The ILC World Assembly met last week under the theme ‘Unity in Christ: Confession and Cooperation in a Fragmented World’. It was a gathering of more than 130 people from 55 countries from 61 Lutheran churches – and those were the official folk! There were more people, churches, and countries attending via missionaries working in the Asia Region from some of the member churches. For daily reports about it all, check out the ILC website – https://ilcouncil.org/

From the different global situations and circumstances, from the fragmentation in countries, regions, and churches, what was apparent in the worship services and the conversations was a unity – not uniformity per se – about how we tell the story in the Bible and what it means for us and for everyone. I preached at the Assembly (1 Timothy 6:2c-12 and Luke 8:1-3) and concluded …

So how do we not have our word clouds full of dissension, manipulation, and control? How do our loves stay on Christ?

By listening to God’s Word, by recognising that life and ministry – living – is always moving – there is fleeing and pursuing – and there is fighting (though the English translation is a tad unfortunate, I think, because while the word does have a fighting part, it also has a more athletic, running, striving, enduring part) and there is also taking hold and confessing part. So you have fleeing / pursuing and striving / taking hold or confessing. We move away from some things (eg. the love of money) and we pursue, strive for what is good for us. It is a basic part of life that what we take in – food – affects our health and performance; words – affect our attitudes and behaviour. We know that things are either good for us or not; that we are in control of them or they are in control of us. Living is always about fleeing or restraining from stuff that hurts us and harms others and going towards stuff that enriches us and helps others. Paul is taking this basic life reality on Planet Earth and applying it spiritually in the relationship with Jesus Christ. And this is true of the new born, the newly baptised and those who are very old in age and baptismal years. This sort of dynamic never stops.

Now from a few references about Timothy it is speculated that he was a rather timid soul with an upset stomach and that’s comforting in one sense – God doesn’t makes us supermen nor his people superheroes – which helps us when we feel rather ordinary in life – when the administration of things gets so mountainous, when the problems never cease – and yet each Sunday especially and also each time of reading and prayer we have time to flee and pursue, strive and confess – move away from what causes us to sin towards absolution, towards Holy Communion, and strive and confess the hope we have in Christ Jesus, one day at a time, until Jesus appears.

Are we just rats on a spiritual treadmill? Have I just described a spiritual ‘Groundhog Day’? I hope not because each day is different – our situations, our organisations are different – but yes, I have described patterns or rituals that help us be who we are – liturgy, hymnody, confessional theology. Pursing our Baptism, taking in God’s Word, communing at the Lord’s table, our daily Bible times, our prayers throughout the day, our periodic fasting are not undertaken in fear to get things right or because we are afraid of not making the grade for salvation. We know already we have failed in that but rather coming close to Jesus, the God who serves, and realising that he is the one comes to us gives us our daily identity – “you are mine, I love you, yes, you can follow me today no matter how much you think you can’t” – that’s the point – he know us personally – and so we flee from sin and pursue righteousness because Jesus is our loving Lord who has saved us, declared us righteous already – and we want this for our church – and we want this for the world.

And both Timothy and I say “If that isn’t good news, we don’t know what is!”.

GS