Chaos to Clarity

Continued from previous days…

Once I focused on my pastor friend’s concerns (and not my own), I inquired about his insights into 1 Timothy (the passage that had him all hot and bothered in previous conversations).  He had none. This is understandable. During times of severe duress we shouldn’t expect insights. When we are stressed out, our body is preparing to fight, flee or freeze. It’s not usually our best time for theological discussions.  

“Do you remember the verse you quoted me the other day?  The one from 1 Timothy?” I asked.

“Yeah, of course, me and my shame.  I used to love those verses to guide me as a leader in good standing when faced with a problem with one of the other leaders in my congregation.  Now that I fear I am THAT GUY who cannot manage his family, these verses no longer feel so cut and dried. Standing on the other side of these words, I’m angry.  I feel judged. And that makes me feel guilty for the way I judged others. But mostly, I just feel like a failure who has disappointed God. Now I have to decide what to do about it.  Quit my job? Come clean with my daughter’s situation? She doesn’t want anyone knowing her business. But I’ve used other situations just like this one to force a deacon to resign his position.  What a mess!”

“Ok, well, before we get to that, can we go back to 1 Timothy?”  I asked. He agreed. Instead of turning to the “instruction manual for leadership” (his words not mine), I went back to the verses I quoted earlier this week:  This saying is reliable and deserves full acceptance: ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’ - and I’m the biggest sinner of all.  But this is why I was shown mercy, so that Christ Jesus could show his endless patience to me first of all. So I’m an example for those who are going to believe in him for eternal life.”  1 Timothy 1:15-16 CEB

We read it and he fell silent.  

“Look, I do not know what to tell you about how you manage your church.  I do have some thoughts about your daughter, if you ever want to hear about that.  But what I do know is this - Paul probably had a particular context for writing what he said in reference to leaders.  This was a letter to a particular person. And, it’s not the only thing Paul said. Just look at the verses we’re reading!  Jesus shows endless patience. He took the biggest sinner of all (according to Paul), Paul, and taught him that Jesus came to save sinners and show mercy.  I do not know what to make of your church policies, who am I to say? But I believe that if your policies do not align with endless patience and mercy, well, you might want to re-evaluate.”

He replied, “You think this would make a good sermon?”

“For me or you?  For me, yes. For you, heck no.  These are my thoughts, not yours.  You were perfectly ok with removing people from positions in the church if their kid got busted.  You cannot go preaching a sermon until you wrestle with what you really believe and why you believe it.  You cannot all of a sudden change the policy of your church just because it no longer suits you. What about this?  What if you just decide for now that it’s time to rethink the way you folks are handling families that hurt in your church?  Right after I get you the resources to get your kid into treatment! OK? Let’s do the critical things first!”

“Ok, what should I do for her?”  

Tomorrow, we pray.  Because we all have family situations that are painful.  And we often fail to make choices that account for patience, mercy, and right action when said action is inconvenient.

Keeping it Real

One of the principles of scripture study that I try to practice is avoiding cherry picking verses and using them out of context.  Having recently preached a sermon while cherry picking a verse out of context myself, I am feeling a bit bruised as I write this devotional.  Nevertheless, the principle is important, even if I carelessly violated it. Fortunately, I did remember this principle and practiced it as I tried to respond to this broken-hearted pastor/dad’s call.

I grabbed my bible and began to look at the entire book of 1 Timothy.  It wasn’t long before I was challenged by 1 Timothy 1. In the first chapter, Paul is setting the stage for writing Timothy, his young disciple, a letter filled with practical advice to help Timothy create a faithful congregation.  It was of particular interest to me that Paul took the time to remind Timothy (surely this is a rehash of old news for Tim) that he, Paul, was only faithful because Jesus gave him the strength to be faithful. He reminded Timothy of his (Paul’s) wayward youth of persecuting Christians; and then he set forth a doctrinal truth:  This saying is reliable and deserves full acceptance: ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’ - and I’m the biggest sinner of all.  But this is why I was shown mercy, so that Christ Jesus could show his endless patience to me first of all. So I’m an example for those who are going to believe in him for eternal life.”  

1 Timothy 1:15-16 CEB

Does this mean that Paul is disqualified from being a supervisor (CEB language) in the church?  Or does this mean that it is ok to have once been naughty, but make sure to take care of those issues in order to move into a leadership position in the church?  And while we’re at it, let’s consider that lengthy list of qualifications:

So the church’s supervisor must be without fault.  They should be faithful to their spouse, sober, modest and honest.  They should show hospitality and be skilled at teaching. They shouldn’t be addicted to alcohol or a bully.  Instead, they should be gentle, peaceable, and not greedy. They should manage their own household well - they should see that their children are obedient with complete respect, because if they don’t know how to manage their own household, how can they take care of God’s church?”

 1 Timothy 3:2-5 CEB

Must. Be. Without. Fault.  This caught my eye and I began flipping through the gospels, garnering a bit bigger scriptural context.  I began listing all the faults that people found with Jesus while he was in the midst of his three years of public ministry.  Jesus taught with authority, exorcised demons, raised the dead, healed the sick, and recruited a core team for building his church.  He turned water into wine, he attended dinner parties, and he fed 1,000’s out of a kid’s lunchbox. But he was accused of working on the Sabbath, colluding with the devil, hanging out with bad company, yet he had his authority questioned at every turn and was eventually found guilty despite no evidence of wrongdoing and hung.  I was ready to call my friend back. Tomorrow we will talk about all this and more.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Years ago a pastor in a large church called me to discuss his daughter’s substance use disorder.  He was very concerned that if his congregation found out about his kid’s “issues” it would negatively impact his ability to lead.  He quoted a passage of scripture that spoke to the requirements of a church leader,

“So the church’s supervisor must be without fault.  They should be faithful to their spouse, sober, modest and honest.  They should show hospitality and be skilled at teaching. They shouldn’t be addicted to alcohol or be a bully.  Instead, they should be gentle, peaceable, and not greedy. They should manage their own household well - they should see that their children are obedient with complete respect, because if they don’t know how to manage their own household, how can they take care of God’s church?”  

1 Timothy 3:2-5 CEB

His concerns were warranted.  It turns out that during his brief tenure at this church he had himself used this same passage to dismiss several deacons who served on the church’s deacon board.  He had been quite proud of his integrity on these situations. He had even spoken about his leadership style and these particularly tough calls at a pastor’s conference.  

Now he was having a crisis of faith.  Did he need to resign his position? Was his daughter’s substance use issue a reflection on his ability to manage his home?  He was also eaten up with guilt. One of the deacons dismissed from service was a guy whose own son had committed suicide related to his struggle with opiate addiction.  Why in the world, he mused, had he thought it was a good idea to kick a father when he was already down for the count? All good questions.

I didn’t know what to say to him so I asked for some time to pray and process.  Something was bugging me about the application of that scripture and I needed to consider the matter at length.  I also questioned whether I was his best source for information; my interest lay primarily with his daughter and family.  But the challenge of trying to figure out how that scripture might fit into this situation intrigued me and we both decided that I could at least take some time to see what I came up with for feedback.

My experience with faith is that when I am confused it is often the result of not understanding a spiritual principle (or three) that would help me sort out a confusing text.  I can only speak for myself, but as a general rule, God makes sense; he is not chaotic. He is also mysterious and let’s be fair - the scriptures are not the easiest of reads.

Have you ever found yourself in a position of having a personal crisis disrupt your own strongly held theological beliefs?  What did you do?