Wisdom at work in the world. We access it by reading the Bible together.

So, we read the folktale of Elisha cursing the Cub Scouts. Rather than focus on the chaos, we discover there’s a great power in the Word of God than we first realized.

Or we read the multiple versions of Mark’s resurrection story and affirm he was doing his best to affirm something so great that it cannot be captured in words.

Or we read the apostle Paul writing to a church he loved. When we come across a saucy word, we know he is amplifying his language to tell us how much he’s willing to give up to claim the transforming power of God.

The Bible is just that useful. So, let’s read it. Let’s read it together. Let’s find ways to increase our understanding and then let’s live out of the treasure chest that generations before us have preserved for our benefit. For if there’s anything scripture can teach us, it’s this. When your heart and mind are full, your ears don’t itch.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms

Good Treasure, Entrusted

October 5, 2025
World Communion
40th Anniversary of Ordination
William G. Carter

      Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,

To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

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, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do. But 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 until that day what I have entrusted to him. Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.

 

Thirty-five years is a long time. Forty, even longer. In some ways, the time has zipped by. In other ways, the days are long, and the years are short. Trust me when I say I’m grateful to be here, still here, and we have many more miles to travel together before I’ll be done.

Given the nature of this day, I hope you won’t think it overly self-indulgent if I say a few words about how I got into this line of work. My intention is not to make it about me, but to make it about God, and the call of God for each of us.

Simply put, I did not choose to be a preacher. I was recruited. Anybody who chooses the pastoral ministry on their own must be insane. If you do it right, the hours are long. The emotional demands are heavy. You rely on volunteers. You live among consumers. At least the pay is extraordinary, right? It’s a little less than the going rate for public school teachers, although you don't get summers off and you must work weekends and hoIidays.

For pastors, the blessing is that we are invited to mark life moments. There are three big ones, which could be described as hatched, matched, and dispatched. We baptize children, then wait decades for them to return. We marry off lovers who have no clue what they are getting into. We bury people who should have taken better care of themselves. And those are the big moments. Meanwhile, there are thousands of little moments, too, every single one of them important.

Why would anybody do this? Because they were recruited. Because God said, in a Voice from beyond time, “I have work for you to do.”

That's my story. I didn't go looking for this. I was found. The Voice said clearly, “I have work for you to do.” I heard it at a Halloween party, of all things, when I was nineteen years old. Nobody else heard that Voice. I looked around, saw no one, but I knew. That initial summons released a temporary euphoria, something I’ve never been able to explain. I laughed out loud. I was filled with joy.

And then, a few days later the terror sneaked in. Why me? What would this mean? What would be required? Whom do I tell? The college girlfriend who had just dumped me thought I would be a terrible minister and said as much. The college chaplain believed I was too arrogant. The jazz cats looked at me funny, as if to say, “How will that work out?” All that, in addition to my own doubts and fears, faults and issues.

Yet here I am. Because if you've been recruited, you need to see it through. I could say a lot more about all of that, but I'm here to talk about Jesus and not about me.

Why would Christ recruit any of us? Because there is work to be done. The world is a broken place, so broken that we broke Jesus. Yet he keeps coming back, wounds still visible, and he says, “Blessed are those who are broken.” Say that, he says. Let them know they are precious even if their hearts are fractured. Tell them there is redemptive joy even if they are weeping. Be the Beatitudes, as strange as they are. Keep this good news alive, in you, in them, even when the broken world denies it.

In our text, Paul says to young Timothy, “Guard the gospel.” He's not telling him to defend it, because Jesus never defended himself. The Lord came among us vulnerable, defenseless, trusting in God alone. Yet Jesus kept the faith. He hung onto the faith. He kept it burning within. That’s how he guarded it as treasure.

And that is the second part of the call of God. First, there is the summons. Then there’s the keeping of the flame, the stoking of the fire, the guarding of the hope that God implants within us. We keep, stoke, and guard in diverse ways. I know what has been most beneficial to me.

For me, there has been a constant return to the Bible. It’s a big, delightful stew of stories and songs, collected by people who came to love God after discovering how much God loved them. About four weeks after my ordination, I ran out of sermons. I said everything I knew. Then I started reading the Bible, really digging in, and there has been no shortage of things to teach and preach. We live within the pages of this book.

There have been the God moments too, occasions that happen off the page. I can cite youth camps, wilderness trips, hospital visits, service trips, and occasional trips to the monastery to get the spiritual fleas out of my hair. My mother taught me to appreciate the visual arts and good music. My father taught me to sit in the woods, be still, and watch the world come alive at dawn through no effort of our own. These holy moments can train us to back off from our aggressions and let God rule the world.

A third gift has been laughter, what Anne Lamott calls, “carbonated holiness.” Counter to all the grim saints we’ve had to endure, God loves a good joke. That’s why he keeps us around. Laughter names the inconsistencies and absurdities. Joy levels the hypocrisies and pretensions, reminding us we will never make it without a lot of help. Grace comes as a guffaw. As the Psalmist says, “The Lord delights in his people.” (Psalm 149:4). That means you and me.

And then there is friendship, which lies close to the core of the Christian life. We can’t do Gospel work alone. We need one another. One of the sustaining gifts of my ministry was spending a week with a dozen or more preachers. Some of them are here today. For thirty years, we met for a week in January to work on scripture, to walk through joy and heartbreak, and to build connections that still give grit and grace.

One more sustaining gift has been the work of integration. When the invitation came, I couldn't figure out how the church could ever use a jazz musician. But God did. The Holy Spirit punctured my lack of imagination, and said, “Try this.” Keep at it. That miracle is still in the making.

And if I’m honest, my work has been made infinitely easier by living with a congregation like this one. Over the years, as outsiders would learn about my work, some would ask, "How long are you going to stay in that little town?" I have always smirked, then replied, "I have a secret." The secret is all of you. We have forged something special. It is a treasure – the Gospel enfleshed in our relationships. And I love you all so very much.

The question today: how do we keep the flame alive? How do we keep the fire burning? There is no single answer, although most of us have some pretty good hunches. We anchor ourselves in the things that matter. Then we give ourselves to the work of God in our world: living, loving, learning, serving, speaking out, forgiving, creating, collaborating, contributing, always making a positive difference. 

It begins there. It continues there. And the God who began this good work in each of us will see it through to the end. Thanks be to God, who entrusts us with this priceless treasure.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.