Transient Custodians of Power
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
October 5, 2025
A friend sent me a video of a speech given by a president at the United Nations General Assembly. It was not the president’s speech that I had already seen several times. This one was offered by Natašha Pirc Musar, President of Slovenia. It was a passionate, challenging speech.
Just to give you an idea: She began by talking about the history of the United Nations. She said that permanent five members of the UN Security Council were supposed to be role models for the rest of the world working for peace, but now some work in their own interests instead. In case you don’t already know, the permanent five members of the UN Security Council are China, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and the United States. She ended the speech with these words “We did not stop the Holocaust. We did not stop the genocide in Rwanda. We did not stop the genocide in Sbranitza. We must stop the genocide in Gaza. There are no excuses anymore. None.” [1]
It was a compelling, 15-minute speech that offered both lament and hope. I commend it to you. I watched two more speeches, by the leaders of Finland and Ireland. Each speaker implored the UN to live up to its charter of engaging large and small nations to work together for the common good and the peace of the whole planet. There was an undertone and sometimes an explicit overtone of calling Russia, the USA and Israel to account. These world leaders are exercising the power they have, even if they may feel like its not enough. I found it inspiring. In fact, President Musar of Slovenia provided the title for this sermon. she said “We, the leaders of today, are only transient custodians of power. Some of us may not be here after the next election, but that is precisely why we must act now.”
Transient custodians of power
It reminds me of Paul’s phrase in the letter to the Corinthians – “we have this treasure in earthen vessels.”
And today, in the letter to Timothy, it says “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.” The Greek word for power there is dynamus, from which we get dynamite.
The spirit that I hear being exalted most often by world leaders now is not the spirit of love and self-discipline. It is not a spirit of cooperation, but a fear-mongering will to power that dominates and bends others to its will. And so I am hooked by the notion that there is a real power, a kind of dynamite where love and self-discipline could have an impact.
I keep reading this letter, only to discover that immediately after saying that stuff about power, Paul invites Timothy to join him in suffering for the gospel. Now hold up a minute. Paul’s experience with suffering is deep. It includes all kinds of physical hardship – being beaten or stoned, shipwrecked and imprisoned, not to mention the significant wounding that happens during good old church fights. What kind of friend invites you to volunteer for that?
And also, aren’t we, as Jesus’ disciples supposed to be about alleviating suffering? Jesus’ platform – good news for the poor, healing the sick, releasing captives – that’s all about everyone suffering less, isn’t it? So what do we do with Paul’s invitation to embrace suffering?
We have all been exposed to a lot of bad theology about suffering. Bad theology says its for your own good, to teach you something. Bad theology says it’s not as bad as you think it is, quit your whining, and deal with it. Bad theology may make you think you deserve to suffer or that God requires it. I’m not going to take the time to unpack each of those, but for me, they all fall into that category of bad theology. If you think I’m being too dismissive, please talk with me about that. I would love to hear your ideas.
There is also some good theology about suffering and that is worth holding onto. Good theology recognizes that our pain is real and that shame, loss of dignity and injustice are also forms of suffering. Paul described his own distress, agony and loneliness on many occasions.
Yes, Jesus did seek to alleviate human suffering, but we also remember that in order to do that, he gave up equality with God and put on human form, making himself vulnerable to the entire human experience, feeling all that we feel. Jesus embraced suffering for our sake.
Paul invites Timothy to join him in suffering for the gospel, because there is a relationship between the suffering and the power, the spirit that is not afraid, but is powerful and loving and self-disciplined.
“It is courageous, to embrace the kind of power that Jesus embodied which is a self-sacrificing one and one that requires self-control lest our egos get the best of us. And it’s courageous to feel love, to let our heart break in compassion for the world God loves.”[2]
In August 1966, Dr. King told his congregation, “I choose to identify with the underprivileged. I choose to identify with the poor. I choose to give my life for the hungry. I choose to give my life for those who have been left out. This is the way I’m going. If it means suffering a little bit, I’m going that way. If it means dying for them, I’m going that way.” [3] Less than two years later, he was assassinated.
What kind of friend invites someone into a community of suffering? Someone who wants to imitate Jesus.
Friends, this is God’s call on us now -- to share in the suffering of the world for the sake of the gospel. To let our hearts break in compassion until we are compelled to act.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels. We are transient custodians of dynamite. We are a small but beloved part of a long story. It is not up to us to fix all the things or even really to fix anything, but to keep on showing up and to recognize that God is in this for the long haul. Paul reminds Timothy of the faith of his grandmother and his mother which now resides in him. It is a multi-generational perspective. We are connected to all those who have come before us, to the radical revolutionaries and the unknown saints who lived quiet, peaceful lives.
We have power we have not tapped. It is the power of Christ, the power we access by imitating Jesus, by being the Body of Christ as consistently and as boldly as we can.
The Orthodox church across the world is struggling now, because the leader of that communion is in Russia and has aligned with the Russian government. So, many Orthodox bishops and priests have chosen to take a stand and separate their congregations from the Russian church. That is a courageous, compassionate exercise of their power. But long ago, there was a different story told about the Orthodox Church in Russia. For centuries, Russia was governed by dictators called czars and the Orthodox church supported their right to rule, saying it was given by God. The Church did not critique politics or eonomics, so when the communists came to power in the early 20th century, it seemed unlikely that the church was going to challenge the new status quo.
Except for one habit they had. Before the celebration of Communion, the priest was expected to go to the porch of the church and ring a hand-bell. That bell was to tell the people in the village that Communion was beginning. The early Communist regime outlawed the ringing of the hand-bell as part of its anti-religious campaign.
Now Orthodox priests are the ultimate traditionalists, so they just continued to stand on the porch, ringing their little bells, finding church impossible without it. The state reacted by jailing and slaughtering priests by the thousands. By refusing to give up the ringing of the bell, Orthodoxy found their power and confronted the nation's rulers with a determination that they had not know they had.[4]
Beloved ones, find a bell to ring, or a way to speak truth to power, to stand with the marginalized, to love your neighbor or your enemy. This is God’s call on us now -- to share in the suffering of the world for the sake of the gospel. Because God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. Thanks be to God.
[1] https://youtu.be/YUpK4kVj2UU?si=zik8MutDaDdezNE8
[2] https://www.christiancentury.org/sunday-s-coming/ordinary-27c-dana
[3] cited in Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero by Vincent Harding, Orbis Books, 2008.
[4] Stanley Hauerwas, Pulpit Resource, January- March, 2003, p. 8