2 Timothy 1:5 – Four Factors in Graying Gracefully by Faith
3 I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day, 4 greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy, 5 when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also. From 2 Timothy 1, New King James Version
T.S. Eliot deems dangerous the tendency "to associate tradition with the immovable; to think of it as something hostile to all change; to aim to return to some previous condition which we imagine as having been capable of preservation in perpetuity". "Tradition without intelligence, he challenges, "is not worth having.”
As a vibrant antidote to immovable tradition personified, 2 Timothy 1:5 gives us a glimpse of Timothy's grandmother as Paul's paragon of abiding faith. Be warned, this isn't your grandmother's faith. Whatever our age in 2019, as we read 2 Timothy 1:5 our mind automatically went back to the nostalgic repose of our grandparents' day in which a kind of culturally conservative faith was either automatic, or more to be assumed than it is today.
Let's rescue Lois from our myopathy a, however. She didn't keep the Christian faith out of habit or for propriety's sake. She would have been an adult with her own established perspective and identity that had served her relatively well when confronted with Christ's radical claims. Yet, she stepped out with the kind of faith that still radiates to Paul's notice as he considers the approaching end of his own life, to be given for faith's sake.
1. Someone who is a beacon of faith in later years is willing to reconsider assumptions.
Whatever her background, Lois, like Paul, counted it lost for the sake of Christ. At some point, she stopped caring what lifelong friends would think of her inconsistency or risk of social ostracism. Her faith was in Christ rather than a continuation of the same status quo.
Does not this same challenge present at initiation in Christ continue to challenge us as we mature in faith as well as chronology? Are we not continually prompted by the Spirit to re-examine yesterday's beliefs and risk the consequences? Shun that challenge, and we truly begin to die.
2. Those living in maturing by faith assume risk in relationships.
Paul wasn't a contact to be engaged with lightly for one's social advantage. He is in prison at this point, facing execution. Even with the scandal of radicalism about him while he was free, Grandma Lois was willing to get close enough to him that Paul could come to know and call attention to her faith.
Venturing a bit further on scant Scriptural biographical information, Timothy's was already a divided family, as he was the son of a Jewish mother and Greek father. The father's faith is not mentioned. Is not Grandma's willingness to identify with Paul and Paul's faith all the more remarkable given that her family seems to have experienced pain and division before. The defensive course is always easier in the short term, but it wasn't hers.
What about us as we age? We are no longer adolescents with our sense of identity largely dependent upon who sits at our lunch table. We can call it maturity to surround ourselves with friends who reinforce yesterday's picture of the world, who share our amusements rather than challenge us. Or, we can enter each encounter open to the possibility that Christ Who took shame upon Himself might be about to use the and change us by the next person we meet.
3. Those living out faith-filled maturing see even a life's work as part of a pattern that outlasts us.
If we begin to appreciate the measure of Grandma Lois's faith in the risk she undertook, we truly begin to sound the depth of her faith when her faith is connected to her grandson Timothy. We can assume she had influence. We can assume that part of her wanted the best, read safest, for her grandson already at some risk because of his divided identity. Yet, we don't read of her exerting subtle or direct pressure in the way of Timothy's call to follow Paul. Instead, the old apostle draws a direct line from Lois's faith to Timothy's.
What of us and our influence over those we treasure, or idolize, most? Would we entrust them with our blessing to a character like Paul with all the risks that entailed? Or, would we assume that faith's challenges could wait until later in life after those we say we care about have more safely established themselves in the world's sense of the word? If, by grace, we are a beacon of faith to those behind us, would we hide that light under a bushel in order to encourage an easier course?
4. Those in whom faith still burns bright leave a legacy by LIVING a legacy.
Playwright Tony Kushner told Michael Schulman of the New Yorker in 2018 that his later years were a work in letting go. "There's," Kushner admitted, "a narcissistic vulnerability that I don't want to make anybody else's problem."
Those aging and deepening in faith pushed through this sense of narcissistic vulnerability. Yielding to it, the tendency is to stand pat, to consolidate what one views as gains in order to leave a legacy intact. My friend Gerry, however, decimates this defensive wisdom with the realization we leave a legacy by living a legacy.
If we are self-centered in our vulnerability, constantly concerned about whether we are seen as having perfected that which we present to the world, we won't really LIVE today. We will photocopy yesterday's outline and substitute it for a living faith. If, however, we would live our life's later years like Abraham, like Moses, and yes like Paul and Lois, we will seek the power and challenge of Christ rather than decades of habit to determine how we live today.
