Sermon: Defensive Measures

First Presbyterian Church

August 25, 2024, Pentecost 14B

Ephesians 6:10-20

 

Defensive Measures

 

 

Back in August 2021, about three years ago, a Santa Barbara, CA man was charged with “foreign murder of US nationals.” The man, upon admitting to the murders, claimed to have been “enlightened by the extremist group QAnon and the Illuminati.” According to the man, he had received “visions and signs” telling him that his wife “possessed serpent DNA,” and that the same DNA had been passed to their children. He had therefore taken the two children, a 2-year-old boy and a 10-month-old daughter, driven them across the border into Mexico, and shot them in the chest with a spearfishing gun. In doing so, he claimed, he was “saving the world from monsters.”

In a time like this, when such a story with such seemingly fantastical and unbelievable details ends up in the very mainstream Washington Post[i], perhaps we enlightened modern intellectual types should be a little less dismissive when a scripture like today’s reading from Ephesians speaks of standing against “the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” I have no interest in speaking pro or con on the literal horns-and-hooves existence of devils, demons, or whatever you might call such a thing. This scripture’s primary interest is not in reveling or indulging in thoughts about such rulers or cosmic powers or spiritual forces of evil; this scripture’s primary interest is in what follows – being prepared in mind and soul and spirit to withstand the attacks and lies and fears that seek to engage us in deeds of evil, however one defines their sources, and to stand fast in Christ. The metaphor which our author chooses for this purpose is to put on “the whole armor of God.”

In and of itself the passage is one of those that really ought to be basic to our understanding of the Christian life. Take another look at the attributes that are celebrated here: truth, righteousness, proclaiming the gospel, faith, salvation, and the word of God. How are these bad things? How are these anything but essentials of the Christian life? 

In this combination as presented here, these become a kind of discipline or rubric for life. Being grounded in the truth God gives, we live with righteousness among one another, proclaim the good news as God gives opportunity, live in faith and trust in our salvation, all supported and rooted in the word of God. That’s one way to put it; you might express it differently, but the key is to grasp that these are not individual achievements to be checked off some list of virtues; these are woven together like a fabric, or to use this author’s metaphor, assembled as armor, for our defense in a world that is not welcoming to the gospel.

That last statement, about a world not welcoming the gospel, shouldn’t shock us by now. This is something Jesus told his disciples, more than once. In Matthew 10, Jesus probably shocks those followers with his statement “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” As Jesus explains, those who live into Jesus’s call and become his followers will be estranged from even one’s own family; one’s foes will be members of his own household, as Matthew 10:36 describes. The world will not be sweetness and light for those who truly follow Jesus. Jesus said it himself, and the author of Ephesians knows it, and would encourage the readers of this letter to be prepared for the hostility they would face or maybe were already facing – perhaps knowing that the “powers of this dark world" sometimes got help from our friends and family. 

With this in mind, our author exhorts his hearers to take up truth, righteousness, proclaiming the gospel, faith, salvation, and the word of God as defenses against that in the world which would oppose our discipleship. (Yes, even the "sword of the Spirit" is here more for one's defense; the principal offensive weapons of the Roman military against which this is patterned would have been spears and arrows.) It’s a list that should be right up there with the “fruits of the Spirit” in Galatians 5, or the “think on these things” attributes listed in Philippians 4. Instead, this has become one of the more abused passages in all the New Testament. 

One part of this abuse of scripture hinges on that early language about the “wiles of the devil” and rulers and authorities and cosmic powers and spiritual forces of evil. Some corners of the church have a bad habit of obsessing over those things. Whether it is in drawing out elaborate cosmologies of darkness or concocting "fear fiction" such as the Left Behind books – or for that matter the series that was initiated by a novel with the title “This Present Darkness” in a clear nod to this scripture reading – such self-claimed Christians engage little at all in proclaiming good news; rather they become peddlers of fear. And fear is the very stuff of those rulers and authorities and cosmic powers, however you define them. Fear is the opposite of gospel. Fear is the stuff that drives a man to kill his children because some conspiracy theorist has convinced him they’re going to destroy the world. 

The other common abuse of this passage is to get obsessed with the armor imagery and forget those attributes to which the armor metaphor points. Such readers get led into reading such a passage as a call to holy war. 

It is one of the more curse-worthy tendencies of the church across its history to look for excuses to go on the attack. How many crusades marred the Middle Ages? How much violence marked the Reformation era? And now this “warrior mentality” and the invention of a “warrior Christ” to justify it is far more pervasive in many corners of the modern church than it’s comfortable to admit. 

