Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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"Even now," writes Paul, "I am being poured out as a libation. The time of my departure has come." Moffatt says, "My time to go has come." Sometimes, in the ancient world, religious sacrifices took the form of "drink offerings" or "libations." A cup of wine, often mixed with oil, would be poured over some altar -- a gift to this god or that, to appease him, or to curry his favor. Jesus, of course, put an end to cultic sacrifice, by making the one offering of himself, "a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world." But here, in this moment, Paul reaches back to a time of sacrifices to find an image for his impending death. "I am being poured out as a libation," he says. Far more than just an old man feeling drained. Paul is saying that he, himself, in his own death, was now to become a sacrifice on the altar of God.He was to be poured out in martyrdom. Sad words from a great man. Paul Reaches Out in Inspiration Even As He Faces Death

Paul is writing from jail, on death row. At this point, he is a dead man walking. Some say this letter, II Timothy, is Paul's last will and testament. He writes it to a young man, Timothy, who he hopes will take up where he leaves off. What he writes, in circumstances that would crush most peoples' spirits, is incredibly victorious. "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day." Paul had the right stuff. What does it mean to "keep the faith?" What would it take for us to be able to speak such triumphant words in our last days? To face death with such a clear conscience? With such courage? Whatever it is, I want it. I don't want to die full of regrets.

Paul and His Faith Are Inseparable Of course faith is important. All the preachers say that. Jesus said it. But most people have some sort of faith. It's hard to imagine how life could be lived without it. We invent creeds to live by, invent them as we go. We cobble together bits and pieces of true religion, add a few old sayings, throw in some things our parents told us, add the Lord's prayer and as much of the Twenty-third Psalm as we can remember, and create a potpourri of faith that gets us by. We hope. People might manage to live by a faith like that, but they don't die for such a faith. They drop it at the first sign of danger, and find something else to believe in. That's certainly not the kind of faith that infected Paul, and gave him the thrill of victory as he came to the end.

He stuck to it. That's one thing we can say of Paul, and it might prove important. I mean, once Jesus found Paul, Paul held on to Jesus like a bulldog. We all remember the stories of what Paul endured for Jesus, whom he once persecuted: beatings, trials, imprisonments, ship wrecks, ridicule, and finally (the church's memory tells us) death. A story of courage and valor, and (most of all) of endurance. Faith for Paul was not a fad, not a passing fancy, not something he could take up and put down at will. It was a life-long commitment, to what often seemed a losing cause, a commitment which he would never abandon.

How else can we say it? Paul had staying power. He persevered. He had what my mother called, "stick-to-it-iveness." Sometimes that's what make the difference. Not that we are brilliant, or charismatic, or especially talented, but that we stay with something and don't give up. Mohammed Ali, when asked what was the best lesson he had ever learned, recalled his first fight with Sonny Liston. He said, "I hit him with everything I had, and it seemed to hurt me more than it hurt him. When the sixth round ended, I was so exhausted I couldn't lift my arms, and I told my trainer, "I'm going home. I'm not going back in there." The bell rang for round seven, and Ali didn't stand up. Angelo Dundee pushed him to his feet, pulled the stool out from under him, and said, "Get in there and don't come out until you're the heavyweight champion of the world." Ali kept on fighting, and won the title. All because someone wouldn't let him quit. Paul compares his life to a good fight, or to a race which he has finished and now confidently waits for the judge to place a laurel leaf crown upon his head. When all the world was against him, he didn't give up. He was faithful to the end.

Paul's Obedience

Paul listened for the word of God, and made it his constitution. When we listen only to ourselves, we waste our lives in this and that. (Which might explain why we are so busy, and yet seem to accomplish so little.) I know it's popular to say that people should follow their feelings, but that always has a hollow ring for me. Because, frankly, my feelings beckon me in a hundred different directions -- they change from day to day and hour to hour -- and, to be honest, with me it's usually the easy way, the self-serving way that wins. Feelings are fickle. What I need is an organizing principle. Something that will order up my feelings, and give me direction. And I need to believe in it with a passion, so I will not be a "summer soldier," but will stick to it even in my soul's winter. Paul found his life-long passion on the road to Damascus, in Jesus Christ. (Or, to be more accurate, Jesus found Paul.)  From that moment Paul never wavered. He had what Charles Wesley called "a principle within." So that in his last days he could say, like a marathon runner crossing the finish line, "I have run the race. I have kept the faith. Now I'm just waiting to receive the crown of victory."

