II
Timothy 1:1-14
There has been no end of dispute and
argument among Christians over the past two thousand years. Despite Jesus’ pleas, the disciples who lived
and traveled with him, who learned directly from him about the kingdom of God,
who saw him perform miracles, and who became the witnesses to his resurrection
from death never managed to get along with one another perfectly.
The
gospels record an incident where they get into an argument among themselves
about which of them is the greatest, like some sort of first-century Twitter
fight. The people who came to prominence
in the Christian community just after them often had the same discussion, at
times framed around the importance of different forms of ministry. Paul had to ask the Christians in Corinth to
look good and hard at the situation among them and to see that the Holy Spirit
had spread a variety of gifts among them so that they could see their need of
one another.
“Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work
miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all
interpret?” [I Corinthians 12:29-30]
Of
course, the same apostle Paul who wrote these words was just as human as them,
and he is recorded as having had his arguments with one of the original disciples,
Peter, and even with James, Jesus’ own brother.
Paul’s arguments with them were over
doctrine more than personality, although when you read his letters you can get
a clear sense that there is at least some of that there, too. (Read through the book of Galatians, where he
recounts who said and did what to whom.
You cannot miss it.) At base,
though, he is trying to establish the faith on the basis of faith in Jesus and
Jesus’ love held out for everybody. That
also forced him to recognize the difference between adversaries and
enemies.
So, time and time across the
centuries, Christians have argued and disagreed. At times (and may God forgive us all for
letting acrimony go this far) we have let anger turn into violence. Even so, when the smoke has cleared, we have
continually come back to the point where we say that there is some bond that
holds us together.
It is not that we read the same
Bible. There are books that some people
judge to be authoritative and others do not.
We (“we” being the Protestants) call these “The Apocrypha”. The Roman Catholics just consider them part
of the Holy Scriptures. But on the basis
of some points in these books, the Catholics have developed the notion of
purgatory, a place for souls to work out repentance after death; the
Protestants emphasize, instead, the full and entire forgiveness of sin here and
now through Jesus having taken our sin onto his own shoulders on the
cross. Those are major differences, and
they matter. But they are not enough
that (with the exception of a few unusual people on both sides) we would say
that the people on the other side of this division are not also Christians.
It is not that we worship the same
way. Compare, if you will, the elaborate
ceremonies of the Eastern Orthodox with a group of Quakers sitting down in a
room and waiting silently for the Holy Spirit to speak. You can also flip that around and have two
churches that worship in ways that seem basically interchangeable, say your
average United Methodist and Presbyterian congregations. It would not be on a Sunday morning, but on
some weeknight in an administrative meeting of some sort, that you would
discover very different understandings of the nature of the church. Even so, no one in these spots would go so
far as to say that they, and they only, are Christian.
What holds us together, and brings
us together again when we push one another away, is not a “what” but a “who”.
“I know the
one in whom I have put my trust,” [II Timothy
1:12]
Paul told Timothy. And,
yes, he also told him,
“Hold to
the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me,”
but Paul told Timothy to do that
“in the
faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”
[II Timothy 1:13]
Once upon a time, we argued over whether Christians could eat
pork. That’s all over the book of
Acts. (The Seventh Day Adventists, by
the way, are often vegetarians for religious reasons.) But no one denies
that Jesus sat down to eat with sinners, and in doing so called them back to
the righteousness and wholeness of God. The
Eastern and Western churches split over what language to use in worship (and
that came up again at the Reformation) and also over the question of whether
the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, or just from the
Father. But we never deny that the
Spirit is at work to bring people everywhere to faith. Right now, at least in our branch of
Christianity, we’re arguing over the place of LGBT people. No one on either side of that issue, however,
disputes that God
“saved us
and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to
his own purpose and grace.” [II Timothy 1:9]
And I could go on and on.
In fact, I am sure that down the road there will arise all kinds of
unforeseen differences about what it means to live according to that “holy
calling”.
The one thing I
am sure of, though, is the love of the Savior who calls. It is the message of that love that goes out
into all the world, through all his people.
So,
“Guard
the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in
us.” [II Timothy 1:14]
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