Ephesians 4:25-5:2

                                                           Proper 13, 2015 (Year B)

                       2 Samuel 18:5-9,15,31-33;Psalm 130; Eph 4:25-5:2; John 6: 35,41-51

Father Adam Trambley

August 9, 2015 St.John’s Sharon

This morning we continue with Saint Paul’s letter to the Ephesians where he gives instruction on how to live a Christian life as a member of the body of Christ. 

He begins this passage saying: [put] away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.  We probably aren’t surprised to hear that we shouldn’t lie.  But Paul’s reasoning goes beyond a simple respect for the truth or the Ten Commandments’ admonition not to bear false witness. Paul says we have to tell each other the truth because we are members of one another.  If we lie, we hurt the person we are lying to, and we hurt the body as a whole, and we even hurt ourselves.  Think about our bodies and the need for honest communication within them.  If there is something wrong in my leg, the leg needs to send the signals to the right places to get blood supply improved, and maybe have more white blood cells created, and for the rest of the body to slow down and take it easy.  If the leg wasn’t honest and the rest of the members went along as if nothing was wrong, pretty soon the whole body falls flat on its face.  The same thing happens when we lie.  The rest of the members of the Body of Christ can’t respond appropriately.  They can’t help when there is a hurt, they can’t protect themselves from dangerous behavior, and they can’t take the tough measures necessary to help heal broken places in our lives or in the lives of others.  When we are dishonest, we think we are smart enough to protect or manipulate others into what is best for them, or for us, but we are really not as shrewd as we think we are.  Instead of isolating ourselves from the rest of the members of the body through our lies, Paul calls us to put away falsehood and speak truth.

From lying, Paul moves to anger.  Be angry, but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.  Being angry is a feeling, and feelings are not sinful.  Some things make us happy, some sad, some angry, etc.  How we feel is how we feel.  Ethics and morality only come into play in how we act on those feelings.  Paul says when we see something that makes us angry, whether that trigger is an injustice done to others or an injustice or slight against ourselves, we can, and maybe even should, feel some indignation.  But don’t sin – don’t react to the situation out of a blind rage.  Vengeance is for God alone, and Christian virtue has no place for retaliation or for an eye for an eye.  Paul says not to let the sun go down on our anger because we don’t want our anger to consume us or harm us.  Anger can “make room for the devil” either by turning to violence against others or by turning into seething resentments that poison our own hearts from within.  By sunset, Paul wants us to have calmed down our angry feelings so that we can respond out of Christian love.  Love will provide the proper response to whatever got us angry.  That response may be prayer for enemies, honesty about our own pride and ego that are too easily damaged, a fearless speaking of the truth in love where passive-aggressive attitudes would come much more easily, or the appropriate measures to protect the weak from bullies, whether those bullies are on a personal, social or international level.  Be angry, but do not sin.

Thieves must give up stealing.  Hopefully this doesn’t apply to too many of us this morning, but the rest of Paul’s sentence does: rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands so as to have something to share with the needy.  An important part of the reason we work and earn money is to be able to give alms to the poor.  Those who are accustomed to taking – which in Paul’s day would be thieves but in our day may include any of us who feel entitled to a certain level of comfort and material wealth – are reminded that the point is not to obtain things from other people but to spend our own time and energy to be able to give things to other people, especially the least of our brothers and sisters.

Paul continues: Let no evil talk come out of your mouths.  So again, no lying, no slander, no gossip, and no putting people down so we look better.  We all have our own particular favorite forms of “evil talk” we need to work on.  Of course, that evil talk includes oral speech as well as things written as comments on Facebook or other internet and social media sites.  Paul says that we are only supposed to say what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.  Our words, like everything else about us, are gifts from God to make the lives of those around us better.  Anything we say should strengthen the body of Christ and give those around us a sense of the grace of God abounding in their lives.  Note Paul also says, “as there is need,” which may mean that there is a value in silence, as well.  Sometimes we, and those around us, can only stop to hear what God has to say when we stop talking, even if we think we are saying very good things. 

Then Paul lays on the guilt: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.  God is in you.  The Holy Spirit has come into your hearts at baptism.  You have been marked as Christ’s own forever.  Paul isn’t saying that when you mess up, the Holy Spirit leaves and you go into the outer darkness.  But every parent knows how hard it is to give your child everything they need to do the right thing and then watch when they don’t do it.  We have all done that to our parents at some point, and it isn’t fun for them.  So keep that feeling in mind when you are about to lie or steal or gossip or whatever, and don’t make God feel that way. 

