Pentecost 12B
Have you ever noticed how gymnasts, upon completing their routines, usually come back to their teammates and give each other chilly, perfunctory hugs? It’s always bugged me because it seems so fake. So, I’ve been struck this year to see these hugs that seem warm and genuine. In fact, in sport after sport, we’ve seen extraordinary generosity and happiness among the athletes from different countries, genuinely celebrating each other’s wins. These folks have trained a lifetime for this moment, they are competing at the highest level, and we see them cheering on their competitors!
We watched hours of pole vaulting recently and saw the American who took second place, amping up the crowd to cheer for his competitor who took the gold medal! Most of us have seen the image of two American gymnasts on the podium, bowing down to gold medal winner Rebecca Andrade from Brazil! Watching extraordinary sportsmanship at this level has renewed my faith in humanity!
These are examples of selfless people supporting and cheering each other on. However, this sure wasn’t true in Ephesus, around the year 62. Ephesus was a Greek settlement in what is now modern-day Turkey. The early church there was particularly divisive as it was composed of Jews and Gentiles with many deep religious and cultural differences. They were NOT getting along! I bet planning a church supper to please the whole congregation was just a nightmare. Paul writes to them from jail, trying to help them settle their differences, trying to teach them to live a Godly life together in community.
We all know that living with one another, much less loving one another can be quite a challenge. As we enter another election, like the church in Ephesus, the United States is also incredibly divided into liberal/conservative, Democrat/Republican, rich/poor, red state/blue state. Let’s examine this 2000-year-old letter to the Ephesians, to see if it applies to our society today.
First, Paul deals with lying: 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. Now this is a radical thought: We know that we are Christ’s hands and feet in the world. We ARE Christ’s body. What we do to others, we do to ourselves. We are so interconnected that when we lie to others, we are lying to ourselves.
But all this living in community will lead to inevitable anger. We are human. How do we deal with that? Paul writes 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.
Get mad, get over it. Don’t stay angry. I thought my mom and dad invented this advice: ‘Don’t go to bed angry.’ This was a cardinal rule in our household. We need to pay attention to this as we are so encouraged, on both sides of the political spectrum, to anger and outrage against the ‘other’. But if all of this anger is ‘giving the Devil a foothold in our lives’, perhaps we need to re-evaluate.
Now comes my favorite part: Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.
I need a big tattoo with that on my arm so that I can look at it all day long and try to live it. Phew. This one is tough. It is hard for us, and I bet it was hard for the Ephesians too. But if God in Christ can forgive us then surely, we can try to forgive one another. As the saying goes: unforgiveness is like drinking poison yourself and waiting for the other person to die.
Daniel Clendenin writes; “Who would not long to live in a society where "bitterness, rage, anger, slander and every form of malice" were rare exceptions, and where "kindness, compassion, and forgiveness" ruled the day?”
And now the Ephesian congregation is really challenged when they are told to: Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. What does God do? Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn about a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us.
Isn’t this a beautiful letter? Hopefully, this congregation in Ephesus, this congregation of Jews and Gentiles heard it and found ways to resolve differences. If they could do so, perhaps we also have a chance. This letter is chock full of good advice for our times and it is amazing (and a little sad) that life has changed so little in 2000 years.
Trevor Hudson writes: “Our times cry out for a mass movement of compassion. This urgent need coincides with the goal of the Christ-following life, for unless our faith makes us compassionate, it can hardly be called Christian. Following Jesus means moving out of our privatized, isolated, and self-enclosed worlds into a compassionate engagement with our suffering neighbor.”
Now look within yourself, maybe close your eyes. Try to find the person most difficult for you to love … (ah, there he is), now try to love them.
For weeks now our gospel lessons from John have been Jesus talking about bread. These bread stories started weeks ago with the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Every week since has been about bread, over and over. In John’s gospel there is no Last Supper story. These bread stories take its place.
We need bread to live. Some of us need Jesus to live. Over and over, he tries to get people to understand that he is the stuff that fills the most basic need we have.
The New Zealand Book of Common Prayer says: “When we take part in communion, as we break bread and share the cup, our forgiveness is renewed, and we are cleansed. As we worship, our hope and conviction that life is stronger than death and that love is the key to life is reinforced. This is food that we need week by week and year by year. It is a meal to which we need to come with open and honest hearts. In the Eucharist we come to touch the hem of Christ’s garment. Christ is the bread of life.”
If we want to be careful of how we live our lives, we should live them THROUGH Christ. We need to fill ourselves with Jesus, eat him, drink him. It is the closest we can get to him.
He makes it easy for us when he says: “I am the bread of life. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Take. Eat.” Amen.