Friends, let's be clear; this armor talk in Ephesians is not about forming “warriors for Christ.” It has one point, spelled out in verse 13: “…so that you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand." When “the sword” comes as Jesus describes back in Matthew 10, our job is … to stand. There’s no retreat, but there's also no plan of attack, no glorious charge, no smiting our foes, none of that. We stand together, in truth and righteousness and gospel and faith and salvation and the word of God; we withstand all the evil that the world (and sometimes our fellow “Christians”) throw at us; and in the end, we're still standing. Conflict will come, indeed, if we’re truly following Jesus and truly proclaiming the gospel as Jesus did. We don’t need to go looking for it, much less starting it.

The final verses of this reading perhaps make the point above more wrenchingly than any amount of exposition can hope. The author, again most likely a follower or assistant of Paul’s seeking to preserve and transmit his mentor’s teaching, appears to have emulated his mentor in at least one way: being imprisoned. That reference has come up a few times in this letter, and here it appears clearly again near the letter’s close as the writer describes himself as “an ambassador in chains.” The indirect call to prayer found in last week’s reading becomes direct here, as the writer urges his readers to pray “on all occasions” for the Spirit, and “for the Lord's people,” and especially for himself so that when he speaks, he may be given a message to speak boldly and declare “the mystery of the gospel.” Our author is called to speak, to proclaim. That’s all the “offensive action” that is invoked here. 

We’re not here to go to some kind of spiritual war, though we're not necessarily meant to run from it either. We are here to proclaim, and not incidentally to live out what we proclaim. We are given this “whole armor of God” for our defense as we proclaim. We bear this armor to withstand and to stand. In a world of conflict that will inevitably oppose what devoted Christ-followers are bound to say and to do, we are given defensive measures to preserve us so that we may speak boldly, so that we may withstand, and so that, having done all these things, we may still be standing.

And it is with this, not quite a call to arms but perhaps a "call to armor," that the author concludes this letter. There are some extremely difficult and even deeply unpleasant sections that, no surprise, the compilers of the Revised Common Lectionary chose not to include in this cycle for preaching and worship. Nonetheless there is also some sound instruction to be found in these pages, and (as was noted in one of the earlier sermons in this series, it becomes our task to determine what to keep from this epistle's instruction, what to "put on," so to speak, or what to keep. And indeed, truth, righteousness, proclaiming the gospel, faith, salvation, and the word of God are good things to keep.

For defensive measures, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #361, O Christ, the Great Foundation; #840, When Peace Like a River; #838, Standing on the Promises

 

...not this. 

 

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[i] Jonathan Edwards, “A QAnon-obsessed father thought his kids would destroy the world, so he killed them with a spear gun, FBI says.” Washington Post, 12 August 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/12/california-father-killed-children-qanon-illuminati/ (accessed 15 August 2024). 

Sermon: Making the Most of the Time

First Presbyterian Church

August 18, 2024, Pentecost 12B

Ephesians 5:15-20

 

 

Making the Most of the Time

 

 

I believe it is time for a deep, dark confession.

I have been drunk in my lifetime. Twice.

I did the deed on two consecutive Friday nights more than forty years ago, during my first semester away from home, at the noted hotbed of decadence known as Wake Forest University, where I spent my first year and a half of college. A girl I had gotten really interested in chose the rich sophomore from an important family over the poor freshman nobody from way out of state, and I took it hard. Being “set free” from my teetotaler religious upbringing (and not having fully realized just how much I had been damaged by my own father’s alcoholism), I reacted the way I figured I was supposed to do. Even in this, I was still a bit cautious: I chose two Fridays when any potential hangover wouldn’t affect any marching band responsibilities the next day. I found the parties where I could do it, and I did it.

I hated it. Hated every second of it.

I hated the beer itself (it was cheap stuff). I hated the noise. I hated the dim lights at the party. I especially hated, after the second time, waking up in a place I didn’t recognize.

         But most of all, I hated the dissipation, the dysfunction.

I hated my body not doing what I was trying to do. I hated my brain not working right. I despised it all, and so I never did it again. These days I’m on enough medications that don’t work well with alcohol that I can’t drink, period, but even before that it was something that really didn’t appeal to me, ever since that night, and I’ve never done anything that put me at all within range of being drunk.