Paul says: Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with malice.  Some of these negative activities are repeated from above, but we know why they are all bad for us and for others.  Instead, Paul says, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.  Note that while Paul says to be kind and tenderhearted to each other, he isn’t commending it out of a rainbows-and-unicorns sentimentality.  He expects kindness to be hard work because he says we will have to forgive others.  They will hurt us, and we are to be kind to them.  They will trespass against us, and we remain tenderhearted.  Why?  Because Christ forgave us so we have to also forgive each other.  And, because Christ forgave us, we are able to forgive each other because no matter how much we are injured by anyone else, we have an incredible inheritance with God that no one can touch.  We can forgive people, even unto death, because not even death can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Then this portion of Paul’s letter closes with words that I hope sound familiar: Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.  Children imitate their parents, even when they don’t want to, and the first two clauses tell us to imitate God as his children.  Then the rest of the sentence is a different translation of what we often use for our offertory sentence: walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, and offering and sacrifice to God.  We are reminded of the great sacrifice Jesus made for us, and how we are meant to love others the same way.  Jesus sacrifice was made for us, but offered  to God.  The love we show to others is also offered to God on behalf of other people.  We can’t actually love others the ways we might want to without the connection to God in the midst of whatever sacrifices we may hope to make on their behalf.  And we are to make those sacrifices as we go.  When we walk about in our daily lives, going to this place or to that place, we are called to love those around us just like Christ loved us.  Our loving isn’t to be limited to when we are in spiritual places or when we are with those we like or in any other way.  Paul wants our entire lives to be infused with the sacrificial love that imitates the wondrous love of Christ.  We use these words from Ephesians in our offertory sentence because living into this call is one way that we offer our whole lives to God at that time during the service when we present our offerings to God and celebrate the great offering that Jesus made on our behalf.  So walk in love as Christ loved us, and gave himself for us, and offering and sacrifice to God.

Ephesians 4:1-3

                                                           Proper 13, 2015 (Year B)

                               2 Samuel11:26-12:13; Psalm 51; Eph 4:1-16; John 6:24-35

Father Adam Trambley

August 2, 2015 St.John’s Sharon

In our second reading today, Paul writes to the Ephesians, “I…beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.”  Paul is also speaking directly to us, “I…beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” 

Of course, we may not be clear on the calling to which we have been called.   Sometimes this language of being called gets hyper-focused, so that it only seems to apply to people called to be priests or called to be deacons or called to be missionaries.  Then at other times, we might be asked if we feel called to something as mundane as wiping the crumbs off the tables after coffee hour so that some of God’s tiniest critters don’t decide to make this their church home.  But Paul here is talking about our primary and fundamental vocation as Christians that changes the essence of who we are, and which has concrete implications for how we live our life. 

We can look at this fundamental call that God places upon us from a couple of different angles.  The call of Almighty God upon those of us made in his image and likeness who have come into a relationship with his Son Jesus Christ can be talked about in terms of Jesus’ instruction to take up our cross and follow him, or in terms of the Great Commission to go into all the world baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and teaching everything Jesus has said, or in terms of the Great Commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself, or in a number of other ways.

In this passage of Ephesians, Paul is talking about this call in terms of how we are united into the one Body of Christ and what that means for us now and for the rest of our earthly lives and for our eternal lives.  Paul emphasizes how we are now one in Christ Jesus by talking about the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, by noting that there is one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God, etc., and in exhorting us to build up that body. 

“I…beg you,” he says, “to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.”

Starting with the eternal aspect of our calling, which is probably the most glorious, we need to think about the New Testament promises of eternal life.   That vision of eternal life, shown most clearly in Revelation’s description of the New Jerusalem, is that the entire body of believers is going to be resurrected and spend eternity with the risen Lord Jesus.  Now usually when we think about heaven, we think about being with Jesus, or being with people that we miss who have already died, or about a release from the pain and the struggles of this life.  All of those are important aspects of our promise.  But those pieces won’t be the entirety of our eternal experience, because we are also going to be with everyone else who accepted Jesus’ offer of salvation, healing and eternal life.  That heavenly company includes at least everyone who has been baptized and wants to be forgiven of anything that would keep them out. 

Now if we are going to be the one Body of Christ that includes all these people for all eternity, that may have some implications for how we live our lives today.  Look around you. Everybody you see here today, you will probably be seeing for all eternity.  You’ll also probably be seeing everyone you know from other churches, however much we may disagree with their politics or their structure or their music or their understanding of what it means to be a Christian.  Anyone who wants to be closer to Jesus, however messed up they are now – or however messed up we are now – will be hanging around the heavenly Jerusalem with us for a very long time.  In a community like the Shenango Valley, that probably also means that most of the people we see in traffic, or at Giant Eagle, or anywhere else will be people that we will see again in the heavenly places. 

