An Inconvenient Faith
By Alice Camille
When former Vice President Al Gore starred in the documentary An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, experts crawled out of the woodwork to debate the arguments Gore presented about the gravity of climate change and our role in it. As whole forests brown and die around me in New England thanks to the gypsy moth encouraged by the warming trend, my heart aches for the planet and how we continue to abuse it. Chesapeake crabs have moved a bay or two north. Maine lobsters are becoming Canadian lobsters. Cranberry bogs have to go farther north to succeed. Pretty soon we’ll be growing oranges in Georgia and peaches in Maryland.
I get climate change denial: It’s lousy to embrace a truth we don’t want to hear. No one wants to get wind that their kid is doing poorly in school, their spouse is unhappy, their chosen profession is about to be replaced by a robot. It’s rotten to suspect the world’s remaining superpower may be losing its exceptionalism. It’s tough to come to the conclusion that someone we love has done something terribly wrong, whether that someone is our parent, our country, or our church.
Inconvenient truths are part of life. The first wrinkle shows up in the bathroom mirror, and before you know it, things are growing all over you that didn’t used to be there. Hair goes grey or goes away altogether. The belly protrudes. The doctor says you can’t eat the thing you love anymore. Joints ache and the pain turns out to be permanent. Loved ones you thought would be there always age and die or simply disappear.
So when Saint Paul tells Timothy to expect and accept the inconvenience of the gospel, it should be no surprise. We’re to persist in faith and conviction and right action whether it happens to suit our plans or is extremely uncomfortable to do so. Sometimes it’s easy to come to church and sometimes it’s hard. That’s true for everybody, even the priest! Sometimes we feel like praying and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we feel passionate about our spouses, our families, our work, and sometimes they’re all just commitments we’re obliged to fulfill. Sometimes we want to share our resources generously with the poor. And at other times we want to spend our money on that thing we don’t need but really, really want.
Paul advises Timothy, a new church leader who will soon replace Paul’s whole generation of governance, to persist in doing the right thing despite how he feels in a given moment. Emotions are one thing; dedication is another. Feelings come and go but we’re free to go higher in our decision-making. Is faith inconvenient? You bet it is. Now get to it.
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