by Phyllis Tickle
Epistle Reading: 1 Timothy 2: 1-7
For Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013: Year C—Lectionary 25
1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus are known as the Pastoral Epistles, meaning that they hold a singular, highly contextualized, and definitely purpose-oriented place in the NT canon.
The real question about them, and especially about these first seven verses of 1 Timothy which introduce or open them, is: How much information can/will laity sit down for and then still remain seated? The other question—the flip-side and more urgent one—is how many Christians will we damage by not speaking truth about what’s happening here? (I hate questions, btw. They’re very unsettling, right?)
Cometh Now the Ghost of Luther…
…which, of course, isn’t fair at all. The fact that the Reformation’s sola scriptura morphed over into Protestant inerrancy is hardly Luther’s fault, or anybody else’s for that matter. What matters is that for generations we have robbed Scripture of its breadth by trying to wedge it into our finitude.
Nowhere is that particular piece of folly more painfully present than it is with the Pastorals, which came into being at least two (and possibly more) decades after St. Paul’s death. Ironically, of course, both their beauty and their utility for us depend upon our recognition of that fact.
Why Borrow Somebody Else’s Name?
Our forebears of the early centuries were quite comfortable with writing proclamations and speeches and letters of directive in the style and under the name of a prominent dead man, because in doing so they borrowed his stature and the right to be heard.
Admittedly, this was almost always done with good intent, as was the case with whoever composed 1 Timothy and Titus; for the Pastorals were intended as salvific directives—hard and fast rules, even—about how the Church was to be structured and run by describing how it was already being structured and run in Greco-Roman communities. Whose authority could be better than Paul’s for such as that?
But What is So Special…
…about our seven-verse preface or foreword to a centuries-old manual of religious governance and praxis?
We might just as easily ask what’s so special about an ancient breviary or an old book of church order, one chock-a-block full of the sounds and holy affections of our ancestors in their own time and environments? Obviously, it is that those pages are like family snapshots, showing us the spiritual persuasions and devout personalities we have come from, endear us to the why and how they preceded us, and expose to us the modes and means on which we have been built.
And what often can make a volume of rules or rubrics of ritual even more precious to us, even more wondrously warming and personal, are the words that someone long ago penciled on the inside front cover…those words in which someone commented about what they did in sacred life and worship and how and why they did it. Such an orienting commentary is usually brief, of course.…no more, perhaps, than the equivalent of seven biblical verses?...but totally relevant.
So What is Important for us on this Sabbath of Prefaces?
What’s important is that we remember we are about to open an album of verbal snapshots about what the 1st and early 2nd century Church gathered to do, or did when it was gathered. What’s important here is the gift, within this preface, of the oldest remnant of our ancestors’ creed or public vow of faith. What’s important here is the record of how the maturing Church was reaching beyond its natal land of Judaism and out into the world beyond. What’s most important here, though, is preparation for what is to follow and the gifting of a perspective from which to receive it. What that really means is that none of us should ever leave this Preface and head for Verse 8 and the verses following it without being cognizant of the difference between the snapshots of our heritage and the videos of our own time.
The Hardest Question?
If we dare to teach it, how best and most pastorally do we do so?
Phyllis Tickle is an author and lecturer in the field of religion. Her most recent books are The Great Emergence-How Christianity Is Changing and Why (Baker Books), The Words of Jesus – A Gospel of the Sayings of Our Lord (Jossey-Bass), Emergence Christianity – What It Is, Where It Is Going, and Why It Matters (Baker Books) and the forthcoming The Age of the Spirit – How the Ghost of An Ancient Controversy Is Changing the Church(Baker Books) with Jon Sweeney. Phyllis recently joined a fascinating cast of characters to bring sparkhouse's Animate:Bible into being, and for that we are truly thankful. Photo by Theresa Hooper.
