“The Time Is Now” (Haggai 2:10-19)

 I wonder how many of you have driven along the south end of Dunbrack Street near the entrance to Long Lake Park… If so, you likely are familiar with the two high-rise apartment buildings on the opposite side of the road that have stood uncompleted for the past decade. They are a source of amusement to some, annoyance to others.

I think most of us would probably consider the site a blot on the landscape. Certainly the neighbours do! But here is what the builder had to say about it in a recent press interview: “If you stand back and look at it, it actually isn’t [an eyesore],” he rather brashly claimed. Then he went on to comment, “It might be annoying that it’s not done and you might be wondering what [on earth] is going on there. But if you look from a distance at the building wrap on it, it’s a funky white and red.”[1]

Well, I ask myself what kinds of things people were saying about the Temple in Jerusalem in the days of Haggai back in the year 520 bc? It too had been standing partially reconstructed for more than a decade.

Those of you who have been present over the past three weeks will already have heard the events of Haggai’s timeline. But let me recap them for you. In 597 bc, after a two-year siege, the walls of Jerusalem had finally given way to the powerful armies of the Babylonian Empire. Ten years later, in 587 bc, those same armies had leveled the entire city, including its magnificent Temple, which had been constructed during the reign of King Solomon three and a half centuries before. In addition, in a series of expulsions over a period of fifteen years, the city had been emptied of its citizens. Men, women and children were forced into exile in Babylon involving an arduous journey by foot of over 1200 kilometers.

Ten years after that, when Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon, Jerusalem’s citizens were permitted to return. Construction soon began on rebuilding the city, and two years later they started to undertake the project of restoring the Temple—all of which brings us to the year 537 bc. The restoration began with the setting of the altar in its place. This meant that the regular sacrificial offerings according to the feasts and seasons of the year could begin once again (Ezra 3:1-6).

Construction

A year later, with construction crews organized, the foundation of the Temple was laid. This was accompanied by a great celebration with trumpets and cymbals and choirs, and the crowds cheering and singing along—although those who remembered the grandeur of the original Temple could only weep. In their eyes the new temple would never be more than a pathetic successor to Solomon’s imposing structure.

They were not the only ones who did not join in with the jubilation. The Samaritans and others who had settled in Jerusalem during the Jewish exile began to feel threatened by what they saw happening around them, particularly when the Jews refused to allow them to assist with the reconstruction project. And so they wrote a letter of protest to the emperor. In it they claimed that the rebuilding that was taking place was just the first step towards a full-scale rebellion and that the next step for the Jews would be to stop paying tribute to the emperor. And so construction was forced to halt, with not much more than the foundation having been laid.

For a full ten years it remained that way and it didn’t take long for people to become accustomed to it. It just became part of the landscape and nobody seemed to be terribly bothered by it. Until along came two men: Ezra, the envoy of the Persian emperor, and Haggai the prophet.

It was through the initiative of these two remarkable leaders that the work on the Temple that had been stalled for a decade got under way. On the long-neglected site workers could once again be seen sawing and chiseling wood, shaping stones, and putting them into place. You could hear the banging of mallets, the back-and-forth of saw blades, the chip, chip, chipping of stones.

Yet the productivity that was evident on the Temple site was in stark contrast to what was happening in the fields and orchards and vineyards not very far away…

As we open our Bibles to this morning’s passage, it is approaching the darkest day of the year. Three times Haggai mentions the exact date: the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month—which on our calendar turns out to be December 18^th. And Haggai uses the shortening days to acknowledge that the people have been living in dark times. Indeed, for season after season they had seen repeated crop failures. If it hadn’t been one thing, it had been another: blight, mildew, hailstorms, all in an unrelenting succession of disasters year after year.

The situation had become so dire that people were beginning to ask, “Why?” “Why are our crops failing again after again in spite of all our toil and labour?” “We are nearing the point of starvation. What have we done to deserve this?”

Challenge

So it was, in these desperate circumstances and with the approach of the darkest day of the year, the Lord spoke to Haggai—and not with an answer, but with a couple of questions to put before the priests. And they were these:

“If someone carries a piece of sacred meat in his pocket, meat that is set apart for sacrifice on the altar, and the pocket touches a loaf of bread, a dish of stew, a bottle of wine or oil, or any other food, will these foods be made holy by such contact?”

The priests said, “No.”

Then Haggai said, “How about someone who is contaminated by touching a corpse—if that person touches one of these foods, will it be contaminated?”

