Reading Other People’s Mail: Part IV

A sermon by Dr. Jim Somerville, Pastor
Richmond’s First Baptist Church
Richmond, Virginia
August 2, 2009

Ephesians 4:1-16 

When people ask me what I believe about the Bible I usually tell them I believe that it is the Word of God for the people of God, and that it is authoritative in all matters of faith and practice.  In other words, it tells us what to believe and how to behave.  Ephesians is a good example of that.  Like many of the New Testament letters there is a section of theology—in which the writer is telling those early Christians what to believe—followed by a section of ethics—in which he is telling them how to behave.  In today’s reading from Ephesians we move from what to believe to how to behave and I have to warn you: it isn’t everyone’s favorite part.  Some of us would rather sit around drinking coffee, talking theology, than getting up out of our chairs and putting what we know into practice.  Nonetheless, here it is: a reading from Ephesians 4:1-16:

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says: "When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men." (What does "he ascended" mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work (NIV). 

          For three full chapters now the writer of Ephesians has been doing theology, telling us what it means to be the church.  In chapter one he tells us that at just the right time God sent his son into the world to gather up people not only from among the Jews but from every tribe and tongue and nation so that he could bring them together as one people and pour out upon them all the blessings of heaven.  But a funny thing happens when you try to put people who are different together: some of those old, ugly divisions crop up among them and soon they can’t get along at all.  That’s what happened in the early church, so that in chapter two the writer of Ephesians has to remind those people that Christ himself had broken down the dividing wall of hostility between them, in order that Jews and Greeks, men and women, slave and free could be united in Christian community.  And then in chapter three we learn that once the wall was broken down God picked up the pieces, and adopted the members of that diverse community into his own family, so that they became children of the Heavenly Father and brothers and sisters to each other.  On this communion Sunday it seems especially appropriate to think of ourselves as family, seated around the Lord’s table, and trying to comprehend with all the saints (as it says at the end of chapter three), “the breadth and length and height and depth” of God’s love for us.  It’s a good place to be.

          But it’s a bad place to stay.

          Have you ever heard one of those resolutions that begins with the word whereas, as in, “Whereas we’d like to present this resolution in a public place, and whereas there may be lots of people listening, and whereas we’d like it to sound as impressive as possible, Therefore be it resolved that we will use the word whereas as many times as we can”?  Well, if the letter to the Ephesians were a resolution it might say, 

Whereas you have received every blessing God has to give, and

Whereas Christ has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, and

Whereas you have taken your place at the family table,

Therefore be it resolved: that you no longer have any excuse not to do what God has called you to do, and what God has called you to do is become what you are.  Do you hear that?  I hope you can, because this writer is not only talking to the saints who are at Ephesus, but also to the saints who are at First Baptist, Richmond.  Become what you are, he says, and what you are is the church of Jesus Christ.  But how do we do that?  How do we become the church of Jesus Christ?  Two things seem clear: if we are ever going to “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,” then there must be 1) no more fighting and no more biting, and 2) no more this way and no more that way.  Let’s look at them one at a time:

1. No more fighting and no more biting.

I don’t know what was going on in the church at Ephesus, but the amount of ink this writer spills over the issue of unity makes me think the church was coming apart at the seams. Or maybe all the churches were coming apart in those days. Maybe they hadn’t been able to successfully resolve the Jew/Gentile dispute. Whatever it was, listen to the way our text for today approaches the problem. “I urge you to lead a life worthy of the calling you have received,” the writer says in verse 1.  “Be completely humble and gentle (as if they weren’t); be patient (probably they weren’t that, either), bearing with one another in love” (again, if they were already doing it he wouldn’t have to ask).  He urges them to “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (as if the few efforts they were making weren’t enough).  And then look at how many times he uses the word one to get his point across. Count them there in verses 4-6: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called,” he says. “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of us all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.” Seven times!  Just to let his readers know that if there is only one Lord, one faith, one baptism, then there can’t be two different groups in the church. There has to be unity. It is the first step in becoming what you are. But then there is the second step which is:

