The Waking Dreamer: Book of Ephesians

Showing posts with label Book of Ephesians. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 04, 2024

Training

Ephesians 6:10, 13-21[1]

As I mentioned last week, anyone who’s made the effort to learn a skill knows that it takes practice. But those of us who’ve been serious about trying to learn that skill know that it also takes training. I’ve learned that lesson in my on-again, off-again career as an amateur guitar player. I started trying to play guitar back in 1979. I went off to college that year, setting about teaching myself how to play guitar. I learned some chords, and I could play well enough to lead camp songs, but that was about as far as it went. And it didn’t take long before my guitar sat in a corner mostly unplayed.

Twenty years later I decided to try again to learn to play guitar. This time I took lessons. I started with classical lessons, because I wanted to learn to play the notes on the guitar, not just the chords. I did that for about a year and a half. Life’s changes interrupted my classical lessons, but I kept at it. Several years later, I decided I wanted to learn to play an electric guitar also. The technique is quite different. So I started taking weekly lessons. I did that for about five years. I learned a lot about basic technique. I learned to play some solos, like the one from “Hotel California.” More importantly, I learned something about the music theory behind Blues and Jazz, and I learned to improvise a bit. I still have a lot to learn about playing guitar. But I know that I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without some training.

We’ve been talking a lot lately about what it looks like to try to live the Christian life. In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul has urged us to “lead a life worthy of your calling” (Eph 4:1, NLT). And we learned over the last several weeks that we demonstrate the quality of our faith by the quality of our relationships. We saw that Paul gets uncomfortably specific about what that looks like. And we heard him encourage us to conduct our relationships in such a way that we seek to do good to others, and not to harm, we try to help others, not hurt them, and we look for ways to give to others, rather than trying to take from them. And last week we discussed what it looks like to “live wisely, and not foolishly” (Eph 5:15, CEB) by practicing things like honoring God, and gratitude, and respect for others. And as we have been discussing all along, this way of life takes constant practice.

But I would suggest that living the Christian life also takes training. It’s not something that we can just teach ourselves. We learn to live this way over time, over years and even decades of training and practice. St. Paul alludes to this training in our lesson for today. He uses the analogy of a soldier equipped for battle, with armor, a shield, and even a weapon. These days, using military analogies for the Christian life can be troubling. Unfortunately, throughout the ages too many Christians have taken the “battle” image Paul uses here too literally. And that makes it hard for us to compare a life that seeks to follow Jesus with warfare. But I think the main point of this passage is that it takes training to prepare for living the Christian life.

If we recognize that Paul is using the image of a soldier to encourage us to engage in training, perhaps we can learn something from this passage without endorsing any kind of violence in the name of Jesus. Take, for example, his encouragement to “Let the truth be like a belt around your waist, and let God’s justice protect you like armor” (Eph. 6:14, CEV). I think this suggests one area of training for the Christian life. It has to do with learning to discern and follow God’s will as you understand it. That’s something that takes training, and even discipline. We have to commit to it like a learning a musical instrument, or developing athletic skills, or following a fitness regimen. We commit to seeking to determine the right thing to do, in so far as it is humanly possible. And we try to do the right thing, again in so far as it is humanly possible.

A second line of training may be suggested by Paul’s call for us to “Let your faith be like a shield” and to “Let God's saving power be like a helmet” (Eph 6:16-17, CEV). The good news about our salvation by grace and the hope of the coming kingdom of God is not easy to understand. This suggests another area of training for the Christian life. We have to make an effort to dig into what the gospel means for us and for our lives. That includes Bible study. And Bible study starts with reading the Bible on a regular basis.[2] I think that’s what Jesus was talking about when he called people to “eat” his flesh as the bread of life. He was talking about ingesting his words, meditating on them, internalizing them, and remaining attentive to God’s voice. But we all need help understanding what we’re reading and hearing in the Bible. That’s where organized study comes in. We can participate in a group Bible Study. We can also read books that help make the gospel more understandable and more real to us. I find that helpful after 40 years of study. There are some authors who make it all “come to life.”[3]

Paul suggests a third focus of training in the discipline of prayer. I like the way Gene Peterson renders it in The Message: “pray hard and long” (Eph 6:18). Prayer keeps us connected to God.[4] It’s a source of strength and wisdom. Prayer opens us to the resources that God provides to help us live the Christian life every day, especially when life gets hard. But prayer also opens us up to other people, especially when we pray for them. And we need to pray especially for the people who may be the most difficult for us to love. When we do, it opens our closed hearts and helps us to understand where people are coming from, even when they may do something we find hurtful. Prayer opens us up and helps us live the Christian life.

