Letters are interesting and amazing things. They have been the main form of communication between two people or groups of people who are some distance apart, longer than any other form of communication.
With the invention of the telephone, there was some threat that written correspondence may pass by the wayside. But it didn’t.
Ironically, with the invention of the computer - which has made it possible to do away with so many other outdated things - letter writing has returned - in a new way and with its own language and format - in the form of email.
Letters have a great deal of power. Sometimes, we are unaware of the power they have. The power within them is controlled only by the depth of their content, and the courage of the writer to record his or her true thoughts and feelings.
And often, letters are a channel for expression of a person’s true nature that cannot be shared or expressed in any other way or to the same extent.
Perhaps sometime in your past, you have heard someone say, or heard it suggested, “I had to write down what I wanted to say. It helped me to organize my thoughts.”
Letters are great storytellers, or great catalysts for stories. I seem to recall a movie theme created around a bag of letters that became lost for fifty years. When found and finally delivered, not ONLY was the effect of the absence of the letter noted, but the effect of the letter delivered fifty years later was also life altering.
The book and movie “The Bridges of Madison County” has rather questionable content. Nevertheless, there was great power in the letters the female main character wrote and left for her children. Based on a true story, following her death, her son and daughter discovered their mother had had an affair when they were in their teens. The story contained in those letters she wrote was so powerful, the book was written about the events, and the movie was made.
And in the movie, “The Postman,” letters bring a broken and crippled nation back together. The postman, the bringer of the letters, the messenger, is heralded and revered as his presence signifies togetherness in the midst of isolation and loneliness.
Paul, one of the great apostles of Jesus, wrote letters. He wrote the one from which we have read tonight, to his young friend and protege, Timothy. The content of these letters is to teach Timothy and other church leaders and pastors how to be faithful disciples and to lead others to faithful discipleship.
Paul writes this letter to Timothy, to make sure Timothy and the Christians under his care and supervision pursue a spiritual journey, seeking a closer relationship with God.
Paul includes direction as to how people should live out their lives and conduct themselves as faithful followers of God. There is instruction provided in habits of Christian households and how people should behave.
This letter that Paul writes talks about family. It talks about home life and what life within the Christian family home should be like. And then it projects those family images on to the church. Paul talks about Christians as being the “family of God.”
You see, in Hebrew culture, which was very much a part of the life of those early Christians, the home is where the faith began. Everything related to home life had a ritualistic, liturgical, worshipful experience about it. They literally lived out the relationship to God in mundane daily activities. And then, they took that experience with them when they went to worship at the temple.
This is exactly opposite of how we go about worshipping today. We tend to cram all of our worship experience into the single hour we gather here together each week, and we are even guilty at times of leaving it here when we leave this place at the end of the hour. Sometimes we forget to live out our Christian faith the rest of the week. It is very difficult for our faith to permeate every aspect of our lives, as the Jews and early Christians lived.
But that early Christianity was a home religion, a home based faith. Paul writes to Timothy, to tell him that the people Timothy serves should come together as a larger family - as brothers and sisters in Christ - in the same way they should be conducting themselves in their smaller family units.
Now, the reason Paul wrote this letter, is because it was intended as a substitute for Paul’s physical presence. He hoped to make it to see Timothy soon. But if Paul is delayed for some reason, then Timothy has instruction, advice, and guidance from a faithful and trusted Christian leader, Paul.
It just so happens, because Paul’s letters have been saved generation after generation, others also have the benefit of Paul’s advice and guidance. We too, receive instruction, in the absence of the apostle.
Paul asks us to consider what it means to be “the family of God.” What does that look like? How does that play out? How does one conduct oneself in the household of God?
In order to know that, (‘that’ being the ‘truth’ Paul speaks of) we take instructions from those 1st Christians such as Paul & Peter, Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John. But there is more to understanding the faith than just these early Christian writings.
This “household of God” Paul refers to would have a familiar sound to it for Timothy and others that would read Paul’s letters in those days. “The church of Yahweh” was a familiar description of the gathering of Israel. The Israelites understood themselves to be the children, the family of God.
Words such as ‘pillar’ and ‘foundation’ that we read this evening are also words of great imagery for them. In the minds of those 1st Christians, these words would probably bring to mind building images - probably the Jewish temple which these early Christians attended regularly. Paul would be drawing heavily on the rich heritage of the Jewish faith as the basis for the Christian faith, providing these images we see.
