Like a set of everlasting arms, one at the start of this passage from Second Timothy and one at its ending, the Risen Jesus comes to us from out of the future: Christ Jesus, “who is to judge the living and the dead”, in verse 1; and as “the Lord, the righteous judge” who bears in his hand “the crown of righteousness” in verse 8.
For mild, urbane Protestants like us, receiving Jesus in his scarred resurrection body as the awesome judge of the living and the dead is hard to conceive of. It smells of brimstone, of summer sweat, and the bad old revivalism of the past. We would much rather picture Jesus in a meadow crowned with flowers, babysitting toddlers with Disney characters, than having to face Christ the righteous Judge. Yet 2 Timothy 4 takes us where we would not like to go: into the swiftly arriving, unsettling future, into a time of testing and trial.
Christ the Judge comes first and last in this passage, to make it courtroom clear that what is at issue is the truth, and nothing but the truth. That is what the figure of the judge is: the agent and arbiter of the truth. And according to 2 Timothy 4, truth in the New Testament world was in such a crisis that the Soon Coming Judge of the living and the dead had to be invoked, lest truth turn to ashes in the mouths of the church’s people and they fail the test of their times.
3 For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound teaching, but, having their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.
Listen, Christian: Listen carefully to those words again, and tell me truly if the scenario they describe does not conjure up something out of our current headlines in your minds:
3 For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound teaching, but, having their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.
Of course, literally reading an ancient author’s situation and message directly into our own context is not only poor interpretation, but it is fraught with problems and with cracked sincerity. I say “cracked sincerity” because past history is littered with the wreckage of somebody’s sincere beliefs that grabbed at scripture to justify monstrous errors: chattel slavery, the subordination of women, the demonization of the Jewish people, the persecution of immigrants and LGBTQ people, and to prop up false messiah after false messiah from the days of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans until the unholy crusade of Putin’s greater Russia against the people of Ukraine—to name but a few examples. Sincerity does not manipulate God. Sincerity and righteousness are not the same thing, and are often incommensurate categories. Truth is not a matter of taste.
And yet, ears are tickling again, itching for anything but adjudicated truth. Second Timothy speaks to such a moment—then and now. As Christ the Risen Judge lives, the test of our time is upon us. The future is swiftly rushing in upon us, and we must make a response.
Are you listening, Christian?
Royal Lane, in preparation for this sermon, I visited your online website, and noted that you have a Stewardship Campaign underway, one entitled, “Who Are We?” I wish you well with it. What a timely question, especially in light of the test of the times that face us.
You are in worship today because as a follower of Jesus the Christ you must tell the truth, so help you God. Insofar as the truth has been given to you by the One who is not only the Way and the Life, but also the Truth, your responsibility is to engage this world—a world that doesn’t want the truth any more than it wanted Jesus. That is no easy thing to do, either for the culture of lies our society has normalized, or for a faith community that would be nothing without the truth. For the truth is a Christian’s whole reason for existence.
Like an oracle, 2 Timothy 4 channels the Apostle Paul, speaking to such a tipping point, a moment of choice when avoidance of decision is not an option, when God’s Time has come, the time to hear, to act, to persist, and to change—or fade away like smoke.
When Jesus stands before his Roman judge as the word of truth, Pontius Pilate grasps at the same opening that urbane, privileged, and classically educated people always grasp at, seeking to avoid controversy and personal responsibility with the question, “Yes, but what is truth?”
Dr. Will Willimon from Duke University puts the matter this way:
A favorite ruse for getting rid of this stripped,
whipped Son of God is to go philosophical and
abstract: ‘I’ve got my truth; you’ve got yours.
It’s not a lie if you sincerely think its true.
Gospel news is fake. It’s arrogant for you to
believe that you’ve been given truth that is
truthier than mine. Your “truth” is but a
commentary on your will-to-power-
cramming of your truth down everybody
else’s throat. Truth is relative to your cultural
… context, not to what is actually true.’[1]
So, what is truth?
Truth is not an obligation to be fulfilled. Truth is not propositional. It is not a set of decrees or edicts or free-standing truths, some ‘truthier’ than others. Truth is a Jew from Nazareth. Truth is a relationship with the Crucified and Resurrected Jesus. Truth, you see, is the grace-filled, ever-forgiving humanity of God-in-Christ, as 2 Timothy confesses, “the judge of the living and the dead.” Hal-le-lu-jah!