The priests said, “Yes, it will be contaminated.”

Haggai was taking the priests back to the laws of ritual purity in the book of Leviticus, where they are all laid out with great clarity in chapter 11—laws with which the priests would have been deeply familiar. There were the dietary laws that governed what you were and were not permitted to eat: Animals with cloven hoofs and that chew their cud, such as cattle, goats and sheep, OK; animals that don’t conform to this standard, such a camels, rabbits and pigs, not OK. Fish: OK; but any water creature without scales, not OK. And the list goes on. You can find it all in Leviticus 11.

There were also laws about avoiding contact with people with skin diseases and with dead bodies—and even with women after childbirth. And they are all laid out in great detail in Leviticus, chapters 12 to 14.

But Haggai reminds the priests (as they knew perfectly well) that cleanness and uncleanness only goes one way. Contact with something that is unclean renders you unclean. But the Levitical standards were clear: you can’t render something clean that is unclean or tainted by putting it into contact with something clean. It just doesn’t work that way.

Haggai does not mention precisely what the issue was but his contemporary Ezra didn’t hesitate to be specific. The problem was intermarriage with the Samaritan and other non-Jewish settlers. The Book of Deuteronomy was very clear in that regard: “You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods.” (Deuteronomy 7:3-4)

And Ezra’s reaction, when he found out what was going on, was “As soon as I heard this, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled hair from my head and beard and sat down appalled… And at the evening sacrifice I rose from my fasting, with my garment and my cloak torn, and fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the Lord my God…” (Ezra 9:3,5)

The lesson that Haggai was seeking to get across in his more measured language was that it all had to do with consistency. The people of Israel had committed themselves to a sacred project: the rebuilding of God’s holy Temple. But their attention to the Temple had not led to a corresponding focus on their everyday lives. Maybe if they thought about it, as Haggai was at pains to inform them, they would realize that God’s failure to bless their harvests was not his failure at all, but a result of their failure to live up to his righteous commands.

I remember way back when I was in university there was one of my fellow students who would repeatedly remind us that going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going into a garage makes you a car. (I expect you’ve heard that one before.) The people of Jerusalem had got their priorities backwards. They somehow assumed that rebuilding the Temple would be all it took to gain God’s favour. How wrong they were!

It was generations before Haggai that God had spoken to the prophet Hosea in these words: “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6)

In the gospels we find Jesus quoting those exact words. On another occasion he addressed the religious people of his day like this: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.  You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. Woe to you! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.” (Matthew 23:25-27)

While after a long delay of ten years, the people of Jerusalem had been diligent about rebuilding the Temple, on the inside their own moral and spiritual lives lay in ruins.

Promise

Many years ago Karen and I visited St Paul’s Cathedral in London. As we wandered about in awe, we were halted in our steps by the sight of something that was very familiar: the artist Holman Hunt’s famous painting of Christ the Light of the World. I suspect that many of you can picture it in your minds. It depicts Jesus standing and knocking at a closed door with his right hand, while holding a lantern in his left. As you take a closer look, you see that the door at which he knocks has been overgrown with vines. It hasn’t been opened for a long time.

The painting of course is a representation of Jesus’ words in Revelation 3:20. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to them and eat with them, and they with me.” Many of us are likely accustomed to hearing those words in an evangelistic context, as though they were addressed to people who hadn’t yet opened their lives to Christ. But that is not the way they were originally intended. They were addressed to a church, to a community of believers, to people who had turned to Christ and invited him into their lives. But the problem was that their faith had become lukewarm. It had become a kind of accessory, an adjunct to a full and busy life. Their status as God’s beloved children had become not a privilege they treasured but a commonplace they casually assumed.

The people of Jerusalem were so focused on rebuilding the physical Temple that they failed to see what Paul would later identify as God’s spiritual temple. He wrote to the church in Corinth, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” Later, he added, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19–20).

So what can we learn from this passage? Years ago I had a friend who would warn not to get so caught up in the work of the Lord that I lose sight of the Lord of the work. And that is an easy trap to fall into. Just take a moment to look at all the things that can occupy our time and energy: Sunday school, prayer meetings, church council, youth programmes, music team rehearsals, conferences… And that doesn’t include our primary obligations—to our spouse, to our family, to our neighbours in need, not to mention our own personal relationship with our heavenly Father. (Oh, and did I neglect to include our jobs?)

