Liturgy: “Don’t Panic, Don’t Give Way to Fear”

What is the King’s Liturgy? King’s Liturgy defines our experience together as a Christian community. It outlines the rhythms we celebrate with the Church at large: Scripture readings, Sabbath habits, and celebration of Holy Days and historical events.

This Week’s Lectionary Readings:
Genesis 32:22-31
Psalm 121
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18:1-8

This week’s liturgy is contributed by Dr. Joseph Loconte, Associate Professor of History:

One of the most compelling themes in the Bible—and in the history of Western Civilization—is the idea of remaining faithful to Christ regardless of the circumstances around us.

This is the apostle Paul’s challenge in his letter to Timothy, his dear friend and fellow disciple: “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:3-5).

Paul is not delivering this message to young Timothy from a cushy pulpit in a swank church on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He is in a Roman prison—under the rule of the brutal and sadistic Emperor Nero—chained like a common criminal. Most of his trusted friends and partners in the gospel have abandoned him. He has a strong sense that, for him, this is the end of the line, the end of his earthly journey.

Paul first warns Timothy: Get ready for a world where many, many people will reject the truths of the Bible, surround themselves with clever-sounding pundits, and embrace a pack of lies. Sound familiar? Next comes the bracing challenge: “Keep your mind sane and balanced, meeting whatever suffering this may involve” (J.B. Phillips translation). In other words, don’t panic, don’t give way to fear, no matter what the circumstances (including, I suspect, a Coronavirus pandemic).

The climax of Paul’s challenge is a muscular call to action: “Go on steadily preaching the gospel and carry out to the full the commission that God gave you” (J.B. Phillips). No matter how dark the situation may appear, no matter who is left standing with us, the mission remains: our great privilege and our obligation—as children of God and followers of Christ—to bring the good news of salvation to a world weary with unbelief.

C.S. Lewis captured this idea in his brilliant satirical work, The Screwtape Letters. Written during the Second World War, when Nazism threatened all of Europe, the book presents itself as the secret correspondence between a senior devil (Screwtape) and his protégé (Wormwood) as they try to thwart God (the Enemy) and destroy their human target. “Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

A man or woman who chooses to obey Jesus when nearly everything looks black—this is how God intends to tear down the gates of hell. Keep calm and crack on.