C, Pent 21 Proper 24 - 2 Timothy 4:3-4 & Luke 18:1-8 "Are you Itching?"
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4)
It is the time and season for itching and scratching! Have you had a scratch today? Most likely you have! Upon waking this morning, most of us would have scratched an itch of some sort. Perhaps even now the psychosomatic desire to scratch an itch is burning within you, with just the mention of the itch. Lest we start talking about vermin like fleas, head lice, sandflies, mosquitoes, mites, and bedbugs.
And if that doesn’t get you scratching then there’s the good old October itch of harvest time. When the grain and straw dust finds its way into all the nooks and crannies, making you want to scratch! Or perhaps, the heat of summer sunburn, prickly pimples, or dermatitis irritations gets you going!
There’s nothing quite like the instant feel-good relief of scratching an itch. However, not scratching the itch, or not being able or allowed to give it a good old rub, can drive you to near madness. Anyone who has suffered at the hands of chicken pox, sandfly bites, or a prickly rash knows they’re not meant to scratch. But the time comes when one has to just give it a bit of a scratch to steal a moment of relief.
When the itch can’t be left alone and the scratching becomes addictive and habitual, then there’s a real problem of the itch becoming infected turning into an oozing swelling sore. The minor irritation becomes serious and perhaps even life-threatening.
It’s no wonder we have grown up hearing our parents tell us, “Stop scratching that itch! You’ll only make it worse!” And experience tells us they’re right, as we cover ourselves with bandaids in a bid to stop ourselves from making the itches and sores worse than what we’ve already made them!
What makes us itch? Why do our bodies crave relief with such intensity, that we must just scratch it? Well biologically speaking, the central chemical involved in itching is histamine, a molecule released by cells in the skin. Histamine is the chemical that causes the itch and reddening. It binds to local nerve endings on specific receptors. The feeling of itchiness can be caused by a movement of hair or the release of this chemical (histamine). Itchiness is regarded as protective, as it helps creatures remove parasites that land on their skin.
So we itch and scratch to remove parasites, or we do so as a result of the bite or sting left behind. However, the reaction to get rid of something by repeated scratching often leads to other problems too. Itching comes from our bodies reacting to something unhealthy, and although scratching occurs as a desire to feel better, it can lead to greater health problems in the future!
Paul addresses Timothy at a time of unhealthy trouble in a season of scratching. People are not listening to sound doctrine, which is God’s Word. In the Greek, sound doctrine, literally means: healthy instruction or true teaching. This unhealthy desire to scratch to feel good is relevant for us too. Even today there are so many parasites of impure, unhealthy, untruthful teaching, toiling for our attention. In fact this desire is applicable to every age, since we all suffer with the unhealthy parasites of sin, inherent in our human nature.
Paul continues… instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
All of us have the intense desire to scratch the feel good desires of the flesh. But unfortunately like an itching lump that’s scratched into a septic sore, the unhealthy things with which we seek to soothe our natures only give short lived relief. They turn out to be the very things that make our condition much worse.
Instead of avoiding these things that make us itch in the first place, we cast off protection from unhealthy situations, believing we’ll be ok. Time and time again we never learn. We try to tell ourselves we haven’t been bitten when we have, and forget how bad scratching these itches can be. So as Paul says, they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
Therefore, if it’s the season for suffering and scratching from the sensations of sin, what should we do? After all we should have known better! We’re only getting what we deserve — our just deserts! Are we not?
However, when justice is exhausted and it seems we are condemned to a life of scratching and suffering with sores, along comes the Unjust Judge and he unjustly gives us mercy! We are rightly set for a season of suffering at the hands of sin, it’s what we deserve! But when justice is exhausted, God who should rightly judge us and condemn us, saves us from the itching suffering of sin, by covering us with the soothing salve of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
God is the Unjust Judge, for if he was to merit justice to us for who we are and what we do; we could only expect a life of miserable hopeless suffering, death, and eternal wrath. But glory be to God that he mercifully lets justice fall on his Son so we might be led to him and receive salvation from the sin that makes us silly with scratching and itching.
God want us to seek him to stop the itch. For as long as the itch of sin keeps up he desires that we not let up praying to him, nor give up. He says just this in the parable of the persistent widow.
1 …Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’”
6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:1-8)
Unlike the weak widow who sought justice from the unjust judge, we deserve to come under justice from he who is holy and just. But we who are weak have been given mercy in Christ’s death and resurrection, for us, so we can constantly say to God, “Grant me justice against my adversary. Save me from the sin and suffering of myself; stop me from scratching!”
It’s the season of itching and scratching, therefore it’s the season for salvation from scratching. It’s the time of truth! Hear that which reveals, heals, and removes the myths, and the need to scratch the sin making you suffer! Receive the Word of God, in it you will receive the holy antihistamine — the Holy Spirit. He will soothe you and give you peace, even as you continue to suffer in the season of itching and scratching.
When the Son of Man comes, will he find us scratching our own itches of sin and suffering, or will he find us faithfully letting the Holy Spirit apply the soothing salve of God’s saving Word into our souls? Amen.
