Rules for New Life
We are blessed with many terrific volunteers at BBC and I want to thank all of you who helped with Vacation Bible School this past week. Many of you who volunteer at our church also help other worthy organizations here on the Cape and I want to offer my congratulations to our webmaster Michael Kemp who recently received the prestigious Brewster Ladies Library Sarah Augusta Mayo Award for outstanding contributions to the Library. Well Done, Michael.
August 12, 2012
Ephesians 4:25-5:2, Rules for New Life
Doug Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
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Yesterday was also a big day in Brewster with the Annual Brew Run that numerous BBC folks ran in. I enjoyed seeing a lot of people as I was parking cars in the church parking lot before the race. After the race began, I walked around the meditation garden which is looking quite lovely; you should take a little walk back there to see what our volunteers have done in hundreds of hours of work over a couple years now. It is still in progress, and you can see what has been planted, put in, built, and constructed and on the south side you can see what it looked like before: a disorganized assortment of brambles, bushes, and trees. In between is an area of dirt which is neither garden nor assortment of whatever had grown up, but ground that has been cleared and it’s just dirt. Whether it becomes part of the garden or goes back to whatever seeds land in it depends on whether human beings work and cultivate the ground or leave it alone; whether we stop certain things from growing and encourage other plants to do so. Having a garden means being intentional about what we want to have and what we don’t want to have.
I tell you all that about the garden because in today’s passage from Ephesians Paul writes about being intentional and choosing what we want to have, not in a garden, but in our character. He writes about putting away and giving up some things and not doing them anymore and taking up other things. Listen to Ephesians 4:25-5:2,
“So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. 26 Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not make room for the devil. 28 Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. 29 Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. 31 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, 32 and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. 5 1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2 and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Paul writes about being intentional and choosing what we want to have in our character. He writes about putting away and giving up some things and not doing them anymore and taking up other things. This immediately suggests the good news and the challenge that our character can be changed. We are not fated to “always” act or speak certain ways. We can become more Christ-like, more like God if we train to be. We are to be “imitators of God.” As Christians we believe people can change, that we can change, but that requires both God’s gracious help and considerable effort on our part. God is not going to wave a magic wand over you and me three times and touch you on the head and say, “Now you are a spiritually mature Christian. Go forth and prosper.” If you’ve ever belonged to a gym or taken a fitness class of some kind, you know that it can be awkward the very first time you go because you don’t know the routine, you don’t know the moves or positions so you’re not always sure what to do. You try to imitate what the instructor is doing at the front of the room. At the same time, your body likely does not have the strength, endurance, or flexibility to do what the instructor is doing or telling you to do for as long as they are saying to do it. Often our arms, legs or core start singing the words to Precious Lord, “I am tired, I am weak, I am worn…” And we’re on the mat. We can know what we’re supposed to do, but we don’t have the strength to do it. The same thing is true when it comes to living the Christian life – we can know what we’re supposed to do but we don’t have the strength, we haven’t cultivated the discipline and done the training to do it or worse yet, we aren’t even motivated to do so. What Paul is mostly talking about here are the negative patterns of speech and behavior we’re to put off or get rid of and the positive ones that are to mark our relationships and speech.
If you have your own Bible or a pew Bible, take a look and notice what Paul says we must “put away,” stop doing, “give up,” etc. in Ephesians 4:25-5:2.
Put away falsehood and Speak the truth. This is important because without the truth there can be no trust between people. If we can’t trust what someone is saying is true, it calls into question everything they are saying. People will speak falsely in a host of ways from simply lying, to intentionally deceiving in order to gain something, or to avoid responsibility or accountability or to make themselves look better. Simply committing ourselves to being honest and truthful is an important step in building trust and dependability.
Sinning because we’re angry and holding onto anger. Deal with anger and its causes promptly and in a restrained manner. How we deal with anger is so important because anger makes room for the devil to come in and wreak havoc and destruction. Sadly we see this every week when people get angry and commit acts of violence that almost always hurt or even kill others. Paul is not suggesting we will never get angry; although as we mature spiritually what makes us angry usually changes, it is how we express anger that is important. For example, we know that Jesus was upset when he overturned the tables of the moneychangers or when he encountered almost any form of self-righteous arrogance. And Paul himself was furious with the church in Galatia as it fell back into seeing the law as a way to please God (Galatians 3:1-3). God may be slow to anger but this doesn’t mean God is never angry. God gets upset when people turn to idolatry. Love is always outraged at betrayal. And yet we must be careful. Paul warns the Ephesians not to “let the sun go down on your anger” (4:26). This was my grandmother’s advice when Jill and I got married. Keep short emotional accounts. Take care of things as they arise, don’t let them linger or fester. Paul recognizes that anger can quickly become obsessive. Instead of merely being upset over a thoughtless word or deed and seeking to forgive, people have a tendency to make it “personal” in a hurry. We nurse a grudge and cook up schemes for revenge. Once we have slipped into this realm we have opened the door for the devil (4:27). The well-being of the community then becomes secondary and our main purpose is simply to get even. Paul reminds us of the need to let forgiveness have the last word (4:32).
Thieves – give up stealing and take up honest work – so you have something to share with the needy. I hope most of us would say stealing is wrong, whether it is something as small as taking something from a store without paying for it all the way up to individuals who are responsible for stealing millions and millions through fraud or other schemes. I think we might also agree that the more people one’s stealing impacts, the worse it is, for example, Bernie Madoff’s crime was far worse than someone stealing a Twinkie from a Cumberland Farms. What is interesting to me is Paul says thieves should give up stealing so they have something to share with the needy. The positive power of being able to give and help others who are in need is so strong that Paul doesn’t want people to miss out on it.
