Did you hear about the two trucks loaded with a thousand copies of Roget’s Thesaurus that collided as they left a New York publishing house last Thursday, according to the Associated Press?  Witnesses were stunned, startled, aghast, taken aback, stupefied, astonished, astounded, mesmerized… 

We could easily have that same reaction to a very different set of contemporary phenomena, although, once again, we’d have to decide if we’re responding to the phenomenon itself or if we’re examining the culture that’s produced by the event. 

Each of us in this room, with every individual throughout the world, has the potential that when we do something, maybe act in a certain way, or say or write something, that it might travel throughout the world—and possibly have implications greater than any we might have imagined… It might just go on and on and on…  We never know when that might happen.

We’ve seen this just recently, with Rick Warren’s book, “The Purpose-Driven Life.”  How many here have either read it and/or done the study when it was offered in this church?  I wonder if the Pastor had any idea it would be the success it has been.

Now, how many have read “The DaVinci Code” by Dan Brown?  Aha!  I thought so.  “The DaVinci Code” has swept our country, and perhaps the world, in recent times, in its popularity and impact.  There are other writings that have spread amazingly recently--the whole “Left Behind” series, “The 5 People You Meet in Heaven,” “Conversations With God—I and II, and not long ago—“The Celestine Prophecy.”  Remember that?    People were so caught up in it that the author was even asked to write an accompanying study guide!  There is no question that, with all the religious bestsellers, today’s popular culture includes loud talk on religion, on often provocative religious topics. 

What do we do with a culture where millions, including Christians, embrace a well-written mystery novel that weaves history and fantasy together without any regard for the question, “Is this true?”   “The DaVinci Code” talks of information secretly withheld—by the church yet--on the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene,  who  supposedly had a child born of their sexual alliance, whose descendants now live secretly in France.   The amazing plot expands even more, and yet the author states, very clearly, that it’s a novel!  Can we believe that most people reading it think that?

On a somewhat different vein, a geneticist at the National Cancer Institute named Dean Hamer, while trying to locate genes that might cause people to be prone to cigarette addiction,  has stumbled upon what he believes is a link between spirituality and a specific gene, and written a book that he calls “The God Gene.”  Hamer believes his evaluation of some data on DNA coupled with the results of a psychological questionnaire, actually measures a personality trait he calls “self-transcendence,” which he says plays a role in religion, providing insight about how spiritual behaviors and beliefs emerge from the brain.  Other psychologists, neurologists and even evolutionary biologists have offered similar kinds of insights, but they are not in agreement about Hamer’s work.  It may be a reasonable question to ask, but is the answer a long way off?  And—perhaps more important—what would we do with the answer if we did have it?  Is there a way in which a ‘God gene’ theory fits in with “The DaVinci Code” and others?

There’s great power in the written word, we know that… a potentially very dangerous power.   It’s a power that might cause our faith to be shaken, if we consider ourselves open to ‘new ideas,’ and explore the diversity of the world of pop culture and talk religion.   Some of us might be just too ready to let these things take us wherever they might lead us.  I confess I came back from Scotland with a hastily purchased “The Lost Letters of Pergamum,” by Bruce Longenecker of Scotland’s University of St. Andrews.  Its fiction, I find out later and I usually choose to not read fiction, but here I go… 

The same spiritual exploration appears to be happening in film as in books.  I remember when a number of us drove to Prescott Valley not long ago to see a very unique movie that everybody in the church had been talking about.   Woody Allen’s movies were never my favorite, but they sometimes dealt with profound issues of faith and were popular.  There’s an old film called “Love and Death,” in which Allen’s character, Boris, is agonizing over his own fear of death, with his cousin Sonia, when he cries:  “Oh, if God would just give me some sign.  If he would just speak to me once—anything, one sentence, two words.  If he would just cough.”  Boris then stares off into the distance and eventually begins to mutter under his breath to himself, “Nothingness, non-existence, black emptiness…”  Sonia asks, “What’d you say?” and the depressed Boris responds, “Oh, I was just planning my future.” 

