When was the last time you wrote a letter? I can’t
remember the last time I picked up pen and paper and sat down to write. We’ve all
gotten so used to the immediacy of communication that is available to us via
email and texting and we rarely rely on the convention of actually putting
something in the mail. Luckily for us,
the early Christian church did not have the options that we have.
Paul and other church leaders left behind evidence of the struggles,
challenges and joys of the early church in the Epistles or the letters that
follow the book of Acts in the New Testament.
Our passage this morning is from the book of Ephesians, which was a
letter that most scholars attribute to the Apostle Paul. Paul spent
more time in Ephesus than anywhere else in his ministry, so he was comfortable
addressing this particular community.
And while other letters of Paul address specific issues in cities,
Ephesians is more general and provides us with a good summary of Paul’s
basic understanding of Christian thought and Christian living.
If you were here last Sunday, you heard Don’s
message about the beginning of fourth chapter of Ephesians. He shared with us that we are called to be
united as one in the Body of Christ. We
are also called to share our God-given gifts, we he called “pebbles"
with that Body. This is a new life that
Christians are called to and Paul implores the early church to put aside their
old lives, to give up their old habits and to live a life that follows the
example of Christ.
Let’s think back to Exodus, the Old Testament
journey of God’s chosen people to a new life. Moses led a group of ex-slaves out of Egypt
to find their Promised Land. This group
was excited, but also unruly, disorganized, paranoid and untrusting. God’s wisdom
was to provide this group with a set of guidelines for living together in a new
community. Moses went up a mountain to
meet with God, and came back down with stone tablets full of do’s
and don’ts, which we call the Ten Commandments. Don’t covet
your neighbors stuff, Do worship one God and on and on. The fourth chapter of Ephesians contains
instructions similar to those stone tablets that God sent down the mountain … guidelines
for a new community and instructions on how to live and treat one another. We all benefit from some instructions and
ground rules when starting a new job, or move to a new city. Instructions are helpful in finding your
way.
In Ephesians, Paul gives us some instructions. This morning I'm going to concentrate on one
of the many instructions ... instructions about our friend “ANGER”. I call it our friend because sometimes it
feels good to be angry! Venting anger
can be constructive and cleansing. And
Anger is often entertaining! In the
Hanzelin household, when my girls where teenagers it was soon discovered that a
Grace vs. Rick argument rapidly escalated to loud yelling at each other. Raised voices, veins popping out at the
temple, voice getting scratchy kind of yelling.
One on level, it was horrible …
but on another level it was hysterical to Emma
& me. We would hide out in the next
room giggling like crazy because of the ridiculousness of their argument and
their behavior. Seriously? They are losing it over the fact that someone
left a backpack on the floor? Watching
other people be angry can be really funny …
Lewis Black, the comedian who serves as the
voice of Anger in the movie “Inside Out” has made
his living on being angry at things.
Many of us grew up in households where it was not ok to be angry. No yelling, or slamming doors or disagreeing … it was
not tolerated. Others of us try to act
like “good Christians”
who don’t get
angry ... we are always so “nice”. But
in truth, we all get angry, even nice people.
When we attempt to not show our anger, our anger goes underground, where
it festers and creates more serious problems.
Anger is a good and appropriate feeling when it is in reaction to a
great injustice or oppression. Who here
was not angry upon hearing of the shooting last month of members of a Bible
study in Charleston? Weren’t
you furious when you saw pictures of so-called Christians picketing with signs
that read “God hates Fags”
at the funerals of fallen service men and
women? Being angry is not only part of
the human emotional experience, expressing anger can help people energized and inspired to work towards
great change.
Paul also mentions that
we need to speak the truth and sometimes expressing our anger is part of
speaking the truth. Remember the story
of Jesus and the moneychangers? Jesus
was angry at the self-righteous arrogance of those who made a profit in front
of the temple and he flipped their tables.
Jesus flipped those tables to show his anger, to make a statement, to
call for a change.