No evil talk – Only what is useful for building up; our words should give grace to others. What do I have to say about this which is perhaps the hardest challenge and the one most people flunk within the shortest amount of time every day. I challenge everyone to strive to do this more intentionally. You know those pedometers you can wear that tell you how many steps you take in a day? I wish someone could invent one for our mouths so that at the end of the day it would register how much of what we said was evil or not helpful or godly, and how much of our speech was graceful and built up others. Wouldn’t that be helpful in measuring how we were doing?
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit that has marked us for the day of redemption.
What’s meant by this unusual phrase? Paul says in Ephesians that the Spirit has “sealed” us in the promises of Christ (1:13, 4:30), given us access to the Father (2:18), and provided us with the inner power to sustain the life of faith (3:16-17). This is an impressive list of gifts. Perhaps Paul’s use of the word “grieve” can be understood in the context of the human tendency to slip into behavior that undermines our community in Christ (4:31). For example, parents have a hard time conceiving of a situation where they would stop loving their children. We can all cite examples of mothers and fathers who have gone to extraordinary lengths to help a prodigal son or daughter. These parents have indeed been “grieved” or disappointed by the actions of their loved ones — but they rarely break off the relationship completely. Even in the direst cases there is often still a flicker of hope for reconciliation and restoration and a door is left open even just a little bit. So it is with God.
God’s deep and unfathomable commitment to God’s people should not be questioned. The inheritance is assured (1:11). Seen in this light, Paul’s warning not to grieve the Spirit is an acknowledgement of our ability to deeply disappoint God by our “bitterness”, “slander” and “malice” (4:31). Our selfishness not only destroys community; it also dishonors the Father who has gone to such great lengths to adopt us as children (1:5-8). Put away all bitterness, wrath, anger (there’s that word again) wrangling, slander, and malice. That is a lot of stuff to put away, that represents a lot of weeding for some people. We put those away; pull them up by the roots to make room for being “kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”
Today’s scripture concludes with the ultimate exhortation: be imitators of God (5:1)! “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2 and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Here is where there is a true break with the typical virtue and vice lists of the ancient world. A standard has now been set that transcends all human morality. This might be a good opportunity to review the meaning of agape love as forms of this Greek word appear three times in 5:1-2. Agape is not the philial love of brothers or sisters, it is not the eros love of passionate romantic lovers, agape is the self-giving, self-sacrificing love that marked the love of Christ and is to distinguish Christ’s followers. Our culture’s interpretation of love might be said to be at war with the biblical understanding of agape. Commercials and conventional usage suggest that love is largely a romantic feeling produced by the right combination of clothes, physical conditioning, teeth whitening and make-up. In other words, love is dependent upon being lovable.
This is the exact opposite of agape love which reaches out and extends itself to the most unlovable. As Martin Luther once said, it is characteristic of God’s love that it does not find its object but it creates it. The point may seem subtle but Luther is saying we cannot make ourselves worthy of God, though we often try to do this. Rather, our relationship to God is based on nothing other than God’s decision to love us in Christ. Or as Paul stresses, agape is rooted in Christ’s act of giving himself for us (5:2).
I close with an illustration about being imitators of God and living in love as Christ loved us. Josh Levs of CNN reported a story about Christian college student Ashley Carter. “When 20-year-old Ashley Carter heard about a mosque burned to the ground in her town this past week, she was shocked. “I was very saddened,” she told CNN on Wednesday. “I thought it was very evil.” So Carter, a student at Ozark Christian College in Joplin, Missouri, texted a friend, suggesting they organize an event “promoting acts of love.” But quickly, the idea changed: They would organize a “rally of people coming together, from all walks of life, all religions, a really diverse group of people trying to promote this radical love.”
She called Kimberly Kester, spokeswoman for the Islamic Society of Joplin, whose worship house serving about 50 families in the southwest Missouri city burned down Monday. Investigators have not determined the cause, but the mosque has been attacked in the past most recently on the Fourth of July. Kester supported the idea. So Carter and some of her friends created the plan for the rally and announced it on a Facebook page. The next day, Tuesday, word began to spread. By Wednesday morning, more than 400 people had posted that they would attend the event, scheduled for Saturday, August 25. Carter said she was inspired by “my love for Jesus. And I know that Jesus calls us to love people. When there’s an act of hate, you have a choice to make it something beautiful. So that’s what this is all about: making things beautiful from things that aren’t.”
Paul highlights the effects of this love as well. Since we have inherited the status of “beloved children” (5:1). Our task is to take this love to our neighbors or “live in love” (5:2) as Paul says. Perfect imitation of this love is not possible. God’s word of forgiveness will always be relevant (4:32). But the love of Christ dwells in our hearts as well (3:17). And that makes a big difference as we make our way into the world.
PS I write most of my sermons sitting at our dining room table. One day this week while I was writing with my Bible open on the table a very, very small fly, smaller than a fruit fly landed on the page of the book and began walking around. I was typing when it landed and the movement on the page caught my attention. I looked and observed the tiny fly which ended up walking all over the page for several minutes, pausing over the “e” in “see,” even thoroughly walking over the notes at the bottom of the page. Now the scientists in the room will say it smelled something or was looking for something. I’m not a scientist, I’m a preacher so I was trying to figure out what God was trying to teach me through this diligent and thorough little fly and two things came to mind. First, that this fly spent more time on a page of the Bible than millions of Christians did this week. Sadly though, I don’t think the fly understood any of it. Which led to my second thought, we’re not much better than a fly if we just look at and walk over words on a page or even listen to the words of a sermon if we don’t diligently seek to live out those words in our life. The whole time I have been typing these words the fly has been walking around the page and it is still there. May we linger over God’s word and seek to live it out.