It takes practice to live the Christian life. I’m still practicing, still trying to learn how to get it right. But more than that, it takes training. When we try the do-it-yourself method of learning to live the Christian life, the results may be just as unreliable as when I tried to teach myself to play the guitar. We need training to learn how to discern God’s will and put it into practice in our lives, in so far as it is humanly possible. We need training to figure out what the right thing to do is, and to figure out how to try to do it. We need training to understand the good news about Jesus that is the foundation for living the Christian life. And we need training to learn how to “pray hard and long.” The Christian life is not a do-it-yourself project. It’s not something we can successfully achieve on our own. Just as I needed a teacher to learn to play the guitar, so we all need to look to those in the body of Christ who can train us in the disciplines that enable us to live the Christian life in the face of the real-life situations we deal with every day. And part of the good news about this is that every day is a day when we can start again to learn how to live our lives more like Christ.

[2] Cf. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol 5, 59-60: “brief passages cannot and must not take the place of reaching the Scripture as a whole. … The full witness to Jesus Christ the Lord can be clearly heard only in its immeasurable inner relationships, in the connection of Old and New Testaments, of promise and fulfillment, sacrifice and law, Law and Gospel, cross and resurrection, faith and obedience, having and hoping

[3] Cf. Henri Nouwen, Here and Now: Living in the Spirit, 72: “Reading in a spiritual way is reading with a desire to let God come closer to us. Most of us read to acquire knowledge or to satisfy our curiosity. … The purpose of spiritual reading, however, is not to master knowledge or information, but to let God’s Spirit master us.”

[4] Cf. Nouwen, Here and Now, 68: prayer is “the discipline that helps us to bring God back again and again to the center of our life.”

Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Wisdom

Ephesians 5:10-21[1]

We’ve been living in what’s called the “information age” for a long time. I still remember the first time I helped my son work on a school project using the internet. It was his “volcano” science project, and he was assigned to write a report on Mauna Loa on the island of Hawaii. To my surprise, the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park had a web site with all the information anyone could ever need about Mauna Loa. That was thirty years ago! Over the last three decades, our access to information has increased exponentially! Then, we had to log into our dial-up internet service using our home computer. Now all we have to do is search on our smartphones to get instant access to just about any and every kind of information we might ever want or need.

I’ve mentioned before that all that access to information doesn’t translate into greater wisdom. That’s not a particularly astute observation on my part. These days it’s so common as to be almost a cliché. To be sure, information can lead to wisdom, but I wouldn’t say that wisdom comes simply from the accumulation of information. If that were true, we should be the wisest generation of all time! That idea is one of the flaws in the assumption that access to education will automatically translate into better lives for all people. That’s the hope, but the fact remains that it takes more than going through an education to benefit from it. As many have observed, you have to make the effort to let the education “go through” you. In other words, you have to try to actually learn and internalize what you’re being taught so it makes a difference in your character and your life.

Our lesson from Ephesians for today addresses wisdom. As we saw last week, the believers in the First Century were real life human beings who struggled with real life challenges in their faith and in their relationships. And one of the main instructions that Paul gave them was to “live wisely, and not foolishly” (Eph 5:15, CEB). We might feel hesitant to use that language, especially in light of what Jesus said about calling people “fools” in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:22). But Jesus was talking about a specific kind of language that demeans and diminishes another person. On the other hand, like our lesson for today, the Bible is full of statements about those who live “foolishly.” From the viewpoint of the Bible, living “foolishly” means to actively resist God and the way of life guided by the “fear of the Lord.”

Of course, that’s not language that appeals to us either. When our Psalm for today tells us that “Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true wisdom” (Ps 111:10), I’m not sure it helps us. But once again, I think we need to understand what the Bible means by the “fear of the Lord.” I don’t believe it means that a proper response to God is to cringe in fear of punishment from God’s “wrath.” Rather the idea is to honor and respect God. The “fear of the Lord” means taking to heart the Bible’s instructions for living. It means seeking to imitate God’s character, as we heard last week. And in the Bible, the fundamental qualities of God’s character are unfailing love, faithfulness, and mercy! I would say that if we want to know what it means to live a life that honors and respects God, we can look to Jesus as our prime example!

