There was an article that some of you may have read in The Toronto Star on Friday about Matthew Bryce, a young man who was surfing off the west coast of Scotland and got caught up in a that took him from the west coast of Scotland all the way to the coast of Ireland. For thirty hours, he clung to his surf board! He suffered from hypothermia but survived by clinging on to the board and staying out of the water as much as possible. This is a story about the power of tides, and how they can catch us by surprise.
I think it is notable that some dozen years ago Dr. Peter Wyatt, who was then Principal of Emmanuel College, preached a sermon about tides, and he told the story of the Robinson family, who lived in British Columbia by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and how Robinson was paddling his canoe when all of a sudden he got caught up in a tide, taking him way out to sea. There appeared to be no way back. All was lost! His wife stood at the dock with a flashlight throughout the night waiting hopefully for him to return. Then, all of a sudden, he appeared. The tide that had taken him out to sea had now brought him all the way back to land. Asked how he was able to survive and keep going, he simply said, “I never stopped paddling.” In other words, even though the tide had gone out and it appeared that everything was lost, he wanted to make sure that he kept paddling in the right direction, and the tide brought him back in. It was a remarkable story, said Dr. Wyatt. What was interesting in his sermon was that he said that in many ways the life of religion and faith communities is affected by tides: by cultural tides, historical tides, demographic tides. It might appear at times that the tide is pushing inextricably beyond the shore to somewhere over which we have no control, but in terms of theological education and the ministry of the church, what you want to do is to make sure that even if those tides are ebbing or flowing in your direction, it matters not, you have got to keep paddling. You have got to remain true to what it is that you believe. This was a wonderful clarion call from a Principal, not always heeded unfortunately, but it was a profound word from Dr. Wyatt.
I think when the Apostle Paul was penning his letter to young Timothy in our passage this morning, he was seeing that the tide was going in another direction. He saw that all the hard work he had done was unravelling before him, and he was concerned that after he had gone others would succeed him and carry on the mantle that had been passed by Jesus to him. The object of his affection and the one that he saw doing this was young Timothy. Paul had known Timothy for a long time. He had known his grandmother, and his mother, both of whom became Christians. Timothy had been with Paul on a lot of his journeys and had helped him, particularly in Macedonia. Now he is writing to him near the end of his own ministry, and looking wistfully to the future. He knows it is coming to an end. He is imprisoned in Rome while he is writing this, or had a scribe write it on his behalf. He knows that he has run the race, but the race is coming to an end.
In one of the most emotional and powerful of all passages in The New Testament, an older man writes to a younger man about the future of the Church. You can tell that he thinks the tide is turning, but it is the language that he uses. He says, “There are people who are turning away. There is changing truth for a lie. They are listening with itching ears for what people want to tell them rather than the truth. They surround themselves with people who will affirm them and tell them that they are great and that they are wonderful, but not share with them The Gospel.” Paul sees that the Church is drifting out to sea as it were, unsure of where it is going to be moored and where it will end. Paul is concerned that sound doctrine will be thrown away, that the work of an evangelist would disappear. To the young Timothy he says, “Do the work of an evangelist. Remain firm, remain strong, and be diligent in your service. Don’t become caught up in the tide, but make sure that you keep going. Remain strong!” The language throughout the whole passage is one, as you can see and as we heard, of encouragement. It is imploring him to remain faithful no matter what. It is a beautiful statement of faith!
It is more than that, because there is hidden within all of this a message for all time. There is a reason why these letters to Timothy are known as Catholic Epistles. By “Catholic” it means universal. They were being distributed all over Asia Minor and Europe. The Christian community was getting copies of what Paul wrote directly to Timothy. Later on they started to read it for themselves and realized that this passage speaks to them. While it might have been written for young Timothy, it was written for the Church in perpetuity. It is a Catholic Epistle. That is why there are words in here that I believe are helpful and instructive for you and me, and for the Church in our generation, and why Dr. Wyatt emphasized this passage in his sermon was because he speaks about some of the great themes of our faith.
One of them is self-sacrifice. Paul uses old language. He says, “I have been poured out like a libation.” The word “libation” is not a modern word; or a word used in common discourse. For example, you wouldn’t go to McDonald’s and say, “I will have a cheese burger and a garden salad, and what would you recommend for my libation?” Lord knows what you would end up with! No, it is not a word we use, but libation biblically means even more. It not only means the pouring of a drink; it means the pouring of a good drink. A libation is there to satiate thirst, to take care of people who are in need. I don’t know if Paul had in mind the story of Jesus at the Wedding at Cana, where they ran out of wine and all that was left was water and Jesus turned the water into wine, and to everyone’s surprise it was the best wine that was saved until the end. This is a libation, a libation that satiates the thirst of people. Paul realized the people were thirsty. They were thirsting after the Word of God. They were thirsting after truth. They didn’t want the paganism that was surrounding them. They didn’t want these silly gods that people had made up. They wanted something more powerful, more truthful. Paul sees himself as having poured himself out for the sake of people. He is saying to Timothy, “It is self-sacrifice. I have emptied myself. I have given of myself for the sake and the cause of The Gospel, and I have nothing more to give.”
When you look back at Paul’s ministry, you can imagine as he sat in prison he might have been thinking about a few things. For example, when he stood before the Council of Jerusalem that is covered in the Book of Acts, where there was a debate about whether Gentiles, who had become Christians had to become Jews before they could become Christians. There was this fierce debate going on between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, and Paul was concerned that they would lose Gentile Christians if there was a feeling that you had to become a circumcised Jew first. So at the Council of Jerusalem, he stood for the freedom of Gentiles to follow in the line of Christ, not against the Jews and against Judaism, after all he was one himself, but in order that Gentiles could follow Christ without any quid pro quo – and he won the day! Had he not won the day, most of us would not be here today.
