2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8
October 17, 2010
Last week I was one of two keynote speakers at an event at the college. I was introduced first, and for those of you who come here week after week, you will have no difficultly imagining what my talk looked like. I typed out every single word I was going to say ahead of time, I stood at the podium with my manuscript in front of me, and I read each and every word on the page, looking up as often as I could, but certainly never so much that I would lose my place or, God forbid, say something that wasn’t written down in black and white. I stood perfectly still the whole time, the only movement of my body being my hand turning the page every 1 ½ minutes. The organizer of the event had told me how long she wanted me to speak, so I spoke for exactly that long…I know, because I timed myself before hand and I strayed not one word from the script.
After I finished, I sat down and listened while the next speaker was introduced. When he went up to the podium, he had not a single piece of paper in his hand. He spoke freely, loudly, personably. He was funny. He told stories. Clearly he had thought ahead of time about what he was going to say, but there was no script. He looked at the audience the whole time. He even moved around a little bit behind the podium! I, along with everyone else, was riveted. Of course I was. This was a true preacher.
Technically, I am a preacher. It’s what I’m doing now, it’s what you hire me to do. But some people are “preachers”. These are the folks who elicit the invariable “preach it!” from the congregation. Or they are the ones who bring people to tears from either laughing or crying. They have charisma, they have story telling abilities, they have – I am painfully aware of – a good memory .
Now, I know, I know, there isn’t just one way to preach. In fact, we all have different preferences, different comfort levels with preaching. I suspect that some of you find it comforting that your pastor reads every single word off the page, rather than get worked up into sweat about the wiles of hell. That’s not to say you wouldn’t appreciate a bit more animation from time to time, or even a drop more humor, in the sermons you hear each Sunday, but in general, how I preach probably says something about what our church believes about preaching in general.
Specifically, we are wary of loud proclamations, universal truths, emotional appeals, alter calls and exhortations. And not just in terms of what you want to hear on Sunday morning from the pulpit, but I would venture to guess that most of you do not go about your own lives talking about your faith in such a way that people spontaneously cry out “preach it, sister!” from time to time.
With firsthand knowledge, I can say this is a congregation of made up of people of strong faith. You are active in your faith – meaning you work hard to mold your life and behaviors to your values and beliefs. You think about what it means to follow Jesus and to love God. You take seriously the task of being human in this world and living in such a way that would please God. If I were to say, “hey everyone, it’s time for community meal again, tons of people would sign up in an instant. When stewardship time comes around, all of you put your generous hearts into practice without needing to be prodded, or needing a clever, large scale programs. When something needs to be done either here at the church or in the community, there is never a shortage of people in this congregation ready to act out their faith in whatever way necessary.
But, if I were to say, “we need volunteers next Saturday to go evangelize. The signup sheet is out in fellowship hall, so stop and sign up on your way out of church this Sunday,” I’m guessing that sheet would stay pretty blank. Maybe a couple of people would sign up because they would feel bad if no one else did, but they would not be excited about what in the world “evangelize” might entail. “Evangelize”, “preaching our faith,” “spreading the good news,” “saving people,” – these are common Christian words and phrases, but they are not everyday words in our little congregation. “Tolerance,” “inclusion,” “respect for differences,” “humility,” “kindness,” “respect,” these are concepts we are much more comfortable with.
Paul was a preacher. Paul was an evangelist. He spread the word, and did so in such a way that we can rightfully credit him with the start of the entire Christian church movement. He was not subtle, or bashful. He did not mince words, and he definitely had no trouble ticking people off. This letter to Timothy is probably not written by Paul, but it is written by someone who knew Paul well and who does a good job of capturing Paul’s voice. The author writes from the point of view of Paul in prison. It’s a kind of “last words” letter. It’s impassioned, heartfelt, and very, very challenging. The message seems clear: “Preach it!”
“Proclaim the message! Be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, encourage…do the work of an evangelist.” This is what the author imagines Paul would tell the church as he sits in jail nearing the end of his life. How does this sound to you? I’m guessing many of you feel about the same way I do when I read this: It’s not my place to rebuke people or convince them of what I believe. It’s not my place to push my religion or beliefs on other people. My job is to simply live out what I believe. That’s how I speak about my faith…through my actions. Walk the talk, right?
But I think one question this text asks of us is whether we live our faith too quietly. In our efforts to not browbeat or offend or draw attention to ourselves, is it possible that our walk is not speaking loudly enough?
