Text: 1Timothy 6:2c-19

Today’s text offers many different possibilities for sermonizing as does the theme – “Generous Spirit” and even the title – “Getting Along.” Rest assured that I do not intend to mine every possibility in this sermon. Let’s see where our reflections take us.

We noted last week that these pastoral letters to Timothy and Titus are focused increasingly on institutional organization and church leadership as the participants in the early church began to let go of their expectation of Jesus’ immediate return and turn their attention to how they should organize themselves for the long haul. The longer the church survived, the larger it grew and the more it had to deal with competing ideas about its nature as well as differing beliefs within its theology. Clearly, the writer of Timothy is concerned with controversies and heresies that threaten the unity of the fledgling church. He does not spell out in any detail the specific heresies he is concerned with, but is rather concerned with how these competing ideologies and dissensions tear at the body of Christ.

Of course, the risk of the writer’s call to conformity is that dissent is discouraged at the expense of uniformity and making a good impression. The roots of creedalism are found in works such as Timothy. But as good Baptists we have spent our lives in the faith rejecting creeds and arguing for the freedom to dissent from any mindless conformity to traditions, rules and regulations. We have resisted the kind of hierarchy in church leadership that creates bishops and elders and have held out for the priesthood of all believers. So, it can be a challenge for us to read works like these pastoral letters and find in their episcopal ecclesiology and stoic philosophy words that speak to us.

Still, there are nuggets to be mined that are well worth the effort. Today’s lectionary passage actually begins with verse 6 and leads into the subject of wealth. This passage contains one of the most famous sayings in the Bible. In fact, when we read it Tuesday, some were surprised to find it here, thinking it more likely that the saying came from Shakespeare or Benjamin Franklin. We know the saying most commonly as the “The love of money is the root of all evil.” Actually, a common misreading of the phrase is that “Money is the root of all evil.” Though a case might - in fact, has - been made for this statement, we find here a more accurate translation that says “…the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil…”

Now let’s be clear that the writer is not arguing that it is money itself that gets one into trouble, though it certainly can; it is the love of money, the desire for wealth, the craving for material possessions that uniformly lead down the road to destruction. To be fair, we should go back and put this famous saying into the context in which the writer intends it. The writer is here concerned with godliness. This is a theme we looked at last week. I take godliness to mean being grounded in God, centered in God in all our existence, constantly aware of and living into God’s presence. Now, it is possible that the writer’s original intention was to speak of something more superficial, like the kind of goodness that keeps one out of obvious trouble and keeps others from asking about what’s going on beneath the surface they see. Last week I referred to this as congenital niceness. Another way to speak of it might be to say that “I want to be the best little boy (or girl) in the world; then everyone will think so highly of me, they’ll never ask what’s going on behind my bright, shining face.”

If this is what the writer intends then I do not think he understands the deep meaning and difficult challenge of living a godly life. But from some of the things he says in this passage, I am inclined to believe that he does have a deeper understanding of godliness. There is “great gain in godliness,” he says, “combined with contentment…” What does he mean by contentment? At this point another famous maxim appears, oft-quoted and also attributed often to sources other than this little letter, “…we brought nothing into this world, so that we can take nothing out of it…” “You Can’t Take It with You” is the title of a well-loved comedy of the American stage. “Dust to dust and ashes to ashes,” the Hebrew Scriptures teach. “…if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these,” the writer goes on. Godliness is here centered in the belief that God will provide for our every need. As Jesus taught his disciples, “…do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25) Or perhaps the writer hears the echo of Paul’s words to the church at Philippi, “Not that I complain of want; for I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content” (Philippians 4:11.)

It seems to me that these word about seeking after wealth and security ring as real today as they did 2000 years ago. Though the Beatles sang it well, “Money can’t buy you love,” many are still caught up in chasing after the almighty dollar, locked into the latest get rich quick scheme, preaching the prosperity gospel, and retreating to gated communities to protect possessions. “But those who want to be rich,” the writer says, “fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.” The real rewards in life, the great gain is in godliness with contentment. Or as Jesus said in that same Sermon on the Mount, “…indeed your heavenly Father knows you need all these things – [food, clothing, shelter, contentment, love]. But strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:32b-33.) Not only is “…the love of money the root of all kinds of evil…in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.” Take a minute to reflect; is this true? Do you know of anyone who has suffered any of these consequences for seeking after riches? Could you illustrate these points with stories from your own life experience?

