Constant Absurdity

1 Timothy 1:12-17

I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he considered me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost. But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience as an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

So for this week, and the two following, we’ll be reading excerpts from the book of 1 Timothy. Why I chose these passages from our lectionary, I don’t really know— I guess I enjoy continuing to challenge myself, which is a nicer way of saying I make things unnecessarily complicated for myself. Because I chose to preach on 1 Timothy with the knowledge that it contains some deeply problematic passages, including one in chapter two that proclaims, “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.” And then it continues to vilify Eve from the creation story. Now remember— I take a lot of pride in the fact that I don’t cherry-pick, that I don’t ignore certain passages just because I don’t like them, or they don’t line up with my values… but when I looked ahead to see what passages from 1 Timothy that our lectionary had chosen, I realized—they did the cherry-picking for me! They skipped all the hard stuff, both to my relief, and to my chagrin. Because it’s really, really hard to, in good conscience, take a single passage for what it is, on its own, ignoring what’s around it, even though it’s much easier to do that, especially in the case of today’s passage, which is really just a rehash of Paul’s conversion story, from violent and homicidal persecutor of Christians to the ultimate Christian evangelist.

So now that I’ve given you a little peek into the often truly exhausting way my mind works when I’m working out these sermons, let’s get into 1 Timothy. This is one of the several epistles in the New Testament that is attributed to Paul, but is almost definitively not written by Paul. To add to that, the two apostles this is addressed to, Timothy and Titus, along with Paul, were surely dead by the time this was written, likely sometime in the second century. As is usually the case, it’s likely that this was attributed to Paul so that those reading this letter would take it seriously, so this letter would have some real authority. Because this was written so much later than Paul had been writing, Christianity had gotten quite large at this point, and different sects and theologies were breaking off, some more controversial than others. This letter was likely a response to some of those more controversial ways of thinking. During this time, different gnostic theories were taking shape— ones like a belief that the bodily resurrection never happened; there were also different stories being written and told, like that of Paul and Thecla, which valorized women in ministry… and though Christianity was, indeed growing in popularity, Christians were still being actively persecuted and targeted, so some more powerful Christians were nervous about disrupting the status-quo too much. That is likely the reason so much of 1 Timothy seems to adhere to Greco-Roman norms and ideas of morality, domesticity, and hierarchies, more than the earliest truly Christian values— which were deeply communal and egalitarian; and also a main reason most scholars don’t believe that 1 Timothy was written by Paul.

So with all this in mind, I was thinking… maybe this is the reason the lectionary has chosen the passages from 1 Timothy that it has chosen—not because they were cherry-picking, per se, but because the three passages are all ones that I believe, contain true constants within the faith—today we have “Paul” retelling his conversion story, that of one who was once was lost and became found. He does not mince words here—“…I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence…”. But he found the unconditional and incredible gift of grace, of forgiveness, and found his way to a life of peace, unity, and love. Our passage for next week will be about the inclusivity and universality of Christ’s love; and our passage for the week after will be about money being “the root of all kinds of evil” and about pursuing goodness, righteousness, and love, instead of wealth. These really are all constants of our faith. So while one could accuse the creators of the common lectionary of cherry-picking, it seems to be that they did so with real intention, and a real attention to the threads of Christianity, of this faith, that perpetually recur.

So—to backtrack and get back on track—our passage for today is a re-telling of Paul’s conversion. 1 Timothy begins by warning Christians of false teachings, and of harmful ways; but Paul makes it clear that all is not lost, even if one is led astray. He is the prime example of one who was lost, but is now found. He, through ignorance and unbelief, really was the worst of the worst, persecuting and sentencing to death the very people he now found himself leading. It’s this radical belief that the worst among us can be won over with love and with grace. And the radical nature of the grace of Christ, and the radical way the real Paul led the rest of his life, it seems to me, directly contradicts so much of what is written in the book of 1 Timothy. Some of it makes sense—Paul surely would have been horrified at Christians dismissing the bodily resurrection; but Paul was the last person to truly care about domestic norms of marriage and the household. In fact, if we believe the apocryphal story about Paul and Thecla that I briefly mentioned at the beginning of the sermon, he was making people angry in his day for encouraging people of faith away from marriage and family life, in order that they focus on the call and true community of Christ.