2. No more this way and no more that way.

This writer says in verse 14 that as the church of Jesus Christ “we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.” It is for this reason, he says, that Christ has given the church gifts.  He gave “some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up” (vss. 11-12).  I can imagine some of those members of the early church chasing after every new teaching that came along, being sucked into the easy schemes of those who would take advantage of them. What they needed was some help: some apostles to plant the right kind of church, some prophets to point out the difference between right and wrong, some evangelists to bring new converts into the fold, some pastors and teachers to care for the congregation and provide it with the right kind of instruction. At every point these gifts Christ has given are intended to root the church in the right kind of soil, to help it grow straight and strong, to keep it from being blown over by the first strong breeze.  That’s as necessary now as it was in the first century.  

So, “no more fighting and no more biting,” this writer said.  “No more this way and no more that way,” he added.  Unity and stability are essential to the health of the church.  Without them the church can never grow up, which seems to be the thing this writer is most interested in.  “Then we will no longer be infants,” he says, “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ” (vs. 15).  In Greek this passage is not as optimistic as that.  It doesn’t say “we will grow up.”  It says, “Let us grow up,” in the same way a football coach might say to his team, “Let us go out there and win this game.”  The outcome isn’t certain.  The coach doesn’t know that his team will win.  But he is trying to inspire his team to give it their very best effort, so that they will win.  “Let us grow up!” says the writer of Ephesians, but that doesn’t mean that all of us will, or even that all of us want to. 

I think about the Lost Boys in Peter Pan who were taught by Peter himself to sing “I won’t grow up.”  Do you remember that song?  Can you repeat after me? 

I won’t grow up (I won’t grow up),

I don’t want to go to school (I don’t want to go to school),

Just to learn to be a parrot (just to learn to be a parrot),

And recite a silly rule (and recite a silly rule).         

In nearly twenty five years of working with and through Christian congregations I have met some of those Lost Boys (and Lost Girls, too), who are just as stubborn about not growing up.  They don’t contribute anything to the unity of the church: they are not humble, or gentle, or patient, or loving, and they do almost nothing to hold the church together; in fact they seem to do everything in their power to tear the church apart.  And they don’t contribute anything to the stability of the church either.  They are tossed about by every wind that blows a fresh teaching into the place, and they are easily led astray by those experts who promise to have all the answers.  And while the church of Jesus Christ is being torn apart and tossed about they sing:

I won’t grow up (I won’t grow up),

          I don’t want us to be stable (I don’t want us to be stable),

          And I’ll slap my Christian brother (and I’ll slap my Christian brother),

          While we’re sitting at the table (while we’re sitting at the table). 

Those kinds of people, wherever they are, keep the church from becoming what it is.  They won’t grow up.  But why would any of us want to grow up?  What’s the motivation?  I’ve been giving that a lot of thought in the last few days and while I believe that there are some people who don’t want to grow up I also believe that the majority of us really do. 

I wasn’t a Lost Boy, but I was a boy not so long ago, and instead of taking my cues from Peter Pan I took them from my dad.  I looked up to him as the example of what a man should be.  I remember watching him shave and thinking, “Some day I’ll do that.”  I paid attention to the way he squirted shaving cream into his palm, the way he patted it onto his face.  I watched the careful strokes he made with the razor and the way he puffed out his cheeks to get a close shave.  To this day, nearly every time I squirt shaving cream into my palm I think of my dad.  And it’s not only then, of course.  So many of the things I do are things I learned from him.  And sometimes I will say things that are so much like what he would say that I think, “Oh my goodness, I’ve become my father!”  Which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.  Not at all.  It would be one of the best things in the world.  I’ve thought that all along.  And that’s why, as a boy, I paid attention.  That’s why I watched what he did and listened to what he said and studied my Father’s moves.  I wanted to grow up to be just like him.

That’s all the writer of Ephesians wants for the church: to stop fighting and biting each other, to stop chasing every new teaching that comes along, so that we can pay attention to Jesus, so that we can listen to what he says and watch what he does and study his moves.  So we can grow up to be  . . . just like him.

—Jim Somerville © 2009