You can guess which part of the scripture for today brought on this memory. Rather like last week’s seemingly out-of-nowhere injunction against stealing, here our author drops in a seeming non sequitur about drunkenness in the midst of the lesson. In this case, the “don’t do this” part of the exhortation is followed by the “do this” answer “instead, be filled with the Spirit.” 

This isn’t the first time Ephesians has touched on the imagery of “being filled.” Way back in 1:23 is the indirect suggestion of being filled with Christ; 3:19 speaks of being filled “to the measure of all the fullness of God”; and 4:10 returns to Christ, the one who ascended and descended “in order to fill the whole universe.” With today’s passage about being filled with the Spirit, we have completed the Trinity of filling. 

This is what is to be preferred to being drunk on wine, which the author calls “debauchery” as the NIV and others translate it. Greek words, like our own English words, are sometimes capable of a range of meanings, and the word so translated here is one of those. I am struck by one of those alternate translations here, namely the word “dissipation.” There’s a different force to this word, one that goes beyond the mere moral corruption of “debauchery” to suggest the dysfunction and lack of control and even erosion of self that tends to accompany drunkenness (the part I so hated forty-some years ago). 

And this leads us to why this seeming diversion actually fits extremely well into this short bit of exhortation. We began this passage with the encouragement to “be very careful, then, how you live, - not as unwise but as wise.” Again, shades of meaning matter here; the point isn’t to encourage fear and trembling, but to encourage us to live deliberately, precisely, to be diligent about how we live, to pay close and careful attention to our lives and what we do with them. We live with care and precision. We are attentive to how we proceed in life in all ways. Dissipation completely cuts against that.

This is a matter not merely of our own personal life, but that life as it is lived among others, perhaps especially among the church. To borrow a phrase from Richard Carlson of Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, PA, “wise living is personal but never private.” It is precisely not for the sake of our own private privilege that we are precise or deliberate or careful about our lives; it is the opposite. Carlson continues: 

“Living wisely, especially as it entails discerning the will of Christ, means active engagement and involvement in all of life’s circumstances so that the reality of our new self is continually manifested in and through the light of our new conduct “at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20).”[1]

 

That last phrase jumps ahead to the end of this passage, but I want to catch one vitally important phrase back in v. 16. The whole business about living carefully or diligently or precisely, as wise and not unwise, points to the phrase “making the most of every opportunity," or "making the most of the time" as the NRSV and other translations render it Now that sounds like something we modern types can relate to, right? Living in a world that’s all about being “efficient” with our time? Or that encouragement to “work smarter, not harder”? We who live in the age of “efficiency experts” are certainly all about being able to respond to this exhortation, right?

Martin Luther once offered this observation on how busy he was: “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” The importance or urgency of the tasks before Luther did not deter him from spending the most necessary time of all, time in prayer. One can also remember Jesus’s own proclivity to disappear into the hills to pray, even when the crowds following him were at their most urgent and demanding. 

“Making the most of the time” doesn’t happen without a part, and not a small part, of that time devoted to prayer, to discernment, to listening for God. How else are we to live “not as unwise but as wise”? How else can we possibly “understand what the Lord's will is”? How else can we possibly hope to be “filled with the Spirit”? 

Going on, what are we doing when we are “speaking to one another with psalms and hymns and songs” among ourselves, when we "sing and make music" from our hearts to the Lord? What are we speaking to one another in those psalms and hymns and spiritual songs if it is not some kind of prayer itself, or at least rooted in or formed by or inspired by prayer?

The last verse seems to make it all explicit as it speaks of “always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” While it makes a good stirring finish to the last really encouraging portion of this letter, it also offers another instruction that can leave us shaking our heads and saying “wait, what?” Giving thanks for everything? Reading a book like this in the broader context of scripture remains a necessary and important discipline.

So at this close of the practical moral instruction section of this letter, we are left with the call to seek God’s wisdom, make the most of the time we are given, and to do so in prayer and song, as much as possible. We’ve learned in recent years, for example, that there are times not to sing to each other, or at least not to do so in close quarters. Still, the instruction in living wisely and in prayer holds and matters. And we don’t do it to help us to make the most of the time; it is in doing so that we are making the most of the time. And that’s how the Spirit is then able to lead us. That’s how we are able at all to be filled with the Spirit, with the fullness of Christ, with the fullness of God. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #308, O God in Whom All Life Begins; #---, Live with care and live with wisdom; #310, I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord

 

 

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[1] Richard Carlson, Commentary on Ephesians 5:15-20, Working Preacher https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-20-2/commentary-on-ephesians-515-20-5 (accessed 12 August 2024)

Sermon: What to Put Away, What to Keep

First Presbyterian Church

August 11, 2024, Pentecost 12B

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

 

What to Put Away, What to Keep

 

 

Do you renounce all evil, and powers in the world which defy God’s righteousness and love?