T.S. Eliot deems dangerous the tendency "to associate tradition with the immovable; to think of it as something hostile to all change; to aim to return to some previous condition which we imagine as having been capable of preservation in perpetuity". "Tradition without intelligence, he challenges, "is not worth having.”
As a vibrant antidote to immovable tradition personified, 2 Timothy 1:5 gives us a glimpse of Timothy's grandmother as Paul's paragon of abiding faith. Be warned, this isn't your grandmother's faith. Whatever our age in 2019, as we read 2 Timothy 1:5 our mind automatically went back to the nostalgic repose of our grandparents' day in which a kind of culturally conservative faith was either automatic, or more to be assumed than it is today.
Let's rescue Lois from our myopathy a, however. She didn't keep the Christian faith out of habit or for propriety's sake. She would have been an adult with her own established perspective and identity that had served her relatively well when confronted with Christ's radical claims. Yet, she stepped out with the kind of faith that still radiates to Paul's notice as he considers the approaching end of his own life, to be given for faith's sake.
1. Someone who is a beacon of faith in later years is willing to reconsider assumptions.
Whatever her background, Lois, like Paul, counted it lost for the sake of Christ. At some point, she stopped caring what lifelong friends would think of her inconsistency or risk of social ostracism. Her faith was in Christ rather than a continuation of the same status quo.
Does not this same challenge present at initiation in Christ continue to challenge us as we mature in faith as well as chronology? Are we not continually prompted by the Spirit to re-examine yesterday's beliefs and risk the consequences? Shun that challenge, and we truly begin to die.
2. Those living in maturing by faith assume risk in relationships.
Paul wasn't a contact to be engaged with lightly for one's social advantage. He is in prison at this point, facing execution. Even with the scandal of radicalism about him while he was free, Grandma Lois was willing to get close enough to him that Paul could come to know and call attention to her faith.
Venturing a bit further on scant Scriptural biographical information, Timothy's was already a divided family, as he was the son of a Jewish mother and Greek father. The father's faith is not mentioned. Is not Grandma's willingness to identify with Paul and Paul's faith all the more remarkable given that her family seems to have experienced pain and division before. The defensive course is always easier in the short term, but it wasn't hers.
What about us as we age? We are no longer adolescents with our sense of identity largely dependent upon who sits at our lunch table. We can call it maturity to surround ourselves with friends who reinforce yesterday's picture of the world, who share our amusements rather than challenge us. Or, we can enter each encounter open to the possibility that Christ Who took shame upon Himself might be about to use the and change us by the next person we meet.
3. Those living out faith-filled maturing see even a life's work as part of a pattern that outlasts us.
If we begin to appreciate the measure of Grandma Lois's faith in the risk she undertook, we truly begin to sound the depth of her faith when her faith is connected to her grandson Timothy. We can assume she had influence. We can assume that part of her wanted the best, read safest, for her grandson already at some risk because of his divided identity. Yet, we don't read of her exerting subtle or direct pressure in the way of Timothy's call to follow Paul. Instead, the old apostle draws a direct line from Lois's faith to Timothy's.
What of us and our influence over those we treasure, or idolize, most? Would we entrust them with our blessing to a character like Paul with all the risks that entailed? Or, would we assume that faith's challenges could wait until later in life after those we say we care about have more safely established themselves in the world's sense of the word? If, by grace, we are a beacon of faith to those behind us, would we hide that light under a bushel in order to encourage an easier course?
4. Those in whom faith still burns bright leave a legacy by LIVING a legacy.
Playwright Tony Kushner told Michael Schulman of the New Yorker in 2018 that his later years were a work in letting go. "There's," Kushner admitted, "a narcissistic vulnerability that I don't want to make anybody else's problem."
Those aging and deepening in faith pushed through this sense of narcissistic vulnerability. Yielding to it, the tendency is to stand pat, to consolidate what one views as gains in order to leave a legacy intact. My friend Gerry, however, decimates this defensive wisdom with the realization we leave a legacy by living a legacy.
If we are self-centered in our vulnerability, constantly concerned about whether we are seen as having perfected that which we present to the world, we won't really LIVE today. We will photocopy yesterday's outline and substitute it for a living faith. If, however, we would live our life's later years like Abraham, like Moses, and yes like Paul and Lois, we will seek the power and challenge of Christ rather than decades of habit to determine how we live today.
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