Sermon preached at Abiding Presence Lutheran Church based on 2 Timothy 4: 6-8, 16-18. Did you make a New Year's resolution for 2016? Ten months into this year how's that working for you? Me? Not so well! I would help if I could remember what they were…I think it had to do about exercise or something…
Thank God, I am off the hook, because a study by the University of Scranton revealed that only 8 percent of people actually achieve any semblance of their New Year's goals! Which all means for many of us is that chances are that not only didn't we follow through on our resolutions but we are not alone.
Unfortunately today is not a good day to be reminded of my excuses regarding life goals or resolutions because today scripture readings challenge us to consider our lives for today, tomorrow and our remaining days. In fact, the real key to making and keeping life goals as Christians might actually be found today --- in all places --- Paul's letter to Timothy. Because according to Paul, the way to stay in the race of life is to dwell on the fact that we're all terminal. The Apostle Paul thinks we might benefit from thinking more about death. Why on earth would anybody suggest that?
Well, according to Paul, the contemplation of death in life can help us to shake out of our fear and anxiousness and help us to focus attention on a meaningful faith life and derive more satisfaction in our lives.
How should we begin this process that Paul suggests? Pauls' view is similar to an article published in the New York Times by Arthur C. Brooks. Why not start by looking at some pictures of corpses --- perhaps a coffee table book of dead people? Now hear me out. Brooks wrote, "Years ago on a visit to Thailand, I was surprised to learn that Buddhist monks often contemplate the photos of corpses in various stages of decay. The Buddha himself recommended corpse meditation. 'This body, too,' students were taught to say about their own bodies, 'such is its nature, and such is its future, such its unavoidable fate.'"
Meditating on one's own death, in other words, is a way of realigning our focus from the momentary to the big-picture. Do this and we may perhaps begin to renew our own finite lives. For example, have you ever taken the "Last Year" test?
It goes like this; If this were our last year to live, would we really watch so much TV, play so many video games, or play so much golf; nothing intrinsically wrong with those things, of course especially playing video games J But, would we read more books or fewer books? Would we spend more time or less time with friends? Would we spend more time or less time with family? Would we take more walks or fewer walks? Would we volunteer more or less? Would we eat more cookies and cream ice cream or less if this was our last year?
I would suspect for most of us, it's the immediate and the transitory that seems to undermine the long-term and the meaningful. And how do I know this, because one of the greatest examples of someone staring death in the face and focusing on what really matters comes to us as I mentioned earlier from the apostle Paul, who writes from his confinement in Rome to his young pastoral protégé Timothy.
Many scholars believe that the letter was written, along with 1 Timothy, during Paul's imprisonment during the persecutions of the Roman emperor Nero in the early 60s A.D. sometime after Paul had been released from his original house arrest in Rome that we read about in Acts 28. As I was recently reminded during my trip to Rome, Italy the persecutions under Nero were severe, and Paul would certainly have seen the writing on the wall that he, a well-known leader of the Christian movement, would himself soon be executed. As a Roman citizen, Paul would have had the quick death of a beheading offered to him instead of facing the torturous deaths of his non-Roman citizen brothers and sisters in Christ, but it was still death nonetheless. The letter is thus considered by many to be a sort of "last will and testament" for the apostle that we can all learn from.
How could these words help us? Knowing that his executioners will come for him at any time, Paul writes from the perspective of one who knows that death is imminent and wants to use his remaining time in ways that are consistent with how he has lived his life since meeting the risen Christ on the road to Damascus many years ago. "I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come," writes the old apostle. It is a sobering metaphor taken from the ancient practice of pouring out drink offerings at an altar to the divine --- a life poured out in sacrifice to the God to whom Paul had given his early allegiance as a Pharisee and then to that same God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. Paul was about to give the last full drop in faith in grace for the cause to which Christ had called him.
So, rather than always living in the past or pining about the future, which is another sign of the misaligned life, Paul evaluates both his past and his future through the lens of his imminent death. And what thread does Paul see as he sees death? The common thread of his past, present and future is simply faithfulness. Using three metaphors, Paul describes this thread of faithfulness using the image of sports that were common in first-century Rome.
