individual, community, God: the church at peace

Two weeks ago, I participated in a pastoral ordination for one of our members of Mennonite World Conference.  The event had been on our calendar for the entire year—it was much anticipated.  Because I had been asked to give leadership to the ordination, I did a lot of research on the practice of ordination within the Mennonite Church, trying to get my head around how to relate a structure or process for ordination within my sending denomination (MCUSA) to a much less-defined practice within the church in this case.  In the end, I think we managed something that could be deemed a success—a blending of practices, roles, and personalities that marked one pastor’s identity as a servant of God to the people to whom he has been called.

In my own preparation for the event, the text that grabbed my attention was 1 Timothy 4:12-5:2, a text in which the three participants named above—the pastor, God, and the people—are clearly visible.
The text is marked by a frame of implicit conflict or potential conflict within the church.  Such conflict is acknowledged in Paul’s exhortation to Timothy, “Let no one despise your youth” (4:12), and in his counsel to Timothy, “Do not speak harshly to an older man” [Greek: presbyter] (5:1).  In other words, at the beginning and end of this unit of scripture, conflict or the potential for conflict in the church is assumed.  If it was not so, why then does Paul deem it worthy to affirm Timothy’s calling in the face of those who would “despise his youth”?  Likewise, if the potential of young leaders such as Timothy to deride older leaders were not present, why then do we find Paul warning Timothy not to “speak harshly to an older man” (5:1)?  Indeed, the text acknowledges that conflict is close at hand.

But if the context of the text is conflict, then the substance of the text pertains to how Timothy—the addressee of this epistle (1 Tim 1:2)—might conduct himself within that conflict.  And though Christ is nowhere mentioned in this unit, we might not be surprised to learn that the method Paul lays down for Timothy for dealing with conflict has Christ written all over it.  To those who would despise his youth, Timothy should—rather than returning derision in the form of speaking harshly to an older man—“set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (4:12b).  Timothy is not to concern himself with the insults of others, becoming fixated on them, but to “give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhorting, to teaching” (4:13).  These are the things—the things of God and not the things of human beings (Mk 8:33)—that Timothy should “put into practice”, “devote [himself] to”, “continue in” (4:15, 16).  Timothy’s responsibility is to the scripture, the teaching of scripture, and his own integrity to that scripture-shaped life in the presence of others.  Indeed, Timothy is to “pay close attention to [himself] and to [his] teaching” (4:15).  As far as it concerns Timothy, the pastor for others, the scripture judges him before it judges his flock. 

The conduct of a Christian leader, therefore, is self-reflection, humility, and submission to God rather than the presumption to be like God.  The leader sets an example (4:12) of dependence on God which the people can follow—not with regard to the leader but to the leader’s Leader.  The goal of the church is not to play “follow the leader”; the church follows the leader in following God.

As implicit in the text as the conflict is the power of the example of “love, faith, and purity” to overcome the conflict.  It is entirely possible, even likely, that for a time the example will be despised by those who love darkness more than light (Jn 3:19).  That does not mean, however, that the example of love is not ultimately efficacious, for it is the power of God for all who have faith and even now are victorious precisely in keeping their purity in love in the midst of derision.  In the best of times, by God’s grace, the example of enduring love (which is Jesus Christ himself) will even win the derisive.  The example of “love, faith, and purity” always leaves open the door to redemption, the cessation of hostility and the embrace of peace—and that is why Paul commends it to Timothy.  Indeed, Paul insists that the example “will save both [Timothy] and [his] hearers (4:16).

At the very heart of the text is an image of the “saved” church.  It is an image of the people of God, so to speak, “in the beginning”, perhaps before the despising of youth and cruelty to the old had become a threat to genuine peace.  Paul reconstructs the memory for Timothy.  “Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of elders” (4:14).  The memory of what the people of God once were points to the reality of what the people of God will be.  Before it forgot its true calling, the community recognized the gift of God to individuals among them and acclaimed God’s gift by a show of support in the presence of all.  That which was given to one “through prophecy”, God’s Word breaking in to human experience, was affirmed by the many “with the laying on of hands by the council of elders. [Greek: presbytery].”  He who would deride those who called him, and those who would despise the one they called, are themselves called to remember who they really are in Christ.

-Joe

prophetic loneliness

I have an excess of material in my heart and mind from studying in preparation for teaching a lesson on "the prophets" for Bethany Bible School earlier this month. I gave a shortened version of what I did at BBS for our Tuesday evening fellowship group this week. The last two Sundays at Mandela Park I preached on the experience of two different prophets, Elijah and Isaiah. In the case of Elijah I focused on his showdown with the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18). In the case of Isaiah I found myself preaching on his call vision of the Lord in chapter 6.

Perhaps the unifying theme of the stories of Elijah and Isaiah is their loneliness. As people called to stand for their God, to speak his words to a rebellious people, they experience widespread, nearly total, rejection.

"To be a prophet is to be alone"--this is how I put it.

It is, therefore, precisely in their loneliness that the prophets embody the faithfulness that God intends for all his people. Standing for God, the prophets can no more rely for support on a people who have rejected God. The only thing, the only one, left for the prophet is the One. The prophet's support has been reduced to God. The prophet's only dependence is God. The prophet thus is privileged to know in his or her own person or very being that which is fundamentally true: that God is the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of the universe. "There is no other", as God put it through Isaiah (Isa. 45:5).

One of the biggest dangers for my noble faith tradition, the Anabaptist, is mistaking the God who holds our life for the human community. Our language sometimes suggests that the community of the church is God. "We discern together," we say, "in the gathered community of believers". We speak as if this in itself is a safeguard against sin and the running amok of injustice, a balance of powers of sorts not unlike the set-up of the democracy in the land in which I have heard these words (America, the land of my earthly citizenship). We forget, however, that the early Anabaptists from whom we have inherited were not so much in their beginning an established faith community as they were a coming together of convicted individuals rebelling each in his own sphere against the rebellion of the established church. The Anabaptists were first and foremost lonely individuals, rejected at large by the culture in which they were born, eventually coming together to form an alternative community in the world. In the land of my birth, that alternative community is no longer alternative; it is dominant. The community has triumphed over the individual alone before her God.

The irony of all this is that the health of the community is dependent upon the holy loneliness of every one of its members. Every person needs to face that place in which they are rejected, in which the only one they have to go to is God. Each person needs to confront that one nagging fear, the avoidance of which has become his dependence, his security, his god. Only then, having found himself alone, does one discover that he is not alone. He is with his God. She is with her God.

In this light the cross of Jesus is the witness of prophetic loneliness par excellence. The crucifixion is the final cycle of prophetic loneliness opening up to holy communion. Jesus experiences on the cross that which he experienced numerous times on the way to the cross. Alone with the tempter in the desert, eventually finding strength in the Word of God. Deserted by companions in Gethsemane, persevering in prayer to his "Abba". Finally, on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" ends in "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Mk. 15:34; Lk. 23:46). The final experience of human loneliness is God's fullest embrace. Loneliness and communion are two sides of the same coin in the life of God.

The prophet knows that life, and he is desperate for others to know what he knows.

-Joe