Introduction
Being the 15th of September 2002, today is the 2nd anniversary of the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games. I was fortunate enough to be there at Homebush that evening – I have here my little yellow suitcase to prove it!
What a spectacle it was, from the time the lone horse reared up in the centre of the Stadium, to the wonderful sights and sounds of the presentation that followed, to the parade of athletes, the arrival of the torch in the stadium and that grand moment when Cathy Freeman lit the Olympic flame and it slid up the railing to its spot high above the arena. Boy was I proud to be an Aussie that night, and so privileged to have been there.
I was privileged to be out at the Olympics many times over that fortnight and saw some wonderful things. I was there when Cathy won her race and an Olympics record crowd of 112,000 people sang Advance Australia Fair like it’s never been sung before! Later that night I saw perhaps the greatest race ever run at an Olympics when Haille Gebrsellasse won the 10,000m by a narrower margin than most 100 m sprints. I saw Michael Johnson run, I saw Maurice Green and Marion Jones race, I saw Grant Hackett beat Keiran Perkins in the 1500m, I saw the closing ceremony when we all cheered as Samaranch declared Sydney 2000 to have been the best Olympic Games ever.
I was also there at the stadium to see a moment that wasn’t so great. It was one of the morning sessions near the end of the fortnight and the heats of the 4 x 100m relay were being conducted. The Australian women’s team had high hopes of making it to the final of that event, but right in front of where I was sitting those hopes were dashed. As the first runner met the second runner at the top of the back straight they made the mistake that all relay teams dread – they dropped the baton. They got no further than the first runner completing her leg; I can still see Melinda Gainsford-Taylor standing all alone at the top of the home straight as the other teams’ final competitors took off for the run to the tape. There was no point in her running – the baton had not reached her, the race had passed her by.
Passing the Baton of Christian Leadership
Those of you who were here last week might recall that I used “baton passing” as an analogy for the work of Christian leadership. The apostles were the first runners in the race that started with the ascension of Christ to heaven and will finish when He returns in glory. They passed the baton of gospel work to leaders like Titus and Timothy, who in turn were charged with the responsibility of passing it on to others.
As in any relay, the runners change. In this race the track they run on also changes. The early runners took the baton from the middle east into Europe and down into Africa; later runners took it further to the west and up into England; then others took it to the furthest reaches of the world, even a little spot called Padstow in the south-west of Sydney. But the baton they carry must be unchanged or they are disqualified from the race.
This is why the task that Titus was given was so important - this was the first baton change! The first generation of Christian leaders was at this time handing over to the next generation. Paul knew how important it was for the gospel message to be handed over properly. He didn’t want it to turn out like that first baton change for the Australian women at Homebush 2 years ago – he wanted the race to go on.
That’s why in every church that he started Paul appointed suitable leaders. And this was one of the main tasks he assigned to Titus:
“The reason I left you in Crete,” wrote Paul in 1:5, “was that you might straighten out what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town.”
The “straightening out” bit refers to some key teachings about Christian life and belief that are covered in chapters 2 and 3, that (were the subject of sermons by another preacher at our church). The rest of chapter 1 is about the “appointing elders” bit.
Appoint Elders in Every Town
The word that we have translated “elder” is used often in the Bible, in both Old and New Testaments, to describe someone who has a senior role in leading a congregation within the overall people of God. For example, right back in Moses’ time the leaders of the tribes of Israel were the “elders”. In the New Testament, the leaders of churches in different towns were also called the “elders”. Another word that is used – it appears in this passage in vs 7 – is “overseer”. Elders and overseers are essentially the same – one word seems to refer the status of seniority that these people have, while the other refers more to their task of leadership, of oversight of the congregation.
Exactly how the elders in one church fitted in with the elders in other churches – for example, whether there is meant to be some sort of hierarchy – like bishops, archbishops, etc – is something that we don’t find a lot of clear information on in the Bible. One of the great tragedies of church history is the amount of in-fighting that has gone on over which style of church government, which structure of church leadership is “the right one”. Quite frankly, the teaching of the Bible is much more focussed on the quality of the people in leadership positions and the things they teach than the type of organisational structure that they are a part of.