I renounce them.

 

Do you renounce the ways of sin that separate you from the love of God?

I renounce them.

 

Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and Savior?

I do. 

 

Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his Word and showing his love, to your life’s end?

I will, with God’s help.

 

 

These words are found in the Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Common Worship as part of the recommended liturgy for a baptism, as part of the liturgy known as the “renunciations.” The questions are asked by the minister presiding at the baptism, and then answered either by the one being baptized or the parents or guardians of the one being brought for baptism. Presbyterians are hardly unique in this; some version of this is found in the baptismal rite of pretty much all the churches that have baptismal rites or liturgies. 

The very idea of renunciation of evil and sin is what is at the heart of today’s scripture reading, as the author of Ephesians continues with the practical instruction portion of this epistle. 

In all honesty there are portions of this passage that leave one wondering just what is going on in the churches to which this letter is addressed. The instruction about “putting away falsehood” is strong enough. The instruction about anger is actually useful (more about it later). The instructions about “unwholesome talk” (most translations say "evil talk"), getting rid of “bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice,” coming in a run-list like this, begins to raise the eyebrows and provoke wonder about a possible reality show about the church in question. 

But really: “Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer”??? Is theft a major problem in this congregation? Has “thou shalt not steal” not come up by this time? Or was that regarded as a regulation from the Jewish side of the Jewish-Gentile split in this congregation and therefore to be disregarded by the Gentile converts? Seriously, what is with this?

As curious as this insertion may seem, what is even more remarkable about it is how it is used as an instructional point. “Steal no longer,” not because it violates the Ten Commandments or because it’s against the law or because it’s not nice; instead, the correction is “but [they] must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they might have something to share with those in need.” “You need to stop stealing so that you can make money to give to the poor.” If you’re thinking that this sounds a little bit nuts, you’re not alone. It’s been a head scratcher for centuries. 

Perhaps it shouldn’t be, though. Maybe our definition of “stealing” is too narrow. I was reminded this week of an article I had first found a few years ago, a report produced by Heifer International on the worldwide coffee industry. (Yes, Heifer International's main work is to provide animals for families in need, but they do more than that.) By the calculations of this report, the coffee industry internationally is worth over 200 billion dollars. (I can’t even fit that number onto the calculator on my phone.) Those peoples around the world who grow the beans that make the whole idea of coffee possible see maybe 5% or (if they’re lucky) 7% of that. To put it another way, say you by a Grande Latte later today as a treat. You might spend around $3.65 (that’s a rough average for such a drink). Of that $3.65, the farmer who grew those beans might receive $0.02, maybe $0.03. To add insult to injury, the sleeve likely to be sheathed around your cup costs about $0.05. That piece of cardboard is valued more than the labor required to grow the beans that make your latte even possible.[1] And this is only one of dozens of possible examples of the exploitative nature of our economy.

Indeed, perhaps our definition of “stealing” is too narrow.

Anyway, while we have no idea how Robin Hood – the “steal from the rich, give to the poor” character of English lore – would respond to this bit of instruction, we can at least draw from it a lesson that applies across this instructional fragment. In this episode of “don’t do this, do that” across these passages, the “do that” responses have a very clear purpose. The hearers and readers of this letter are being taught what it looks like to live in Christ, just as much of the previous part of the book calls us to do. 

It ends up looking like this:

We put away falsehood; we speak truth.

We are angry, but we do not sin. 

We give up stealing, if that’s been a thing; we work to care for the needy.

We don’t talk evil; we use our words to build up and give grace.

We don’t “grieve the Holy Spirit of God,” we are brought together and marked for redemption by the Spirit.

We lay aside bitterness and wrath and anger and malice and all those things; we are kind and tenderhearted and forgiving with one another (the way God has, in Christ, forgiven us, in case we’ve forgotten).

Now as if these instructions weren’t provocative enough, not to mention plenty challenging, the first verses of chapter 5 drop this bombshell (we need to hear this one in the NRSV): “Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us…”. Once again, it all comes back around to love, in some way or other. And again, all of the instruction of this mini-lesson is at the last caught up into this main point. To live in love is not to talk evil or to engage in lies or to steal or to do the things that grieve the Spirit that is all about holding us together. To live in love is to speak truth (even when it’s not all that pleasant to do so); to live in love is to keep your anger (which will happen, and even should happen sometimes) from leading you into sin, and not to let that anger fester and divide us; to live in love is not to steal, but to do honest work so that you have something to share with those in need; to live in love is to lay aside speech and action that tears us apart, and to take up the words and deeds that hold us together. 

