October 7, 2007
I Timothy 1:1-14

The Rev. Dr. David A. Davis
“Who is Minding the Store?”

We were at the Jersey Shore, sitting on the beach. The kids were very young; at that stage where you just can’t look away for one moment when you’re at the water’s edge. Hannah wandered a bit further toward the water. I was watching and could rush to her if she toppled. It was Ocean City. The waves were calm. The beach was packed. Hannah didn’t show any concern, only excitement with a splash and a shout. I was right on top of the parenting. She seemed almost too at ease ankle deep in the cold water. At one point, Hannah looked back to find me; one of those touch base, check in, are you still there kind of looks. The kind I don’t get anymore. But it was the Jersey shore. It was August. When she turned around away from the water and looked back to the beach, all she saw was an ocean of humanity, and for just a moment, she couldn’t find me. That’s when the fear and the tears set in. I couldn’t get there fast enough, but it had nothing to do with the ocean. As vast as the ocean really is, it was when she turned around that she must have realized she was part of something much bigger, that she was just one small face in such a sea of faces.

Those moments come, don’t they, when you realize you and those you love are a part of something much bigger. Watching your 6 year old get on the school bus for the first time, walking into the rich and long ruins of history in this country or around the world, coming back from the mail box on the appointed day when your child suddenly starts to get mail from colleges, singing in a choir of so many voices you can’t really hear your own, volunteering on the Gulf Coast and seeing church van after church van after church van, finding yet one more leaf in your family tree after years of research, a tree that now you can trace some 5 or 6 generations back, standing on a playground in Guatemala surrounded by 200 kids whose names you will never learn and whose paths you may never cross again. Sometimes you just realize you’re a part of something bigger.

Like participating in the Lord’s Supper on World Communion Sunday. Sharing a meal with the church around the world. The church universal. A church united in spite of miles, and a church united beyond time. The great cloud of witnesses. The community of saints. The church triumphant. Generation after generation after generation. You take your place here at the Table because Jesus invites you here. The Risen Christ is the presider, the host. He is present in all the mystery of the Spirit. Real presence at the Table. And you have sip of juice, a taste of wine. You’re up to you ankles in grace and then you turn somewhere in your sacred imagination, you turn back to look at all who are here, not just here, but HERE, you turn and you ought to encounter this sea of faces, this ocean of humanity. That’s you realize you are a part of something much bigger, much greater than you ever thought. The body of Christ broken for you, that you might be the body of Christ for the world.

In the first chapter of the Epistle of II Timothy, the Apostle Paul seems to be reminding Timothy that he is a part of something greater. It starts with the family tree. Paul points out to Timothy that the faith that is alive in him was first at work in his mother Eunice, and before his mother, that faith was alive and at work in his grandmother Lois. Faith is passed from one generation to the next. It’s not just yours.

Paul reminds Timothy that this God given gift of faith, it ought to be rekindled, it should be flamed to new life. The rekindling comes for Timothy by the laying on of hands, by the commissioning of the community, by an ordination to the priesthood of all believers. Faith is not to be kept to your self. It is not just yours. Faith is to be lived out in among fellow believers, in community.

Paul points out that Timothy’s third generation faith comes with a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. Timothy’s holy calling, Paul suggests, is not due to his own works, it comes from God, who is calling according to God’s own purpose and grace. And the grace comes through and has been revealed in and through Jesus Christ; his life, his death, his resurrection. It is God who has called us. This gospel belongs to God. Faith doesn’t belong to you. It is a gift from God.

“To Timothy, my beloved child”. This is all much bigger than you think. “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.”

Here at the Table on World Communion Sunday; you and me. We are a part of something much bigger. Look around, even with your eyes closed, look at the faces, near and far, then and now and yet to come, look around at the church that surrounds you. And just when you are about to feel really small, just when you are about to lose yourself in the crowd, these words from Paul challenge our anonymous, comfortable, human desire to let some else be in charge. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you. Watch over. Take good care. Take responsibility for what God has entrusted to you.
Guard the good treasure.  Just a few verses early, Paul tells Timothy, “I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that God is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to God.” Paul trusts God with his life. God will guard Paul’s very being. And in the same way, Paul tells Timothy, you ought to, then, guard the good treasure entrusted to you. With the help of the Holy Spirit, you guard what God has given you. You watch. You take care. Guard the treasure. God is guarding you, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, you are guarding the good treasure. You are guarding the faith. The good treasure is faith.

