Sermon for Sunday, October 12, 2025 || Proper 23C || 2 Timothy 2:8-15
There is a line from today’s reading from Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy that struck me this week. The line is: “The word of God is not chained.” Paul is contrasting his own imprisonment because of the Gospel with the overarching truth that the word of God can never be imprisoned. That’s what we’re going to talk about this morning: the unchained nature of the Word of God.
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Every Sunday, we read four passages of the Bible: a piece of the Hebrew Scripture (also known as the Old Testament), a psalm, a piece of the New Testament, and a reading from the Gospel. After the first and third of these passages, the reader says, “Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people.” This is a more recent additional to the options for the closing sentence to a reading. The one in the Book of Common Prayer is “The Word of the Lord.” In both cases, everyone else responds, “Thanks be to God.”
I like both options equally, but there’s something that feels more active about the one we say at St. Mark’s. The present progressive tense of the verb gives the sentence a moving, energetic quality. The Holy Spirit is still speaking these words to us, by way of ancient witnesses and through our voices in the here and now. The words of Holy Scripture are alive in the power of the Holy Spirit as we take the ancient witness and apply it to our lives in the present. We say, “Thanks be to God” at the end of a reading because we recognize that something holy has just happened: an encounter with the One whose presence inspired the biblical writers back then and who continues to inspire us now.
This concept of “encounter” is all important. In many places in the Bible, especially in the Hebrew Scriptures, the word of God comes to people: Abraham, Moses, Samuel, the prophets. The word of God comes to people, and they know what to do or say. But this is one of those places where the Hebrew language is just so much more expressive than the English translations. Sometimes translating a Hebrew word into English is like the difference between eating a piece of cake and looking at a picture of cake. Such is the case with the word “word.”
In Hebrew the word for “word” is davar. Davar is not simply words written on a page or spoken aloud. The “word” happens to people. The “word” is an event, an encounter, an action that calls for further action. In the beginning when God creates the heavens and the earth, God speaks creation into being: God says, ‘Let there be light’ and there is light. The Word of the Lord happens, and, as a result, creation comes into being. The language of Godly Play tries to capture this sense of encounter when God’s word comes to someone. The storyteller cups their hand over the wooden figure and says, “God came so close to Abraham and Abraham came so close to God that Abraham knew what God wanted him to do.” God encounters Abraham through the davar – the word – and Abraham is forever changed.
The same is true for us. If we consign the Bible to the dusty shelves of history, we will not be prepared for the same thing that happened to the bible’s characters to happen to us. The Word of God happens to us too. We believe in the ultimate happening of the Word of God, when that Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Again, Godly Play says, “Once there was someone who did such amazing things and said such wonderful things that people followed him.” The storyteller does not name Jesus here because to name Jesus is to rob the child of the moment of discovery, the literal epiphany when the child connects Jesus to the person who says wonderful things. This discovery, this epiphany, is a happening of the word today.
When Paul tells Timothy that the word of God is not chained, Paul reminds Timothy and us that the Word of God is surprising and unexpected. The word of God does not simply confirm what we think or what we want to be true or how we desire to live. When we allow the word to happen to us, we let go of our preconceptions, our biases, our priorities, and we embrace the unchained movement of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives.
There is another way to read scripture, of course. We can cling to our preconceptions, biases, and priorities and go find confirmation of them in in the Bible. Such a thing is all too easy to do, especially with Google and the ability to cut and paste snippets of verses. This misguided practice uses the Bible for ammunition rather than transformation. This misguided practice papers over hate, division, and dehumanization with a veneer of biblical legitimacy. This misguided practice leaves no room for surprising encounter with the Spirit for fear that such an encounter might compel a change in ideology.
Everyone – including me – is susceptible to such a misguided practice. Acknowledging this fact is important because it helps us embrace humility in our reading of the Bible. At the same time, we must recognize when this misguided practice is the basis for a worldview and not a deviation from it. This is the case with the heresy of Christian Nationalism. One of the numerous failings of Christian Nationalism is the chaining of the word of God to a narrow, cramped, fearful worldview of both American exceptionalism and who gets to count as an American. As followers of Jesus, we have the opportunity and the duty to speak against such chaining of God’s word and to present an alternative vision. God’s word is not narrow but expansive; not cramped but open; not fearful but full of love and hope; not bound to a particular place or people but embracing all of Creation.
The word of God is not chained. The word of God continues to happen just like it did to the prophets of old, who spoke unwelcome truths to the powerful and proclaimed a more just, more equitable, and more peaceful way of being. This week, I invite you to open yourselves up to the word of God happening to you, in you, through you. Do not allow current preconceptions, biases, or priorities forge chains around your embrace of God’s presence in your life. God’s movement is always surprising, always enlivening, always renewing. When the word of God happens to us, we will be transformed so that we can partner with God to help transform this world.
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