We have to remember that in those times, everything included in what we refer to as the New Testament - the stories and records of Jesus’ life, the work and actions of the apostles, the letters of correspondence concerning the faith and the behavior of true discipleship - these were not Scripture. They were not part of the Bible.
Neither would there be a separate Jewish and Christian faith at this time. Those early Christians still practiced and followed those faithful acts and practices that has been a part of their life from the time they had been a people - a people who identified themselves as belonging to God.
This means, those early Christians could only understand themselves as Christians as their lives are lived out through the writings of the Old Testament and fulfilled through the mystery of the faith revealed in Jesus Christ.
Thus we have our Bible lesson this evening - a letter written to provide loving guidance and instruction in the absence of the teacher - the one who cares - to help people understand how to behave, how to be, as the family of God, and provide guidance as to how to live out the witness as revealed to us in the story of Jesus - his death and life, his teaching and ministry, the mystery and wonder that surrounds him.
Now let me stop and circle around to where we started this evening and lay a new layer on top of what we already have.
Tonight the commitment we make concerns our commitment to reading the Bible, to discovering the message and power God’s word has for our lives.
I see the Bible as being written to us as a letter, much in the same way Paul wrote this letter to Timothy. Our letter comes in the absence of the physical presence of our Lord. In the instance of the Bible, God is the letter writer, here.
And I see the purpose of what God has written to us as being much the same purpose for why Paul wrote to Timothy.
It’s to provide instruction and guidance in how to be the kind of people God created us to be. In fact, that’s the content of the first few pages God writes to us, God tells us - “Dear Child, I created you.” It is written in love, as Paul wrote in love. It is written to tell us the story of that love from the beginning of time, and as lived out and revealed to us in Jesus Christ.
God went to a lot of trouble to write this letter to us. First of all, its a rather long one. I don’t know anyone who has written so many pages for me, to me, to tell me that they love me as God does to tell each and every one of us how much God loves you and I.
God put in a lot of effort to write this letter. God is wise. God knew, that as human beings, we would best be able to hear his message of love through other people like us. So God inspired others to write these words, and tell God’s love story from their own point of view after the stories had been practiced and practiced out loud, being told from generation to generation over and over again until they developed a deep richness, the presence of God flavoring every tale.
And God is patient. God took time, hundreds and hundred of years to record his story in the voices and stories of hundreds of different people, in part because we will each find voices within God’s story that we will each identify with, and in part because the depth, width, and magnitude of God’s story is so great, that it is a story that takes not only our lifetime, but many life times to reveal. Yet, we can know God’s story in a heartbeat, because it is one that written within us at the moment of our creation.
And God is versatile. Within the letter written to us in the form of this book, is the story of God’s love told not only in the voices of different personalities, but in different forms of writing. There is poetry and prose, there is history and record. There is song. There is story. Each gives us a glimpse, a different perspective by which to view God from a different way.
And God is faithful and steadfast. For one thing throughout this letter we will find, will be the consistent, unyielding, unchanging presence of God. He is the theme in every scenario, the main character of every part.
My friends, if our Heavenly Father, our Great Parent, went to such effort to guide us, direct us, tell us who we are, show us how much he loves us, record it for us so that we can always return to it, so we can remember and recall when we forget, we would be amiss not to read it. Letters are powerful things, and this letter contains more power than any other.
Let me tell you how so. You may have noticed that the movie comes out this week based on the popular book series about Harry Potter. And you may or may not know that there is some controversy surrounding the popularity of Harry Potter because it romanticizes witchcraft, wizardry, and magic.
Well, this is the most magical book I know. It tells stories of magical miraculous things that happen. It provides formulas and keys to a rich and happy life. Keys such as the ten commandments. Formulas, such as “blessed are the pure in spirit, for they shall see God...”
But most magical of all, has been the way I can return to it, and read a passage I have read some time before, and the way the passage has mysteriously changed. Suddenly, there are words I hadn’t noticed before. And there will be a different message, a different meaning in it for me than the last time I read it. This book, this letter, is a living book, ever changing, ever growing as I grow, yet remaining steadfast and constant in an ever shifting world.
Yes, the Lord has truly taken a lot of time, gone to a lot of effort, to write us this very powerful letter. How could we not read it.?
Often.
Daily.
Hear these words Paul writes to Timothy.
Will you join me in climbing one step in our commitment, to read God’s powerful letter of love to us, during the upcoming year?
In Jesus name, Amen.
