“Rekindle the Gift of God”

sermon by Carrie Eikler
2 Timothy 1:1-14
October 3, 2010
World Communion Sunday

Sunday nights in the Eikler household is movie night. We use it as a chance to unwind. Strange, I know, that one would need to “unwind” from a day of Sabbath, but Sundays take on a whole different meaning when you’re a pastor. Weekends are never the same. So to “unwind” we often lay a quilt on the floor, pop popcorn, slice apples and cheese, and watch a movie with the kids. Then after putting them to bed, Torin and I watch another movie…more geared towards our interests.

I mean, there are only so many times you can watch the kids show “Cars” before you go absolutely mad.

On movie night a couple of weeks ago, Torin and I curled up to watch “Date Night” with Steve Carell and Tina Fey. The plot starts out pretty standard for Claire and Phil Foster: married couple, two kids, middle class jobs, middle class house, middle class lives. Lots of love. Lots of laughter. Lots of activities…lots of boredom. Phil and Claire begin to wonder if they are simply more than just really good roommates to each other.

But even in spite of exhaustion, they kept their regular date nights together, as unglamorous as a suburban New Jersey steakhouse might be. It sort of resembled there lives together really: Solid. Predictable. Comfortable. But one night they throw all caution to the wind and go into the city for Date Night and what results is a comedic romp of mistaken identity, political scandal, car chases, and of course since this is a Hollywood film, a happy and tidy ending.

It makes many of us married folks a bit anxious to watch movies like this. Is this what we need to spice up our relationship? To rekindle that flame? I think I’d prefer the boring, but stable suburban steakhouse. Wouldn’t I?

But to be honest, you don’t have to be married to know what it is like for things to feel dull. Most of us have had friendships go stale, or jobs that become just boring, or houses that feel more like huge dustbins than homes. I even found a certain type of movie I used to love start to lose my attention.

And lest we forget that we are more than flesh and bone, and workers, and partners, and parents, and friends…we are reminded in this strangely pertinent letter that we heard today that yes, our spirits, can (and often) lack a bit of luster. Spiritual boredom.

I spent far too much time this week trying to think about how to explain what spiritual boredom feels like, but after a while I realized: I doubt I need to tell you what it feels like is. (////) I think we have all experienced it

Don’t you get a feeling in this letter that maybe Paul was sensing a bit of something like this in Timothy? And he’s likely not simply singling out Timothy. These pastoral letters weren’t meant to be personal correspondence: there was a broader audience. They were meant to be read and shared with the entire community. Paul is not Timothy’s personal leadership coach, Paul is talking to everyone here. “Rekindle the gift of God that is within you.” (//) We can only imagine, things had started to loose a bit of spark in these people’s lives.

Isn’t it nice when our private struggles, turn out to be more common than we think? That there are lots more-tons, millions!-of people who share in some part of that struggle. How many people, who have been married for more than a few years, cannot watch Date Night and find something in that dull marriage that makes them smile and say “Mmhmm, that’s right.”?

Can you not relate to what perhaps Paul is seeing? (///) And I don’t Paul chastising here. I hear him naming a reality for all who have chosen to walk the path of Christ…. because in walking we can get tired. Even the things we love so much--our spouses, children, friends, vocations--can get boring.

I love the part in this letter when Paul brings in Timothy’s grandmother and mother, Lois and Eunice. We don’t know these woman. They aren’t part of any story that we know of. But they stand at the front of Paul’s emphatic reminder of Timothy’s spiritual vibrancy.

It isn’t exactly like Paul to venerate woman, as you can see if we continue on reading in 2 Timothy. So whether this is a contrast Paul is setting up for a later comparison, or if it is some sort of motivational strategy, we’re not sure. But he recognizes the power of these women on this community.

If it is true that Timothy and those around him are feeling a little less than spiritually energized, then maybe recalling these women is meant to give them a bit of a jolt: Like Paul is saying, “It’s there! This faith, this sincere, powerful faith isn’t just in your head because of what you learned, not even in your soul because of what you experienced—it’s in your blood!” The potential for spiritual vibrancy is like the pilot light on the stove, reminding us that it just needs a little gas to turn on the flame.

:) “Just turn it on.” Isn’t that what we’re always told to do? If there is a problem, just try to fix it. Is your marriage a bit dull? Spice it up with an urban romp of death-defying car chases and gun fights…at least, go out to a nice restaurant. Don’t like your job? Quit, and get a new one…as least when the economy starts looking up again. Is your spiritual life a bit bland? Just rekindle it by purchasing this book, going on this retreat, finding another church…as least when it works for you and your schedule.

We all know that it takes more than flowers and chocolate to rekindle love in a marriage. More than a new office or job title to get a resurgence of purpose in the workplace. More than empty gestures prescribed in spirituality books and entertaining worships to help us rekindle the gift of God within us. Maybe this tendency is known too well to Paul, for he tells Timothy’s community that we are called by God’s grace, not solely by the things we do or the way we feel inside. A spiritual love affair is not patched up with spiritual chocolate, or a spiritual date.

But really, don’t we know those external things are important…at least appreciated? If married love is never expressed with a kiss or caress partners can feel isolated in the unspoken comfort of committed love. Don’t we show that we are people of God by the way we live our lives, those works that are called of us, the proclamation by James that faith without works is dead?

At times it seems like a chicken or the egg question: “To start the path to spiritual rekindling should I first focus on internal faith, or external works? Faith or works? Faith or works?”

Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any quick fixes to this. Lots of possibilities, but no definitive word that can work for everyone. But maybe searching for quick fix is more a problem than a solution. We do want a check list to proceed through, a systematic approach to this rekindling. And in the process of reconciling what seems to be two polar opposites, we get stymied in the either/or approach and we’re left more paralyzed than we are passionate.

But I am trying to see them not as polar opposites, pulling in two different directions, but as two tensions pushing against each other: engagement rather that resistance. Perhaps it is this bumping up against each other, rubbing together, challenging, and living, and working together that makes a spark. Maybe this is part of that rekindling—the creative friction when we engage our faith and our works, our inner and outer.

This creative friction, like flint against steel, strikes and rubs against each other. And if you’ve every tried to catch something on fire by striking flint against steel you know it often doesn’t happen on the first go. There’s a lot of striking, bumping up together. And in the process, before the spark is kindled—or rekindled—the two elements share a connection, maybe even share a bit of themselves.

Steel breaking off flint. Flint leaving a dusty smudge on steel.

Paul knows that Timothy’s faith is strong. It’s in his blood, it’s not something he can lose. Perhaps Paul knows it’s more than Timothy trying to get that spark going by returning to first passionate faith—more than just turning on what has been there before. Maybe it is for him, and maybe for all of us, about finding what we need to rub up against, to engage, to cause creative friction in our souls.

For me communion does this. Coming from a tradition that rarely viewed communion as transformative outside of Love Feast, I take issue with this perspective. Humanity, as the lover of God, needs that regular physical reminder. In communion, my life bumps up against God’s story. In communion I feel God in sometimes subtle, in sometimes powerful ways rubbing up against us in this most dramatic act of devotion and sacrifice for humankind.

And in this act, God is not only rekindled in us, but I believe we are rekindled in God. A breaking off of one another, a smudging of humanity and God. And in this moment of creative friction, we mingle. God and us. God and you.
(///)
And maybe there’s a spark. And maybe there’s not. But there is a rekindling gift in the moment of meeting and the crashing together of humanity and God. Persistently—over time-- engaging one another. Both are transformed. Neither is the same.

And in breaking, and in smudging, a spark will come. Amen.

Come, meet God in these moments of communion.