"I have fought the good fight." "I have finished the race." "I have kept the faith." Paul envisions his life as one momentarily in route to cross a great finish line. His death will not define his life in faith. Rather, his faithful wrestling with the truth of the risen Christ first led him to tumble off his horse on the way to persecute Christians in Damascus … but then helped him stand back up. His faithfulness enabled him to grapple with what words to use to those who wondered about this conversion from murderer to Christian. Later this faithfulness provided courage in challenging times. Paul recognizes that he "fought the good fight" on behalf of the One who had first knocked him down and lifted him up and set him off on the journey of faith.
And as he sat thinking in prison on what to write to Timothy with death pending, he is encouraging this younger person that his faithful life experience filled with stumbling and deadly moments not only is he about "finishing the race" but on "keeping the faith." Looking back on his life, rather than changing things up constantly by making momentary resolution after momentary life goal depending on life circumstances, Paul in contemplating his impending death is able to say that the determination to proclaim the good news about Jesus Christ is one task that defined his life.
When we think about the "Last Year" test, we might be tempted to think that our lives are really the sum total of what we've accomplished as time ticks away. We might assume that what we have accumulated in material possessions, relationships or life experiences is what really matters; that if we did not complete out bucket lists somehow our lives are failures. Paul reminds us that the only real answer in death is faithfulness. Paul recaps that the only real encouragement to continue comes from faithful wrestling day in and day out. There are many distractions that can pull us away, and Paul takes a moment later to mention those who struggled with this path; Demas and Alexander the coppersmith.
Near the end, Paul understood that the only prize, the only goal in life that really matters, is this "crown of righteousness" that awaits all of us by grace through faith. Such a crown is not something we achieve by effort in this life race, since no matter how we are able to jump the hurdles, even our best efforts and accomplishments pale in comparison to God's goodness. No, it is not a crown that is achieved or warranted; it is not attained by hours at our local charity, or answering correctly the last test, instead, it is given to us as a gift.
A life of faithfulness to Christ is a response to that promised crown. When we focus on Christs own death and resurrection, we come to realize that our own death itself will ultimately be defeated, a message we are to share with others.
I suspect that Paul, like many of us, could have shared his regrets on how he had spent all his time, perhaps wondering why he took off for years in Arabia (Gal. 1: 17) or why God placed Lydia, the wealthy widow to be the first person to be baptized in the west. But when it finally came down to it, Paul's gift to Timothy and to us at this this moment of reflection, knowing what was ahead of him, is his focus on influencing those around him to live their lives trusting in God's promise. He invested his remaining time in people like Timothy, who would carry on the proclamation of Jesus Christ.
Immediately after our reading, it's both heartening and heartbreaking to read Paul's desperate request for Timothy "to 'do your best to come to me soon.'" Words I have heard on occasion in hospitals, bedrooms and nursing homes as we waited anxiously for one last loved ones to reappear. Did Timothy make it time, or was he too late? What ever happened, Paul wanted to make sure that his last moments were spent faithfully investing in the future, that the cause of Christ would continue to advance even after he was gone.
Where does this leave you and me? I hope you got more out of this sermon than how much time to spend watching TV or video games? That is for you to measure. In its place, in recalling Paul's words, we have a gentle reminder to recalibrate, reorganize and reallocate our time and resources in a way that aligns with our faithfulness in Jesus Christ. We are about mission, the faithful proclamation of Jesus Christ.
We may be around to welcome 2017 with a click of champagne, a new resolution and a kiss of our loved ones, but in faithfulness our strength is found at the table with bread and wine, in scripture and together in worship. And if we are still struggling with courage in this cauldron of division, homophobia, misogyny, racism and fear, then perhaps we may need to go back for a moment to as Paul suggests, to a coffee table book of dead people, have trust in the crown of righteousness that we have received and in faith as we run the race of life. Amen.