I realize that’s a tall order. Who among us can imitate God’s character—truly? Who among us can follow Jesus’ example perfectly? But the idea is that we do the best we can with what we have to work with, always growing in our understanding of what it means to live like this, and in our ability to practice it. In that respect, living “wisely” is a skill. It’s something we have to practice, and the more we practice it, the better we get. It’s a bit like developing “muscle memory.” That’s what athletes and musicians strive to achieve in their practice routines. But it doesn’t happen overnight. If you’ve ever tried to learn a skill, you know that. It must be learned and developed over time and with repeated practice.

So what should we be doing if we want to develop our ability to live wisely? Again, I think our lesson from Ephesians for today points us in a direction. St. Paul tells us to “Carefully determine what pleases the Lord” (Eph. 5:10, NLT). Being “careful” about how we live doesn’t mean that we’re walking on eggshells, but rather that we pay attention to how we are living. He says it this way: “Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do” (Eph 5:17, NLT). And the way to live wisely and thoughtfully is to “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph 5:18). I’ve always found that verse a bit confusing. It seems to me that the Spirit is the one who works in our lives to bring us to faith, to lead us in living a life that follows Christ’s example, and to empower us to serve one another. My question has always been, what can I do to “be” filled with the Spirit. It’s always seemed to me that it’s up to the Spirit to fill us, rather than being up to us to “be” filled with the Spirit.

But I think Paul gives us a clue as to how we can “be filled with the Spirit.” Everything that follows in the next few verses defines what it looks like to “be filled with the Spirit.” Paul says that when we’re filled with the Spirit, we will “sing and make melody to the Lord” in our hearts. When we’re filled with the Spirit, we will “give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” When we’re filled with the Spirit, we will “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph 5:18-21, NLT). That last part may raise some eyebrows, but I believe it just means treating others with respect rather than demanding our own way.[2] If that’s what it looks like to be “filled with the Spirit,” then it seems to me that one way to seek to “be” filled with the Spirit is to practice those things like skills we are trying to learn until they come naturally to us.

There are other ways to learn wisdom, of course. We learn wisdom when we have a mentor to guide us. We learn wisdom by going through some of life’s most difficult challenges. But there’s a spiritual dimension to wisdom that we shouldn’t neglect. It’s the wisdom that recognizes how important it is for us to worship God. We constantly need to be reminded that God is God and we’re not! And not just once a week. There’s wisdom in recognizing what an awesome God we have! There’s also wisdom in practicing gratitude. It turns what we have into “enough” and it turns disappointment into contentment. And there’s wisdom in recognizing that we’re not always right, and we don’t always need to get our way. Rather, we can yield to others and give them respect. Wisdom means making an effort to listen to those who disagree with us and trying to understand where they’re coming from.

There is a vast difference between information and wisdom. Most of us have instant access to just about any and every kind of information we might ever want or need to know. And information we would never want or need to know as well. The kind of wisdom that the Bible teaches us refers to a way of living that emulates God’s character. And we do that by striving to follow Jesus’ example. Like an athlete practicing every day, or like a musician working on developing their “chops” every day, wisdom is something we learn by the way we live. It develops over time as we learn to honor God, not just on one day of the week, but every day.

[2] Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, 111, defines submission as freedom “to lay down the terrible burden of always needing to get our own way.”

Tuesday, August 13, 2024

Relationships

Ephesians 4:21-5:2[1]

Last week we saw that we demonstrate the quality of our faith by the quality of our relationships. It doesn’t take a person with greying hair to know that relationships can be complicated. They can be wonderful, and they can be aggravating. They can fill our lives with meaning and purpose, and they can leave us feeling empty and confused. They can be joyful, and they can be painful. And sometimes they can be all of that at the same time. I’m not talking about any specific kind of relationship, but rather all of our relationships. All that makes us human means that we all approach all of our relationships with all of our flaws. I think, given that reality, “complicated” is the right word for relationships.