Thank you Paul for realizing that anger has its place in our human
experience! We are all free to go ahead
and be ANGRY. Except … we aren’t
free to act as we wish with that anger. Paul
writes,“Be angry without
sinning. Don’t let the sun set on your anger. Don’t
provide an opportunity for the devil.” Paul is telling us that we must be very careful what we do with our
anger. He recognizes that anger can
quickly become obsessive, and we have a tendency to make it personal in a
hurry. We keep our grudge, we scheme our
revenge. Anger unchecked causes us to
get worked up and to say and do things we don’t
really mean. Churches have split because
of anger. Wars have been started from
anger. Relationships have been destroyed
by angry people.
Part of the rich message of the Pixar movie “Inside Out”
is that we all have a variety of feelings, and
they all have an appropriate place in our human experience. “Anger”
here is harmless when the young character, Riley
spits out the broccoli that her dad is trying to feed her while she sits in her
high chair. Anger advises teenage
Riley's parents that things are not OK with their daughter. We tell our children, “Feelings are not good
or bad, it’s what you do with those feelings that is
important.” It is ok that you are mad at your sister for losing your cell
phone. It’s
not ok if you punch her in the face because of it. It is OK that you disagree with our method
of serving communion, but we are not OK if you leave the church because of
that. Letting our feelings rule our
actions in negative ways injures the Body of Christ.
So Paul instructs us to tell the truth, and to be angry without
destroying … check and check.
With a little effort and accountability we can handle that. And now here comes the kicker for me … “Don’t let
any foul words come out of your mouth.” Paul, I can handle the other two but don’t take
away from me the ability to throw down a good curse word now and then. People who know me well are aware that I
frequently enjoy the use of a good s-bomb …
well and maybe a few other bombs beside
that. I’m
careful when and how I use them, but I’m still
not proud or happy that they fly so easily out of my mouth. While they do allow me to dissipate my anger
and I never direct those words at others, my foul words do absolutely nothing
to build up the community. Paul, the
prolific author of letters to the early church is well aware that words are
very powerful. So powerful in fact,
that the remainder of his list of
"don'ts" includes
bitterness, losing temper, anger, shouting and slander … all
vices that are expressed in destructive speech. And I am quite sure that my use
of those foul words are also a part of destructive speech.
We are simple sometimes and we need the list of what we shouldn’t
do. So we quit doing those things and
then what? What do we do instead? Verse 32 says, “Be kind,
compassionate and forgiving to each other,” And then it goes on to say, “IMITATE GOD”. OK,
Paul … how
exactly do we imitate our invisible, powerful, creator who rules heaven and
earth and everything in between.
We all understand that this is difficult, if not impossible … we are
humans, we sin, we are hard wired to focus on ourselves. Our sin is a result of our frail condition as humans. We can’t
be without sin, so we can’t be
like God. But let’s
remember, Paul’s letters are all about Christians doing things
differently than before, living a new life.
Additionally, imitating means we work hard to be as close to
representing another as we possibly can.
The instruction here is that we imitate, not that we become.
This is the central message of Ephesians, IMITATE GOD. Chapter five begins, “Therefore, imitate
God like dearly LOVED children. Live
your life with LOVE, following the example of Christ, who LOVED us and gave
himself for us.” Imitating God is ultimately about being LOVE. We are the beloved children of God, Christ
loved us enough to die for us, and God loves us so much that we are filled by
God’s spirit.
The checklist we’ve gone
through is not why God loves us. Being
kind, compassionate and forgiving does not cause God to love us. God loves us because God loves us. It's that "grace" thing we talk about.
The love that is mentioned in the closing verses three times is that AGAPE kind
of love, not the love of the world. Not
the love that we have for a great piece of pizza or our favorite TV show, but
that deep down, unconditional, unselfish love that transcends our human
nature. That crazy love that God has for
us despite our foul words, unkind actions and failures to speak
truthfully. Imagine living a life
where we love that deeply. If we imitate
God and base everything in that deep and abiding love, aren’t
we less likely to even need that checklist?
And what if our community was full of individuals whose goals aligned to
love like God loved? This is the new life we are called to. This is the community we are called to. To imitate our God who loves. Maybe instead of calling ourselves
Christians, we should say we are God imitators.
May we work to put aside our old ways and be led into the new life
that God has called us to …
following the example give to us by Jesus and
empowered by the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The trinity is all over us on this one.
So we have God, Jesus and the Spirit on our side … Plus we have each
other in our community. This is a new
life.