If we are going to see people forever, then that might change how we want to treat them now.  Our goal in life is not to be the most successful, or leave the most money for our children, or have the biggest statue built in our honor, or to see our name up in lights, or even in stained glass.  The goal of our life is to prepare ourselves to live eternally with the rest of the Body of Christ.  If you really think about it, that task is in many ways much more difficult for us to accomplish than dying with the most toys.  Gratefully, we don’t have to accomplish it alone.  We have instructions in scripture, as well as the Holy Spirit’s help in carrying them out.

Paul tells us how to lead a life worthy of our calling: “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”  Let’s look a little more deeply at these qualities of the lives we are called to live.

With all humility.  Humility is first and foremost about knowing our place.  Our place is as someone destined for eternal life in Christ with billions of our closest friends.  We can’t really conceive of what it means to be one very special person in a billion or so, because a billion is a few more than we can count on our fingers.  Yet we can understand that we aren’t the center of the universe or entitled to everything we want.  We are beloved children of God, and we do need what we need, and if we trust in God, he will provide it.  But we can’t claim more than we need in ways that interfere with the needs of the billion others who are also God’s children.  We may feel a pang of guilt when we know that others suffered because we refused to share our excess or that others suffered because we despoiled the environment rather than care for it.  Keeping in mind that many of those who suffer when we are greedy or thoughtless will be in heaven with us, and that we will meet them someday, might keep us more mindful of how much we are or are not entitled to now.

Paul continues, with all gentleness.  If everyone we meet is hopefully destined for eternity with us, than we should be careful with them.  People aren’t disposable, to be replaced when we wear them out.  Some level of the scars from this life stay with us, as shown by Jesus offering his hands and side to his disciples when he came back from the dead.  Certainly Jesus heals us as he prepares us for eternity, but our job is really not to give Jesus more healing work of that to do.  Instead, we should be thinking of how much we can manage to protect and care for one another as if they were really little children of God.  When we deal with little children, we do our best to absorb any blows we see coming their way, putting our hands in place, just in case, as they walk by the coffee table or come too close to the stove.  When we hold them, we are careful not to shake or jostle or scratch them.  This attitude is the same one we should have for our brothers and sisters in Christ, not thinking of what we need from them, but thinking about how we can use our own strengths and gifts to make their lives easier and better.  This attitude starts, of course, with those who are close to us, whom we often have the hardest time being gentle with, and it extends to people that are basically strangers to us, whom we often do care enough to be gentle with.

Then Paul says with patience.  Patience is hard for us.  One of the ways to think about patience in this context is to recognize that God is in the midst of preparing those around us for eternal life, and that we should act as if we expect God’s work to be successful.  We just might be able to give a little more grace to those around us if we think about them as someone that God the great potter is shaping into a more incredible and wondrous vessel of his glory because, in fact, God is doing just that.  Often we lose patience with people either because we feel like they are stuck where they are and we are just done dealing with them, or because we feel like we are responsible to change them and try to push them into whatever better behavior we believe they need to have.  But no one, including you and I, thanks be to God, is going to be just like we are for eternity.  God has some work to do with each of us, and, to my knowledge, he hasn’t delegated to any of us the responsibility to fix everyone else.  When see that God is in the midst of healing and redeeming people, all we need to do is patiently love them. And God will help us do that.

Paul continues bear with one another in love.  To live into this is almost the flip side of patience.  Patience comes as we recognize God at work in other people.  Being able to bear with one another in love comes as we trust God is at work in us, giving us strength and whatever else we need.  Without God, we can’t bear with one another in love, because too often love involves real sacrifices.  Patience with others means that we might have to deal with people’s issues beyond the tolerance of our own small-heartedness.  Gentleness means that we might need to take some knocks for somebody else when we feel beat up ourselves.  Humility means we may have to sacrifice some things that are important to us because others need them more.  We can’t do any of that unless we know that God will give us the strength, the energy, the focus, the material and emotional and spiritual resources, and anything else we need.  But with the confidence that God is working through us and preparing us for eternal life and that every sacrifice we make now will be an occasion of great joy and celebration with the people we have made them for in heaven—with that confidence we can live lead a life worth of the calling to which we have been called.

Paul ends this sentence saying, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  We could parse out these rather weighty sounding theological ideas, and I’d be happy to talk with anyone about them.  But the point here is the same as the rest of the qualities we have been talking about.  We are all destined to spend eternity in heaven with most of the people we will encounter on a daily basis.  Every interaction we have with people now should be undertaken with a view toward building up our never-ending relationships with them.  When we approach people with that mindset, we will build up the body of Christ around us, prepare ourselves and others for life in the New Jerusalem, and lead lives worth of the calling to which we have been called in Jesus Christ our Lord.