As we discussed last week, according to St. Paul, we take our faith in Jesus “on the road,” so to speak, in our relationships. That’s where we demonstrate the strength or weakness of our faith. That’s where we discover that we still have much to learn in order to grow more like Christ in our daily living. In our lesson for today, Paul gets specific about what our faith means for our relationships. Perhaps uncomfortably so. He talks about honesty, anger, and stealing! We might find that surprising. After all, these days we tend to idealize the early church. We think that they were perfect “saints.” And here’s Paul telling those first Christians to stop lying to one another, to stop taking their anger out on one another, and to stop stealing from one another. Apparently, the first believers were just as flawed in the way they conducted their relationships as we are.

Paul starts off by telling them to “stop telling lies” (Eph 4:25)! That’s pretty blunt! It presupposes that they were lying to each other! I would imagine that most of us would take offense if someone told us to “stop telling lies.” We all tend to assume that we’re honest people. Or at least that we’re “honest enough.” But we live in a world where the standard operating procedure seems to be “say whatever it takes to get what you want without having to give up anything to anybody.” In that world, we have all kinds of subtle ways of “bending” the truth to suit ourselves.

The problem is that dishonesty in any form erodes the fabric of our relationships. Instead, Paul quotes from the prophet Zechariah: “Let us tell our neighbors the truth.” In a world where “truth” seems to be for sale to the highest bidder, we might ask the question Pontius Pilate posed to Jesus: “What is truth?” I don’t think Paul wants us to be brutally honest to the point that we actually damage our relationships. There’s a time for speaking the truth plainly and openly, and there is a time for not telling everyone everything you know. Instead, Paul gives us direction about how to be truthful when he says, “Do not use harmful words, but only helpful words” (Eph 4:29 GNT). I think that’s the bottom line for Paul: because we’re connected to one another in relationships, we’re to speak to one another in a way that will be helpful, in a way that will “do good.”

Paul’s instructions about our relationships continue in a way that continues to be uncomfortable. He says, “When you are angry, do not sin” (Eph 4:26, NIrV). I would say that for many of us, addressing our anger is just as touchy as questioning our honesty. When it comes to anger, it’s usually someone else who has a “problem” with anger, not us. Our anger is entirely “appropriate” and “justified.” At least in our own minds. But the problem is that anger is not only something we feel deeply, it’s also powerful. The question is how will we use that powerful emotion. We can take anger as a warning signal that we’re off track in some way. Perhaps we’ve misunderstood someone, or we’re holding onto an unrealistic expectation, or we’re trying to control something that we can’t control. Or we can simply take our anger out on the people around us. When we do so, we use the power of our anger to harm others. I would suggest that’s the “sin” Paul wanted us to avoid.

It’s said that it can take years to build up a relationship, but only seconds to destroy it. That’s the power of anger. I’m not talking about the fact that we all lose our temper from time to time. I’m talking about letting anger control us to the extent that we say hurtful, hateful things to others. But we can choose how to respond to our anger. Psychologists tell us that anger is usually a response to either fear or hurt. If we can pause when we’re angry, take a breath, and try to see what is driving our anger, we have a chance to use our anger for good. And that means using our anger to correct our faulty behavior in our relationships. And the key to dealing with our anger in a healthy way is to “be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you” (Eph 4:32, NLT). Perhaps the first step toward doing that is to realize that we can’t simply impose our expectations on others. Rather, the way of forgiveness and kindness is to accept people for who they are.

Finally, Paul addresses the quality of relationships in the body of Christ in a way that might seem shocking. He says literally, “Thieves must no longer steal” (Eph 4:28). It’s uncomfortable to think that there were thieves in the early church. Some Bible translations display this discomfort with Paul’s words when they render this as “those who used to steal.” But that’s not what Paul says! Paul simply says, “Thieves must no longer steal.” It would seem that the early church contained people from all walks of life, including people who made a practice of stealing.

Again, most of us assume that we’re good, upstanding, honest people. We would probably insist that we’ve never stolen anything in our lives. But there are all kinds of ways of stealing. In the Bible, the prophets and apostles called not paying fair wages “stealing.” Of course, some ways of stealing are more subtle than others. We can steal a person’s good name by spreading gossip! We can steal a person’s trust by deceiving them or betraying them. We can steal a person’s innocence by taking advantage of them. The basic premise seems to be “I want what you have, and I’m going to use any means necessary to get it, regardless of how it might hurt you or anyone else.” I think Paul’s words about stealing here are not just about money or possessions. He’s talking about a fundamental way of relating to one another that seeks not to take advantage of anyone, but rather to do good to others.

