Valois United Church

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

In the days when these words were written, there were Christian believers who were getting lost, who were wandering from God’s way.

Some were confused by all the Greek gods.
Some were thinking that Jesus was not really at all divine, but only human....
just a teacher, nothing more.
Some were thinking that Jesus was completely divine,
and not human at all....
and so he would not have suffered human pain at all
in the crucifixion
Some were thinking that it did not matter at all what they did,
so long as they believed the right things -
so it mattered not how immorally they behaved.
Some were thinking that their spiritual gifts were better than those of anyone else.
Some were thinking that every male should be circumcised, and others were thinking that none should.

And so it went.
Wandering in different directions, but sure they were going the right way.

It reminds me of many years ago when I was quite young and I went with a friend of mine into some woods behind our house. I knew the trails that went through the woods. But I was sure I could take a short cut, because none of the trails went straight to where we wanted to go. Well, it seems clear in my memory that we went straight. But it is also clear in my memory that it took a very, very long time, and a very long, long distance to go a short way. Where I went wrong in my leading, I don’t know. But I do know that my friend followed me.

Who do we follow?
Whose voice, whose words, whose directions?
Is our following heading us in the right way?

We were on our annual Christmas trek to Chicago. Each year we brought our family to spend time with Grandpa and Grandma and visit the museums. This year we decided to finish our Christmas shopping at suburban Woodfield Mall. In the midst of all the fun and excitement, one of us noticed that little three-and-a-half- year-old Matthew was gone. Terror immediately struck our hearts. We had heard the horror stories: little children kidnapped in malls, rushed to a rest room, donned in different clothes and altered hairstyle, and then swiftly smuggled out, never to be seen again...We split up, each taking an assigned location. Mine was the parking lot. I'll never forget that night--kicking through the newly fallen snow, calling out his name at the top of my lungs. I felt like an abject fool, yet my concern for his safety outweighed all other feelings.

Unsuccessful, I trudged back to our meeting point. My wife, Martie, had not found him, nor had my mother. And then my dad appeared, holding little Matthew by the hand. Our hearts leapt for joy. Interestingly enough, Matthew was untraumatized. He hadn't been crying. To him, there had been no problem. I asked my father where he had found him. "The candy counter," he replied. "You should have seen him. His eyes came just about as high as the candy. He held his little hands behind his back and moved his head back and forth, surveying all the luscious options." Matthew didn't look lost. He didn't know he was lost. He was oblivious to the phenomenal danger he was in. This is a candy-counter culture, where people who don't look lost and don't know they're lost live for consumption.

Joseph M. Stowell, Moody Monthly, December, 1989, p. 4.

In today’s world there are those who are confused by misleading doctrine,
by those who claim to be sharing the Gospel message,
who take the word of God
and use it in ways that may make God cringe
who take the fundamental message of God’s love and grace,
and who give a message of a vindictive god instead;
who take the message of a God of all people,
and who give a message of a God of their own clan
who take the message of a God of generousity,
and corrupt it into a message of a god of greed,
who take the message of a God
who does not take out judgement on earth,
and twist it into a message showing
that you can tell who their god loves most
by how much stuff they’ve got.

But equally significant, or more significant, are the other doctrines that swirl around us, ones that don’t generally claim to be Christian at all.
The doctrines of the world around us - -
the “just me” doctrines
the “I deserve it all” doctrines
the “if nobody else is going to do anything about it, why should I?”
the “I’m not as bad as those guys - so I’m not going to improve first”
the “My way is civilized - their way isn’t” doctrines
These doctrines are ones people hold onto as individuals, groups and nations.

And people love to hear them. Just listen to the radio, just listen to people around us in the crowds, just listen.

Itchy ears want to suck all this stuff up. Because it can feel good. In can make one feel self-righteous and vindicated.

In Chinese, “itchy feet” mean feet that want to kick someone;
“itchy hands” are hands that want to hit;
and an “itchy mouth” is something akin to the muchies - wanting to eat anything, without regard to the value.

Perhaps this is the kind of thought that is behind the expression in the letter to Timothy: itchy ears.

Itchy ears want to suck all this stuff up. Because it can feel good. In can make one feel self-righteous and vindicated.

If you look up itchy ears on the internet, it offers various cures - such as eardrops.
But the writer of Timothy has a different treatment in mind for itchy ears:
sound doctrine, truth, underpinned by the scriptures.

Ahh, some have said: the scriptures. That would be the book of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, specifically the Torah or first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy

But they would also have the Prophets, and by the time that the Letter to Timothy was written there would also have been other writings about the life of Jesus and letters to churches. These particularly Christian writings were not compiles, but may well have been referred to by this writer.

And so we are directed to the Bible - the whole thing. That is the first antidote for itchy ears.

For several hundred years, though, people of the church were not allowed to read the Bible for themselves - for fear of mis-interpretation. Certainly the Bible can be mis-read, mis-interpretted.... and it happens still today. People have their own agendas, and search for words to support it. Even if it means ignoring other words.

That is one of the biggest challenges in reading the scripture - is to hold every verse in the context of the whole. If one verse seems to be saying one thing, but the rest of scripture heads us in a totally other direction - then what do we do with it? We cannot just grab hold of the verse that supports our opinion - as those who supported apartheid, for example, did.

So - a serious thing, being sent back to the Bible. But there is a little more that I must add, for this medicine for itchy ears has more than one ingredient. John Wesley is credited with a formula called the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. This quadrilateral has four sides, and they must be kept in balance. One side, the most important, is scripture. But the other three, while not as significant, are also essential:
Tradition - the two millennia history of the Christian Church;
Reason - being rational thinking and sensible interpretation;
and Experience - a Christian’s personal experience and the experience of current Christian community.

These four - Scripture, Tradition, Reason and Experience - are one solid formula to help us cope with the world around us, to help our ears so that we hear the word of God without confusion,
to help our minds so that we are not misled by religious leaders
to help our souls so we are not misguided by the world

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

Let us be people of the truth, the way and the light.