There is challenge here, in that (for example) sometimes it is really, destructively wrong not to be angry. To be indifferent to the injustice that runs rampant in the world around us (think of that example from the coffee industry, for instance), or even to seek to profit from that injustice or take comfort in it or otherwise to justify its existence, is literally damnable. It is the stuff of Hell. And yet we see an awful lot of “Christians” doing exactly that in the headlines every day, do we not?

And yet, we are charged here not to let that anger lead us into sin, nor to let it fester and wreck relationships within the body. 

Part of the answer is easy enough to figure out: fight against that injustice, resist the prejudice against race or gender or orientation or anything that dehumanizes and demeans any of God’s creation. But even then, there will be those within the body – or at least calling themselves “Christians” – who resist that resistance tooth and nail. Where, then, would our author direct us; to do God’s will and resist the injustice at hand, or to make peace? 

The tricky part about moral instruction, such as the author of Ephesians has undertaken, is that sometimes it leaves you in a quandary like this. At such a time we’re called to remember that Ephesians, or any such part of scripture, is not the whole of scripture; more than a few words of Jesus, for example, should answer this quandary for us without too much difficulty: fight the injustice, do unto “the least of these” as Jesus says in Matthew 25. 

Nonetheless, the basic theme of this lesson holds: put away those things that do harm, keep those things that build up. Leave behind the destructive; continue with the constructive. Lay aside what harms, take up what heals. 

Sometimes, I guess, the challenge is to know which is which.

And I still don’t know what Robin Hood would say about this.

For the guidance of the Spirit in learning these things, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #15, All Creatures of Our God and King; #409, Spirit Divine, Attend Our Prayers; #300, We Are One in the Spirit

Nobody asked this guy (or any other movie version of him)

 

 

 

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[1] Statistics from Cory Gilman, “Rooted in Racism: Dark Profits in the Coffee Industry,” https://www.heifer.org/blog/rooted-in-racism-dark-profits-in-the-coffee-industry.html?msource=SIBLH20FB0003&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=blog&utm_term=post&utm_content=SIBLH20FB0003, 3 August 2020  (accessed 5 August 2024).

Sermon: Grow Up

First Presbyterian Church

August 4, 2024, Pentecost 11B

Ephesians 4:1-16

 

Grow Up

 

 

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before in this congregation, but back in my youth I competed in what was at the time known as “Bible drill.” I think it used to be called “sword drill,” after words that crop up later in this book of Ephesians. (Remember, I grew up in another denomination.) Anyway, when I participated in it the competition involved being able to look up books of the Bible, and later specific verses, really really quickly. To cap it off there was also a portion of the event that involved being able to recite memorized verses. I was pretty good at it – enough so, in fact, that the summer after ninth grade I was in the statewide Bible drill championship. I finished second. By one stinkin’ point.

Preparing this sermon reminded me of Bible drill because a portion of today’s reading was one of those memorized passages I had to learn. Because I grew up in that other denomination, all the reading and searching and memorizing involved the King James Version. So my response, when called upon, came out like this (I will not attempt to duplicate my fifteen-year-old voice; it wasn’t pretty):

 

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists, and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.

 

I had it memorized, all right, but I’m not going to lie to you; if you had asked fifteen-year-old me what exactly all of that meant, I’d have probably looked at you blankly and given you a clear “I have no idea” shrug. 

After a theological discourse that takes up the first three chapters of Ephesians as we have it, the author turns now to what might be called “boots on the ground” instruction. This isn’t atypical of the letters of Paul upon which our author bases and models this volume: lay out the theology, then talk about putting it into practice in your location. Since this letter (despite its modern name) was probably meant to be distributed across many churches, the specifics of instruction might be somewhat less specific. The nature of the instruction is general, applicable across frankly all of these churches strung out across the Roman Empire, particularly that region sometimes called Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). 

