Ordinary 19B – sermon based upon Psalm 130 & Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Good morning. It’s
wonderful to be with you this today and I’ll be with you next week as
well. So, I hope to catch up on some of
the happenings in your lives and chat during coffee hour and such. Regardless, I want you to know that you’ve
remained in my heart and prayers.
Well, I’m sure you won’t find this surprising but I’m
enthralled by today’s scripture passages.
They have so much to offer. Both
of them tell us so much about what a lived faith looks like… full of faults and
yet hopeful.
In fact, on Monday when I submitted my part of the
worship planning, including the sermon title, what stuck out to me was this
notion of being so deeply flawed yet so full of faith and hope in God’s love,
grace, and forgiveness. From that I
submitted the title in your bulletin of “Christian and Human.” But if I was
titling what this sermon has evolved into as I completed it, I might have
titled it, “A Guide to Christian Dialog.”
In this passage we get a
glimpse into the early church and how they related. All the Pastoral letters in the New Testament
are quite wonderful in that way. They
show us a way of talking with and relating to people that is concerned
primarily with the relationship between people instead of drawing lines between
them.
In just the first few lines of this passage, we find out
that lots of people’s flaws and sins are out there in the open for all to
see. So much so that the writer of the
letter knows there to be thievery, dishonesty, resentfulness, and bitter
backbiting in that church. You see, the
early church was made up as much or more so by people living on the edges of
society like criminals as it was by people engaged in more respectable forms of
theft like tax collectors. And
resentfulness… well, there isn’t a group or person on this planet that hasn’t
been plagued by that one.
So this young church in Ephesus needed guidance on how to
live and the writer of this letter, being a good pastor, was offering them such
help. But we can learn a lot more from
this than who was in the early church and how they were helped. In this day and time, we don’t need someone
to tell us that stealing is wrong. We
know. And we don’t need to be reminded
that anger chips away at our relationships if we don’t handle it appropriately
because we’ve lived it for too long already.
And most of us know that bitterness destroys us, even if we have a hard
time recognizing when we’re feeling or being that way.
So rather than a guided to do’s and don’ts, the lesson
most of us need from this passage is a guide to being Christian together… to
walk, and talk, and live together. Whether
it’s us that struggles with how to talk and deal with one another or if we’re
on the receiving end other’s struggles, the fact remains that we all need help
supporting our relationships with Christian sisters and brothers.
Now before you say to me, “But Pastor Lavender, the
people I really struggle talking to are people of other faiths or no faith at
all…” let me say that what this passage teaches is good for all
relationships. If you’d like to take the
lessons out in the world, go right ahead. I’m sure Jesus would approve. But because the writer of this letter focused
on the Christian community I am too. And
it’s good to start close to home because if we as a church can’t figure out how
to love and live with one another, then we have no witness for the world.
So let’s look at this passage. We’re still the same resentful, dishonest
people today as humanity was then. But
most people in the church today hide it better which makes us act even more
indignant when one of our members gets caught for cheating on taxes, reneging
on a promise, or treating another badly.
In some ways, we’ve gotten so good at hiding our faults that our biggest
fear is being found out. Deep on the
inside, we think to ourselves, “if they really knew how much I struggle to be
honest or faithful or generous, they wouldn’t like me very much.”
So, the first big lesson this scripture reminds us of is that
we are all deeply flawed. Not a one of
us isn’t constantly struggling with how to be more loving, generous, honest,
nurturing, forgiving, and grace-filled.
We are all sinners and I don’t think I need to beat that one into the
ground too much because I suspect that most of us beat ourselves over the head
enough already. But what does deserve a
reminder is that forgiveness is a gift from God and also a gift we should extend
to ourselves and others. I suspect that
we can start from a place of remembering how much we fear the judgment of
others and struggle, then maybe our dealings with one another can be a bit more
gentle and loving as well.