In my wife Cathy’s family, there is a story told just about every holiday meal. It has gone beyond folklore to sacred tradition in the Cook family. Cathy and I have now very ably passed it on to our children, and I expect someday it will pass yet again to another generation. Cathy’s father was at the home of his future in-laws for a wonderful feast; Thanksgiving perhaps, maybe Christmas. After the meal, my father-in-law, Henry retired to the living room where shortly afterwards, his soon to be mother-in-law found him nodding off as others were cleaning up after the meal. “Henry, Henry, only pigs sleep after they eat!” Or in other words, with the feast comes responsibility!

Be stewards of the faith, because it doesn’t belong to you, and you’re a part of something much bigger. “Look after the precious thing given to you in trust” is how the Jerusalem Bible puts it. Last week Jon Walton, our guest for the morning, preached about stewardship of time. Today it is the stewardship of the faith.

A faith intended to be passed on from generation to generation, like Lois, Eunice, and Timothy. Generativity of the faith. I very rarely meet a child of Yankee fan who doesn’t root for the Yankees, same with the Giants, or the Steelers, or Princeton, or Rutgers. It is even less common to find a child who doesn’t reflect the politics of the parents, at least for a season. But there is no shortage of those, who when it comes to faith and the church, they decide they are going let the children form their own opinions when they are older. Telling, teaching, practicing, the faith from one generation to the next. It was a faith that lived in Timothy’s grandmother, and then lived in his mother, and a faith that “I am sure, lives in you” Paul writes to him. Living the faith for these children to see. That’s what it means to be the church.

Stewards of the faith. Hold to the standard of sound teaching, Paul tells Timothy. Well, there is no lack of sound teaching in this congregation, in this community, in this church. Here in the text, “sound teaching” is a reference to the apostolic tradition. The oral tradition that tells of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Then faith formulated and passed on in doctrine; creeds, confessions. Hold to the standard of what you have learned. But this teaching that you have heard and received, for Paul it comes with, is received with, it is taught with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. What St. Augustine called “the rule of faith and love.”  Can there be any teaching of doctrine a part from faith and love? Any teaching of the faith a part from the community that lives and breaths and practices and embodies (by grace), the love of Christ Jesus?  The community that strives to live as Christ’s body here and now. Guard the good treasure, not by being right all the time, but by loving all the time, as Christ loves us. That what it ought to mean to be the church.

Passing on faith. Holding to sound teaching. Guarding the good treasure. Stewardship of the faith. It’s not just what Paul writes to Timothy. It’s how he writes it. How he shapes it. How he begins it. “I am grateful to God…” His teaching, his pastoral letter to Timothy, it begins with thanksgiving. The first note played is gratitude. That must be where guarding the good treasure begins. It begins with being grateful to God. Stewardship of the faith begins with thankfulness.

Last Sunday afternoon I attended worship at the First Baptist Church of Princeton. I went on behalf of the Princeton Clergy Association. The Baptist Church was celebrating an anniversary for their missionary society. The preacher was Silas Townsend from St. John’s Baptist Church in Camden and he brought his choir, that just about doubled the congregation that afternoon. At one point, Pastor Carlton Branscomb called the ushers forward for the offering. But nothing happened, and he waited and he looked. Then one usher came forward and whispered in his ear. “I’ve been told we’re going to march today”, the pastor announced. And a pleasant murmur went through the church. And then the music started. And a few ushers went for the offering basket and it was placed up front. Then a few other ushers started to lead the march, from the last pew up the aisle passed the basket and back down the aisle. It wasn’t so much a march, as it was dance. The music never stopped. Some movement more graceful than others. When it was the choir’s turn to march out of the loft and around the church and back to the baskets, they all marched in time together. The offering must have gone on for twenty minutes, and there weren’t that many people.

As a Presbyterian born and raised with decency and order and the secrecy of money and the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, and almost apologizing when I have to preach a stewardship sermon, I have never seen an offering like that. It was an act of praise, an overwhelming act of thanksgiving that filled the room, filled the church, filled me. It was a bodily act of praise.

We’re not going to march today, but you know that this meal, this table celebration, this sacrament, it is our act of praise and thanksgiving. That’s where our call to guard the faith, that’s where it begins. Right here, right now, with this bodily act of praise.     A sip of juice. A taste of bread. Surrounded by such a cloud of witnesses, such a  sea of faces. Up to your ankles in grace.

An act of thanksgiving that fills the room and fills you. Be grateful to God. It’s what it means to be the church.

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