Paul certainly did some letter-writing from prison, and so our author (again, likely a student or associate of Paul’s working to consolidate his teaching and reputation) evokes Paul’s imprisonments in the instruction to his readers. The initial verses point to a call towards unity. Notice that is “towards” unity; even if not spoken, the author seems to glimpse that unity is not possible in all situations, and the instruction to come in the later verses of this reading will sometimes be exactly why it’s not possible to be in unity with everyone or everything. But here the challenge is to “make every effort” towards preserving the unity of the Spirit, and sometimes that means the ones with whom you can’t be at unity with any integrity at all are those who are outside the Spirit. Verses 7-10 seem to be an odd diversion that could be about the importance of the Ascension, the old theological claim (still reflected in the Apostles’ Creed) that Jesus descended into Hell, or who knows what else.

Still, though, these verses do introduce the important idea of grace given to us as a result of “Christ’s gift,” and the result of gifts being bestowed upon us, which in turn sets up a brief list of some of those gifts given among the people of God. Unlike other such lists in the epistles, this one speaks of specific roles played in the church by specific people, without necessarily implying that these are the only gifts the church needs to function. (The specificity of this list is one of those reasons scholars have for believing this letter to be written much later than Paul’s output, as these roles seem to be more formalized than in the mid-century span in which Paul worked.) 

The reasons for which these gifts are given are where “the rubber hits the road” in this reading. Note that while unity of the faith makes an appearance again, a lot more ink is consumed on the other listed aim of these gifts and their exercise among the body of Christ: an aim that might be best summed up as spiritual maturity. 

This is where the language gets rather twisted up in the KJV rendering that still lives in my head to some degree, and even the NIV or NRSV can be a bit difficult to untangle. Last week’s sermon made a quick reference to the modern-day, scholarly yet accessible-language Common English Bible (CEB), and it might be useful in wading through these verses as well; first verses 12-13:

 

His purpose was to equip God’s people for the work of serving and building up the body of Christ until we all reach the unity of the faith and knowledge of God’s son. God’s goal is for us to become mature adults – to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ.

 

 

OK, that helps somewhat. All those offices help build up the body of Christ by building up those within it, and that is where the unity of the faith arrives. And the measure towards which that building-up points is nothing less than Christ in all completeness and wholeness and fullness. Nothing less is really enough.

Now hear verses 14-16:

 

As a result, we aren’t supposed to be infants any longer who can be tossed and blown around by every wind that comes from teaching with deceitful scheming and the tricks people play to deliberately mislead others. Instead, by speaking the truth with love, let’s grow in every way into Christ, who is the head. 

 

 

We could, of course, put an even more vernacular spin on this instruction.

Don’t be babies.

Don’t fall for everything you see on the internet. Or some “news” channel. Or from some televangelist’s megachurch. 

Don’t be misled so easily.

And perhaps the harshest of all:

Grow up.

That’s not a phrase we use these days as a form of encouragement. Typically it’s spoken in a tone that makes clear the speaker’s exasperation (or worse) with the one to whom the statement is directed. To get the full force of this reading we need to divorce the phrase from the commonly sarcastic tone we often apply to it and hear it as not only a form of encouragement, but the principal charge or calling that is laid before us – even more so than all that pursuing-unity talk, because that true unity in the Spirit only happens when we are growing towards that spiritual unity, that living into the measure of Christ’s wholeness and completeness and fullness. 

To top it off, verse 16 reminds us that all of this happens in Christ. Again, to borrow from the CEB:

The whole body grows from him, as it is joined and held together by all the supporting ligaments. The body makes itself grow in that it builds itself up with love as each one does its part.

 

 

The growing and maturing and moving towards unity all happens in Christ. This is one of those cases where the instruction given really is directed at the individuals reading or hearing the letter. Most of the time such instruction in the New Testament, gospels or letters, is corporate – directed at the whole of the church to do together. In this case, the responsibility of this instruction to seek unity and grow up is upon each individual, so that the whole church can grow and do and be what it is meant to be under Christ, the head of the church. 

Clearly, we aren’t there. It’s not just the too-many so-called “Christians” who crowd into each day’s headlines clearly demonstrating that they have not grasped the instruction of verses 14-15 about not being easily led astray and tossed about and fooled by deceivers. It’s all of us. Seriously, do we look like we measure up to Christ in all his fullness and completeness and wholeness? No, we’re not there. The point is to be on the way. And no matter how old we are, no matter how much hard-won wisdom we have earned, how much we have seen or experienced, we’re still on the journey. 

It is in the process of this journey that we learn to live lives worthy of our calling, to bear with one another in love, to build up the body of Christ, and yes, to grow up.

For growing up, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal unless otherwise indicated): #317, In Christ There Is No East or West; #---, Lead Lives Worthy of Your Calling; #874, Help Us Accept Each Other