Do Good

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Excerpt from You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson

September 28, 2025

By Nicole M. Lamarche

Welcome again with whatever you are carrying, may this be a time to receiver whatever

you need to. I invite you to take some deeper breaths with me. We breathe in peace

and breathe out worry, we breathe in faith and breathe out fear…

As you are moved, I invite you to join me in a spirit of prayer. God of many names,

many expressions, God of many faces, who shows up in all kinds of ways, we give

thanks that we can gather here like this, connected around shared commitments, bound

in love, guided by your Spirit. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our

hearts be acceptable in your sight, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

At the end of a walk with a friend who is going through a really hard time, I offered to

anoint her and she agreed. I had brought a little bottle of ointment in my backpack. It

was a tender moment, under a glowing sun with a gentle breeze and the birdsongs. I

pulled the bottle of ointment from my backpack and said a blessing as I moved my finger across her forehead. We said goodbye and I kept walking when a man ahead of me on the trail stopped me and asked, “Excuse me, sorry to bother you, what were you doing?” I told him that I appreciated his inquiry and the chance to share. I said that I was a minister, anointing a friend.

“What religion?” he said.

“Christian.” I said.

“I am a Christian too but I haven’t been to church in a while.” He told me.

“What flavor of Christian?” I asked.

“Baptist, originally from Maine.”

“Oh which flavor of Baptist?” I asked.

“There are lots of kinds. They can be very different from one another.” He seemed

surprised and slightly annoyed at how much I knew. He didn’t think they could be that

different. I said that in fact there were entire administrative and spiritual infrastructures

built around theological differences, like how a baptism is done and at what age, how

communion is done and when, with whom and also at what age.

And then I said, “And not all of them would ordain me.”

He looked at me and paused and said, “Well I am no male feminist?” As if to make a

statement into a question and followed with, “Women should not be ministers.”

I am used to people dismissing my intellect and experience, but I was a bit stunned at

his rudeness. I can’t imagine inquiring about someone’s religious ritual and then

insulting them, but it was a beautiful day around Twin Lakes and the dogs were getting

impatient, and I have learned that not everyone is worth more time. So it seemed best

to keep going. For a minute though I was internally debating about whether to stay and

engage. Should I tell him about Mary Magdalene? Should I tell him Jesus is a feminist?

But it was clear that he wasn’t open to hearing another perspective, so staying and

talking more would only be giving him more time to feel superior. I looked at him and

said, “There’s no question; you’re not a feminist.” I kept going. It is quite revealing that in

2025, a man is bold about walking up to a woman he doesn’t know and then telling her

right to her face that he doesn’t believe she is equal. If we were in another part of the

country, I guess maybe I would have been less surprised, but it tells me about the

moment in which we find ourselves.

It’s okay to say it out loud now. Whatever the “it” might be. Things many of us thought

we kept in quiet or at least in private. What stood out about the encounter is that of all

the things to convey in that interaction, he felt it to be of the utmost importance to tell me

how right he was and that I was wrong even though he said he hadn’t been to church in

a long time and that further, he was okay saying out loud that he is proudly anti-feminist.

I drove home in silence. I thought of how we ended the service last week. We will know

we are Christians by our love.

I want to show you a picture going around now. It’s called a Tale of Two Christs. It’s by

Danila Wart. I share this image because it’s telling about the different Jesuses we are following right

now.

On the list of things to address as part of our series on Healing from Toxic Christianity is

the idea that what matters more than anything else is: belief. It seems like many are

walking around thinking we can follow Jesus and not have an internal transformation.

When the Greek word for repentance metanoia is to turn around.

So today this is what I want to speak to, the idea that following Jesus is just about what

we believe. When our really if our beliefs do not inspire a certain kind of living, a certain

way of being in the world, it feels far from what Jesus actually said. This letter that we

got from Paul in our lectionary today is perfect because you will see her he says that we

are to take hold of the life that is really life, this life, these spaces and places, these

moments, even sometimes when we are together here, where the Eternal is known in

our present reality.

In order to fully grasp this text properly in its context we must understand that from

Paul’s point of view, for him there is eternal life and true life, eternal life has arrived and

can arrive already because what he means is that a life of generosity and goodness is

available to us right here.

You will see he has lots of warnings for us too, against the destruction and entrapment

caused by loving all that can never love us back, the ruin that can come from thinking

the material is eternal. Biblical scholar Victor Pfitzner argues that for Paul, the prize is

something to be seized here and now, the point is tapping into a sense of the Eternal

now in our present reality. And when we operate from this deeper place, as if we are

treasure hunters, seeking to uncover the heaven that is already here.

Stephanie Mar Smith contends that in this letter Paul is talking about how the followers

of Jesus are to be with one another. She says, this “passage (is not) for moralists,

merely meant to condemn the wealthy, or a passage to inspire a futuristic hope in an

eternal life to come. Rather this passage articulates a perspective upon this life that is

meant to shape the way humans relate to others…”

I suspect that many have reduced Christianity to a philosophy, making it only about

belief because that requires very little of us. That is much easier, but we cannot forget

that Jesus said in all three canonical gospels, that the kin-dom of heaven is at hand.

(Matthew 3:2, Matthew 4:17,Mark 1:15) Some argue that it is only since the rise

of historicism over the last two hundred years that we have witnessed this re-

emergence of the idea of so-called "endless duration"; 1 or the concept that our

personhood never dies.

Renowned theologian Karl Barth who began work in 1932 on that epic tome, Church

Dogmatics critiqued the afterlife theology as nothing more than paganism. He wrote, in

the Doctrine of Creation, “If we wish the New Testament had more to say about this than

the Old, it may well be that we are pursuing pagan dreams of a good time after death,

and not letting the New Testament say the radically good thing which it has to say with

the realism which it has in common with the Old Testament…. Man as such, therefore,

has no beyond. Nor does he need one, for God is his beyond. Man’s beyond is that God

as his Creator, Covenant-partner, Judge and Savior, was and is and will be his true

Counterpart in life, and finally and exclusive and totally in death. Man as such, however,

belongs to this world.” (Church Dogmatics, Vol. 3.2, Section 47: The Doctrine of Creation Karl Barth)

Later Jürgen Moltmann, a German Reformed theologian who was a professor of

systematic theology and who authored many books on traditional Christianity and

believed Christianity has avoided its responsibility to help change the mundane

circumstances of the poor by focusing on God’s timeless future of eternal life and

heaven. 2 These guys are no feminists! And they all believed that being Christian actually

gives us responsibilities here on earth. It’s about how we are now.

While I actually do believe there is a realm beyond this one, I don’t think Jesus’ intention

was for his teachings to be all about that. I believe he offered them to help us have a

certain experience here and now, showing us what is possible when we live from love,

when we do justice and when we are generous, when we operate from kindness, ready

to pour out and empty ourselves as Jesus showed. We can access a certain way of

being in the world.

This faith is not just a philosophy but a path for how to be here and now, how to do good

and be good and be good that we may take hold of the life that really is life, in Paul’s

words. It’s both harder and easier. Living what Jesus taught must move us from our

heads into our actions; it’s a faith on the move. To me, faith is a verb. There’s no need to

do it right or to be right or to try harder. In fact, in this time, I think we might take the

words of the poet seriously, perhaps the invitation is to try softer. Let us not give up on

doing good.

Communal Reflection

Why do you think some expressions of Christianity have been reduced to a philosophy

rather than a path for how to be in the world?

What is the most important way you are doing good right now?

Be rich in good works. Be generous and ready to share. Try softer. May it be so. Amen.

1 Danie Strauss

2 Kelly Carter