Text: 1 Timothy 1:3-7, 12-17

We humans are a divisive sort. We like to put people and things into categories.

On one level, it’s a necessary exercise. We have so much information coming at us that if we don’t find ways to clump it together we will be crushed by the sheer volume of it all. We need ways of sifting through the data. Ways to make sense out of the jumbled mess of facts and figures that surround us.

And so we end up dividing our world into categories, often posing them in seemingly opposing camps:
- On the one hand we have faith and that is often seen as the opposite of relying on reason.
- And then there’s the whole religion v. science debate.
- And the classic right v. left or conservative v. liberal or progressive divide.
- And when it comes to trying to understand how God works, there’s the tried and true law v. grace debate made famous by the apostle Paul.

These are but a few of the categories that people use. I’m sure that you could add many more.

Now, the categories in and of themselves are not bad. They are just descriptors. The categories themselves do not carry any value. It is we who add value to them. This value adding often comes by claiming some categories to describe ourselves and then, in the process, seeing the other categories as of lesser value or as wrong.

If I am a person of faith, then the person who solely relies on reason to understand the world must be wrong. Or vice versa. If I believe that science holds all of the answers to creation then I think that people who rely on religion for answers are crazy or delusional. If I am conservative in my point of view, wanting to preserve tradition and hold on to what has been, then I am unimpressed, maybe even threatened, by those progressive types who are fighting to change the world and move us forward in ways that seem strange to me.

We add the value to these category descriptions by placing ourselves inside of them and then using them to judge what is similar to us and what is different.

Similar doesn’t necessarily mean good nor does different necessarily mean bad. But often that is the case.

Because we have gone through some sort of process to determine that the category that we have placed ourselves in is indeed the right one for us to be in, we inevitably believe that others should come to that same conclusion. If and when they do not, it can seem like a rejection. A rejection not only of our process but also of our conclusion. And ultimately that feels like a rejection of our very being.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to be told that I am wrong. And I certainly don’t like to be rejected! If someone looks at the same information and comes to a different conclusion than me, well that seems to be telling me that I’m wrong.

If we hold opposing views we can’t both be right, can we?

Well now, that’s a leading question isn’t it! It seems for many that the obvious answer would be, “No.”

Our text for today certainly appears to encourage this dichotomist way of thinking. You see, the author’s main concern is with people in the community who are spreading false teaching. Teaching that is persuading people to leave behind what the author viewed as sound doctrine – that is, the teachings handed down by Paul, in whose name the author writes. This concern is made clear in verse 3 when the author urges Timothy “to remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain people not to teach any different doctrine….”

According to the author, this different doctrine, the one concerned with myths, genealogies, and the law, is wrong. And it is leading the people away from the right doctrine based on faith in the saving grace of Jesus Christ. He argues that the spread of this doctrine needs to stop. Timothy’s presence there is necessary to help that happen.

“We are right. They are wrong. Stay there and make them stop.” That is the author’s opening message to Timothy.

This cursory summary of today’s text highlights where the true danger of our divisiveness comes in – it leads us to see everything in the world as a win/lose situation. If someone with an opposing view is right then he or she wins. That necessarily means that we are wrong and therefore we lose. This way of thinking leads us to see the world as operating as a zero sum game with winners and losers.

To see the world in this way narrows down the choices for how to understand the facts and information that comes our way. And therefore it narrows our choices for how to understand the God who created this world. This way of thinking puts God in a box and says that whatever we accept as true is the only way that God acts. It doesn’t allow for God to act in ways that just might surprise us – ways that we are unaware of or ways that we could never imagine ourselves.

And that assertion is exactly what the author of this text is arguing against. Funny enough!

This is a text that so often has been used by one side or another to discount or belittle the beliefs of those who do not agree with them. And yet, it is actually arguing for people not to be so quick to box God in. Not to be so quick to think we have God all figured out. Not to be so quick to judge whom God loves and favors and whom God doesn’t.

You see, the people teaching the different doctrine in Ephesus were using the myths, genealogies and law to decide who could received God’s saving grace. And, more importantly, who could not. They were using the myths, genealogies and law as exclusionary tools. As a means for knowing which people could know God’s saving grace in Christ Jesus. And in so doing they were pushing people away instead of welcoming them in.

For people who subscribed to this way of thinking, there were certain things that had to happen before one could experience the saving grace of Christ Jesus. But the author says, “No. Christ Jesus came for all. No preconditions need be met. He came to save sinners – and that includes us all.”

With that statement, the author offers us great freedom.

Freedom to move away from our either/or thinking about God and the world God created. Freedom to re-examine the divisions we create when we put people and things in categories. Freedom to understand “the other” in a new way – not as something scary or threatening but as someone or something from whom we can learn.

We worship the God not of either/or but of both/and! This God created all that is and called it good. This God welcomes all to the table and calls all beloved. This God is so much larger than we can ever imagine. This God works in ways so wondrous we cannot comprehend. This God will not be confined by our boxes.

Thanks be to God for that. Amen?!

This God of the both/and has not created a world where the zero sum game is in play. God did not create a world where there must be winners and losers. God wants us all to win. God, in Christ Jesus, offers us all the gift of saving faith. It’s ours, all of ours, for the taking. If we but believe it.

But that’s a scary proposition, isn’t it? To put aside our value judgments. To let the categories that people fall into be merely descriptors and not ways of seeing them as right or wrong. That’s not the way we’ve been taught to think. It requires great vulnerability. It requires us to hold our opinions lightly and to accept that “the other” might actually have something valuable for us to learn.

The point of sound doctrine after all, according to the author of today’s text, is love. The patient, steadfast love of God shown in Christ Jesus who has mercy on those who act ignorantly in unbelief, as it says in v.13.

Faith in the God of the both/and frees us from our divisions and allows us to love instead of seeking to be right. It allows us to love rather than trying to divide people into opposing categories. It allows us to love instead of judging “the other.”

How will we respond? Can we move away from judging others on God’s behalf and allow God to welcome them as God will? Can we be assured in our faith and not feel threatened by a faith that sounds different from our own? Can we let go of all the categories that divide us and simply love “the other” as God loves?

It’s asking a lot, I know. But it is what our both/and God invites us to. It is what Paul, in whose name this author writes, encouraged the Christians in Galatia to embrace when he told them: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

Our both/and God offers us all the gift of the saving grace of Christ Jesus. With faith in this divine teaching, let us love with a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith as the author of this letter to Timothy encourages us to do. In God we all are offered the opportunity to win!

May it be so. Amen.