As with the men and women of Jerusalem, our gracious God wants nothing more than to bless us. Five and a half centuries after Haggai there was another who put it this way: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33)

As we yield our hearts fully to our holy and gracious Lord and to his priorities, we will find that his will for the people of Jerusalem is his will for us today: “From this day on I will bless you.”

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[1]     https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/construction-on-eyesore-near-provincial-park-in-hrm-painfully-slow-but-making-headway-101004250

 

“Water from a Rock” (Exodus 17:1-7)

A man stormed into the library one day and strode aggressively up to the front desk. The librarian looked up at him and inquired, “May I help you, sir?” “Yes! I have a complaint!” the man growled angrily. “I borrowed a book last week and it was the most boring thing I’ve ever read!” With a rather puzzled look the librarian asked, “Can you be more specific?” To which the man replied, “It was far too long, it had way too many characters and it was completely lacking in any plot.” There followed a moment’s pause, after which the librarian looked at the  man with a smile and sighed, “Ah! You must be the borrower who walked off with our phone book!”

It seems there are some people who will complain about pretty well anything. Perhaps you’ve met some of them! They remind me of the two characters Statler and Waldorf years ago in The Muppet Show. Do you remember how they sat week after week in their box seats sarcastically chortling and guffawing at everything they saw on the stage? There was never an episode that went by when they couldn’t come up with a put-down or find something to make a snarky remark about.

In this morning’s reading we are journeying with Moses and the people of Israel in their forty-year trek from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land. Pharaoh had done everything in his power to make life impossible for them. They had been coerced into cruel and back-breaking slave labour and were severely beaten if they were perceived not to be working hard enough.

Finally, by God’s miraculous intervention, they were able to escape from Egypt and begin the long and arduous trek toward the home of their ancestors. With the Egyptian army following close behind, God had driven back the Red Sea, enabling the Hebrews to cross over and make their escape towards the land that he had promised to Abraham and his descendants centuries before.

The people protested

But now we find them complaining—and this is not the first time we come across them being disgruntled. Nor would it be the last. [If you go back to the previous chapter before this morning’s reading, you will find that they were complaining there too. On that occasion it was because they didn’t have any food.] In fact if you follow the account of the people of Israel’s forty-year trek from Egypt to the Promised Land in the book of Exodus, you will find them moaning and grumbling at more than a dozen different points along the way. It reached the stage where at one juncture they were even plotting to rise up against Moses and put him to death.

Somehow the long and arduous journey across the wilderness had made their recollections of life as slaves in Egypt far rosier than it could possibly have been even in anyone’s imagination. “Back then we had meat by the potful every evening,” they growled, “and the following morning we would gorge on bread until we were stuffed with it!” (Exodus 16:3). Clearly their memories were playing tricks on them!

Now I’m not saying that the journey across the Sinai peninsula to what is now modern-day Israel was a cakewalk. Far from it! (Just as an aside, when I tried to look up what their journey might have been like, the AI on my computer mapped out the route from Cairo, Georgia, to Beersheba Springs, Tennessee!) In fact, the most direct route that they might have taken would have involved a distance of 700 kilometers or so. Nowadays you can drive it in a little over eight hours. But of course the children of Israel didn’t have cars and they didn’t have roads.

Nor did they take the shortest route. Their journey involved hoofing it over a challenging combination of rugged mountain landscapes and desert wilderness and rocky terrain, all spread over an area a little larger than the size of Nova Scotia. To make things even worse, the temperatures in those parts can vary from scorching 36°C daytime highs to overnight lows as chilly as -16°C. Then add to that the fact that, included among the estimated 600,000 travellers, there were children, elderly and disabled people, in addition to flocks and herds and whatever else they were able to take along with them. When you think about it, it was an impossible challenge, a disaster waiting to happen.

And sure enough it did. By the time we get to our passage this morning, the people had already run out of food. Naturally this had led to complaints against Moses and his leadership. In response to their need God had graciously provided them with an enormous flock of quail along with that mysterious fine, flaky bread-like substance to which they gave the name “manna” (which literally means “What is it?”).

Now, after a further journey southeast, another problem arose. This time it wasn’t a lack of food but a lack of water. And so, not surprisingly, we find the people once again complaining and laying all the blame for their predicament on Moses.

