Are You a Conservative?

Lamentations 1:1-6

II Timothy 1:1-14

It seems the republicans and democrats in congress are having trouble getting along.  If you’ve read a newspaper or watched tv this week, you’re well aware that this week’s political talk has been dominated by the government shutdown.  Our own Betty Boyko and her team at the National Historic Site are part of the shutdown.  And those at the USDA.  And Headstart.  Others?

In this climate, my sermon title sounds potentially divisive, doesn’t it?  It almost sounds like we’re going to force people to label themselves one way or another.  Put into place some kind of litmus test.  But I don’t intend to take sides in the fight over the Affordable Care Act, nor over who’s to blame for the gridlock in congress.

 

I would like to change the way we use the word “conservative.”  You see, it’s frequently used as a label.  As a way to name the team you’re on.  That’s the force of the question I asked, “Are you a conservative?”  Used this way, the question asks, are you on this particular side in the fight?  Do you firmly believe that everyone on Team A has all the right answers, and that everyone on Team B is a bumbling fool?  Do you hate everyone on the other team like you’re supposed to?

In my own experience, I’ve never found labels very helpful.  Labels always oversimplify.  They take something complex and make it cartoonish.  As soon as you allow yourself to be labeled, you’ve stopped thinking.  You’ve stopped being flexible, creative, and collaborative.  So please don’t think of yourself as “a conservative,” nor as “a liberal”, nor as an anything that lines you up on one political team or another.  As soon as you do, you’ve let the media outlets, the marketing groups, and the heavily financed think tanks play you for a sucker.

Now that that’s out of the way, I can get to what I really want to say today.  Which is that all of us are “conservatives.”  In its broadest sense, the term “conservative” means to “conserve,” to keep or safeguard something valuable.

One of my many failures in life is that I quit taking piano lessons when I was about 12.  I had been taking lessons for years, and I was getting fairly proficient.  I remember thinking how lovely some of the pieces were I was learning to play.  But I was starting to get busy with sports and friends.  And so I argued with my parents that I needed to give up piano lessons.  You see, I had something valuable and precious, but I didn’t really recognize what it was.  And I failed to safeguard it.  I failed to keep it.  And now it’s gone.

We conserve land by keeping it healthy.  We guard certain animals by recognizing them as endangered species.  We conserve our language by teaching young people how to correctly use it.  We hand along all kinds of traditions: family recipes, holiday rituals, allegiance to our favorite sports teams.

Part of what makes life meaningful is that our elders and ancestors hand down to us something worth keeping.  And yet it takes some work to keep and guard and conserve what’s valuable.  If you’re not careful, what should be valued and treasured can be squandered.

Paul reminds us today that the gift of salvation and faith is worth keeping and guarding.  If you’re a person blessed with God’s love and forgiveness and new power in life, you should practice conservation.  You will want to work to keep what you have.  Because just like everything else, this gift can be lost or squandered.

The second letter to Timothy is the most personal letter in the New Testament.  And as we listen to the opening of this letter, it appears that Paul is worried that Timothy, his young colleague and dear friend, is wavering.

More specifically, Paul is worried that Timothy is ashamed of his faith – ashamed that Paul his mentor is in prison; and ashamed of following a Jesus who many consider to be a failure - one whose life ended in a shameful crucifixion.  Do I really want to follow these people?  Is this the life I want for myself?  He’s beginning to have some doubts.

Maybe you’ve had some doubts too.  Maybe you’ve wavered before.  Maybe you’re wavering now.

That’s a very normal experience.  It happens to most people of faith sooner or later.  And yet it is worth talking about.  Because if doubt or embarrassment about the faith comes to dominate our lives, we likely won’t pass it along to others.   After all, this good news is always one generation away from extinction.

So what should we do when we find ourselves wavering and doubting?

First, we can give thanks to God for the gift we’ve received. 

In verse 3, Paul gives thanks to God for the gift of faith – not only his own, but the faith in Timothy, and the faith in Timothy’s grandmother, Lois, and mother, Eunice.

If you want to keep and guard the gift God has given you, cultivating a sense of gratitude is key.  If you value the faith passed along to you by grandparents, or parents, or friends, or this or some other congregation, then remember to thank God for it.

