I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. -2 Timothy 1:5
My maternal grandmother was born in the Depression. This fact has affected her entire life. She’s a saver of food and coupons. She taught me how to buy groceries on double coupon day, and how to choose a cashier based on who looked the most generous and flexible with coupon expiration dates.
My grandmother freezes everything from bread to candy bars. She does not waste food. Leftovers will either be packaged and frozen or, if the food is already on your plate, she will laugh as she raises your own fork to your mouth and pops “one more bite” in. “No leftovers!” she exclaims. If you’re lucky, she’ll even feed you while doing the “Here comes the airplane going into the hangar” trick. This applies to the whole family, regardless of age. Recently, my grandfather was in the hospital. I knew he was feeling better when Grandma was doing the airplane trick with him and he said, “Mother, I told you I’m full. I’m done eating!” Even if you’re in the hospital, Grandma doesn’t believe you should waste food.
My grandma doesn’t waste napkins, either. When she’s at a restaurant, she always asks for extra napkins. These go home to her kitchen napkin holder. If she deems they are too big, she uses scissors to cut them in half or even quarters. I don’t think she’s ever had to pay for a package of napkins.
My grandmother has a great sense of humor. She doesn’t mind when we tease her about her penchant for saving. She laughs along with us when we exclaim with pride, “It’s a red letter day! I got a whole napkin today!” (Although those are few and far between.) She smiles when we tease her about her passion for coupons.
My grandma loves me. I have never doubted that for a second. She has called me such names as “precious angel”, and “darling” and she means them! She doesn’t hold back on telling her family how much she loves them and how proud she is of them. Nearly every time I see her, she looks me in the eye and tells me “I want you to know, angel, how proud we are of you and how much we love you.”
My grandma is a precious angel herself.
In my 45 years of life, I’ve learned a lot from my grandmother. She taught me about coupons, cooking, and how to be sincere in sharing love. But she also has taught me about faith.
In my family, when we gather together, we hold hands and pray. Generally, this happens before a meal. As a child, this would annoy me. I was hungry! I didn’t want to hold someone’s hand to listen to a long prayer before I ate! As an adult, I realize what a gift this is.
My grandparents had five children. When they all get together with their spouses and the grandkids, and the grandkid’s kids, there are a lot of folks around the house. We have a huge circle of hands joining together for the prayer.
It’s a sacred gift to stand next to Grandma during family prayer time. I do it as often as I can. Grandma prays with fervor. She doesn’t just hold your hand during the prayer, she squeezes it and rubs circles with her thumb so the people on either side of her know how much they are loved. She also tunes her whole self into the prayer. When we pray together, she is completely focused on connecting with Christ. “Yes, Jesus!” she says. “Yes, Lord.”
I have learned a lot about faith from my grandmother.
In 2 Timothy, we learn about Timothy’s grandmother. Paul is elderly and facing death. He’s looking back on his life and taking inventory. From his perspective, he’s listing who has kept the faith and who has let him down. He’s proud of Timothy, who is one of the good guys, and an inheritor of his grandmother and mother’s faith.
In the Bible, women are often unnamed. In fact, if you include the Apocrypha, scholars estimate there are more than 600 unnamed women in the Bible. When the Bible does give women a name, it is often in relation to their husbands.
But here, in plain sight in the second letter to Timothy, we have not only one, but two women named. How powerful their faith must have been for these women to be referenced and named. For all the thousands of years of translations, Biblical counsels, and scholars, these women remain. So while they are only referenced in the Bible twice, once in Acts and once in our scripture today, the miracle is that they are even mentioned at all.
Acts 16:1 tells us Timothy was a Christian Jew with a Greek father. Both his mother, Eunice, and grandmother, Lois, were Jewish followers of Christ. They were raised in the Jewish faith, and became Christian through the work of the Holy Spirit and the Christians in their town.
Just like my grandmother’s witness of faith, Timothy learned faith from the women in his family. References to Timothy’s father imply that he was not a Christian. This fact makes these women’s faith even more miraculous! Lois and Eunice are women who are named for their faith in a family where the head of the household wasn’t Christian. What remarkable women they must have been! What a miracle that we know about them today!
Lois and Eunice’s witness of faith formed Timothy. He grew up to join one of the Apostle Paul’s most inner circles. In the Bible, both First and Second Timothy are letters addressed to him in Ephesus. In the catholic church, Timothy is identified as a saint and the first Christian bishop of Ephesus.
Lois and Eunice had a strong faith, so counter cultural that we know about them today.
When I read about women like this in the Bible, I think to myself, how can I be counter cultural like them? Sure, I share my faith with my children, but really, that hasn’t been hard. I’m a pastor and known for my faith. Living as a Christian in the United States isn’t very counter cultural, though we can certainly debate that.
So I’ve searched for a space to be brave and counter cultural like Lois and Eunice. And as most Holy Spirit epiphanies go, of course the answer was right under my nose the whole time. Forming intergenerational relationships is counter-cultural.
In our society, we champion youth. If you aren’t young, you are inherently not cool. The further you get away from your youth, the less cool you are. As people age, we push them further and further to the edge of society. Even in the church, we marginalize those who are aging. You hear it all the time. People in the pews, people in pulpits, people in Fellowship Hall. “We need to get more young people in here.” Churches across the United States try new sermon series, new media platforms, new events that will “get the young people in”. The fear seems to be that the church is dying. Supposedly, salvation for the church is to find young people to walk in the door.
You know what you don’t hear?
We need some more senior adults here! Senior adults provide life in our pews. Let’s have some sermon series to get more seniors here! Let’s look at our advertising, our media platforms, our events. Can we figure out how to market to senior adults? It would be so cool to see more seniors around here! Old people are the future of the church!
But here’s the thing:
The church’s salvation does not rest solely on the shoulders of the young or of the old. Even if thousands of young people walked in the door of the church to join in, how would they know what to do?
How did Timothy receive his faith?
From his mother and his grandmother.
All 3 three generations were important to that equation.
We need all generations in this community.
The church is counter-cultural. Nowhere else in all of society do we have opportunities for intergenerational relationships like we do at church.
In Timothy’s family, we wouldn’t even know about Timothy, much less his mother or grandmother, if the women in his life didn’t pass the faith on to him.
In my family, my grandmother’s faith has been a witness to me for my entire life. We could argue that I might not even be a pastor today without the faith of my grandmother.
So today I want you to think about the way you are part of this church community.
Are you a young person? Go introduce yourself to a senior adult and intentionally build a relationship with them.
Are you a senior adult? Go meet a young mother and offer her compassion and a listening ear.
Are you somewhere in between? Make sure your circle of friends include those who are much older and much younger than you.
Remember Timothy and the powerful women of faith that helped nurture him in the faith.
Give God thanks that in the Body of Christ, we never age out of usefulness. And then go and build relationships with one another in Christ’s name.
Portions of this blog were also used at a FUMC Plano United Women of Faith event.