Considering all this, can we agree that it might not be an all bad thing that at least people are talking—and thinking--about religion, and examining something on spiritual topics?   Maybe—and maybe not.  Can we say it “depends?”  I hate that answer, but sometimes it’s the best one.   How do we evaluate all this, if what is right, and true, and good is our goal?  

Pop culture is prevalent, reeking with loud talk religion—and if we do have a God gene, or any tendency toward faith, whether or not we know how to explain it, where does that lead us?    Do we bet our stakes on the possibilities of the nebulous, or do we look for the tried and true?   We can see a hurricane coming, but we can’t stop it…  The best we can do is to prepare for it…

Which leads us, friends, to those “Wonderful Words of Life” that we sang about first thing today--our Holy Bible that we use in every worship service, use in all our classes, study in our homes, write about  in our devotions—such as we asked you to today-- and carry in our hearts, that we might live it in our lives!  It’s the scriptures of Paul and Timothy, and the scriptures of Bill and Bob and Carole and all our musicians, and the scriptures of everyone of you, sitting down or standing up here today, and of me, and of every Christian in this area and the world!  It’s the scriptures of all the Christians in our past, for close to 2000 years, and for those of the faith long before that—if we include the oral tradition that led into the Old Testament writings.  It’s the living world of Abraham and Moses, Isaiah and Elijah, Job and Micah, and so many more.   Can we just consider, for a minute, all those people of faith throughout the centuries who have lived under that scriptural blanket—and the many who live under it now?

Oh, we don’t all believe precisely the same, for sure.  But we do use the Bible as our foundation and examine it, in faith, to determine its meaning for us.  Those of us who call ourselves Christians consider this Bible the source of insight into life and love, a guide to be used to further our understanding of all that Jesus taught and lived, and all that was behind his teachings.

And yet, it’s the Bible that Paul used—and so much more, for we know that Paul only had that Old Testament to study and use, as he passed on to Timothy that outstanding advice that we read today.  Yet while Paul’s only scripture was the Old Testament, he, too, had the wisdom and insight of all who had gone before him available to him--the witnesses, the disciples, and Jesus himself.   Remember—those early Christians were writing the scriptures from their firsthand experiences.  And they were not only living their faith, they were dying for it.   We need to remember all those who suffered and the many that were martyred, for what they believed and the way they transmitted their faith into action.  This is the amazing legacy that was passed on to Timothy, that has come down to us today. 

All this allows us to look at Paul’s letter to Timothy in an expanded way.   We can know that those words in 2nd Timothy were for Timothy, but they are also a message to us.  Paul says to “continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it.”  We mustn’t ever forget the source of all we have received, where we have been and where we are going.  “Proclaim the message,” he says, and that’s the message of the scriptures not just some titillating new thought for itching ears.   It’s a scripture that is “inspired by God,” we’re told and that original Greek word for inspire is “pneuma,” that means “to breathe.”  Scripture is God-breathed.   Isn’t that a wonderful thought?   God genes and talk religion aside, THIS is the real stuff!

We are then told, in Paul’s letter, how to use scripture, and he describes, basically, what we must do to be prepared for that which God would have us do.  “Equipped for every good work” is the way it’s explained, and what could be a better way of describing the role of scripture for each of us and for every disciple of Jesus Christ?  Scripture is a training and equipping tool!   What a message for every lay person in the church, especially on this Laity Sunday (weekend)!   

But—can we take all this scripture at face value, even knowing that fantastic tradition we have?  How do we know these words are any different than the “DaVinci Code,” or “The Celestine Prophecy?”  Our scripture of today warns us of the possibility that we might just have “itching ears,” ears ready to suit only our own desires, ears that might cause us to turn away from listening to the truth.  We might “wander away to myths,” another phrase from our scripture, which seems to be happening, doesn’t it, as people believe most any story that is given to them?    What is our related responsibility?

