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February 1, 2015
Ephesians 5.11-20
We’ve been talking about church over the last few weeks . . .looking at church from a
few different angles, thinking together about all that church is intended to be and all
that it is. The stakes are high.
In the language of scripture, ‘church’ is where we learn and grow in the way of Jesus
Christ. Church is the community of God’s children whose identity and mission is to
worship and serve the Lord. Church in scripture is never naively thought to be a
perfect, idyllic community, but it has within it all the potential for being holy
because it is the community of saints, the holy ones of God.
That’s church.
In the New Testament there are these great symbolic contrasts: light and darkness,
spirit and flesh, and church and world. ‘The World’ in scripture is everything
outside of church. If the church is spirit, the world is flesh. If the church is holy, the
world is profane. If the church is of God, the world is of not-God.
Church and world. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed.” But
church and world are not two totally distinct entities. The church is not a parallel
universe unto itself untouched by the world we live in. You go to work. You go to
school. You are asked to vote in elections. You obey the same speed limits or you
get the same ticket as anyone else.
Church and world. So what is the difference?
In a synagogue in Capernaum, the world came to the church’s doorstep and then
came right on inside. It wasn’t exactly a church, and it wasn’t exactly the world, but
when a man with an unclean spirit challenged Jesus as he was teaching, the
challenge was on.
“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I
know who you are, the Holy One of God.” People who had been listening to Jesus
teach already knew that he possessed an unusual authority; here is an otherworldly
voice giving testimony that Jesus has an authority beyond what anyone may have
yet imagined. Then he used it. “Be silent!” Jesus commanded, and the spirit cried
out and left the man.
There are times when darkness is so dark and evil is so obvious that it must be
banished from the life of the church. Jesus did not stop to have a conversation with
this spirit, or negotiate with it. He cast it out! . . .and then, presumably, went back to
his lesson.
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This is one way the church confronts that which threatens her people—by casting
out the trouble. Some branches of Christianity take this seriously, formally banning
people from fellowship in the congregation who refuse attempts at reconciliation or
repentance for wrongdoing. The idea isn’t to punish someone, but to take whatever
steps you have to take to bring about change. The line between church and world is
solid, like a brick wall, and the church does whatever it can do to plug holes in the
wall and let you know which side of the wall you’re really on.
That’s one way of seeing it—the distinction between church and world—church is
in, with all those other words that go with it: spirit, holiness, light; world is out—
with all it’s words too: flesh, darkness. Yet it’s not always this clear cut and this is
not the only way the church deals with world. In 1 Corinthians we see a little
different situation. The line between church and world here is more like a dashed,
curved line, which means it’s a little messier.
Christianity was not the only game in town and Jesus himself wasn’t there to resolve
the problems. In fact, the church was just a little small sliver of Corinthian society.
Far more impressive than the church was the Greek temple to Aphrodite up on the
top of the rock outcropping dominating Corinth. That temple, among others in town
to other deities, along with the groups of people who worshipped there, put the
Christians there as a relatively unimportant, uninfluential group in a pluralistic
society.
Can we eat meat that has been sacrificed to their idols? This was a big question:
when we go to dinner and the meal has been offered to one of those other temple
gods, can we eat it or should we just eat the side dishes, or should we get up and
walk out?
Maybe it sounds like an unimportant issue. And in a way, it’s resolved pretty easily.
Paul just simply says: look: this isn’t an either-or issue. There’s no one right answer
to these things. There’s no harm in particular in eating it. Its just meat and the idols
to which it was sacrificed are nothing. We know there is one God, from who are all
things and in whom all things exist. Isaiah was right; these idols are just the product
of the hands of stonecutters and woodcarvers.
But this question isn’t really just about meat. It’s about your relationship with your
brothers and sisters in the church. You’re one of them now. Maybe you used to be
one of the others who traipsed up that hill to that other temple and did whatever
they do up there, but you’re part of the church now. This is your family. And when
you’re part of a family, you look out for one another. You care for one another, even
your nutty uncle. If one of them is harmed by what you’re doing, the choice is easy.
Choose love.
For some people, perhaps for some of them who received this instruction, certainly
for some of us, this kind of negotiated, nuanced communitarian emphasis is far less
satisfying than a settled pronouncement on what is right and what is wrong for all
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people at all times. Black and white is much cleaner; in and out; welcome and
unwelcome; do and don’t, light and darkness.
Truly, there are many ways in which those hard lines are part of church life. Do this.
Don’t do that. If you are married, you’re married to one person. Don’t act like you’re
married to someone else. There’s some stuff that’s black and white.