Relationships are complicated. And it’s uncomfortable for us to talk about dishonesty, anger, and stealing in church. We want to assume that those are faults from which we’re inherently immune. But they’re part of the human condition, and St. Paul rightly saw them as a threat to our relationships. More than that, they undermine our ability to bear witness to the new life God is creating in each of us through the Spirit based on our faith in Jesus Christ. We can reassure ourselves that we would “never” do anything like that. But the uncomfortable truth about all of us is that we are all equally flawed and fallen. We may not all give in to our flaws to the same extent. But we are all susceptible to dishonesty; we’re all susceptible to taking out our anger on others; we’re all susceptible to stealing, particularly in their more subtle forms. Paul’s call to us, however, is to strip off those behaviors like a stained garment. He calls us to clothe ourselves with kindness, forgiveness, and love. He calls us to seek to do good to others, and not to harm. When we live like that, we will try to help others, not hurt them. We will look for ways to give to them, rather than trying to take from them. And as we do so, the quality of our relationships will demonstrate the genuineness of our faith. And the more we demonstrate the genuineness of our faith through the quality of our relationships, the more the quality of our relationships will draw people around us into our community!

Tuesday, August 06, 2024

Billboards

Ephesians 4:1-16[1]

I’m not a fan of billboards personally. I know they serve a purpose in our advertising-driven world. But I’ve been in places where people can’t just put up a billboard wherever they want, and I like the ability to appreciate the scenery without all the clutter. Many of us have experienced the evolution of billboards. These days we have LED screens for billboards. But some billboards are still simple hand-painted signs. For a long time, the sight of workers pasting up the printed strips of a billboard was a common one. In those days, it was also fairly common, at least where I lived, to see a billboard that had some of the strips peeled off. Apparently the contract ran out! The funny thing was that you could still make out the gist of the original ad. And sometimes you could also make out the one underneath it!

In a very real sense, we are all living and breathing billboards for faith in Jesus Christ. Whether we like it or not, and for better or for worse, our lives are all constantly “on display” for Christ. In the time when we were supposedly a “Christian” nation, everyone was assumed to be a person of faith, and perhaps it didn’t matter as much. To be quite honest, I’m not sure any nation can ever truly claim to be “Christian.” But now we live in a time when more people in our society explicitly reject any and every religion. In my mind, that makes it all the more important that we are aware that our lives are constantly “on display” for Christ. The language of the New Testament is that we are “witnesses” to what Christ has done for us and for all people. And one way in which we bear that “witness” is by the way we live.

This is an important part of our lesson from St. Paul in Ephesians for today. As in the case in some of his other letters, after laying out the message of the Gospel and what that means for our “hope of salvation,” he turns to the practical implications for how we live our lives. Here, he urges those who know Jesus Christ to “lead a life worthy of your calling” (Eph 4:1, NLT). If you asked ten people what it means to live in a manner “worthy” of the salvation we have been given through Jesus Christ, I think you might get ten different answers. Some would point to particular religious or spiritual practices you should do on a daily basis. Some would say that it’s about choosing a special “vocation” like devoting your entire life to Christ. Others would insist that you have to agree with certain very specific beliefs.

But St. Paul takes a very different direction in answering this question. To him, “leading a life worthy of your calling” means to “Always be humble and gentle.” It means being “patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.” It means making “every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace” (Eph 4:2-3, NLT). In other words, we demonstrate the quality of our faith in Jesus Christ by the way we treat one another. I would add that this applies to how we treat all people, whether or not they are one of “us”!

