2
Timothy 2:8-19
Ordinary
30
October
27, 2019
William G. Carter
Remind them of
this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words,
which does no good but only ruins those who are listening. Do your best
to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to
be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth. Avoid profane
chatter, for it will lead people into
more and more impiety, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among
them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth by claiming that the
resurrection has already taken place. They are upsetting the faith of some. But God’s firm
foundation stands, bearing this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are
his,” and, “Let everyone who calls on the name of the Lord turn away
from wickedness.”
If
Paul is offering advice to Timothy about the Christian life, it’s only a matter
of time before he talks about words. The Christian faith lives and dies by its
words – its words! Words are important.
·
Words
express the Gospel: “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant
of David.” Paul says these words are his Gospel. They release the truth of God
into the air.
·
Words
like that can get you into trouble, even if they are righteous words. Paul is
in prison again, chained like a criminal. But (he winks) when God speaks,
nobody can chain that! God is free, the Holy Spirit is free. So, in a real
sense, Paul is free.
·
Words
give encouragement: “If we have died with Christ, we will also live with him.
If we endure, we will reign with him.” So hang in there. Stay faithful. Keep
your chin up. Trust God to endure.
So
given the importance of the syllables that we put into the air, how striking it
is that words would become the basis of arguments and the kindling of division.
Sometimes
the words are important, important enough they become fighting words. In church
history class, we learned the first big Christian fight (Christians versus
Christians) was over two words: “homoousios” and “homoiousios.” You remember
that battle, right? Those words differ by only one letter – but they reflect a
world of difference.
In
325 AD, the church wanted to know: “homoousios” (literally “the same substance”)
or “homoiousios” (“similar substance”). Is Jesus Christ the same substance with
God the Father? Or is he of similar substance? They battled that out in Nicea,
a town in northwestern Turkey, and “same substance” won. The city of Nicea is
long reduced to rubble, but the Nicene Creed is still around. The words were
that important.
They
were so important that, seven hundred years after the Church wrote down those
words, there was another divisive battle over the same words. This had to do
with the word “Filioque” which had been left out of the Nicene Creed. Does the
Holy Spirit proceed from the Father? (the original Nicene Creed) Or should they
add the word “Filioque,” as if to say, Does the Holy Spirit proceed from the
Father and the Son?
Now,
you are free to argue over that one over lunch. You might even say it’s hardly
worth a fight, so “pass the ketchup.” But the addition of that word was enough
to develop into split of the Eastern Church from the Western Church in 1054 AD.
Why is are the Eastern Orthodox churches separate from the Roman churches? The
division began with a single word.
What
strikes me about the three paragraphs we heard today from Paul’s letter is that
sometimes the words are important enough to work at getting them right. He mentions
a couple of jokers in Timothy’s church, Hymenaeus and Philetus. They have been
goofing up the word “resurrection,” declaring Jesus came back from the dead,
and that’s all there is to that.
What
they don’t understand is that the resurrection of Jesus was just the beginning.
It was the sign that God will restore the whole broken-down world, raising up
everything that’s dead, establishing justice, and re-creating the whole cosmos the
way it was intended to be. Hymenaeus and Philetus trivialize all of that and
make it smaller, as if to say, Easter is a brief flash of enlightenment and
everything after that is business as usual.
Paul
says no! Don’t reduce God’s free and liberating word into something bite-sized and
easily dismissed. The Gospel is enormous. The Gospel has the power to transform
all of life. Don’t presume to shrink all of God’s transforming power into a
fleeting emotion or warm fuzzy in the heart. It matters that we work on the
words, and see them in the immense power of the grace and truth of God.
But
this is also Paul, the apostle Paul, the pastor Paul – and he knows, all too
well, that the heart of God’s church “is not lifted up, the eyes are not raised
too high, and it does not occupy itself with things too great and marvelous”
for itself (Psalm 131).
In
his memoirs, Garrison Keillor fondly remembers Sunday afternoons. Sunday
mornings were long and tedious, especially in the fundamentalist church of his
childhood. Sermons were made to be endured, long endurance preferably. Yet
Sunday afternoons were quite entertaining.
His
family had no television, which was just as well. Keillor’s parents would have wrinkled
their brows at watching football games, denouncing football as a waste of God’s
good gift of the Sabbath. No, the entertainment came after the family pushed
back from the Sunday dinner table and Uncle Louie and Uncle Mel would start
discussing theology.
A
transcription of the conversation might have looked like a discussion. However the
word “argument” was far more accurate. Uncle Louie might lightly toss a thought
into the air. Uncle Mel clenched his jaw into a smile to correct Uncle Louie. As
Keillor recalls,
I forget the Scripture verses each of them
brought forward to defend his position, but I remember the pale faces, the
throat-clearing, the anguished looks, as those two voices went back and forth,
straining at the bit, giving no ground – the poisoned courtesy (“I think my
brother is overlooking Paul’s very clear message to the Corinthians…,” “Perhaps
my brother needs to take a closer look, a prayerful look, at this verse
in Hebrews…”) as the sun went down, neighbor children were called indoors, the
neighbors turned out their lights, eleven o’clock came – they wouldn’t stop!