A charge to keep I have,
A God to glorify,
A never dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky.
Help me to watch and pray,
And on thyself rely.
Assured if I my trust betray,
I shall forever die.

Faith is not a feeling; it instructs our feelings. Faith is not a thought; it instructs our thoughts. Faith is a passion. It drives us, and sometimes takes us where we would never have gone had we listened to our own counsel. But how blest are those who are commandeered by God in such a way! For they are spared the helter-skelter. They know where they're going.

Put Jesus in the Highest Place

Some people get stuck on the road to faith. Lots of ways that can happen. Some of the saddest stories in the New Testament are about people who started out right, but got bogged down. The seeds that sprang up quickly but wilted in the hot sun. The foolish bridesmaids who didn't have enough oil in their lamps to see them through the night, so that when the bridegroom came they weren't prepared to meet him. The rich young ruler who wanted to follow Jesus until he learned the price. The poor guy who just wanted to go and bury his father. Good intentions. Truly honest and good. But not much endurance. They were distracted by other obligations. They put their hand to the plow, and looked back.

Don't Get Stuck in Your Grievances

Robert Frost, gently criticizing the poets of his day who seemed so bitter and angry, once said that poetry is "grief, not grievances." (Frost had a way with words. On another occasion, he criticized poets for focusing too much on city life by saying they were "so urban it's disturbin'.") It is an interesting distinction between grief and grievances. We do in fact grieve. Sometimes we grieve terribly. We grieve not only loved ones who are taken from us in death. We grieve broken dreams. We grieve lost loves. That is the stuff of poetry, and great novels. And the Bible has a lot to say about grief. It's when grief turns to grievance then it becomes an obstacle to faith. It is one of those places on the road to God where people get stuck in the mud. If you're mired in grievances, in that kind of ongoing, systematic anger, that focuses only on the wrongs done you, only on what you have not, and cannot also see the blessings -- you may need help to purge that bitterness from your soul and get you back on the road again. You won't be able to stand before God on judgment day and blame things on your mother. We have to settle our grievances before they kill us.

God is so Big!  Do Not Think You Can Know Everything About Him

Others insist on having all the answers before they commit -- another place to get stuck. There is no discipline on earth that has the answers to all its own questions, that doesn't have mystery at its heart. The chemist does not wait until the ultimate composition of the elements is discovered. No. He operates on what he knows. The astronomer does not wait until he has seen every star, and knows the universe perfectly. He lives by what he has seen, and tries to see more. We don't know everything we would like to know about God, but we live by what we do know. To insist that everything must be laid out before us, and no questions be left unanswered, before we believe, is often a not-so-good excuse for ignoring the claims of God upon our lives. We must go on without perfect knowledge. Thomas Merton, a twentieth century saint, (Roman Catholic, author of The Seven Story Mountain, who ended his long quest for faith in a Trappist monastery, where he was forbidden to say a word) -- Merton wrote this beautiful prayer. Notice how little he claims to know about God.

My Lord, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you, and I hope to have that desire in all that I am doing. Therefore I will trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen. No claim to wisdom. A humble confession of ignorance. Yet he keeps to his pilgrimage. Or, as Paul might have said, he keeps on running the race. He got the crown not for what he knew but for how he trusted and how, therefore, he kept fighting, kept running, kept the faith.

Fight the Good Fight Right to the End "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." From the beginning, Paul was in "for the long haul." He wasn't stopped by evil, nor by the distractions and resistance of this world, nor by a lack of endurance, nor by grievances (to which he certainly was entitled), nor by what he didn't know. He had his eye on the crown. Goodbye, brother Paul. Go bravely to your death. The church will go on in your absence, but not without your saintly spirit in its heart. We, who seldom even know what's worth fighting for, take off our hats and bow our heads before one who fought so hard, and ran the race to its end, and kept faith with God.