Growing in God’s Love

Sunday, September 15
Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Focus Theme
Growing in God’s Love

Weekly Prayer
When joy is gone and hearts are sick, O God, you give us Christ as our healing balm. He came in human flesh  that he might give himself as a ransom for our salvation and anoint us with the Spirit of consolation and joy. Hear the cry of your people, that we may rejoice in the richness of your love and be faithful stewards of your many gifts. Amen.

Focus Scripture
1 Timothy 1:12-17

I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the foremost. But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

All Readings For This Sunday
Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 with Psalm 14 or
Exodus 32:7-14 with Psalm 51:1-10
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10

Focus Questions

1. Whose story has helped to nurture and inspire you in your own life of faith?

2. Is there a character from literature who illustrates God’s mercy at work in their life?

3. How do you think Timothy was feeling back in Ephesus after Paul moved on?

4. How do you respond to the word “testify” or “witness” in a faith setting?

5. As you look back on your life, what are moments of grace?

Reflection by Kate Huey

It would be good to read our Gospel text, Luke 15:1-10, before turning to this passage written in the voice of Paul, the great apostle, to his young protÈgÈ, Timothy. We can understand then why the lectionary provides this short text from the beginning of “Paul’s” letter to go with the stories of Jesus about lost sheep, lost coins, and the One who goes looking for them. (It’s also very helpful to read Eugene Peterson’s beautiful translation of the entire letter in The Message: “I, Paul, am an apostle on special assignment for Christ, our living hopeÖ.”)

First, a little background on First Timothy and the two letters that go with it, 2 Timothy and Titus, to form what are called the Pastoral Epistles. A careful reader will note the subtle but important differences between these letters and the ones that, according to most scholars, were written by Paul himself – differences in themes, style, theological concepts and vocabulary. The HarperCollins Study Bible lists several clues that help scholars draw conclusions about the authorship of this letter to Timothy: “Key Pauline concepts such as faith, law, and righteousness are treated quite differently, while a new emphasis on godliness, sound teaching, church order, and good works appears.” In the ancient world, it was accepted practice to write in the voice and name of a respected teacher, and that appears to be what is happening here, with “Paul” writing in the name of the great Paul the Apostle, but with a somewhat different set of priorities pressing on him.

We know that Paul traveled around the Roman Empire, teaching and gathering people into communities of those who wanted to follow Jesus not just on their own but in community, the kind of community we call a church. We also know that even after he left a church behind, he still cared about it and wrote letters back to it, offering advice and encouragement, and today our churches hear these letters as if they were written to us as well.

This particular letter is addressed to Timothy, working hard in his new pastorate in Ephesus. Now that the churches have been planted and the people have joined them with great enthusiasm, there’s a lot of work to be done to help them thrive, to grow in God’s love, and besides, you know how people are: every time we come together, whether we form a book club or start a religious order, organize a softball league or get married – dare we say, “establish an institution” – there are going to be matters to be handled, questions, challenges, and of course a few rough spots along the way. Paul is writing back to his young friend to encourage and guide him, and he begins his letter of instruction by establishing his own credentials, or at least his credibility, that is, by reminding Timothy that he, Paul, was “the foremost” of sinners, and yet one whose life was transformed by the power of God’s mercy and grace in his life.

Paul knew something about grace

Most folks know Paul’s story, when he – a man of deep and sincere faith – was so sure of himself and the rightness of his cause, back when he was persecuting Christians, and yet God knocked him off his horse and blinded him until his heart and mind were opened to the grace of Jesus Christ in his life. That call on the road to Damascus, the experience of life-changing grace and his response to it, gives Paul authority to write the things he is about to tell Timothy. Surely, his own story would inspire and encourage sinners of somewhat lesser magnitude.

There are several ways to approach this text, in addition to reading it with the Gospel text. We might consider the power of personal testimony, even though mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics alike tend to get a bit uncomfortable when people start “testifying” to what God has done in their lives. However, I once belonged to a church that held a monthly “Potluck, Prayer, and Praise” gathering where folks came together to eat a light supper and then hear the story of one memberís spiritual journey. These accounts – testimonies – were heartfelt and amazingly effective in connecting us one to the other, that is, in building the community and nurturing our spiritual growth. But we didn’t draw together simply to “swap stories”: those experiences were framed by the greater picture of God’s all-encompassing love, compassion, and faithfulness. Our gatherings were an opportunity to shine the light of the gospel on our lives, and they were undergirded by God’s great mercy and grace. Like Paul, that’s what folks talked about: God’s grace at work in their lives.

In his thought-provoking commentary on this text, William P. “Matt” Matthews acknowledges our discomfort with personal testimony, and even our jadedness: whether from conversion-story fatigue or envy, we sometimes don’t respond well to other people’s sharing. Matthews, like other writers, observes that young people – Generation X, Millennials, and whoever is coming after them – are better reached by personal stories of the experience of grace. However, I think everyone, including the oft-maligned Boomers, responds to honest, open sharing. As the remarkable effectiveness of Twelve-Step programs (and really great churches as well) illustrates, the right setting and the right ground rules for such sharing are crucial. We’re not just listening to the stories of others until we get a chance to pour out our own. There is something underneath the sharing and the hearing, something that helps us to make sense of it, to seek and find meaning in our mistakes and the grace that has set us free from them. Matthews, like many scholars, finds this foundation and framework, if you will, in the words and deeds of God in Christ, in Scripture, and in the community of faith of which we are a part. Perhaps this is one reason that we need the church, and, in order to preserve the core tradition, some kind of “institution” to nurture our growth in God’s love, in every generation.

