Ephesians 4:25-5:2
James R. Gorman
August 13, 2000
I confess that I have only recently fallen in love with Paul's letter to the Ephesians. I have found it in recent years to be a letter of extraordinary power and insight. But it was not always thus.
In fact, if I'm honest, I'm not sure that I have been a careful reader of the letters of Paul in general. Maybe I Corinthians, those early chapters where he berates the Corinthians for their short-comings and I Corinthians 11, where the words of institution for the Lord's supper are recorded and 13, that great love chapter and 15, the chapter about the dead being raised incorruptible. And then there's Romans 8, "Nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Beyond that, the letters of Paul I have found to be dry and difficult to read.
But I have fallen in love with Ephesians in these latter years of my life. There are so many verses in this little letter that ought to be committed to memory. Indeed, one of the great clarion calls of the Reformation comes from the 2nd chapter, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God-not the result of words, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life." I think that here we have two verses that we ought to commit to memory even before we understand what they mean.
And then in that same chapter, "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God,..." This is the verse we use every time we bring new members into our fold. You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but now you belong to us in Christ Jesus.
Paul makes clear that he is writing from prison in the 4th chapter by saying, "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called 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." That phrase alone is worthy of memorization: "The unity of the spirit in the bond of peace."
The letter ends with a description of the whole armor of God: the belt of truth around your waist; the breastplate of righteousness; for your shoes put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the Gospel of peace; the shield of faith with which you will be able to absorb all the arrows of the evil one and the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
In the middle of the letter there are things that don't impress me much, I confess. Which is another way of saying there are things with which I don't agree. "Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord." It may well be that this phrase is misunderstood, but I can't see how it can't be otherwise understood. But then Paul writes, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." Maybe that puts the subordination of wives in some context of divine love and I should read that again more carefully. I don't know. But right now, it is not one of my favorite passages and neither will I plan to commit it to memory.
But here in this morning's lesson is just wonderfully insightful and deeply helpful wisdom.
Speak the truth to your neighbor, for we are members of one another. And we remember, don't we, what Christ means by neighbor? When the pharisees ask him "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus tells the odd Parable of the Good Samaritan; the point being, a person from another country of despised people is your neighbor.
Be angry, but do not sin. It is right and good that we be angry about important things. Ira virtue, Thomas Aquinas called it; a virtuous anger. But don't let that righteous anger slip into self-righteousness.
Do not let the sun go down on your anger. I've always heard the advice that good friends and married couples should not go to bed angry. The idea comes from this passage and makes sense to me, even if I have not always been the perfect practitioner of the concept. Don't let anger fester like an untreated wound.
Do not make room for the devil. In some ways this one makes its own point. The devil makes work for idle hands. If there is extra time in your life, do not fill it with things that might trick you into believing that there are alternatives to believing who is God.
Do not be a thief, but work honestly so that you have money to share with the needy. I love the idea in this, that the point of honest work is not just to have a nest egg to put away for a rainy day, house, two cars and a paid-for college education for your kids, but rather to have enough set aside to share with those who are less fortunate than you.
Let no evil talk come out of your mouth, but only what is useful for the building up of the body. Again, it is right to be angry and say what you mean, even to be forthright, but only share what is necessary for the building up of the community to which you belong. Examine what you are about to say to see whether it builds up or tears down the community.
Do not embarrass the Holy Spirit, which is working so hard on your behalf. Here is the wonderful idea that God is at work in the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit might well be disappointed with the results of our efforts if they are not directed to the right ends. It is possible to be carried away by winds that are not of the Spirit of God.
Put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander and malice--a great list! Again, it is right to be angry about important things and to focus that anger in some way. But set it all aside in the interest of the love that draws us toward one another and makes of us a human community shaped in the form of the cross of Jesus.
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted and forgiving. May your heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.
And then the wonderful last line, "Be imitators of God and live in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."
I do love the idea that doing good things in Christ's name would be a fragrant offering to God. That somehow the goodness of God has a fragrance about it. I remember as a kid smelling the wine after the lids were taken off of the stacks of wine glasses as communion was prepared. The whole room is filled with the very fragrance of God so that we might be able to go out from that place to do what is right and good. And that such work might bring a good and decent fragrance to our world.
Matt Mantsch is working in the north woods of Wisconsin on the waterfront of a church camp. He could have stayed at home and earned much more than he earned there. But he has done a good thing in helping families rediscover themselves in the gentle love of God. And he will have contributed to the sweet fragrance of the north woods in so doing.
The youth of our church are returning tomorrow to Mitchell field. They have been in Florida working at the Duvall Home for the Developmentally Disabled. The word we have received is that these kids have received infinitely more from the disabled than they could have ever thought to have brought to that place. In fact, in the communion with the needy, they created a fragrance-a sweet smell of love-that they could not have imagined possible. I can't wait to meet them at the airport. I have the sense that as they emerge from the gateway, they will have about them the sweet fragrance of God's holy work.
Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus is one of those great treasures of the church, for in it are the lessons that are learned and relearned again and again over the years, and we are ever grateful for those among us who strive to do what is right and good and discover in the doing the sweet fragrance of God's redeeming love.
There is so much for us to learn and re-learn about what it means to be the Church. But, in my old age, it strikes me that Ephesians is a great place to begin.