But being thankful for what you’ve received doesn’t mean that you have to live your life exactly the way your grandparents and parents did.  Paul thanks God for the way his “ancestors” lived (v. 3).  Yet let’s remember, Paul’s ancestors were Jews, and he is now a follower of Jesus Christ.  And in spite of that shift from being Jewish to being Christian, Paul still values the faith he shares with his ancestors.

The same goes for Timothy.  We know from Acts 16:1 that Timothy’s mother was a Jewish woman who was a believer in God; his father was Greek.  So it is likely that the faith of Lois and Eunice was the faith of good Jewish women.  Again, Timothy is linked back to his family’s faith, not by imitating it in slavish or mechanical ways.  Instead, the Jewish faith of his mother and grandmother have shifted and deepened in his own life of faith.

If you’re a young person, you can keep and guard the wisdom passed down to you from your parents without being exactly like them.  You don’t have to mechanically imitate their lives.  Just take what you value and appreciate and live it out in ways that make sense for you.

Perhaps it would be good for us just to take a moment to express our thanks for the faith of our grandparents and parents; for the faith of friends, neighbors, and mentors who made a difference for us; and for the faith in our own hearts.

Second, we are to “fan into flame the gift of God” (v. 6).  He means for us to stir up the grace and faith and love that we have received by putting them into practice.

Live out your faith.  Don’t let the fire go out in you.  Don’t let the fire go out in this congregation.

As the church that belongs to Jesus Christ, we need not live in constant fear that the good news is dying out.  God will see to it that this faith continues to be a live option for people; that the good news is a light that stays on for each new generation. 

But we do have a role to play.  It’s part of our calling to see to it that the good news shines a light in us that can illumine the road for those coming along behind us. 

Grandparents and parents do this for their children – in simple ways: by living with honesty and kindness, by praying before meals, by reading Scripture together, by presenting their children for baptism and confirmation, and by taking them to Sunday School.  As a church we take seriously our responsibility hand down and pass along God’s news to our young people.  That’s why we provide Christian education classes, youth groups, and a confirmation curriculum for young people to begin to live out their baptisms.

Those of you who have been following Jesus Christ for a while have probably experienced periods of life when it was hard to stay on the road of faith.  Those of you newer to the faith should hear this, because you will experience this too.

Sometimes we get busy and distracted.  When life becomes overwhelmingly busy or stressful, we can easily lose focus.  Or we can just lose interest in our faith.

Sometimes we experience some kind of pain or setback that knocks us off course.  When things go wrong in life – a divorce or other painful family breakdowns, the loss of a job, a debilitating illness or a cancer diagnosis, a period of depression or a bout of loneliness – when these things shake us, we can become angry.  We can become sour.  We can despair or become cynical.  Or we can experience confusion and paralysis.

Sometimes, we harm ourselves by making foolish choices.  We yield to a mean and vengeful spirit.  We cultivate an unkind heart towards someone.  We harbor metastasizing jealousies of the good fortune of others.  We are unfaithful to friends, family members, spouses.  We cut others off in selfish pursuits of our own gain and our own pleasure.  We become attracted by the lifestyles of others who do not bring out the best in us.  In these and a thousand other ways, we bend and twist ourselves, disfiguring the life God wants for us.  And by our sinning, we welcome a darkness within our light. 

These are the times we are tempted to run away from God, to cease giving and sharing, to avoid Bible reading and prayer, and to neglect gathering for worship.

This has happened to most of us.  And if it hasn’t happened to you, it will.  And this word is written for us, so that we have a plan when we find ourselves in this situation.  Keep the fire of faith burning by living it out.

Finally, we are to stay connected to God the giver.

Paul says that our suffering is no reason to be ashamed of our faith, because “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day” (v. 12).

This passage brings before us an important and powerful question that never fully goes away: Do we trust God’s promises, made to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ, when there is so much evidence in our experience that seems to challenge them?  Can we hold to the course we’ve begun?  Can we endure and persevere and keep the faith even through periods of wavering and doubt?

I pray that this passage of Scripture can be an encouragement to all of us.  You will, from time to time, feel ashamed, humiliated, or guilty about your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.  When you do, ask the Holy Spirit to rekindle the gift of God that is within you.  Don’t let suffering or criticism knock you off course.  Don’t forget to rely on God and to remember with amazement the salvation you’ve received.  Guard and keep the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.  These instructions are like signposts that keep us on the path as we travel the road of faith.

May God help us conserve, guard, and keep this wonderful gift.  Amen.