Moses prayed

And what was Moses’ response? I suppose he could have gone into a fit of rage and blasted the people for their lack of faith. He could have questioned how the crazy notion of trekking across hundreds of miles of wilderness to  place he had never set eyes on had ever entered his mind. Or he could simply have shrugged his shoulders and sunk into despair. But no, that was not the man that Moses was. Instead, he did what in the eyes of most people would seem utterly impractical: he prayed.

When we turn to the gospels in the New Testament, we find that Jesus had a lot to say about prayer. He told the story of a man who comes to his friend’s house at midnight needing a loaf of bread. Will the friend just shout from his bed, “Go away! Don’t bother me when my family and I are all trying to get a proper night’s sleep!” Of course not! So, Jesus tells us when it comes to prayer, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” (Luke 11:5-9) The real meaning of Jesus’ words comes across if we translate them more like this: “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.”[1]

That is the way we find Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before his crucifixion. Luke’s gospel tells us that “in his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.” (Luke 22:43)

When I am honest about my own prayer life, I realize how shallow it is, how I have barely scratched the surface, how much deeper I need to learn to go!

The Lord provided

Now I suspect that Moses’ attitude when he came before God in prayer was akin to that of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. When Moses prayed, it is clear that it was not just a matter of rattling off a few pious words. The Bible at this point doesn’t go into detail. It simply tells us that that Moses “cried out to the Lord”. And I believe that, were we to unwrap those few words, we would find Moses baring his soul, laying his own profound feelings of desperation and hopelessness before God. “Your people are accusing me of bringing them here to die!” he cried out. “I have nowhere else to turn but to you. What am I to do?” Moses had reached the end of his rope!

And I can only imagine that the next morning it was in fear and trembling that he followed the Lord’s instructions: “Go on ahead of the people…, take your staff in your hand and go… Strike the rock, and water will come out…” And we know what happened.

But God doesn’t always answer our prayers in the way we might hope or expect or desire. The apostle Paul told of a problem that vexed him, about which he pleaded to the Lord on three separate occasions. God’s answer: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:10). Yet in spite of this Paul was also able to testify, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)

God miraculously provided for the people of Israel when they found themselves without water. However, he does not always answer our prayers in ways we might hope for or expect. He does not promise to magically erase all our problems. But he does promise to be with us through them, as he was with Moses. And we can count on Jesus’ last words to his disciples: “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20b)

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[1] New Living Translation

“Who do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:13-20)

Perhaps you’ve noticed it before. But as you read through the gospels you’ll find that Jesus is constantly asking questions. He puts them to strangers; he puts them to his critics; he puts them to his closest friends. He asks questions in moments of crisis. He asks questions when he already knows the answer. He asks questions that make people uncomfortable…

You’d think it would be the other way around—that people would have questions for him. And certainly we do meet with people who came to Jesus with questions of their own. But no, by far the greatest number questions in the gospels are posed, not by Jesus’ disciples, not by people in the crowds who gathered to hear him, not by those he met along the dusty roads of Galilee and Judea, but by Jesus. Here are just a few among the many that I came across as I leafed through the gospels in preparation for this morning:

·  To a couple of John the Baptist’s disciples set on following him: “What are you looking for?” (John 1:38).

·  To a paralyzed man lying helplessly on his mat: “Do you want to be made well?” (John 5:6)

·  To his disciples after healing another paralyzed man, “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’?” (Mark 2:9)

·  To a woman caught in the act of adultery: “Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?” (John 8:10)

·  To a blind man sitting by the roadside: “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51)

·  To a crowd of listeners gathered to hear him: “Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”

·  And a moment later to that same multitude: “Why do you worry about what to wear?” (Matthew 6:27,28)

·  And not very long after that: “Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye but ignore the beam in your own?” (Matthew 7:3)

·  And to another crowd: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?” (Luke 6:32)

·  To a circle of his critics trying to find a way to undermine him: “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil?” (Mark 3:4)

·  Holding up a coin before another cluster of detractors he asked, “Whose head is on this, and whose title?” (Matthew 22:20)

·  To a group of his followers he posed this one: “What good can it be for someone to gain the whole world in trade for their life?” (Matthew 16:26)

·  And after they had been tossed about in their boat by a violent storm at sea and practically scared out of their wits: “Where is your faith?” (Luke 8:25)

·  Finally and most poignantly, to the disciple Peter following his resurrection: “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” (John 21:17)

Jesus’ question

So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised when this morning’s gospel reading opens with Jesus asking yet another question. And on this occasion he addresses it to the disciples: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

Now we mustn’t think that it was as though Jesus were attempting to carry out some kind of first-century opinion poll. Frankly I can’t imagine that Jesus was all that concerned about what people thought about him. He was not like contemporary politicians, constantly checking the latest surveys to find out their standing among the public.