And in verses 6-9 of chapter 1 of Titus there is an overview of the sort of person an elder should be. This is then immediately contrasted with an overview of the sort of people who were trying to run the church on Crete and who were definitely not suitable for leadership.
A suitable person, Paul says, will be “blameless”. That is, they will be someone whose life clearly demonstrates the moral and spiritual qualities of a person who lives consistently with the teaching of Christ. Their family life will show that they are able to guide others to live faithful lives (verse 6) and their personal morality will show that they are a good and trustworthy person who can set a good example to be followed by others (verses 7 and 8). The idea of the trustworthiness of the overseer/elder is also very important in relation to what they teach – in verse 9 Paul stresses they must hold firmly to the truth of the gospel, be able to instruct others in that truth and also to refute false teaching when they are confronted with it.
Paul wrote these things, remember, to endorse the work that Titus was carrying out on Crete in the face of opposition from various groups on the island who were trying to undermine the cause of the gospel. As well as writing about the sort of features that Titus should be looking for in the leaders he would appoint, in verses 10 – 16 Paul makes no bones about how unsuitable his opponents would be for the task.
It’s strong stuff isn’t? Paul is never one to mince his words about those who oppose the gospel, but I think we can infer from what he says here that Titus’ opponents were being particularly aggressive in their rejection of his work. That required a strongly worded rejection of their claims. To use my baton analogy again, those people are making the two cardinal errors of any relay runner – they are not matching speed with the previous runner and they are running in the wrong lane!
• Rebels and deceivers, such as Titus’ opponents on Crete were - even by the words of one of their own writers! - are morally unfit to lead the church. They aren’t running at the right speed to be able to take the baton.
• Those who adhere to myths and false teachings are running in the wrong lane altogether and so they won’t be able to take the baton either – they are unfit to lead the church because their beliefs reveal that they do not, in fact, know God.
An elder, therefore, is to be someone who by the way they live and the way they teach is able to demonstrate and declare the grace of God in Christ, to minister to the spiritual needs of the congregation and to lead them into godliness. It is an important job and the right people need to be given the role. Church history is riddled with examples of how bad leadership has killed off ministries, even those that once flourished.
Applications
What has all this got to do with us? In conclusion, I want to suggest several applications, at least one of which will apply to every one here tonight.
First, there is the clear application to the process of selecting a new minister. Those who are directly involved, both the nominators from St John’s and the bishop, Peter Tasker, ought to be searching for someone of the kind that Paul described to Titus. That list doesn’t say everything that is needed for the minister here – any more than it would have been an exhaustive list of things for Titus to take into account in the different towns on Crete – but it does provide an overview of the main qualifications of someone who is going to be the overseer of God’s work in any place. I’m confident that passages such as this have been to the fore in the thinking and praying of our nominators.
Second, there is an application for those among you who aspire to be leaders in the church. Perhaps some of you are thinking about going into the ministry some day, or about becoming a youth worker or some other role in the church that has a degree of seniority to it. You must ask yourself, are you someone who has the moral character required, are you someone who is prepared to do the study needed to be a good teacher, are you someone who is prepared to make the sacrifices required of one who serves the church in that role? You don’t have to be perfect – there’d be no elders in the church if that was the requirement - but you do have to be qualified. It takes work and it takes commitment. But if you are prepared to do the work and make the commitment, then praise God and go for it. As Paul wrote to Timothy, “if anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task.”
Third, there is an application for all of us who sit under the ministry of overseers. Pray for them. Being ‘blameless’ in your life isn’t easy and our ministers need all the prayer support they can get to remain faithful to their calling. And with all the opposition that Christianity gets in the community these days, from other religions through to post-modernists who deny the existence of truth, to out and out atheism, our ministers need all the prayer support they can get to be able to “hold firmly to the trustworthy message …. so that they can encourage us by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it”.
Let us conclude by doing just that – let us pray:
- for senior church leaders and bishops
- for all in parish ministry
- for the selection of the new man for Padstow