But we see in the early letters of the church that there’s a lot more that is getting
worked out over time as the church wrestles with what it means to be a community
which believes in “one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we
exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we
exist.” It’s not all black and white. Sometimes it’s not a matter of right or wrong, or
my rights; it’s a matter of love for my brothers and sisters.
In Capernaum, Jesus casts out the unclean spirit, so the man remains, cleansed from
his demon. The authority of God brings forth a purified church in the midst of the
world.
In Corinth, when they wrestle with whether the food in front of them is fit to eat,
they are taught there’s no absolute right or wrong in that case, but to be mindful of
one another. It is a matter of the love of the church for one another as it is daily
intertwined with the world.
In Ephesus, there was a different situation. There we see the church-world struggle
from yet another perspective. There is very little about the book of Ephesians that
has anything to do with anything outside the church. The book is all about what the
church is made of now that it’s made of what used to be in the world. Jews and
Gentile separation out there—not in here; in here we’re all one in love. Those
words, “one’ and “love” are sprinkled all through this letter. It’s Paul’s churchiest
letter.
And yet, still, the world is right in the middle of it. You can cast out the demons, you
can abstain from the appearance of idolatry; you can do everything to build a wall of
separation between church and world. .. and the world will still be there.
Even in the churchiest letter in the New Testament, the one that begins by calling
them saints, faithful in Christ Jesus, blessed with grace and peace…the world is
there.
Even here all about how they have been saved by grace through faith, and how unity
is God-given: one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one
God and Father of us all…world is still there.
Even in this letter which ends so confidently speaking of the armor of God equipping
the Christian to wrestle against cosmic powers of this present darkness and
spiritual forces of evil…world is still there.
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Even in this letter which thinks so highly of church in general and so highly of this
church in particular . . . the world is still right there.
In Ephesus, the world is not simply an obvious interloper who can be cast out.
The world is not just the collection of things you have to deal with out there in
society.
The world is in here. In the church, in our hearts. In our actions. The church is like
a field, of wheat and weeds. If everyone were wheat and everyone were also a weed.
In Ephesus the line between church and world runs down the middle of each of us.
It becomes apparent that the world isn’t just a threat out there that we can cast out
or avoid if we build high enough walls and draw straight enough lines. The world is
in here. In me and in you. This is this third way we now see how the church and
world intersect. First it was as an interloper who could be banished. Then an old
way of life to be left behind and a world out there to be navigated. Now we see that
even if we do all of that, it still comes down to each one of us.
In each of us is lust and love. Lust takes many shapes from the most apparent and
obvious meaning to greediness, idolatry, and covetousness. Its vocabulary is hollow
words and empty promises; weeds that have no root in God’s kingdom. The church
cultivates love. The language of love is commitment, sacrifice, dedication, and
generosity.
In each of us is darkness and light. The church is about what is done in the open, not
in the secret. Church is where light shines with truth telling and confrontation in
love when it’s needed. It is safe space to open our hearts to one another that we
may more and more trust one another and Jesus with who we are with our mistakes,
and mal-formed thoughts, and all the ways we hide in the shadows. We’re in this
together, in the light, in His light. You are in the light, you are light.
In each of us is foolishness and wisdom. “Do not be foolish but understand what the
will of the Lord is.” Sometimes that’s easier said than done, so the church is to be a
place where wide-eyed hope is met with clear-eyed realism. By our life together, we
try to clear the deck of distractions so we can clear the cobwebs of our foolish
actions. Not everything we do is sin worthy of banishment; sometimes it’s just
dumb. Here are friends who help us decrease the dumb and grow in wisdom, and
thanksgiving, and in the Holy Spirit of God.
At the heart of Ephesians 5 is a little quote hanging there. “Awake, O sleeper, and
arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” No one knows for sure where this
quote comes from. It’s not exactly in the Old Testament. It’s not in another letter we
know of.
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The best thought is that these are words, a blessing, spoken at baptism over the one
who is being baptized. “Awake o sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will
shine on you.” It’s a beautiful blessing. And just right in the middle of teaching on
the church. By it we are reminded that at our baptisms we are made new, buried
with Christ, raised to walk in the newness of life. In Christ, we are born again, born
anew to a new life, one in which we may not be immediately made holy as an angel,
full of love, light, and wisdom, but one in which we are joined together with a
community of friends who together are growing to be church, not just to resist the
world, or to root out the remnant of the world still within them, but to then serve
the world for Christ.
The work of the church is not to help us find ways to settle comfortably in our
worldly existence but to raise us above it. Bringing us to the redemption of Christ,
the church wants to tear us free from the evil that is in us and open us to another
existence. It’s like we’re submerged in the cleansing waters and then raised to walk
in new life. Still dripping wet from those life-changing waters, those words of life:
Arise, O sleeper, and arise from the dead
And Christ will shine on you.