Someone asked me once why I wear a clergy collar sometimes. My simplest answer is that it reminds me of my call. It reminds me that I am called to this preaching, teaching, serving, sharing, life. It gives me an identity. Put another way, it reminds me of who I am. I haven’t always worn it. It’s a fairly new thing for me. I served a church for two years without a collar and then I thought I’d try it out on Sundays to see if I felt any different. I did. It’s a visible reminder of my call. It reminds others of that call, too. And there are certain expectations that come with that visible reminder of an internal reality. I know that when I wear a collar people notice and if they don’t already know me as a pastor they realize that I must be or, because I’m a woman, wonder why I’m wearing it at all but that’s another issue for another day. My collar reminds me of who I am. It reminds me of the call God has placed on my life and some days or maybe most days I need to be reminded. Perhaps I should wear it more often.
Our text today talks about remembering and reminding.
As human beings, I think, our memories tend to be short. And I’m not talking about the devastation of memory loss from disease or becoming forgetful as we age. I’m talking about our general tendency as human beings to forget stuff sometimes. Like, who we are as God’s beloved children. Or the promises that God has made to us. Or our identity in the living Christ. Or the way we are called to live as those forgiven and redeemed. (You know, small things.) There are a number of reasons we forget these things, I think. Sometimes circumstances in life cause us to forget who we are as God’s beloved children. Sometimes circumstances in the world cause us to forget the promises of God and God’s faithfulness. Sometimes weariness or being disconnected from God, or the Word of God, or a community of faith causes us to forget our identity in the living Christ. Sometimes it’s just easier to live as though our actions and words, as followers of Jesus, don’t matter.
And we see this throughout scripture, so it’s not a new thing. The Israelites wandering in the wilderness had a tendency to forget the promises of God and God’s faithfulness. There was a point in time when they thought that going back to slavery in Egypt would be better than moving forward in the promises of God. The disciples had moments when they forgot who Christ had called them to be. They didn’t always make the best choices. They made assumptions about others. They denied knowing Christ. And this community receiving a letter from the writer of 2 Timothy must have forgotten who they were as God’s beloved children, claimed and redeemed, set free in the risen Christ because apparently they needed a reminder. So, Timothy is told to remember for his own sake and to remind them, the community, of a few essential things.
I like that the writer of 2 Timothy is so succinct here. “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David–that is my gospel.” It’s a simple statement. There’s no question or wiggle room. There’s really nothing confusing about it or need for explanation. “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead.” That’s the long and the short of it. We can, of course, do what we reformed type followers of Jesus tend to do and try to work through that short statement. It’s noteworthy to me that it says, Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead…the emphasis being on the resurrected Christ. Jesus who triumphed over death and broke the bonds of sin, once and for all. Jesus, who is not on the cross or buried in a tomb but raised, resurrected, alive. Jesus who is the descendant of David, the promised Messiah. Christ’s identity is pretty clear. And our identity is found here in this, too. We who are baptized have been raised with Christ…baptized into Christ’s death, raised to new life.
We see this point made later in the passage as we read what was an ancient hymn or recitation used by groups of early Christians.
“If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure with him, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful–for he cannot deny himself.”
Remind them of this, the writer says. Remind them of who Jesus is. Remind them of the gospel. And in that remembrance, remind them of who they are in light of it. Remind us, too, while you’re at it. In the church, we baptize and are baptized to provide a sign of an inward grace and to make a public proclamation of this faith we claim. To die with Christ so that we might live with Christ. To endure with Christ so that we might reign with Christ. And if we turn our backs and withhold ourselves from Christ, the natural consequence of that kind of a choice is that we will then be denied a life-giving, life-saving, transformative relationship with Jesus Christ, our Lord. The last bit about the faithfulness of Christ even when we are faithless reminds us of the constancy and consistency of who God is…God is the one who makes and fulfills promises. God cannot go back on God’s promises because it is not in the nature of God to do so. Isn’t that good news for those of us who are often fickle in the promises we make. Isn’t that good news for those of us who have faithless days. Isn’t that good news for us when we forget our identity in the risen Christ.
Our faithless days come, I think, when we’ve forgotten Jesus Christ, raised from the dead. Our faithless days come, I think, when we’ve forgotten who we are, as God’s beloved children. Our faithless days come when we forget that God is God, at work and active in our world. Our faithless days come when we forget the promises of a faithful God. Our faithless days come when we forget the call God has placed on our lives: to love, to serve, to do our best in the eyes of God. I think It’s been easy lately to forget. There’ve been bombings and shootings and devastating natural disasters. There’s been great uncertainty about the future in this country and in the world. There’s been disturbing rhetoric in many different arenas. I wish I could say that these things will soon come to an end but I can’t. The problems in this world are overwhelming, to say the very least. It’s no wonder we may have forgotten some of the essentials of this Christ following life.
This life of faith isn’t easy and I think the writer of 2 Timothy knew that full well. Most of Paul’s letters were written from jail. Not comfortably from home or a church office or a cafe or a roadside but from prison. Paul was chained up for proclaiming the gospel, for telling the transformative story of Jesus Christ, resurrected and alive. This life of faith isn’t easy. We have competing voices in our lives and in our world, a world that deals in fear more often than in faith. These voices try to tell us who we are and who we ought to be and how we ought to conduct ourselves. It’s difficult to not be lured by the voices and we may feel at times like we’re lost with no hope. The gospel of Jesus Christ has a very different message, though. The gospel gives us a different value system than the value system of this world. In our world, as of late, it seems to have become widely acceptable to disparage groups of people, to demean those who are viewed as less than, to discriminate based on several different factors, to name call and disrespect with no repercussions. I’ll tell you that’s not how Christ calls us to live.
As those who have been baptized: called and claimed, redeemed and set free, we are kingdom citizens. We are those who live counter to the ideals of this world. That is who we are as followers of Christ. If we have begun to buy into the values of this world, it’s time for us, baptized children of God to stand up and do better. It is time for us to remember who we are and who we are called to be. We need to remember God’s story and allow it to transform our stories. Needing a reminder means that somewhere deep down in our hearts, our minds, and our souls we already carry the truth of the gospel. It’s there. Needing a reminder means that somewhere deep down in our hearts, our minds, and our souls we already know how it is we ought to live our lives.
That’s why it’s important for us to remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, and to remind those around us of the gospel truth. We find our faith and our hope and our trust in Jesus…who calls us to love and not to hate, to build bridges of reconciliation rather than walls which divide, to use our words to build up and encourage rather than tear down and hurt. Jesus calls us to love others even when it’s really hard and we don’t want to because it means loving people that we don’t understand, loving people that we may fear, loving people that we don’t like, loving people that we disagree with. Jesus calls us to not only care about others but care for them. That’s our call, my friends, and how we are to live. That’s who we are as Christ followers. That’s who we are as baptized members of Christ’s body. Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead…remember what that means for you and what that means for the world. And then repeat it to yourself and to all of God’s people: If we die with him, we’ll live with him; if we stick it out with him, we’ll rule with him; if we turn our backs on him, he’ll turn his back on us; if we give up on him, he does not give up–for there’s no way he can be false to himself.
That’s good news, y’all; very good news. Amen
Rev. Alex Rodgers
Decatur Presbyterian Church
Decatur, GA
October 9, 2016