Jesus didn’t have any need to worry himself about that kind of thing, because he was perfectly secure in his identity. Elsewhere he confided to his disciples, “I have come … not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” (John 6:38) It was plain that Jesus’ path was not determined by public opinion, but by the mission entrusted to him by his heavenly Father—and he knew that that mission would lead ultimately to his rejection and death.

So it is that when you look at the gospels, who did Jesus spend most of his time with? By and large it wasn’t the movers and the shakers. It wasn’t the influencers. It wasn’t the affluent or the well-heeled. It was the poor and the downtrodden, the crippled, the incurable, the prostitutes, the tax collectors and those pushed off to the sidelines of society.

But going back to Jesus’ question in this morning’s gospel reading, I imagine there was a gap of barely a few seconds before the answers came tumbling out from the disciples: “Some say John the Baptist.” “Others are thinking along the lines of Elijah.” “Still others are putting you in a category with Jeremiah or one of the prophets…” Jesus had been the talk of the town wherever he went. Even King Herod had heard about him. But in fact none of that stood behind Jesus’ motivation for asking the question, “Who do people say I am?”. The real question he was aiming at was the one he asked next: “But who do you say I am?”

Peter’s response

Now at this point I imagine that there was more than a brief pause. In my mind’s eye I can picture the disciples all standing there in dumbfounded silence. We can hardly blame them. For I wonder, how often have you or I taken the time to give serious thought to this question? Sunday by Sunday we repeat the words of the creed: “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God…” But when did we last give them any meaningful consideration? Have we ever reflected on their consequences? Have we asked, what does all this mean for me, for the way I live my life today? When you take a moment to think about it, the implications are massive and have the potential of touching on every area of our lives.

But, going back to our gospel reading, it was predictable that Peter would be the one to answer—honest, impetuous, impulsive Peter. I can’t think he had to reflect for more than a fraction of a second before he found himself blurting out: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!”

Remember that Peter had been among the first to respond to Jesus’ challenge to “Follow me…” He had wasted no time in leaving his boat and his nets behind to accompany Jesus (Matthew 4:18-20). It was Peter who had fished all night and had nothing to show for it. He began to object when Jesus said, “Let down your nets for a catch.” But his skepticism was proved wrong when his nets couldn’t contain the fish that were flipping back and forth to the point of almost sinking their boats (Luke 5:4-9). It was Peter who at Jesus’ word stepped out of his boat onto the roiling sea in the midst of a raging storm and began to walk towards him (Matthew 14:22-33). And later, in the darkness of Gethsemane on the eve of Jesus’ crucifixion, it would be Peter who would take out his sword and slice off the high priest’s servant’s ear to prevent Jesus’ arrest (John 18:10).

And so it was hardly a surprise, when Jesus asked, “Who do you say I am?” it would be Peter who would respond: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus’ promise

Now I suspect that Peter did not come to this conclusion entirely on his own. In my mind’s eye I can see the disciples clustering together on more than one occasion—perhaps following one of Jesus’ miraculous acts, perhaps after listening to another of his arresting parables. And I can hear them asking themselves, as they did after Jesus calmed that violent storm at sea, the waves swamping their boat and threatening to take them all down with it: “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” (Matthew 8:27).

The question of who this Jesus was had to have occupied the minds of the disciples for some time. But it always would have remained a question. What they must increasingly have been wondering seemed too stupendous to be true. Now it was Peter who gave voice to their growing suspicion: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

In a moment’s time I will ask you to stand and invite you to affirm that same faith in Jesus in the words of the Nicene Creed. It will not be a spontaneous outburst as it was with Peter. Instead, it will be in the carefully crafted words that have been echoed down through the centuries by men and women of faith.

However, let us not allow their familiarity to lull us into simply rattling them off. Let us place ourselves with Peter and the other disciples as Jesus asks not, “Who do people say I am?” Not, “Who does the church say I am?” But, “Who do you say I am?” And let us answer in humble amazement and with full conviction of faith…

 

“Notes to a Young Preacher” (2 Timothy 4:1-5)

It’s just over sixty years since I first set foot a pulpit. The occasion was a family service in the church where I worshipped, celebrating another year of Sunday school, with a focus on the children. And my text was Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:33—“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.”