There were other moments where he stood before the Council of the Areopagus in Athens, the great council of philosophers. They were all waxing eloquently about the gods, and Paul points to one god that is called “An Unknown God” – they didn’t even have a name for that god, and he mocks it and says, “You know, these gods don’t exist, these gods that you have been worshipping, but I have revealed to you the living God. I have revealed to you the One and the Living God.” I think that one of the moments that was most important actually involved Timothy himself. It is covered in the Book of Acts, Chapter 19, where Paul runs headlong into conflict with the people who are making items for the gods in Ephesus. Here is the story:
About that time there arose a great disturbance about the followers of the way (Christians). A silversmith named Dimitrius, who made silver shrines for Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsman there. He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said, ‘You know my friends that we receive a good income from this business, and you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole of the province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. There is a danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited.’
So the crowds rose up against Paul, and because Dimitrius and others felt they were going to be losing money because they were making these idols. People wanted their money rather than the Gospel, and they chased Paul out of Ephesus and he was arrested. I think when Paul is writing to young Timothy, he is thinking back: “You know, I have been poured out like a libation. I have suffered for the sake of The Gospel and I have done it.”
There is also a sense of perseverance in Paul. The beautiful thing about the passage is there is no sense of remorse, or anger. He simply says, “I have fought the good fight! I have finished the race!” There is no looking over his shoulder and saying “If only .......” He doesn’t become depressed at the thought that the tide was going out. He was only concerned to inspire young Timothy to continue in his path.
I read an interesting book this week by the TV personality and business writer Amanda Lang, The Beauty of Discontent. It is about business. It is not about theology, but there is a lot in it that applies to theology. In her cover note, this is written:
Some degree of discomfort is inherently good for you. It can spur you on, pushing you to test your own limits, learning to tolerate and then embrace discomfort is the foundation for change for individuals and businesses alike. Becoming comfortable with discomfort won’t just make us more resilient and more successful; it will also make us happier.
Now, this is a different take, isn’t it? Discontent can build strength and resilience. In many ways, the more opposition the Apostle Paul had in his life – and he had a lot of it – the more resilient and strong he became, and the more he trusted in the Lord for his strength and his guidance. As he was pushed beyond his limits, he found the resources and the strength to engage that. What a word that is for the Church today! When it seems that the tide is pushing out against some of the things that we love and we embrace, is it for us then simply to stop paddling and just drift? By no means!
In some ways my heart is sad today because the first church that I served as an ordained minister, and I went to it thirty-three years ago next month, is being decommissioned today. It is in a town in Nova Scotia. It is a beautiful building, and there were very fine people in the congregation, and there still are. But it broke my heart when I was asked to write a letter to the congregation on the decommissioning of a building where I preached. I am not sure people understand the connection between ministers and churches. It is stronger than anyone realizes. It is a bond of love, and it is why your heart is broken. I have thought back to that over the last week and reflected on it. In my letter I encouraged them at the end because I think that is what Paul would want. Whether the congregation is still constituted and meets somewhere else, that might be, but the building where they were, that was seen by everybody, where people were buried and married and baptized and had so many great worship services that is now derelict. It is a salient reminder of the fact that the tide can quickly go out.
As surely as the tide can quickly go out, as the Robinson family found, the tide can come back in. The challenge for the church is to keep paddling. If you stop paddling, then you stop remaining faithful to everything that for two thousand years the Church has stood for. That is why I love Paul’s ending. He understands that for him there is a line for which he is waiting. He describes the line as a “crown of righteousness” a crown that will be placed upon his head, like a laurel wreath, at the end of the race, and he awaits it. He knows that he has not raced this race without someone waiting for him at the finish line. Simone Weil wrote a fantastic book called Waiting for God in which she said these words: “We cannot take a step towards the heavens. God crosses the Universe and comes to us, and comes to us.”
For Weil, the one who has come to us is in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, our Lord. What Paul waited for at the end of his journey was the very one who had called him on the road to Damascus. The one who would crown him with a crown would be the one who wore the Crown of Thorns before him. It is an incredible image at the end of a life that has served: “I have fought the good fight. I have run the race. And now, waiting for me is the Crown of Righteousness!”
As I thought this week about Nova Scotia, I also thought of a time when I used to go down to Lake Banook in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Banook is famous for having one of the top rowing clubs in all of Canada, and has produced some of Canada’s greatest rowers. They are magnificent, are often up very early in the morning. I would cross over Lake Banook on my way to the church at. As early at 6 am some of them would be out there paddling in the Nova Scotia fog. What was amazing was not the athletes and the coaches, but the parents who were at the finish line waiting to greet them. What was most telling I noticed, and I observed carefully, was that the parents were not the most demonstrative and supportive of the rowers who were first across the line, but those who had simply endured to the end and crossed the finish line. There the embrace by the parent was all the greater.
The Apostle Paul knows he has rowed his race, and fought his fight. He knows the tide is changing, and he speaks to young Timothy: “In season and out of season, be an evangelist. Do not give up heart and do not give up hope. For me, there is a crown of righteousness waiting for me at the end of my journey.” The one at the end of the line to greet Paul is none other than Jesus Christ himself. What an incredible word of hope that is! Amen.