It brings us to that all important question of interpretation.   How do we understand the scriptures?  And how do we know that we can trust the meaning of any scripture to be what it appears to be?  Can we just read and accept?   Well, maybe, but--it becomes imperative for us to examine what is said in the proper context.  We may have many far-out thoughts about our faith, but the way to know the way to go is to study and search all of the scriptures for the answers, while also attempting to understand the context, the cultural setting of the time in which the scriptures were set.

There are a number of ways we can do that, but we will only touch on them today.  You will then need to do the rest of the work.   But for now, we examined the pop culture of our society as it exists.  We know there are certain cultural characteristics--whether its God genes or just thinking about them, or something else-- that influence the things that are happening and the way they are interpreted.  This, too, was true in Jesus’ day.  And as each part of our world has a culture unique to its own, and therefore will impose that culture on any situation—so did that happen in Jesus’ time.  There was a particular setting, a climate for all that occurred.  That is our duty to learn, our responsibility as Christians.  That is what Paul meant when he said “be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable,” for Paul’s time was sometimes friendly, but often less accepting, not unlike today.  And, by the way, my “Lost Letters of Pergamum,” although fiction, provides a remarkably clear and accurate picture of Christian existence in the eastern Mediterranean world of the first century!  What a find. 

To carry out our ministry fully, we must search and study the scriptures, and we must pray, every step of the way, for prayer is a major part of the cultural context in which Paul’s letter to Timothy was written.  To pray is to be fully “in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus.”  That is how we do it better.   Prayer is the responsibility and the loving response of the Christian to our God, with every bit of knowledge and insight that we have available to us.  Remember the small boy who, when asked if he ever prayed, said, “Sometimes I pray, but sometimes I just say my prayers.”  Really pray your heart out!   We can look at all the rest of the scriptures to affirm the necessity of incorporating this basic practice into the background of Paul’s letter, to know how essential it is. 

There is a world of difference between just saying we believe, and in fully experiencing our faith, as Paul’s letter explains.   To fully live our faith, we need to incorporate all of Paul’s message to Timothy, while growing in understanding of the context in which it is set.  We must search and seriously study all of the scriptures using the many tools available to us, while remembering all the traditions of our faith and keeping it all based on that foundation of prayer.  That is the way to fulfill our responsibility as disciples of Jesus Christ, as did Timothy.  It is with that we will be taken to the center of that cross on which Jesus died for all of us, knowing that we, too, are saved, with the resurrected Christ, our Savior—charged that we then must proclaim that message to a world in dire need, as disciples of Jesus Christ.  For we are disciples who are the committed lay people serving in the ministry of this Body of Christ, this church called Prescott United Methodist, part of that greater Body of Christ throughout the world that seeks to understand what it might do.   Paul’s message is our command and we have a responsibility to internalize it and do it right!

We have evidence of the discipleship of our lay ministry here today, actually this room is full of it, but there’s a simple, but great example of our faith at work right in front of you.  A group of ladies, at least I don’t recall any men, so I apologize if some did help—but these ladies have been lovingly making—knitting and crocheting—simply wonderful caps and scarves and some mittens and gloves, to be given to children who need them for this winter.  Right now, we’re going to pray over and bless them, remembering that message of Paul to Timothy and how it is being lived out in this one way. 

Let us pray:

“Great God, we thank you for the hard work, the extensive labor, that went into all of these wonderful garments that are now displayed up here, and that glorify you.  We thank you for each person who worked so hard on them, as they lived out their life of faith in a very concrete way, that others might be helped.  Bless them and affirm them for being the disciples they are, Lord.  Bless, too, in a special way, each child who will receive one of these gifts from you, Lord.  Let them know more of your love; let them feel it in their hearts as they are comforted from the cold.  And let them take that love with them Lord, to wherever they may be, whether it’s in a car that they sleep, or in a home with the heat turned down too low, or maybe the power turned off, or perhaps even on the street or under a bridge.   May they know how much you love them Lord.   May they be assured that your people care for them, that they may, in turn, pass that love on to others in need.  We thank you for your gifts and your love always, and for the many people who serve you in every way, in this church and elsewhere.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.