Our minister was a very fine biblical preacher, who himself had worked for several years under one of the greatest preachers of the day. Knowing that this was to be my first go at it (not to mention how nervous I was!), he took the time to sit down with me on a series of occasions to help me prepare. And although he is long gone, his wise counsel remains with me and I remain in his debt to this day.

He was the first in a series of teachers and preachers I have been privileged to hear and sit under and learn from, and whose practical wisdom I have sought to carry with me. Yet I don’t think I could put any of them in the same category as the man that Timothy was privileged to have as his teacher: a man who humbly called himself the least of the apostles, yet whose preaching enabled the spread of the Christian faith through nearly half the Roman world.

I don’t need to tell you that he was the apostle Paul. But what you may not know is that before his dramatic encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul had enjoyed the privilege of sitting under one of the greatest rabbinical teachers of the day. That man’s name was Gamaliel and he was universally acknowledged for his depth of wisdom and skillfully balanced thought.

Gamaliel himself had been the heir to a rich family heritage of biblical scholarship. His grandfather was the renowned Rabbi Hillel, one of the most respected Jewish scholars of all time, and Gamaliel carried on his grandfather’s legacy of teaching and interpretation of the Old Testament Law. Gamaliel’s reputation as a teacher was so universally acclaimed that he was the first person ever to be honoured with title “Rabban”, a term of the highest esteem, indicating the authority and respect with which he was regarded among successive generations.

Now I don’t expect that many of you are planning to preach a sermon any time soon. But it occurred to me that you might find it helpful if for the next few moments I were to pull back the curtain so to speak and take you behind the scenes for the next few minutes to see what is involved in forming a preacher.

So it is that this morning we sit with Timothy, as he reads what likely were the last words he would ever receive from his mentor and father in the faith, the apostle Paul. Paul recognizes that his final day is nearing, that his ministry and his very life will soon be coming to a close. In the verses that follow our passage this morning he confesses to Timothy, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith…” Now he takes this final opportunity to pass along some guidance to his young friend and co-worker about the ministry of preaching.

And I’d like to summarize what he writes under three headings: the preacher’s calling, the preacher’s challenge, and the preacher’s character.

The Preacher’s Calling

So first: the preacher’s calling. Paul makes it clear that Timothy’s job is to proclaim the word. His task is not to talk about his own experience or to entertain his audience or to give his personal opinions or to impress them with his oratory. It was to share Jesus. And the challenge that Paul issued to Timothy was the same challenge that he had accepted for himself.

Elsewhere we find him putting that in as many words: “What we proclaim is not ourselves,” he wrote to the congregation at Corinth, “but Jesus Christ as Lord.” (2 Corinthians 4:5) And I believe that those words were for Paul something of a personal motto—a vow to himself and before God that he carried with him and was careful to abide by every day of his apostolic ministry.

Paul did not travel from town to town to talk about his experiences or his achievements, impressive though they were. “If I must boast,” he wrote, “I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” (2 Corinthians 11:30) Nor was it his task to impress people, to put on a good show. “Some demand signs and others seek wisdom,” he writes elsewhere, “but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to [some] and folly to [others], but to those who are called, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:22-23)

We could summarize Paul’s ministry of preaching under three “e’s”: to expose, to exhort and to encourage. The first of these was a negative task: to expose sin. I can’t speak for you, but I know that I’d rather not spend too much time having to look at the dark side of my life—my pride, my impatience with others, my unsavoury thoughts, my selfishness… And the list could go on. But the good news is that as we learn to be honest with ourselves (and more importantly, with God) we discover that he is able to deal with those dark corners of our life in a way that we never could on our own. And so it is the preacher’s task to expose the lies behind which we hide, so that we may receive God’s forgiveness and cleansing and power to change.

The second “e” is to exhort: to challenge people to be faithful in their daily walk with Jesus and to open their lives more and more to the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

And the third “e” is to encourage. The word Paul uses here originally meant to be called alongside. And so it is that the preacher does not stand above his or her congregation like some superhero (as if they ever could!), but walks with them, understands their weaknesses, accompanies them in their journey with Jesus.

