"Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained." (2 Timothy 2:8-9)
The earliest Christian community didn't shy away from being called troublemakers. They didn't deny that they were accused of being criminals by the powers of the day. The first followers of Jesus readily admitted that everybody from the empire's armed enforcers to the respectable religious leaders saw them as bad citizens, dangerous subversives, and impious pot-stirrers. They didn't even mind the way that reputation got them pushed out to the margins of society rather than occupying centers of power and prestige. In fact, they were convinced that out by being on the edges like that, it was made even clearer that God's powerful word was free, uninhibited, and on the loose.
That's what strikes me, as I consider again these words from what we call Second Timothy, an early Christian letter from the New Testament that many of us heard in worship back on Sunday. Here we have the voice of the apostle Paul, and as the text tells it, he sure seems to be looking at the end of his life, awaiting a death sentence meted out at the hands of the Empire, and he is not afraid of admitting that they've got him chained up on criminal charges. In fact, the word used in the original Greek is even stronger--he says he is being treated as "an evildoer," and that's why he is enduring chains and imprisonment. There are plenty of things that might be technically against the law but which we might not be too harsh with someone if they were accused of it. Unpaid parking tickets are a violation of the law, and so it failing to pay your taxes on time or jaywalking, but most of us would cut a little slack for infractions like that. But calling someone an "evildoer" is a pretty big swing. Now, it's worth noting that the apostle here in Second Timothy isn't saying that he has actually done something objectively evil--but he is admitting that the government authorities have treated him that way, even if he insists his actions have been right and good.
But that's just it: the early church didn't actively commit crimes, rob banks, or burn farmhouses--but they were willing to be regarded as criminals by the powers of the day. They were willing to endure suffering, but not to inflict suffering on others. They were willing to be pushed to the margins and labeled "troublemakers," but they didn't strike out against others with that kind of hate or unfounded name-calling. Caesar and his underlings might have called us "evildoers" or "treasonous" or even "atheists" (and they did call Christians all those things in the first several centuries), but the community of Jesus didn't resort to the same empty accusations or scapegoating, not of anybody. That was part of our witness. Like Jesus, we were willing to bear slander, libel, and hostility without returning it. Like the Crucified Christ, we would accept the hate of others without lobbing it back in return. Like the examples, not only of Jesus but of the Apostle Paul and just about all of the first disciples of Jesus, we would be willing to endure being excluded as outcasts, but we wouldn't do the same to others who came seeking the grace of God. And in that willingness to absorb the meanness of others without throwing it back, it was revealed how powerful and free God's message really was. After all, when someone is truly powerful and authoritative, you don't have to get all bent out of shape or defensive trying to make them look tough.
I often find myself thinking of that line of Margaret Thatcher, who famously said that being powerful is like being an elegant lady: if you have to tell people you are, you aren't. I think something like that was true for the early church, and it freed them. They knew that they weren't really evildoers. They knew that they weren't really criminals or violent extremists, even though the loud voices of the empire tried to paint them as such. But because the first Christians really trusted that their identity came from Christ--the descendant of old king David who had been crucified by the state and still rose from the dead victorious--they weren't constantly needing to defend their reputations to the rest of the world. We didn't have to keep making ourselves look "tough" or "strong" or like "winners" or even to refute the charges that we were lobbed at us; we just let our lives and our love be the witness of what the Christian faith was really about. After all, the folks who do spend the better part of their energy and breath talking about how great and noble and virtuous they are, they tend to be the insecure ones who are trying to convince themselves. The early church trusted that its worth and belovedness came through Christ, so they didn't need to impress anybody, prove anything to anyone, or project an image for the world to see. And that also meant that those Christians weren't afraid to acknowledge when they had been rounded up and jailed, or vilified by the Empire as dangerous criminals, or dismissed as "unschooled fishermen" (another lovely accusation you hear in the book of Acts).
And part of what made that kind of freedom possible for the New Testament-era and later church was that they knew that the voices of the Empire would say or do whatever they felt they had to in order to maintain their grip on power, but that the Empire's pronouncements and declarations weren't necessarily the truth. They could call us "criminals" and "evildoers" but that didn't make it so. They could label people "enemies of the state" but that didn't mean we were trying to burn down society. Voices like the one here in Second Timothy just knew that they didn't have to play the Empire's game or accept its definition of terms. And while the Empire's spokespeople were trying so hard to turn popular opinion against some made-up caricature of Christianity as violently seditious, the actual Christian community was free to share the news of Jesus, welcome new faces into its embrace, and embody a love that the Empire could not understand. So yes, the empire's muscle came for us, just like they did to Paul the apostle and Jesus before him. Yes, they put our ancestors in the faith in jail cells, prison blocks, and detention centers without rightful cause. And yes, they tried to label us as "evildoers" who were opposed to everything good in the world. But that didn't stop the disciple community from following the way of Christ, answering malice with goodness, and being a countercultural presence like salt and light. They learned that from Jesus, too.
Today, it is worth remembering that not everything Caesar or his lieutenants says about the world is true. The Romans were labeling their violent conquest as "peace" and their emperor as "lord and savior" since the days of Augustus, and every version of every empire since has been using the same playbook. They condemned Jesus as a criminal, labeled Paul an evildoer, and branded the whole Christian movement a dangerous threat to law and order. They were lying. We can either get sucked into their game and keep trying to shout louder, or we can just freely go on our way without succumbing to Caesar's old nonsense. I know it is hard not to throw mean names back like they are thrown at us, or to push back with hatred. And I know sometimes it is the strategy of the Empire to try and provoke violence from people so that they will feel justified in cracking down on them with more violence. We just don't have to play that game. The witness of the New Testament reminds us we don't. We are free from it, even if, like the apostle in 2 Timothy, we are at the same time in chains or branded as troublemakers. Even then, as he says, "the word of God is not chained." Like the living Christ himself, it is free and loose in the world.
Lord Jesus, let us be faithful witnesses in the world even amidst the hostilities and hatred that the world is used to throwing.
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