The generous spirit is like this; it pursues “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.” It “fights the good fight of the faith; takes hold of eternal life…”and “…makes the good confession…” that Jesus is Lord of life, all life! And just in case you’re already rich - and frankly, in the eyes of the world, most of us are – we are warned “…not to be haughty, or to set [our] hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” One of the signature risks of desiring wealth is the tendency to believe that we never have enough, so we keep on accumulating addictively, hoarding and living in selfishness. But the generous spirit wants to get along well with its sisters and brothers. Those of us who are rich are commanded to “…do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up…the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that [we] may take hold of the life that really is life.” I love this final word, “…take hold of the life that really is life.” If we really are godly, made in the image and likeness of God, then we are made with generous spirits and we are made to live with open hearts and open hands toward all creation. We are made to say yes to life, with all its challenges and wonders, its joys and tears, its hills and valleys, for there is no greater gift than the gift of life and the promise of abundant and eternal life in Christ Jesus.

As our words of preparation say, “’Eternal life’ is not mere subjective endurance but the experience of divine presence and guidance in the midst of our lives now and forevermore. Continuous existence, apart from God’s presence, would be hell rather than heaven! Living in light of eternity places our lives in a larger perspective, and enables us to choose between possibilities that give life and possibilities that turn us from our fullest identity as God’s beloved sons and daughters” (Bruce Epperly, Process and Faith Lectionary Commentary, Pentecost +18, 2007.) May we “…take hold of life that really is life.”

Now before we leave this text, something came up in Tuesday’s Bible study that raises another concern about this business of godliness and contentment that I had not thought of going into the parlor that day. It began when I suggested we start reading in the second rather than the sixth verse of the chapter. My Bible instructors, Bill Herzog and Norm Gottwald and David Bartlett would object to treating the text without at least looking at the entire pericope or passage. So, going back to the beginning of the paragraph, we find the writer inveighing against the dissenters and heretics who are among his greatest concerns for the life of the church. He wants to make sure that those who teach follow “…the sounds words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that is in accord with godliness…” He is concerned about those who are “…conceited, understanding nothing… [with] a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words.” He says “From these come envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, and wrangling among those who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.” It seems that, in his righteous indignation, the writer himself skates the edge of the very qualities he is critiquing.

Be that as it may, when we began to discuss this part of the passage on Tuesday, it evoked for Jim Shepard past experiences in which churches were torn apart precisely because of this sort of mean-spirited wrangling, fighting for power and control, sinking into a morass in which people were neither respected nor cared for. In these experiences, congregations had practiced neither compassion nor godliness in their interactions with one another. Perhaps people had spoken truth, at least their own truth, but hardly in love. Again, I ask you to reflect, to consider your own experiences in which disagreement, badly handled, led to pain and destruction of the body.

Of course, one of the joys and challenges of having several people working on the text at once is that you get a range of thoughts and feelings. So, after Jim had shared his thought, Joanne Jones raised her concern that sometimes church people are just too nice, at least on the surface. They tend to avoid conflict, at least open conflict, and so people never really share with one another what is on their minds and on their hearts. They don’t have open, honest conversations about the things that really matter to them.

In my experience in a number of churches over the years, I have seen congregations torn apart by ungodly conflict, badly managed, and I have seen churches stuck in a state of ungodly tension behind smiling masks that seek to avoid all controversy. Because we, as a congregation, are poised to engage in some significant conversations about who we are and who we want to be, I can imagine that concerns about nasty fights as well as concerns about not really facing anything are both lurking in our collective consciousness. We are also approaching the time for our annual stewardship campaign, so concerns about money may also be stirring.

The challenge for us, whether we’re dealing with money or our congregational future, is to somehow show “godliness combined with contentment;” to demonstrate a generous spirit, both in our stewardship of money and in our dealings with one another; to get along, both in the sense of moving ahead in our life together and also in learning to get along with what we have. We are blessed with wonderful resources and we have a rich history of being generous givers. But beyond that, we are blessed with each other, this “precious, fragile, curious family” (Jim Hopkins), this amazing community of love and compassion. As we care for our resources, let us never forget how important it is to care for our community as well. Let us “…do good…be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up…the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that [we] may take hold of the life that really is life.”