“Perhaps,” Grandpa offered, “it would be
meet for us to pray for the Spirit to lead us,” hoping to adjourn, but both
Louie and Mel felt that the Spirit had led us, that the Spirit had
written the truth in big black letters – if only some people could see it.”[1]
Ah,
the poisoned courtesy of those who bicker with one another! This seems to be
the recurring habit of lawyers, politicians, and Christians who are convinced
they are correct. It’s nothing so great as a conversation about the immensity
of God’s grace. Paul sees it as something far smaller yet deeply destructive.
He calls it “wrangling over words.”
That’s
a suggestive turn of phrase – “wrangling,” as in a cowboy roping a runaway calf
or a rider throwing a saddle on a horse to chase after some poachers. We wrangle
with words, toss them around, if not hurl them at one another. The words are
not in service to pursuing the truth, you understand. They are weapons for
bullying, exertions of power, bald attempts of pushing through, obliterating opposition,
and getting your way.
Paul’s
advice to Timothy is “Avoid this, for (wrangling words) does no good but only
ruins those who are listening.”
I
chew on that for Reformation Day. For all of his biblical insight and Gospel
wisdom, old Martin Luther was not above insulting his opponents. In fact, there
are websites with titles like “29 of Martin Luther’s Most Hilariously Over the
Top Insults.” Here are a few of the more modest ones that I can dare to repeat:
- “You people are more stupid
than a block of wood.”
- “I would not smell the foul
odor of your name.”
- “You seem to me to be a real
masterpiece of the devil’s art.”
- “I am tired of the pestilent
voice of your sirens.”
“Listening to Elijah’s daughters speak… I
would want my daughters to know how much I love them, but I would also want
them to know that being a strong man includes being kind. That there is nothing
weak about kindness and compassion. There is nothing weak about looking out for
others. There is nothing weak about being honorable. You are not a sucker to
have integrity and to treat others with respect.”[2]
Are
our words inhabited with respect? That seems to have been a problem in Timothy’s
church. Paul warned that the deacons of the church must not be “slanderers,” to
beware of the “the hypocrisy of liars, to “have nothing to do with stupid and
senseless controversies.” In the first letter, Paul said, “Watch out for the
young widows, especially the gossips and the busybodies, saying what they
should not say.” He could have also warned of the young widowers, too; in my
experience, gossip can be a team sport, without gender limitations.
Words,
words, words… Christian growth comes from paying attention to our words. Not just
checking the half-truths, innuendos, or the bald-faced lies, but speaking
kindness and speaking the honest truth about Jesus.
A
good friend is a published poet. He offers a few stanzas of rhyme on this text
in a poem called “Stop the Music.”[3]
We flap our gums and state our case
with heavy hearts and frown of face
convinced our words will save the race
while the devil does a dandy little dance.
We pick at nits and quote from books
with stained glass voice and pious looks
assured our view exposes crooks
while the devil does a dandy little dance.
One speaks for pro, another, con,
each one vibrant, each one “on.”
Food for thought to chew upon…
while the devil does a dandy little dance.
While we debate we cannot do—
we can’t proclaim the hope that’s new,
or show a neighbor “God loves you,”
so the devil does a dandy little dance.
The devil dances to our tune;
hopes our “music” won’t end soon.
We bark and bite from June to June
and the devil does a dandy little dance.
It’s time to end the endless song
which brings such comfort to great Wrong!
United and with Jesus, strong
Stop the music so the devil cannot dance.
That’s
good advice for word wranglers, nitpickers, liars, and bullies. It’s really
good advice for preachers three steps out of reach and listeners with their
feet on the floor. God’s invitation for us is not only to speak about Jesus,
but to speak like Jesus.
And
today it’s a helpful reminder that, even if Martin Luther could be sassy and rude,
on a few things he was dead-on right. Like the second stanza of the hymn that
will later conclude our worship service:
And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed his
truth to triumph through us.
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble
not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom
is sure.
One little word shall fell him.
Hear
that good news? Words matter. Evil is defeated by a single Word, the Word of
God, the Word called “Jesus.”
So
take heart, good friends. And watch what you say.
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
[1] Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon
Days (New York: Viking Press, 1985) p. 107
[2] Barack Obama, “Eulogy for Elijah
Cummings,” The Atlantic Monthly, 25 October 2019. Available online at t.ly/d5Lww
[3] James E. Thyren, “Stop the Music,”
The Presbyterian Outlook, March 23-30, 1998.
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