12.09 | Don’t Take Every Rope
1 Timothy 5:1-6:2
‘Honor the widows who are truly widows.’
1 Timothy 5:3
Pete Scazzero tells a story that has stayed with me.
The story is of a man, who has discovered his life purpose—the accomplishment of which requires him to journey to a foreign land. On the way, the man had to cross a large bridge. As he crosses the bridge, another man runs towards him, with a long rope tied around his waist. He gives our man one end of the rope, and then jumps off the bridge. The man of our story is shocked, and braces himself against the wall of the bridge, grasping the rope with burning hands, the life of man on the rope hanging in his grip.
“Pull me up,” shouted the man from below.
“I can’t,” called back the man; “You’re too heavy: you’ll have to help me by climbing back up!”
The conversation went on—the man on the rope refusing to help himself—expecting to be carried, expecting to be held, expecting to be rescued. The man on the bridge, anxious about his passing opportunity for the thing he really longed to do, faced with the awful choice of relinquishing responsibility for the man with the rope, or finding himself stuck on the demands of another and missing out on his true purpose.
It’s a graphic story (the man on the bridge ultimately letting go), but it illustrates a reality of much church life. Because in any church, people want us to help them.
The mandate for helping people is very clear. Jesus was compassionate. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbour, to stop for the one, to lay down our lives for another.
And yet, in Paul’s words today, he introduces something that gives an important corrective to this. Because in Ephesus, there is a group of people (these younger widows), who are requesting the help of the church, and yet are using church handouts to fund their lives of inactivity and gossip.
Paul’s words sound a little unpastoral:
She who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives.
What’s going on?
Paul is teasing something out that we need. He is urging Timothy to build a church culture that is courageously compassionate towards genuine need (in this context, older widows), and yet that is firm when the need is not genuine. When other family members need to step up. When a person has the capacity to change their circumstances. When the ‘help’ of the church is leaving somebody as a passive consumer of the church’s generosity, rather than is helping them to establish themselves as a contributor. They might be asking for help, but Paul encourages Timothy not to give it.
Not every request requires your response.
Don’t take every rope.
On one level this seems callous. These women are widows. That means they’ve suffered significant grief. That means that they are financially vulnerable. That means that they have a story that will stir compassion.
And yet, look a little harder. For in Paul’s words we find a greater kindness in a more intense form of love. Because Paul is not asking these women to step lower; he is asking both them to step higher. To take a little more responsibility. To move from consumer to contributor. To step out of the story of victimhood and into the story of the empowered. To move beyond the mundane and the limitations of circumstances, into the expansive way of the restored. The church should never remain a crutch for those who need to learn to walk.
Tough love. But love, for sure, it is. Love with teeth. Love with substance. Love that sees past circumstance and into potential. And a love that reminds us that the vision of church is more than handouts for the vulnerable. It is the re-establishment of broken lives to become warriors, creatives, and contributors in the unfolding work of God.
Reflect:
Consider somebody that you are supporting right now.
Wisdom is clearly needed. Paul encourages radical compassion with those unable to help themselves, and restorative empowerment for those who can grow into contributors.
How can your support of others be informed by Paul’s words today?
Pray:
Father,
Grant me great wisdom,
To understand how to walk amidst a world of such need.
Would you govern this heart—
To a courageous and sacrificial Yes
When you call me to stop,
To love,
To give,
To heal;
When I see in the face of the suffering
The face of Jesus;
When I have resource in my hands
That can alleviate the pain of the powerless.
And, Father,
Grant me great wisdom,
To know when
The greater love
Says No—
When love looks like empowerment,
Encouragement,
And the call to participate;
When my heart needs to let go
Of the responsibility
To fix it.
And Father,
May I be governed in all these things,
By love—
That my Yes and my No
Be from the deeper compassion
That looks to serve,
And that looks to restore.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Song of Solomon 1-3 | Psalm 107:17-32