These instructions to convince, rebuke, encourage, evangelize come on the heels of an oft-quoted, often grossly misunderstood, verse in the bible: “All scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” Now, first, we need to remind ourselves what this verse is not saying. Since the bible as we know it and have it did not exist when this was written, it does not mean that the author was saying that this particular book that we call the bible, or our scriptures, is written letter for letter by God.
The scriptures this author was talking about were the books of his faith tradition – more or less what we now call the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible. But it was not canonized – meaning no one had yet said, “Here they are; these are the scriptures; nothing more, nothing less.” Instead, the scriptures were the stories of the Jewish people – the stories of Abraham and Sarah, the Exodus, Moses, the judges, kings and prophets, the Psalms and the Lamentations. The laws and the myths about creation and the fall of humanity.
When this letter to Timothy was written, there were disagreements in the church. Different people in authority were saying different things, and some in the church were, according to the author, being led astray from what Paul had always taught. The solution was to call people back to the basics. It was to call them back to the stories and writings of their faith. But those stories are only useful because they are, as the author says, inspired. In Greek, inspiration has to do with breath – the stories are “God-breathed.” They have life. And for Paul and his Christian followers, they have been given breath through the life of Jesus. This author is saying that the stories are more than just stories – when they are inspired, God-breathed, they really can speak to us, affect us, shape our faith and show us who God is.
This book – this bible – is only useful for us and the world if it is inspired – if it is God-breathed. It is, in other words, only useful as more than an antique document if we give it breath and life. The idea is not just that we be inspired by Scripture. The idea is that we become inspiring Scripture – that we breathe life into these words for our time and place. In the same way Jesus, Paul and others breathed life into their scripture in their time and place.
If our words and actions brought these scriptures to life, it would be quite a scene. These scriptures are radical – they are undignified, unconcerned with convention or decorum. Look at the parable of the widow and the judge. This is a story of begging, it’s a story of desperation, it’s a story that compares God to a mean, uncaring, unfair judge, for goodness sake. Jesus’ parables are meant to bring his scriptures – the Jewish scriptures – alive…and his parables are full of desperate characters, odd and startling comparisons. That’s because the bottom line of the scriptures for Jesus is that Yahweh is the God of those who suffer injustice – the undignified, humiliated ones. And that’s startling. Such a God lacks decorum. Jesus’ own life was like this. As he spread the good news – lived the scriptures, proclaimed the message – he fashioned a life that offended, confounded, shocked, and confused others. Much like the widow, he kept after the cause of justice because he knew that was the cause of God.
It is important for us to walk the talk, and I do still think actions speak more loudly than words. But I also believe part of our task is to evangelize – to proclaim the message of our scriptures. And we do that not by mindlessly reciting them, or hammering people over the head with them, but by giving them breath and life through our actions, through our words, through what we have to say to this world today. And that won’t always be polite, or respectful, or popular. It won’t, much to my chagrin, always be planned and scripted. It won’t be easy.
Sometimes it means we look like the widow: crying out for justice day and night, annoying the heck out of people. We have the luxury of being polite, because we are not the widow. We are not, by and large, the ones desperate for justice. But the world cannot afford our luxury. Our lives need to preach a bit more loudly. Our lives could be more evangelistic in their call for justice and proclamations that God is on the side of the poor. Our lives, actions, and words could be much more bold in their claims of hope for a hurting and cynical world.
Preaching, or evangelizing, does not mean trying to apply an ancient document literally, legalistically and prescriptively to our lives. Evangelizing does not mean converting souls so people don’t go to hell. I don’t know how something so magnificent – the idea of scriptures being God-breathed – has become something so offensive: the idea that we are to shove this book down other people’s throats until all they can do is choke out the words, “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.” Evangelizing means believing the God we learn about in our stories, in the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Miriam, the prophets and the kings, the parables and the poems is a God that matters to the world. And this world is in need of knowing the God of our scriptures – not because everyone should be Christian or should act like you and me, but because the God of our scriptures speaks to the injustices we find so frustrating and demoralizing; the God of our scriptures is on the side of the least and the last.
Our scriptures, when brought to life, can offer the world a new way of living with one another…they can offer the world an alternative to what we have…they can offer a compelling vision of God’s realm. When we live our lives according to the scriptures – when we live for justice and are on the side of the least and the last – we are preaching…the scriptures come alive for people, they reveal those things that must change and they offer hope to those who most need it.
Preaching means giving breath to the word of God today – and we are all called to be preachers in this way. We are called to bring the scriptures alive. We might do that with words, we might do that with actions, but we need to be loud about it. We need to really “Preach it!!” Amen.
