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Letters Twenty-Fourth
Sunday in Ordinary Time |
The Catholic Telegraph
September 14, 2001The First Letter to Timothy, that we begin to read from today, together with The Second Letter to Timothy and The Letter to Titus, are known as the "pastoral letters." They are addressed to individual church leaders and are concerned with the problems and challenges faced by these leaders as the first generations of Christian believers gave way to later ones. While all three pastoral letters are attributed to the authorship of the apostle Paul, scripture scholars tend to think that they are not Paul’s work in the same way Romans and Galatians are his. Given their subject matter, which seems to reflect a more developed Church, it seems more likely that these letters were written when Paul was already dead. They are presented as his work, as addressed to his helpers, by a later author as if to say that this is what Paul would have written to his friends if he were still with us and still writing letters today. Of course, the fact that these letters might be the work of somebody other than Paul does not mean that they are any less inspired, any less the word of God.
As First Timothy begins, we find the author reminding his audience that Christian faith involves moral behavior. There are certain kinds of conduct that are simply incompatible with being a follower of Jesus. Proclaiming this is an important part of ministry.
Now, as our Sunday reading begins, the author has something to say about ministry as well as about the meaning of salvation. Ministry comes through selection and appointment by Christ. It’s a gift that Christ’s mercy offers to those He has chosen. The author, "Paul," points out that he is a minister because he has been "mercifully treated" by God. Previously he had been a persecutor of the Church, though out of ignorance. He was a conspicuous sinner whom Christ chose as an example of mercy for others who would come to believe. He has been gifted by Christ with divine favor, with gifts of faith and love from Christ.
Now comes the central point that the author wishes to make in this section. He highlights it with a solemn introduction. We can almost hear him raising his voice as he dictates the words: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." "I know that," he seems to say, "because I was a big time offender myself and I have been saved." This elicits from him a little hymn of thanksgiving: "Glory and honor forever to God, eternal, always alive, too great to be seen by human eyes."
I suspect that we don’t give enough thought to the idea that Christ came into the world to save sinners. Most of us were "born Catholics." Faith and life in Christ and the acceptance of Christian morality have been part of our lives from the beginning. It’s part of the atmosphere we breathe and we tend to take it for granted.
But faith and life in Christ and the acceptance of Christian morality are all gifts, and we need to acknowledge them as such. If we don’t, if we take it all for granted, we run the risk of devaluing our salvation, of somehow thinking that that’s just the way things are meant to be.
An appreciation of our salvation requires two convictions. The first is that we ourselves are sinners. We may not be blasphemers and a persecutors of the Church as Paul was, but none of us can say that we are good enough to be able to demand God’s favor. More basically, none of us can lay any claim whatsoever to a share in the life of God, which is what our salvation consists in. Thanks to our inherited human flaws and moral deficiencies, we are all detached from God, destined for self-destruction. In one way or another we are all sinners, and it’s important for us to be aware of that.
The other reality that we have to be aware of is that God is merciful, that He cares about sinners, that He sent His own Son to be our savior, that the salvation Christ offers us is nothing less than participating in his divine life.
Sinner/salvation/Christ: those are three of the fundamental realities that constitute the basic context of our Christian existence. If we are not sinners, there’s no need for salvation. If there’s no need for salvation, there’s no need for Christ. If there’s no need for Christ, there’s no need for us to be His followers, and we’re OK off on our own. It all hangs together. If we’re not sinners, there’s no point in being saved. If we’re not saved, we have no connection with Christ.
The message of Christ does not call us to a life of guilt and anxiety. It calls us to praise and thanksgiving, the kind we heard from the author of First Timothy at the end of our reading. But that praise and thanksgiving can only resound in our hearts if we are in touch with reality. The reality that we need to be conscious of is our own need for forgiveness and mercy and Christ’s desire to transform us through the abundance of His love.
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Conversation Questions
What does "being saved" mean to me?
Is an awareness of being "mercifully treated" part of my personal spirituality?
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