Telling that old, old story in our own time

And in the church, in our preaching, teaching, and Bible study; in our trustees meetings, our youth group gatherings, our church school classes; in our works of mercy and compassion and justice; at our potlucks, our small-group gatherings, our mission days; in our stewardship witnesses and our signs out front and even in our messages in the media, we’re telling the old, old story again, and we’re telling our own stories in light of that ancient one. This story is not just up in our heads, although it’s enriched and informed by the teachings of those who have gone before us, and the contributions of learned scholars in every age whose wisdom helps us to open up the mysteries of life lived in the light of the gospel.

The current interest in generational differences helps to illuminate this text, and our life of faith at the same time. Jane Anne Ferguson suggests that we might ask in every meeting of the new program year, “Who are the Pauls and Timothys of the twenty-first-century church?” Her description of the youth and young adults raised in the church actually sounds a lot like the generation that raised them, the Baby Boomers, who taught them to “question and discern what they believe for themselves,” to “believe in the inclusion and acceptance of all people,” to be “passionate about changing their world.” Like just about every generation before them, they have inherited a world full of problems, but still, a most beautiful and promising world at the same time.

As we wrestle with issues of religious tolerance, gay marriage, and racial justice, we would be wise to note that our children and our children’s children learn their attitudes and prejudices from their elders. It would be good for the Boomer generation, then, to remember its own idealism when wrestling with issues today, and to share with the younger generation our own struggles and joy on the journey of faith. They would undoubtedly find our honesty refreshing, and together we could bring new life to ancient teachings in a postmodern world. I am reminded of Walt Whitman’s classic words in Leaves of Grass, about reexamining everything we have been taught, which is, of course, one of the tasks of coming to an adult faith, not simply one we have accepted, boxed and wrapped, from the generation before us. What an awesome responsibility for the “older” generations today and those who follow them in the decades to come!!

The least likely as “chosen”

We might also read in this short passage another example of that puzzling but enduring theme that Lisa Davison finds in Scripture from the very beginning: that God chooses the most unlikely candidates to carry out Godís mission. “God does not see us through human eyes, or measure us with human measurements,î she reminds us: “all God requires is that we say ‘yes’ when we are called.” Perhaps we feel even more than inadequate; we may feel that we are unworthy, or too marked by sin and failings. Consider sin and failing undone, Paul writes: think of the marvelous things God accomplished even through Paul, who had been a persecutor of the faith. How much, then, can we trust God to work in us!

Two illustrations from literature (where there is an abundance of such illustrations, of course) come to mind. The writing of Anne Lamott is an unconventional melody of praise to God’s grace; in fact, her best-known book, Traveling Mercies, tells one story after another about God at work in her own life. “I don’t know why life isn’t constructed to be seamless and safe,” she writes, “why we make such glaring mistakes, things fall so short of our expectations and our hearts get brokenÖ.” Still, like Paul, Lamott knows that grace is always there, underneath it all, as “the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.” Lamottís life story is testimony at its best, and it goes right to our hearts.

“A new experience”

So does the story of Celie, told in letters, in Alice Walker’s book, The Color Purple, although the novel’s character who may best illustrate God’s mercy and grace inexorably at work in his life is Mister, or Albert, Celie’s abusive husband. His transformation is slow and almost imperceptible, until the end of the book, when he reflects back on his life and the terrible things he has done, and articulates a simple but clear new perspective on things, a kind of theology of wonder: “I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ast.ÖThe more I wonder, he say, the more I love.”  This painful process (painful not just for him but for those he has hurt) has eventually led to transformation, as Celie recounts to her sister, describing the way Mister listens now, and finds his own new life an amazing experience, full of wonder and love.

Wonder, and love. Again, Peterson’s translation in The Message is clear and lovely: “The whole point of what we’re urging is simply loveólove uncontaminated by self-interest and counterfeit faith, a life open to God….Grace mixed with faith and love poured over me and into me.” Just as Celie, in The Color Purple, sings her own kind of doxology to “Dear God. Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear peoples. Dear Everything. Dear God,” so Peterson translates Paul’s praise in elegant terms: “Deep honor and bright glory to the King of All Time – One God, Immortal, Invisible, ever and always. Oh, yes!” (The Message). And our response to all of this beauty? Perhaps W.H. Auden provides the best, and simplest, instruction: “I know nothing, except what everyone knows – if there when Grace dances, I should dance.”

A preaching version of this reflection (with book titles) can be found at http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/september-15-2013.html.

For further reflection

Anne Lamott, 21st century
“I do not understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.”

Martin Luther, 16th century
“This grace of God is a very great, strong, mighty and active thing. It does not lie asleep in the soul. Grace hears, leads, drives, draws, changes, works all in man, and lets itself be distinctly felt and experienced. It is hidden, but its works are evident.”

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead, 21st century
“Love is holy because it is like grace – the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.”
and
Marilynne Robinson, When I Was a Child I Read Books, 21st century
“I experience religious dread whenever I find myself thinking that I know the limits of God’s grace, since I am utterly certain it exceeds any imagination a human being might have of it. God does, after all, so love the world.”

Frederick Buechner, 20th century
“The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you. There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.”

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