Sermon: The Treasure

Texts: 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10

Date: October 7, 2007

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

            Somehow we let “Talk Like a Pirate Day” slip by us here at Eagle Harbor Church without so much as an “RRRRrrrr,” as far as I know.  Did any of you observe “Talk Like a Pirate Day” on September 19?  I wonder if Hallmark is involved with this made-up holiday yet, so that you could spend $3.50 sending a swash-buckling card to your Great Aunt Flossie in honor of the occasion?  If you got a greeting card in the mail, Matey, maybe you’d remember to talk like a pirate.

            I’m thinking of pirates a couple of weeks late because of the last verse in the text from 2 Timothy.  I can’t help it—it just sounds kind of pirate-y to me: “Guard the good treasure entrusted to you…” [2 Timothy 1:14]  Doesn’t that sound like an admonition that could be punctuated with a heartfelt “RRRrrrr!”? 

            So what is the “good treasure” that young Timothy is being advised to guard by his teacher Paul?  How and why is he supposed to guard it?  Is it like a pirate treasure, a collection of gold doubloons and fabulous jewels he’s supposed to make sure nobody steals from him?  Is it an investment portfolio he’s advised to invest wisely and prudently?  Is it a country mansion handed down from his ancestors that he’s got to keep in good repair?  What’s the good treasure?

            I’ll give you a hint.  It’s something he got first from his grandmother.  Does that narrow it down?  Could be an old rocking chair or maybe her wedding dress, her cameo brooch, her first edition of Huckleberry Finn…Here’s another hint.  He got some of the treasure from his mother as well.  What is it?  Mom’s old convertible, the bundle of letters she saved from Dad while he was off to war, her class ring?  None of those things.  Something much more precious than things.  

            What’s the good treasure?  The treasure Paul is talking about, the good treasure he is urging Timothy to guard, is faith.  Not gold, not pearls, not investments or houses or keepsakes, but faith. 

            Do you find that disappointing?  Do you wish it was a more glamorous treasure, something that could be locked up in a box and buried in a secret cave, with a single map people would kill for?  Those treasure stories are lots of fun, but I can tell you that nothing that you could put into a box or a deed is as valuable as the good treasure that Timothy was given.  Faith makes life worth living way more than mere stuff can.  

            If faith is the treasure, how do you get it and how do you guard it?  Faith might come to a person any number of ways: through a vision, an insight, through disciplines like study and prayer, through observation of the world…It is a gift given by God that may be delivered in many different ways.  One of the most important ways that God’s gift of faith is delivered to people comes out in this letter to Timothy.  His grandmother Lois was a person of faith.  His mother Eunice was a person of faith.  They passed their faith on to Timothy, probably starting was he was a tiny child.

            How might they have done that?   Now, this is all speculation, because we don’t know anything about the women mentioned in this letter.  But I am going to use my imagination to think about how they might have offered their faith to Timothy. Eunice might have started sharing her love as a person of faith even before Timothy was born.  She probably tried to take good care of her own body while she was pregnant because she knew that was best for her child.  Maybe she knew some of the beautiful verses in the prophets and psalms that talk about how God loves us even while we are being knitted together in our mother’s wombs, and her way of sharing God’s love was eating and drinking what was good for baby.  After he was born, she wanted to make him feel safe, so she rocked him and sang to him.  She knew that God wants all of us to feel safe and secure in this world, so she would have tried to pass that on. 

            Grandmother Lois probably petted and stroked and admired baby Timothy.  She believed that God wants us to know our bodies are sacred and holy, and she would have tried to teach that to Timothy by the way she hugged and kissed him and helped keep him clean and comfortable.  She probably started teaching the songs and stories of God’s people to Timothy right away, telling him about the heroes and sheroes of our faith family as she rocked and cuddled him. 

            As he grew, they most likely taught him to pray.  Maybe they said the prayer Jesus taught the disciples together while they got ready to eat or sleep.  I bet they took him to worship so he could learn more about the scriptures and sing and pray with other Christians.  And I’m sure they tried to act like Christians so that Timothy could see what it means to try to live God’s way.  I expect they took him along when they took food to someone who was having problems, and they encouraged him to help when they went to assist their neighbors with the harvest. They let him see them give their offering at church so he would learn that sharing is an important part of being faithful to a generous God.  In all these ways, and many more, they tried to share the gift of faith with Timothy, because they loved God and they loved Timothy.

