Be Careful

Today's sermon text was 2 Timothy 2:8-15. The key verse was verse 8: "Remember Jesus Christ, who was raised from the dead and descended from David. This is my good news." 

Paul is writing to Timothy and encouraging him to hold fast to what he knows. Sharing the gospel is hard work. It requires sacrifice and hardship. Those who do this are counter-cultural. Timothy might be tempted to listen to others, who give false teachings. His mentor, Paul, who is rock solid in his unwavering conviction of his God-given mission to preach good news to the Gentiles, tells Timothy above all to "Remember Jesus Christ." In essence: remember who you are and whose you are. Remember to claim the name Christian.

Names are an important part of our identity. Ask anyone who has a "difficult" name that always gets mispronounced. Or someone with a "foreign" name that nobody in the States can remember or pronounce. And then, there's Fruit Stand:

When the 1960s ended, San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district reverted to high rent, and many hippies moved down the coast to Santa Cruz. They had children and got married, too. But they didn't name their children Melissa or Brett. People in the mountains around Santa Cruz grew accustomed to their children playing Frisbee with little Time Warp or Spring Fever. And eventually Moonbeam, Earth, Love and Precious Promise all ended up in public school. That's when the kindergarten teachers first met Fruit Stand. Every fall, according to tradition, parents bravely apply name tags to their children, kiss them good-bye and send them off to school on the bus. So it was for Fruit Stand. The teachers thought the boy's name was odd, but they tried to make the best of it. "Would you like to play with the blocks, Fruit Stand?" they offered. And later, "Fruit Stand, how about a snack?" He accepted hesitantly. By the end of the day, his name didn't seem much odder than Heather's or Sun Ray's. At dismissal time, the teachers led the children out to the buses. "Fruit Stand, do you know which one is your bus?" He didn't answer. That wasn't strange. He hadn't answered them all day. Lots of children are shy on the first day of school. It didn't matter. A teacher leaned over and lifted the child's name tag. The teachers had instructed the parents to write the names of their children's bus stops on the reverse side of their name tags. The teacher simply turned over the tag. There, neatly printed, was the word, "Anthony." 

Names are important. The Search Institute identifies 40 Developmental Assets that are necessary for our youth to thrive. #7 is "Community Values Youth." We show our young people that they have value to us when we take the time to learn and use their names.

Beyond names, our story - the story of our lives - is also important to our identity. What we have experienced shapes who we are. The values that have been modeled for us and taught to us shape who we are. 

When a parent hands over their car keys to their newly-licensed driver with the words, "Be careful," they are saying so much more than just "obey traffic laws" or "wear your seat belt." They are saying, "Remember who you are." Remember what you have been taught. Remember the values your parents have shared. Remember who you are, so you don't let others try to tell you who you are. 

Paul is giving similar advice to Timothy. "Be careful, Timothy. Remember what it means to be a Christian. Remember Jesus Christ." 

Fred Craddock writes, “When youngsters leave our church building, do they leave Christian? To be Christian is to be enrolled in a story, and anybody who can’t remember any farther back than his or her birth is an orphan.”

How far back do we remember? Is our identity only in our name, or in our story since birth? Or is our identity grounded in Jesus Christ? What does it mean for us to truly claim the name Christian?

The Monday Connection: What is my gospel? What does it mean to me to be a Christian? How am I helping to shape the faith story of children and youth in my life?