Ultimately, fake-Paul’s description of his conversion has nothing to do with following societal norms. In fact, following societal norms was exactly what he was doing as a high priest and Pharisee, doing the empire’s bidding by persecuting Christians. His conversion is all about the radical forgiveness and grace of God. It’s an assurance that no matter how far you stray, no matter what beliefs or charismatic preachers might have corrupted you, no matter what mistakes you’ve made in the past, that when you change your ways and realize that wrongs you’ve been believing in, or committing, you’re forgiven; and even in the midst of your wrongdoing, you’re beloved.

In her newsletter this week, Kate Bowler wrote a bit about grace and sin, and in it, quotes the late minister and theologian Frederick Buechner who said,

The gospel is bad news before it is good news. It is the news that [humankind] is a sinner, to use the old word, that  [we are] evil in the imagination of [the] heart, that when [we] look in the mirror all in a lather what [we] see is at least eight parts chicken, phony, slob. That is the tragedy. But it is also the news that [we are] loved anyway, cherished, forgiven, bleeding to be sure, but also bled for. That is the comedy.

And there is some comedy to that, or rather, maybe more accurately, some absurdity to that, isn’t there? It’s an absurdity that contradicts the Greco-Roman ideals of domesticity, decorum, and snobbish moral uprightness that so much of 1 Timothy seems to encourage. Especially in our relatively intellectual, progressive, mainline Protestant tradition, I think we sometimes take for granted just how radical and beautiful the grace of God, the lynchpin of our faith, truly is— that someone as violent and cruel as Paul, or in the words of Buechner, someone who’s a chicken, a phony and a slob, can be so unconditionally loved, can be forgiven and embraced.

And maybe not even just loved and forgiven, but also called upon— often times the people we least expect are called by God to change lives for the better. Rob came up with a great analogy at Bible Study last week (an aside here just to say that I’m so happy Bible Study is back, it helps with my sermons!)—and that was the fact that often times, when it comes to counseling for substance disorders, it’s often done by people who are recovering addicts themselves, and they are more often than not, the most effective people for a job like that because they really get it. And following that line of thought, it doesn’t just have to be regarding addiction—folks who have experienced mental health crises are often, once those crises are under control, the best people to help guide and comfort other people going through that same thing. And so the same could be said for Paul— that very fact that he was once the blasphemer of blasphemers makes him someone who can empathize and really connect with those who are lost, with those who are struggling to find the right path in life. Again, this idea that one can successfully pull a 180 like this is radical. This Roman Empire was one of stagnation when it came to your lot in life—if you were born a slave, you would die a slave; if you were born a noble, barring some kind of uprising, you would die a noble. There was virtually no path to a different way of life.

But all of sudden comes this new way of thinking, this new way of being in the world; all of a sudden comes this radical new belief that you can change you lot in life—not by unethically amassing riches, not by marrying well… but by believing in something bigger— something bigger than the societal restrictions and rules of the day; by believing that there is a universal and love and a universal grace that is always available to you, as long as you open yourself to that possibility.

Being able to open yourself to that possibility, I think, is something that is tragically hard to do for so many these days. As this country reels from the gruesome and public murder of a conservative activist, as it reels from yet another school shooting, news that buried by the former; as more cities prepare to be occupied by their country’s own military, as the rhetoric of vengeance and violence is intensified by those in power, being open to the possibility of capital-L Love can feel impossible.

But remember—that is what the powerful want. They don’t want us to conceive of a world in which love and forgiveness is a given. They don’t want us to a conceive of a world in which all are embraced and beloved regardless of their past. They don’t want us to conceive of a world that can truly be better, than can truly be good, a world in which everyone is given and accepts the gift of grace— for themselves, and for each other. That’s why the violent rhetoric continues. They want to keep us angry and despairing.

But we won’t give in. We will continue to live by our faith—by the constants in our faith that tell is that all are deserving of grace, that all are deserving unconditional love. We will continue to live the constants of our faith— by the utter absurdity of our faith, that we are loved and forgiven, not only in spite of our wrongs, but because of them. False-Paul says it best—it is the fact that he is the “foremost” of sinners, that that is the reason he received mercy and the “utmost patience” from Jesus, that he be an example to all— an example that people can be better; that the world can be better. This is beautiful absurdity of it all. This is the Good News. Amen.