One of the things I have always found to be a bit surprising about this passage is that St. Paul says that we display the quality of our faith by the quality of our relationships! And the quality he was looking for is the ability to remain “united in the Spirit, binding ourselves together with peace.” He said we display the quality of our faith when we practice patience with one another, when we bear with one another, or “make allowance for each other’s faults” as the New Living Translation puts it. And we do so because of the love we have for one another. It reminds me of Jesus’ statement to those who followed him that “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples” (Jn 13:35, NLT).[2]

There was a time when church “unity” was based on denominational structures—Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Methodist, or Baptist. There was a time when church unity was based on shared doctrinal convictions. Although many would have denied it, it was also based on being on the same side when it came to politics. That was the case for many centuries. But the kind of unity that makes the church truly live does not come from human institutions, or shared doctrinal convictions, or even from political agreement. It’s the unity that God creates.[3]

That’s why Paul adds the statement that “There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all” (Eph 4:5-6, NLT).[4] True unity in the church is the unity that God creates—the church is the one people of the one God. It’s the unity that Jesus Christ creates—the church is the one people of the one Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It’s the unity that the Spirit of God creates—the church is the one people of the one Holy Spirit. Here Paul places special emphasis on the unity created by the presence and powerful work of God’s Spirit in all our lives. That’s what makes the church really live. At least according to St. Paul!

So, how do we develop this unity in order to help our church thrive? For one thing, it’s something we have to “grow up” into. St. Paul sees the Christian life as a process by which we are all constantly “growing in every way more and more like Christ” until we “measure up” to “to the full and complete standard of Christ” (Eph 4:13, 15, NLT)! If you’re like me, and you’re aware of how often you fall short of that standard, you may be thinking that’s impossible. How can anyone every live up “to the full and complete standard of Christ”? That’s a natural response, I think. But St. Paul insists that this whole process is not something we do on our own. It’s the “new life” that the Spirit of God creates in us. It’s what God is doing in all of our lives through Jesus Christ.

If we’re all “billboards” meant to display this astounding work that God is doing in all of our lives, we may struggle with feeling like we can never live up to that kind of scrutiny. We may feel like those old billboards that have part of the “new” message, but there are some strips missing and some of the old underlying truth still visible. That’s an uncomfortable truth for us, but it may be reassuring to remember that it’s true for all of us. We all have a mixture of the new life and the old truths that make up who we are as real-life followers of Jesus Christ. That’s why we “grow up” into the “full stature of Christ” precisely by practicing gentleness, humility, patience, forbearance, and love in our relationships with one another and with all people. Those qualities don’t always come naturally to us, but the more we put them into practice, the more we will be able to practice them in our relationships. As we do so, even our flawed lives can be billboards bearing witness to the new life that God gives us all through Jesus Christ!

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 345, where he insists that the church “is not ‘one’ for itself; it is one for the peace of divided [hu]mankind in the coming kingdom of God.”

[3] Cf. Moltmann, Church in the Power, 347: “Can political enemies ‘remain one under the gospel’? How long can they do this? And what does it mean for their conflict itself? Does this not make ‘the gospel’ an abstract and ineffective power?” His answer is that what counts in the midst of these conflicts is the “fellowship of Christ.” In other words, it is our mutual faith, and the presence of the living Christ among us through the Spirit, that creates unity in the real conflicts of human life.

[4] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.1:668: “In all the riches of His divine being the God who reconciled the world with Himself in Jesus Christ is One. Jesus Christ, elected the Head of all men and as such their Representative who includes them all in Himself in His risen and crucified body is One. The Holy Spirit in the fulness and diversity of His gifts is One. In the same way His community as the gathering of the men who know and confess Him can only be one.”

Tuesday, July 23, 2024

Everything and Everyone

Ephesians 1:3-11[1]

From the perspective of someone who is “outside” the church, I think there has always been something about our “gospel” that doesn’t sound like very good news. The “standard” script has been something like this: “we’re all sinners, and we deserve to be punished; God really does love us, though, so he sent Jesus to take the punishment we deserve, so that we could be forgiven and go to heaven when we die.” Since we’ve heard that message all our lives, it makes sense to us. But I think what most people “outside” the church hear is, “You’re no good the way you are; If you don’t change, God is going to get you; If you believe like me, act like me, hang out with me, become like me, then you get to go to heaven when you die. If you don’t, you’re going to hell.” To me, that doesn’t sound like very good news at all!