Elsewhere Paul summarized this far better than I ever could in these words:

For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. (2 Corinthians 4:5-7)

The Preacher’s Challenge

Paul moves on from the preacher’s calling in verses 1 and 2, to the preacher’s challenge in verses 3 and 4. The pandemic years were particularly difficult ones for pastors. Following a calling that involves regular human contact, they were forced into a level of isolation that made person-to-person ministry considerably more challenging than in “normal” times (if such a thing ever existed!). The result was that the pandemic saw record numbers of pastors resigning from their posts.

Well, the good news is that with the pandemic behind us the number of pastors seriously considering leaving their pulpits and looking for other employment has been coming down. Can you guess what the percentage is today? According to the Barna research group, 24% of Protestant pastors seriously considered leaving the ministry over the last year.[1]

That’s an American statistic, but I can’t imagine the number isn’t all that different in Canada. And quite frankly, I find it staggering. Yet I’m not sure that there was ever a time when it was easy to minister to a congregation. However, at least in this part of the world there are none that I know of who have had to face the pressures suffered by the Apostle Paul. Here’s how he described his ministry:

I’ve been flogged five times with the thirty-nine lashes, beaten by rods three times, pummeled with rocks once. I’ve been shipwrecked three times, and immersed in the open sea for a night and a day. In hard traveling year in and year out, I’ve had to ford rivers, fend off robbers, struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I’ve been at risk in the city, at risk in the country, endangered by desert sun and sea storm, and betrayed by those I thought were my brothers. I’ve known drudgery and hard labor, many a long and lonely night without sleep, many a missed meal, blasted by the cold, naked to the weather.

Now Paul was living in a very different time from ours under very different circumstances. But then he goes on to tell of what I would see as very much the experience of most pastors today. Let me read what he writes in Eugene Petersen’s earthy rendering in The Message: 

And that’s not the half of it, [he continues] when you throw in the daily pressures and anxieties of all the churches. When someone gets to the end of his rope, I feel the desperation in my bones. When someone is duped into sin, an angry fire burns in my gut. (2 Corinthians 11:23-29)

Paul may have faced his challenges. But today the preacher (in our part of the world at least) faces different challenges. Not least is the influence of the internet. Statistics tell us that over thirty-five million Canadians are connected to social media, with 92 percent of the population subscribing to social media. Youtube gets over a billion hits from Canadians every month, with Facebook not far behind at more than 600 million.[2] According to data from 2024, the average Canadian spent six and a half hours per day online. In addition, online users watch tv either through streaming or via live broadcasts for over three hours per day. At the same time, our attention spans are diminishing. You can see it reflected in tv advertising. A generation ago a normal tv commercial lasted a full minute. A couple of decades ago that was reduced to thirty seconds. Now many ads last only half that time.

If advertisers feel they must get their message across in a matter of seconds, how is the preacher expected to compete? The answer is, we don’t. Because we are convinced that the gospel has a power all its own. Again, to quote from Paul (and again using Eugene Peterson’s translation): “It’s news I’m most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God’s powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him…”

The Preacher’s Character

We’ve looked at the preacher’s calling: to lift up Jesus and draw people to trust and serve him. We’ve looked at the challenges the preacher faces from an increasingly fast-paced society and the overwhelming influence of modern media—not to mention the growing hostility in our society towards religion in general and Christianity in particular.

Now for the time that remains I want to look at what is fundamental to effective preaching, and that is the preacher’s character. Paul’s wise counsel to Timothy in this department was this: “Always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry.”

The preacher is in the pulpit for the space of just a few crucial minutes each week. But those minutes are meaningless unless they are backed up by a life that is consistent with them. So it is that in the last lines of this morning’s reading Paul leaves Timothy with four pieces of advice:

“Be sober-minded.” That is, don’t allow yourself to be taken in by the subtle and often not-so-subtle rabbit trails that can lead you away from the central truths of the faith.

“Endure suffering.” Be assured that there will be people who oppose you, who will even try to bring you down. In those times, be sure to cling all the more closely to Jesus and to depend on the power of the Holy Spirit.

“Do the work of an evangelist.” Be sure that you are leading people to Jesus—not just to a church or a particular way of life or set of doctrines, but to Jesus, who alone is able to bring us into a relationship with the Father.

“Fulfil your ministry.” The word translated “ministry” here literally means “service”. And so Paul is reminding Timothy and all preachers that we stand among our congregations not as their commander but as their servants—and more importantly, as the servants of Jesus, who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for all. May all the glory go to him!

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[1] https://www.barna.com/trends/pastors-quitting-ministry-barna-data/

[2]     https://madeinca.ca/internet-statistics-canada/