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.
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