Foundation

          What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. (II Timothy 1:13-14)

When the going gets tough, some people are tempted to try new things. The idea is that if you throw enough mud at the wall, some of it will stick. The problem is that whether it sticks or not, you end up with a mess to clean up. Other people cling to the way we’ve always done it. There are benefits to both when they are approached with wisdom and not as knee-jerk reactions.

In today’s passage, Paul seems to place himself firmly in the “the way we’ve always done it” group but reaching that conclusion would require that we ignore what he taught as a whole. Instead, what Paul writes about is the foundation on which to build. When the going gets tough, the wise don’t decide to try building a world in which 2+2 suddenly equals 5 (in spite of foolish claims that 2+2=4 is racist!) When the going gets tough, it’s not the time to reinvent the wheel. It may be time to dig down through the mud and junk we’ve piled on top of the foundation, but the foundation remains.

In the Hunger Games series, there is a point at which Katniss is so traumatized that she curls up in a ball and repeats her name and age. Those were the things about which she was certain. They were what she was able to hold on to. What Paul is telling us in today’s passage is that we need to hold on to just a little more than that. God is God. He created the universe. He sent His Son to save us from our sins. He rose from the dead. We are now new creations with a new name: Christian, son or daughter of the Most High God. He has called us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

That might seem a lot to remind ourselves. Perhaps another way to say it, when we can manage no more is to tell ourselves “Christ is risen” when we hold on to that piece the of the foundation, we’ll have hold of the rest.