Sermon for Trinity 19C
In
the Race of Faith, we’re all involved in active baton passing.
Luke 17: 5 The
apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ The Lord
replied, ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to
this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, and it would obey
you.
2 Timothy 1:5I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith
that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am
sure, lives in you. For
this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through
the laying on of my hands...
One of the biggest disappointments of the Rio Olympics track and field events was
the disqualification of the GB men’s 4x400 sprint relay team.
They
had run a storming race, beating their own record in training, and thought they
would be straight into the final with it. But there was a problem.
Baton
passing is a fine art, and you’re supposed to do it within a 20-yard stretch of
track. If your foot is deemed to be over the line, even by a fraction, whilst
you pass it to the next runner, you are disqualified. And if they progress
beyond the line before receiving the baton, the team is disqualified.
Obviously
you’re running really fast in a sprint relay, but as you approach the next
runner, you must position yourself completely accurately, and so must they; you
must slow a bit, they have to start running so as not to lose the momentum, and
you must pass it within that very narrow margin of track.
The
GB men’s team had run a blistering sub 3 minute heat, which would have put them
in the frame for a medal in the final; all the passes appeared to have gone
well, but after jubilant scenes at the finish line, news filtered through that
they had been disqualified.
They
appealed, but were unsuccessful despite video footage being inconclusive. The
judges ruled that Matthew Hudson Smith had marginally had his foot over the
line while waiting for Delano Williams to pass the baton.
India
were deemed to have committed the same offense and Trinidad and Tobago received
a lane violation, thus shifting the host team, Brazil, three places up the
scoreboard and into the final.
In a similar
disappointment, the US men’s 4x100m relay team were also disqualified after
finishing in Bronze Medal position, due to an early hand off between Mike
Rodgers and Justin Gatlin.
In
the nail biting sport of sprint relay, the successful passing of the baton is
the crucial lynch pin of the whole race. But passing the baton has its
glitches, and those glitches would seem to be rather common.
In
the race of faith, the successful passing of the baton is the crucial lynch pin
of the whole race. But it too has its glitches.
The
fact that we’re here this morning gathered and worshipping is testament to the
baton passing of each generation before us, but we also know that there’s been
a dramatic falling away of attendance within the C of E lately, particularly in
younger generations, and perhaps we might be able to put that down to glitches
in the baton passing.
Despite
population growth, numbers attending church services has dropped 12% over the
last decade and generally speaking many C of E congregations are aging whilst
fewer young people (under 50s) are engaging. Less than 2% of the population go
to an Anglican church on a Sunday.
It’s
a good job that our gospel reminds us of mustard seed faith. With mustard seed
faith, we can join in with God in the seemingly impossible task of baton
passing.
Let’s
look at how we all need to need be actively involved in passing on the baton of
faith.
Timothy,
had received the baton of faith and it would appear he was a third generation
Christian: in the Epistle, Paul refers to the faith that first lived in his
grandmother, Lois, and in his mother, Eunice.
Scholars
generally agree that Paul is near the end of his life here and that he wrote this
letter to Timothy in the mid 60s, so just enough time for there to be a first
generation Jewish believer in Jesus, (Lois) who then passed the faith onto her
daughter, Eunice, who passed it to Timothy.
Never
underestimate the power of a praying parent, grandparent (or partner or godparent for that
matter).
In
the 98th year of her life, my Grandmother was known to attend the
monthly prayer group which took place up in her local church, as people sat
round in a circle of chairs and prayed for the young. Although she could have
rested on her laurels, having almost run the race to completion herself, she
went to that prayer group because she believed in young people and recognised
the need to pass the baton. She was ignited from within by the need to pass the
baton. She was in some ways, difficult, uncompromising and a bit of a social
snob, but she was unceasing in her prayers for the generations below her to
know Christ.
As
you get older, it seems you have nothing to lose. If people think you’re barmy
for talking about Christ, that doesn’t really matter, because God will honour
your mustard seed faith, and uproot mulberry trees into the sea for you. Someone,
somewhere, will get the baton from your prayerful witness. If we don’t share
the gospel, the baton falls.
So
Timothy learnt the faith through his family. But Paul had also been
instrumental in his faith journey. We read that he had laid hands on Timothy for
him to receive the Holy Spirit, and in the Epistle he encourages Timothy to
continually fan into flame the gift of the Spirit that was given him at that
time.
It’s
the same for us – the best way to pass the baton is to be alive in your faith.
The best signpost to Christ is a fully functioning Christian. That’s why we
continually need to be renewed in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Timothy’s
faith pedigree tells us two important things about handing on the faith
(passing the baton).
Firstly,
the family is the primary conduit for faith, but each person needs to
individually appropriate that faith for himself or herself. Timothy’s faith was
caught, but also affirmed individually.
There’s
a tension here for churchgoing families.
Children
are not easily fooled. They imbibe actions and not just words. What feeds them
primarily is real spiritual life flowing out from a lived experience of Jesus
Christ. This is more than simply church attendance.
Yes,
we long for them to develop church-going habits too, but primarily they need to
see a lived daily faith that speaks to life issues at each stage of growing up.
So
that’s baton passing within the family. And research suggests that the majority
of people who come to a living faith in Jesus, will do so before their 18th
birthday. So that’s even more reason to pray for your children, grandchildren
and godchildren, nephews and nieces.
But,
secondly, not everyone is lucky enough to see living faith modelled within their
family.
So
we also need to be involved in baton passing more generally. This is clearly
what happened with the very first believers in Jesus.
Someone,
somewhere, modelled Christ to them in such a way that they turned to him and
became believers. So someone shared their faith with Lois, Timothy’s
Grandmother, and she became the first family member to know Christ. Perhaps it
was a neighbour or a friend, someone who pointed to Christ in persuasive words
and loving actions.
Paul
himself came to faith by what seemed to be a direct intervention of the risen
Christ, as he fell to the ground on his way to persecute the young church. He
then devoted his whole life to spreading the message, passing the baton. Not
many of us will come to faith like that, but you do hear of the occasional
experience when God appears to someone in a dream, say, or in extremis.
Paul
assumes that baton passing will be one of the chief characteristics of the
Christian church. That’s why he has identified Timothy as a successor – a very
different person to him I’m sure – but carrying on the race with the baton
firmly in his hand.
Investing
in successors is a risky business because our successors do things differently
from their predecessors.
That’s
the nature of baton passing. We need to have humility, and to be encouragers
here. As I look back on 50 years of church going the most significant catalyst
in baton passing that I can identify in the family of Christ, is the
individuals who are encouragers.
The
baton, of course, is the gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ, which is for
all people everywhere. ‘For this gospel I was appointed a herald, an apostle
and a teacher’, writes Paul from prison, and he urges Timothy to ‘guard the
good treasure entrusted to you.’
Passing
the batons happens in those fortunate families where faith is truly alive, but
they may be in the minority. So baton passing is up to all of us.
In looking
at this enormous task, we come back to the mustard seed faith.
It’s just
as well Jesus talked of faith as having very small beginnings, because
otherwise I think we’d be tempted to give up. If we have faith as small as a
mustard seed, we can say to a tree, be uprooted, and thrown into the sea, and
it will be done, Jesus says.
Christianity
started with one person. It spread to 12, then to 72, then to 3000 on the Day
of Pentecost. We don’t need to lose heart about passing the baton. But we do
need to be actively involved in doing it.
And when
we’ve done what we can, when we’ve had faith, and prayed, and cared enough to
pass the baton on, in words and deeds, in fact all we’ve done is been faithful
servants, and not super human Christians.
And that’s
quite a relief too.
Amen.
