Trinity 16 2019 (Habakkuk 1, 1-4; 2, 1-4; 2 Tim 1, 1-14; Luke 17, 5-10)

Revd. Canon Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

 

Communication has never been easier than it is now, yet we live in a world of frustration about the lack of communication. We can send information about events and people within seconds of something being said, or an event happening, yet we have so much mis-information, or as one rather significant person has called it ‘fake news’.

Back in July we had an earthquake in Athens, registering 5.1 on the Richter scale – it was my first experience of an earthquake. At the time it happened I was sitting with a young couple discussing their wedding blessing ceremony. The woman is a journalist. The second we realized that an earthquake was happening she jumped up out of her chair and her mobile phone was recording the earthquake as it was happening, along with local people’s reaction. The quake lasted roughly 12 seconds, but her recording was sent to the news agency she works for in less time than that.

This is the world we live in. Photographs and quick messages that make no grammatical sense are send instantly  – our experience of communication is by messages rather than letters.

This option was not available to those who lived in the time of St. Paul and the Apostles as they shared the good news of Jesus Christ among the small and fragile Christian communities of the Mediterranean.

It is disputed that St. Paul wrote the 2 letters to Timothy as scholars have dated these two letters to 95-105AD which makes them too late to have been written by him, but this does not detract from the authenticity of the contents. However I will continue to use the name Paul for the convenience of preaching.

We know that Timothy had been a colleague of St. Paul in the ministry and he is referred to in the Acts of the Apostles. We know also that the context for Timothy’s Christian community is the ancient and prestigious city of Ephesus, the city where St. John, the Beloved Disciple, is said to have taken the Mother of Christ. Ancient Ephesus is still very much on the pilgrimage route for the faithful, where they can visit Mary’s House.

It is the city where they could boast one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – though they didn’t know that at the time as no one had sent them Instagram pictures of the other six! This ancient wonder was the Artemesia, a temple built for the cultic followers to worship the goddess  Artemis – a cult that was in fact reserved for female worshippers. This is significant in what Paul says in his correspondence to this great city.

We have in the New Testament 2 letters to Timothy in Ephesus. Paul is noted for his letter writing and it is through letters that we really get under the skin of how he develops new Christian themes on account of his conversion to the faith.

 

The second reading this morning is the beginning of the 2^nd Letter to Timothy. I have laid it out in the Liturgy booklet in a way that helps us see the letter style – the epistolary style.

Using the letter method he introduces himself as the letter writer, direct and with no fuss, and he gives his principal credentials for sending the letter. He is an apostle, a follower of Christ and obedient to God, and baptised into the death and life of Jesus which is the promise of new life. So much is packed into that introduction, every word chosen wisely, and a sentence that sums up the writer and the reason for writing.

We are then given the recipient; Timothy a ‘child’ in the sense that Paul had been his spiritual father; someone whose work has been honed by being a co-worker with Paul. Then, nothing as bland and anodyne as ‘Dear Tim, Hope you are OK’  but rather ‘Grace, mercy and peace’ from the God in whose being Christ subsists.

These two introductory sentences are brief – yet they say so much about personal faith, faith shared with a partner in faith, faith shared in the life of the Christian community.

 

If only there was time to look beyond these two sentences and this beautiful letter. Please read it yourself. To summarize it we find no wasted or empty words or phrases. Paul recognizes the faith of others, mentioning Timothy’s grand-mother and mother, Lois and Eunice. He knows these people; he has worshipped with these people, he understands the trials that the faith brings to them – there are tears but also joy, indeed, joy IN tears. He reminds the Christian community in Ephesus what they had shared when he visited – acknowledging that persecution, imprisonment and suffering is part of the Christian experience. Paul knows this all too well, for in Rome Paul is imprisoned, in chains, suffering indignities, and in fact he will lose his life for the sake of the gospel.

Suffering is a great challenge to Christian apologetics – by which I mean that questions are often put to us about our claims to believe in a God of love, yet suffering abounds, and in history Christians have slaughtered each other. So the Christians are encouraged to accept what has happened to Paul as an authentic sign of discipleship.

Paul says he has been appointed for this very purpose of suffering, providing a very brief Curriculum Vitae; Paul is a herald (κήρυξ), an apostle (απόστολος), and a teacher (διδάσκαλος). He ends this extended epistolary peroration with the crux of his letter – laying it out right at the start. ‘Hold to the standard of sound teaching’ and ‘guard the good treasure’.

Addressing, as he does, the Christian community in Ephesus, this introduction could so easily be addressed to each of us individually and together.

 

In essence how are we better informed by what we have read here.

• Stay focussed on God in Christ
• Be formed by the love and grace of Christ
• Be united by the Holy Spirit in a community of faith, never parted by distance
• Respect the other members of the Christian community
• Communicate with them in an encouraging and embracing spirit
• Keep the faith and regard what we possess in faith as a treasure

So whether we might now use Instagram, texts, emails, Watts App, write a letter, or preach a sermon to the household of faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.