They couldn’t force it on him.  No one can make another person become a person of faith, not even someone in your own family.  Faith, though it is freely given, must be freely received.  But apparently Timothy did receive the treasure of faith from his family and from other Christians and from the direct ways God shares the gift of grace.  He recognized that what they were trying to give him was a treasure and he accepted it in his own heart, mind and soul. 

There are hints in this letter, though, that Timothy’s faith wasn’t as strong as it once was.  Paul urges him to “rekindle the gift of God that is within you.”  That word “rekindle” makes me think of a fire that has just about died out and needs some new wood or someone to blow on it to spark its warmth and light to flare up again.  It sounds like the light of faith was flickering a bit in Timothy’s life when Paul wrote to him. 

Hey, it happens.  Sometimes we feel stronger in our faith than other times.  When our faith is burning strongly, we see God’s footprints and fingerprints everywhere we turn.  At other times, God seems absent and silent, and other concerns seem more pressing, and the light of faith can flicker and fade.  Those are the times we may join the disciples who, in the verses from Luke today, shout out to Jesus, “Increase our faith!” 

I think it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to ask, “Increase our faith.”  Don’t you?  Wouldn’t you have thought Jesus might have been a little kinder or more patient in his answer to the disciples?  Wouldn’t you have thought he would have said something like, “Of course, my darlings, here’s some more faith/belief/certainty/proof/security/evidence” while he prayed and conjured up some BOOM-ZAP-WOW spectacle for the wobbly disciples?  Would that have been so hard? 

But no.  Instead, a rather stringent reply: “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”  How are the disciples supposed to take that, the poor dears?  Are they to conclude that they lack faith altogether—that they obviously don’t even have faith the size of a miniscule mustard seed?  Or are they to conclude that is what is required is not more faith so much as using what they already have?

I think Jesus was pointing to the latter.  They don’t need more faith; they will discover they have enough faith to do amazing things if they just step out with what they have, no matter how measly it seems in the face of some challenge.  They may have forgotten for a moment, like Timothy, that they have already received the treasure of faith.  An adequate deposit has been made.  Now, even though it doesn’t seem exactly logical, they need to go out and spend what they’ve got.  And when they do that, they will discover the more they are longing for.

This is one of those fascinating paradoxes in our faith.  You remember that Paul told Timothy he needed to guard the good treasure of faith entrusted to him.  You might think guarding would mean squirreling it away and keeping it safe from the world.  But in truth, the way you guard this good treasure of faith, keep it from fading and rotting, is to open up the treasure chest and give it away.  It’s like that little song, “Love is something if you give it away, you end up having more.” 

The way to guard the treasure of faith is to share it through word and deed with other people.  Not because you are looking for recognition or rewards, but just because that’s the way it works in the surpassingly strange economy of God: you give yourself away, and that’s the way you find yourself.  You share the stories of faith and they multiply in your own life’s story.  You willingly take on some sacrifice, some suffering for the sake of the gospel, and find yourself healed of the painful arthritis of fear.  You give of your love and your talent and you receive abundantly far more than you give.  It’s the opposite of piracy, where you get rich by taking treasure from others; instead, you live a rich life by giving away the treasures of faith.

Our faith is a wondrous treasure entrusted to us by the saints in our lives and the direct gifts of God.  I’d like to invite you to guard this treasure by sharing it around a bit this morning.  You have in your bulletin a piece of paper with a treasure chest on it.  I’d like for each of you to write a little something of the treasure of faith that is important to you on it.  It might be a line of scripture or a word of wisdom from some other source, a verse of a hymn that is meaningful to you, even a short short story.  Maybe “Jesus loves me, this I know,” or “Jesus knows me, this I love;” “Be kind;” something that captures the beauty of faith for you.  This is for all ages; parents, please help your little ones write or draw a picture.  We’ll have a bit of music while you fill your treasure chest and we’ll pass some baskets around during the hymn.  At the offering time, we’ll pass the baskets back around so you can take a little treasure out to take home with you.

 I believe this to be true: The treasure we guard by flinging it around with riotous abandon heaps up until our hearts are full to bursting with love and joy.  Open up the treasure that has been entrusted to you.