Winter Walk--An Entirely New Way of Living 1-29-12

Ephesians 4: 23-32
But that's no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It's rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.
What this adds up to, then, is this: no more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ's body we're all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself. Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don't use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don't stay angry. Don't go to bed angry. Don't give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life.
Did you use to make ends meet by stealing? Well, no more! Get an honest job so that you can help others who can't work. Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift. Don't grieve God. Don't break God’s heart. The Holy Spirit, moving and breathing in you, is the most intimate part of your life, making you fit for God. Don't take such a gift for granted.
Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.
The Gospel Lesson: Luke 6: 35-38
"I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You'll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Creator lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we're at our worst. Our God is kind; you be kind. "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don't condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you'll find life a lot easier. Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Winter Walk—An Entirely New Way of Life 1-29-12
Father, Mother God, we come to this stop-over in our journeys from so many different places. We seek wisdom and guidance from You, our very source of life. Grant that the words I speak and the meditations of all our hearts be full of Your grace and peace. Amen

I believe that we as a human race are incredibly attracted to the concept of a new life. How many of you have at least one Self-Help book sitting on your shelves, your Nook, or your Kindle that promises a new way of at least some aspect of living? Now how many of you have read those books? And, the hands go down…I will admit it, I was, at one point in my life almost addicted to self-help books. I wasn’t happy, and I really believed that somewhere in one of those books would be the key to my starting a new life. If you were in a room of church leaders the question would sound like this—“how many of you have books on making your congregations new and vibrant?” And the rate of actual readership would probably be much the same. We want ‘new’—new houses, new cars, new churches, and new ways of thinking…and, in the end; we find it in a very old place, in the beginningless and endless God, creator of all.
Our scriptures today lead us to our spiritual walk in community—to this and every community where we gather in God’s name. And we hear first what Paul had to say to the Christians at Ephesus in a letter that is different from his others. Most of the time, Paul would get wind of some crisis or another, and, as the Great Pastor of the early church, he would send off a letter addressing that crisis, and leading the Christians back to the center of their faith—Christ. Strangely enough, there was no crisis at Ephesus and so this letter is more like a pastoral letter that reads a little like “All you ever wanted to know about being a Christian, but were afraid to ask”. In an outline of this letter, our passage today falls in the second half, the more practical half and has to do with all kinds of ways to fulfill God’s purpose in the Church. Chapter 4 begins with Paul’s request of them, “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” In the verses right before our passage, Paul engages in a not very generous description of the lives of non-believers. And, then, “But that’s no life for you. You learned Christ! He urges us to get rid of our old ways of thinking, “and then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces the [divine character] in you.”
Because Paul is writing to a church, he is focused on behavior in the community which leads to a new way of living together. He asks us to look at the behaviors that generate this new way of living. First, ‘speak truth’. I tell you, I just don’t know why it seems so difficult for us as Christians to speak the truth—the verb that Paul uses means speak the truth continually. And, he gives us a reason why—because we are all members of one body-Christ’s body. When we gossip and lie either about ourselves or each other, we damage the whole community. Paul calls us to the essential truth, the indwelling truth of the triune God; but he also calls us to be trustworthy—as trustworthy as God. This trustworthiness requires that we speak truth to our neighbor, particularly to those who are a part of God’s community. Additionally, and I am going to be so bold as to suggest, that when we lie to each other or about each other, we damage not only those who are a part of this body with us, we damage our very selves as a part of this same body of Christ.
Second, ‘be angry’. This is no regular anger; this is divine anger—anger at injustice. Again, the form of the verb that is used means that we are to be continually angry, angry at sin and at those who greedily take from those who need the most. We are to be angry when people lie about the people of God, all the people of God. We are to be angry when one member has the arrogance to say, I belong to the people of God, but you don’t. We are to be continually angry, when one expression of the body of Christ says to another expression of the body of Christ—you cannot be gay, or transgender, or poor, or black, or any other characteristic that is used to set people apart.
We are, however, in the same phrase, told to ‘sin not’. We are to know the difference between righteous anger and walking around ticked off at someone or someones. We are to control our anger, and in every case when anger exists among two or more of us, we are to resolve it immediately. Anger must cease at sunset. Anger, held on to, even for a night, breeds a dangerous tendency to engage in sinful behavior and challenges us to speak what we know to be the truth. I don’t know about you, but the longer I hold on to something, the ‘worser’ and ‘worser’ it seems.
This leads us to two more imperatives: “give no place to the Devil’ and “do not grieve the Holy Spirit”. When we hold on to anger, mistrust, and doubt about each other we open the door to the forces of evil to invade the precious sacred space that God has given us in this church or any other church where God’s people gather. And, yes, I do mean forces of evil. And when these forces of evil start working among us, and we do nothing to stop it, we most certainly engage in sin. This sin, this failure to value above all individual agendas, the body of Christ in which we are members, most certainly, fails Paul’s final imperative—‘do not grieve the Holy Spirit’. God’s people have been grieving the Holy Spirit throughout time. But, we are, as Christians, both individually and corporately, the temple of the Holy Spirit. Having received the Holy Spirit and been renewed in mind and spirit by the Holy Spirit, we are honored to have this divine guest in our lives. And we depend on the Holy Spirit throughout our spiritual walk to make us holy.
Paul lists 6 things that we are to throw off as individuals and as a church: bitterness, rage, animosity, brawling, slander, and malice. One commentator that I read suggested that those Christians who walk around constantly bitter “appear to have been baptized in lemon juice”. They refuse to be reconciled and actually seem to enjoy their bitterness particularly when they can use their bitterness to control others. And, rage, here, does not mean an overly aggressive display of anger, the Greek word, thumos, refers to a deep, explosive rage which hasn’t yet manifested. Paul suggests that we should rid ourselves of that rage. By brawling, Paul is speaking of the person who erupts in rage or anger in all the wrong places. Feeling wronged, this person spews nastiness and is out of control. Not caring who is present to hear, this person does great damage to the church, especially to the seekers among us who have come looking for something more in their lives. Slander, speaking in ways about our brothers and sisters that will destroy their reputation, either behind their backs or in full view, does great damage to the church as well as well as every form of malice. Malice is described as “badheartedness”—when we fail to lift our brothers and sisters up, and spend our time seeking ways to destroy their spirit of joy.
Then there are the imperatives we seek. Paul’s use of the verb--to ‘continually become’—allows us to journey on our own paths toward the call of the Spirit to become all we are created to be. These simple imperatives lead us on the path of the growth of the inner life of the Spirit in ourselves and in our church. First, BE KIND. The Greek word is chrêstoi and means to be kind to those in the community, especially folks who you may have wronged in the past. It is not a feeling, it means concrete acts that not only help others, but build up the community. Secondly, BE COMPASSIONATE. Unlike the hardhearted unbeliever, the Christian’s heart is soft and tender. When we entered into the new covenant as we celebrate each week in the Eucharist, our hearts are changed and we not only love God, we love all the others and will actively seek ways to help and bless them. And, finally, FORGIVE EACH OTHER. We are always to be ready to forgive and to forgive every real and perceived wrong. What an amazing place the Body of Christ becomes as we live in constant readiness to forgive even before we are wronged.
Jesus calls us as well--"Live out this God-created identity the way our Creator lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we're at our worst. Our God is kind; you be kind. Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing.” And so, we walk in our God-Created identity, we love, and we are loved in return. To God be glory in the Church, now and forever. Amen and amen.