This brings me to the second lesson from this
passage. The writer is definitely naming
right and wrong ways of being but he isn’t wagging his finger in any one
person’s face. His primary concern is
with cultivating a relationship and being connected with other members of the
body of Christ. He knows judgment
belongs to God. His job is to love first
and the guidance, nurture, and teachings will fall into place later. Which is our second takeaway: We are to love
each other first and foremost. If
something like an ideal or judgment stands in the way of loving someone else,
it isn’t their sin that’s the problem.
And when others see us only as a circumstance in our lives or a problem
we’re facing rather than as a beloved child of God, the problem isn’t with our
situation.
This pastor knows as it says in verse 29 that when judgmental or harsh talk comes out of our
mouths, relationships are destroyed. He
reminds us to say “only what is useful for building up… so that [our] words may
give grace to those who hear.” Even
his own way of talking to them puts their wellbeing and relationship first
above ideals and judgment. And in later verses
he reminds us to “Put
away… all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander… and be kind
to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has
forgiven [us].”
When I was researching this sermon I read a commentary by
Rev. Mary Ricketts that struck me in some pretty powerful ways. She wrote, “We might think this is obvious
since we believe that God is present in and a part of all of our relationships,
but it is amazing how often we speak as though God is nowhere near us… I find
it odd how often faith communities want to argue about ‘what the Bible says,’
while ignoring these types of texts that encourage straight talk, forgiveness
and extravagant love. Perhaps we should care more about the words we said and
how we said them than whether we agreed with one another.”
And if you think about that, isn’t it the truth? How many of us have been sucked in by all the
arguing and dialog around Chick-Fil-A lately?
I venture to guess most of us have at least had 1 conversation in the
past 3 weeks about it. But in case you
missed it, here’s the rundown:
Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy said with the same consistency that the
company has always held that they honor and uphold the “biblical definition of
the family unit.” We can discuss at
another time what might be right or wrong or nuanced or complicated with that
statement but what is more noteworthy is the vile social eruption this has
created. Of even greater note is the
fact that some of the most hateful statements have been said by Christians on
various sides of this issue.
This is exactly what the pastor writing this letter was
talking about. What we say and how we
say it sometimes hurts more than what we believe. And we can’t even get to the point of talking
about what we believe when we’re too busy hurling stones or ducking from ones
being hurled at us.
If you’ve been one of the handful of people that have
actually had meaningful dialog as a result of this Chick-Fil-A brouhaha, I’m
glad. But I’ve been busy dodging the
boulders being hurled as people I love say mean things about other people I
love… Christian sisters and brothers putting belief about one particular issue
ahead of loving each other first. It’s
been hard.
Look, y’all know me and know that I spend most of my time
wondering how to get it right and if we got it right. I rarely stand firmly and say that I know
fully the will of God because God is just so much more than I can fully
comprehend. But this is one of those
times that I will take such a stand. I
know with absolute certainty that the minute I let the ideas in my head stand
in the way of loving you as a person is the minute I’m on the wrong side of
God’s will.
And lest you think I’m judging harshly the folks who have
been passionately debating this issue and even the ones who’ve hurled stones,
I’m not. I understand the conviction,
earnest faith, and fears that underlie these types of debates gone wild. In fact, it’s from a position of compassion
for just how hard it is to be “imitators
of God” like the scripture says that I bring it up. And I only bring it up here with you because
I know you and you know me so we have the relationship to talk about this
without fearing the judgment of one another.
I would never mention such a controversy if I were preaching in a church
unknown to me for fear of being misheard.
Which brings me to the
final lesson for us to take from this passage.
This entire pastoral letter to the church in Ephesus would never have
been written if people weren’t hungry to continue to grow in faith. And that’s where we still are today. No matter how we struggle with sin… no matter
which people we struggle to love… no matter where we are in our faith journey
as individuals or as a community, as long as we continue to be open to God’s
outpouring of love, we will grow in faith.
Sisters and brothers, this
is our calling: love God, love one another, love ourselves. Gracious, extravagant, forgiving, nurturing,
abundant love… if that’s what we’re seeking or if that’s our starting place
with one another and God, then we can’t go wrong. Amen.