I believe the Scriptures contain a very different gospel—one that truly is good news. Our Psalm text for today alludes to it. “The earth is the Lord’s” means that everything and everyone belongs to God, both by virtue of the fact that he created us in the first place, and by virtue of the fact that he gave his son Jesus Christ to redeem us all. It means that God reigns over everything and everyone. That word “reign” might not mean much to us, but from the perspective of the Bible, God’s reign means peace, it means salvation, it means life for everything and everyone![2] It means that God also cares for all things and for the whole human family. It means that God not only deserves praise from all peoples, but also that God will be praised by all peoples.[3]

The idea in the Bible that all peoples are blessed, they witness God’s saving work, and they acclaim him in worship may sound strange to us who have been taught the traditional “gospel.” However, this understanding of God’s redemptive purpose runs through the whole Bible. From Genesis to Isaiah to Jesus to the Book of Revelation, the good news is that God is working to establish his saving reign world-wide, a kingdom which will bring mercy and freedom and new life to everything and everyone, everywhere.

I believe that’s what Paul is talking about in our lesson from Ephesians for today when he speaks of gathering all things together under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Paul believed that the return of Christ would be a day when the entire created order would be reconciled to God and restored to its rightful place under the lordship of Christ.[4] He says it this way: “God’s secret plan has now been revealed to us; it is a plan centered on Christ, designed long ago according to his good pleasure. And this is his plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ – everything in heaven and on earth” (Eph. 1:9-10, NLT).[5] That doesn’t sound to me like it leaves out anyone or anything. I like a phrase from The Message translation, where it says that God takes “such delight” in carrying out this plan for everything and everyone.

I’m not ashamed to say that I believe that God’s ultimate purpose is to redeem all humanity. I really fail to see what is good about the news that those of us who are “in” will inherit an eternity of blessing in the presence of God, while those who are “out” are going to suffer an eternity of torment. I never have seen the “good news” in that message. The Christian hope is that God’s redemptive purpose will prevail—for everything and everyone. This is the message of the Psalms, the message of the prophets, and it is the message of Jesus: the fulfillment of God’s reign which brings salvation. The good news insists that, despite all indications to the contrary, “God’s cause will prevail in the world.”[6]

I realize that all of this may sound either outrageous or too good to be true. Some of us who have spent our lives seeking to live for God may bristle at the thought that those who never gave God a second thought may receive the same “reward” as we will. But then, it’s not really about “rewards” at all. Our gospel is a gospel of grace—of receiving something undeserved. That’s true for all of us. It’s a gospel of unconditional love, which creates in us the confidence to take the risk of believing something that may sound too good to be true. After all, if God’s love is unconditional, then it’s unconditional for everyone, not just for you and me. And that’s what gives us the assurance to believe that God not only chooses to save everything and everyone, but also that God has the power to accomplish that seemingly outrageous plan![7]

I realize some of you may be scratching your heads at this point.[8] We’ve heard the “good news” that those of us who believe in Jesus will be saved while those who don’t will be “left behind” for so long that when we’re confronted with this aspect of biblical teaching it seems either outrageous or too good to be true. But the “full” gospel is that God intends not just to save a chosen few, but rather every one of his beloved children and every inch of his precious creation. It’s the message that begins with Abraham, and it runs through the whole Bible. And so in the New Testament the Apostles looked forward to the day when “every knee” would bow in worship and acknowledge Christ as Lord (Phil. 2:10-11). They believed that the plan behind all of this is that God is in the process of “making all things new” (Rev. 21:5, NJB).

How that will happen I don’t profess to understand completely. There are complications involved. But despite that, it is a breathtaking message; a message that truly is “good news.” To me it seems like these days most of the news is “all bad, all the time.” I think we could do with some good news. I think the people around us could do with some good news. And so perhaps the challenge of this passage is that we become a people who reflect the hope of this outrageous good news![9] God’s plan is that through Christ he’s going to redeem everything and everyone. And as the Scripture says in The Message translation, God takes “great delight” in seeing to it that this plan will be fulfilled!

[2] James L. Mays, Psalms, 311. Cf. also Shirley C. Guthrie, “The Way, the Truth, and the Life,” Presbyterian Outlook (Feb. 11, 2002), who says that God’s kingdom will bring “justice and compassion for all people, everywhere.”

[3] Psalm 48:10; 57:5, 11; 66:4; 72:19; 86:9; 96:1, 7; 97:6; 98:4, 7; 108:5; 145:21.

[4] 1 Corinthians 15:28; Ephesians 1:10; Colossians 1:20; Philippians 2:10-11.