When ears itch, even in communities of faith, and the sound teaching of faith in the Living Word who alone is Jesus Christ is exchanged for lies, no matter how clever those lies may be, the church cannot remain silent about it any longer and still be the church.
- I wish we could tell one another that there are no faith communities in our city that have mingled the message of redemption in Christ Jesus with white nationalism, and spun lie after lie out of it—but we cannot—for there are such fellowships fallen into error, and some of them are powerful.
- I wish we could tell one another that culture warriors are not admixing Christian vocabulary and Jesus-Talk with a narrow sliver of ethics and conspiracy theories, stirring up what they call “spiritual warfare for the soul of the nation.” But the hijacking of religion is growing in intensity—the end result of which is a crusade that does not even resemble the ever-forgiving Risen Jesus.
- I wish we could assure one another that so-called “Christian nationalism” was not teaching that only their brand of Christian must take over government office, run the country, and even collapse the economy to gain “dominion” in America, according to their version of “biblical law.” But we cannot, because this false movement is gaining influence in Texas. “Collapse the economy?” you might ask. “Really?” Yes, for as religious scholar Julie Ingersoll writes: one of their leading lights hammers over-and-over, that “Economic collapse is not merely an economic prediction but a theological necessity [for Christian dominionists]. It is in the context of this [economic] collapse that biblical Christians will come to exercise dominion.”[2]
I am a theologian for the Church of Jesus the Christ, a calling that does not confer upon me special status or greater morality, or access to any sort of secret knowledge unavailable to every believer. But as a theologian of the cross and resurrection, my duty is clear. I am a servant of the truth, the truth that sets all people free. Therefore, in all humility, I urge you to meet the test of these times of God has set before us, to “proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage with the utmost patience in teaching.”
What is it that truth compels us to teach? How is it that we can even do this work, bearing the Good News in this time of testing “to carry out our ministry fully”?
Truth compels us to teach and practice human liberation, flourishing and freedom.
- It is God’s time to commit ourselves to serious disciplines of study and discipleship to equip Christians to withstand misinformed and deformed religion that has nothing to do with God-in-Christ who forgives and sets people free.
- It is God’s time to rededicate our church to speaking the truth in love to everyone, ourselves included and first of all, so that, as 2 Timothy compels us, iron may sharpen iron, as we study, pray, and carry out our ministry fully. There is no room any longer for lazy thinking and lax discipleship, if we are to meet the test of the times we are living in.
- This congregation already has renowned teachers, biblical scholars of vision and power, practical theologians and noted counselors, lay and ordained, as well as dedicated activists and deeply faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. It is God’s time now to activate the spiritual gifts this congregation has been granted by God to raise up the witness of this great and good church notch after notch. Therefore, re-establish Royal Lane as a sacred, safe space where diversity is honored, and people who hunger and thirst for righteousness can hear truths proclaimed here that they will not hear anywhere else.
Do not be afraid, Beloved! Your hope and ours is in the undeserved grace of God, the Holy One who has vowed as early as the Book of Genesis an everlasting covenant-communion between Godself and “every creature of all flesh that is on the earth” (Genesis 9:16). The Living God who sets a rainbow in the clouds promises that:
“As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night,
shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22).
As the cross of Jesus was planted in the body of the earth, and as the tomb from which he arose was carved out of the world’s heart, the hope upon which we rely is earthy, embodied, and real. As Paul the Apostle wrote, this hope confesses before all powers and principalities that the resurrection of the Crucified Jesus may be trusted, as Paul says to the Corinthian church:
“because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:14-15).
All those who long for liberation from oppression can confess along with the great Ernst Käsemann, “We need not worry about ourselves or the church as long as we remain [on the way of the cross with Jesus]. Then the freedom of the Christian will emerge. For where he truly appears and is at work, the Spirit of Christ always creates human freedom.”[3]
Do not be afraid, I say, do not be afraid! The Righteous Judge who holds the crown of righteousness in a divine hand, is moving still for the reconciliation of the world. The future is sweeping in upon us, and the Risen Jesus, who judges the living and the dead, is calling upon us. It is time to stand up for truth. And the Christ who is our life will equip you for this time in ways you cannot yet begin to imagine!
Amen.
[1] Will Willimon, God Turned Toward Us: The ABCs of Christian Faith (Abingdon Press, 2021), 133.
[2] Julie Ingersoll, Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction (Oxford University Press, 2015), 56. Gary North is the Dominionist Economist named.
[3] Ernst Käsemann, On Being A Disciple of the Crucified Nazarene (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), 256.