by Will Willimon
Epistle Reading: 2 Timothy 1:1-14
For Sunday, October 6, 2013: Year C—Lectionary 27
“Increase our faith!” say the disciples to Jesus in this Sunday’s gospel: From whence does faith come?
Faith—A Right or a Gift?
We live in a society governed by the Constitution that gives us “rights,” innate human qualities. We are born with rights—life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, etc.—and deserve to exercise our rights as we please. There’s a freedom in society of rights, but not much gratitude. Who says “Thanks,” unless they have been given a gift and “rights” are not gifts, they are our right. Right?
And yet the church has always taught that faith is a gift. You can’t be born with faith; faith must be given. You can’t discover Christianity through long walks alone in the woods, rummaging around in your ego, or thinking deep thoughts in the library. You must receive this faith; you must be given faith in Christ by someone else. Faith is gift all the way down.
From Whence it Comes
What impresses Paul, as he talks to young Timothy, is that faith comes to most of us through our “ancestors” (v. 3) in the faith. Thus Paul gives thanks for Timothy’s saintly grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice for imparting to Timothy “a faith which is alive.” Faith is a divine treasure handed down from one generation to the next (v. 14).
It it good to think of faith as gift from the past? Americans are lovers of the now and the new, lurching excitedly from one new technology to the next. We like to think that we are making progress. What’s up-to-date and contemporary excites us more than the old and time-tested. We want faith that is living, personal, and appropriate to the times in which we live. Must we submit to our ancestors in order to have faith?
Guided by the Dead
It’s an odd, peculiar, downright un-American thing you do in pondering scripture, posing hard questions to the Bible and allowing the Bible to question you. It’s as if in doing so you say, “I have faith that these ancient Jews, who lived in a time so different from our time know more about God than we do.”
“Increase our faith,” plead the disciples. Paul’s letter to Timothy suggests that faith can’t be increased without being willing to have our imaginations stoked, funded, fueled, and judged by those who walked this way before us. Think of Christianity is the willingness to be guided into faith by the dead.
I left a “contemporary” worship service the other day thinking, “You ought to apologize to my grandmother. Was she really as dumb as you imply in your disposal of the songs, texts, and rites that enabled her to stay faithful?”
Submission to the Saints
The good news is that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel so far as faith is concerned. Those who walked before us, saints of the past, can show us the way to Christ. There is humility in this. If you have faith in Christ, then it’s because somebody loved you and Christ enough to tell you the stories, live the faith before you, and show you the way.
None of us created this faith for ourselves, none of us achieved this faith through our constructive thinking about God. All of us are empty-handed receivers.
The Hardest Question
But really now—this is sort of humiliating for bright, progressive, 21st Century folk like us. Must we submit ourselves to a book so strange and ancient, to this mixture of saints and sinners called the church of the past, in order to have faith?
Will Willimon is a bishop (religious authority, brother to the Pharisees) of the United Methodist Church, retired. He is Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke Divinity School, Durham, NC where he tries to get future pastors to ask hard questions. Will is the author of many books. His latest book is a novel (!) about a church, its clergy, and members, Incorporation, from Cascade Press, Eugene, Oregon. Will blogs at "A Peculiar Prophet"—willwillimon.com