[5] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 39-40: “our hope is directed towards that divine future in which God will have all his creatures beside him to all eternity. That is to say, our hope is for the day when all things will be restored and gathered in a new, eternal order.” Cf. also Pheme Perkins “The Letter to the Ephesians,” New Interpreters Bible XI:378: “Ephesians assures us that … somehow the universe is ordered so that all things return to God in Christ.”

[6] Hans Küng, The Christian Challenge, 120.

[7] Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of the Church, Faith, and the Consummation, 344: “this love lasts forever and that it will not rest until it possesses us wholly.”

[8] Cf. Karl Barth, Romans, 38, 108-9, where he acknowledges that idea that a God of grace and mercy loves us unconditionally with a love that will never let us go is something “so unheard of, so unexpected” that it can only appear to us as something “incomprehensible and meaningless,” as a “vast impossibility.”.

[9] Cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 292-93, where he speaks of the Christian community as “the sign, the instrument, and the breaking-in of the new order of all things” and therefore not as “the exclusive community of the saved,” but “the initial and inclusive” expression of “the world freed by the risen Christ.”

Tuesday, November 28, 2023

God's Mighty Power

God’s Mighty Power

Ephesians 1:15-23[1]

I’ve said many times recently that it’s a difficult time to be the church. It seems like the pandemic and everything we went through changed so many things. One of the great challenges we face is the diminished influence we seem to have in our communities. People of all ages view Sunday as “fun day,” not the “Lord’s Day.” And as such a great many people who once regularly attended worship are spending their Sundays doing everything but coming to church. It can leave those of us who are here feeling inadequate, weak, and wondering where we’ve failed. It makes us question whether we’re doing anything right. It may even cause us to doubt whether it’s “worth it” to continue to devote our time and energy to the church at all.

Believe it or not, church attendance is not at its lowest point in history. It’s not even at the lowest point in the history of this country. Church attendance in this country was at its lowest point by percentage of the population in the early 1800’s. I’m not entirely sure why that was the case. It was a time when the world was turning from “superstition” to reason. I’m sure that played a role. But the simple truth was that the people in that time didn’t think the church was an important part of their lives. The fact of the matter is that it was even worse during the Middle Ages. Most people literally only went to church on Easter Sunday. That was the case for centuries. It wasn’t until the changes leading up to and following the Reformation 500 years ago that people began attending worship more regularly. It makes me wonder how those who continued to worship at that time kept going in the face of such overwhelming odds!

The church to which Paul was writing his letters, like our lesson from Ephesians for today, was facing overwhelming odds. Although they looked to the same scriptures and worshipped the same one true God as the Jewish people, they were opposed and harassed by many of the Jewish religious leaders. And they faced the same opposition from their own former friends, neighbors, and family from all the different people groups that made up the church. Because they no longer worshipped the “gods” their communities worshipped, they were harassed, attacked, and even expelled from their lives. And although the Romans were in charge, they could care less about what they considered an offshoot sect of the Jewish religion.

It was in that setting that the Apostle Paul wrote Ephesians. He begins this letter with long expression of his thanks to God for all that God had done in their lives to bring them to faith in Jesus, and to change them into a people who would love and serve God. God’s grace had already been at work in their lives through the message of the Gospel and through the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection. In our lesson for today, he shifts to a prayer for the church. There is a sense in which Paul could say that he knew they already had everything they needed in Christ to live fully into their commitment to following him. At the same time, I think Paul knew the struggles they faced, and so he prayed for this church, just like he prayed for all the churches he had encountered.

The gist of his prayer was that they would be able to continue to live out their faith confidently in the face of all they had to overcome. The focus of his prayer was that they would know “the confident hope” God had given them through Jesus Christ (Eph 1:18). As we saw last week, the hope that the Psalmist held out for the people of Israel in hard times was that their help came from the one who made all the heavens and the earth. If he had the power to create all things, then he had the power to help them. This week, we hear the Apostle Paul encouraging the believers of his day that, despite the hardships they faced, their hope was in the one who raised Jesus Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand, “far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come” (Eph 1:21, NLT).

We may take that for granted because we’ve heard it many times—perhaps all our lives. But Paul doesn’t want us to take it for granted at all. In fact, he “piles up” words to describe God’s mighty power in raising Jesus from the dead. The reason for that is because Paul calls us to take a step beyond trusting the God who created all the heavens and the earth. He calls us to trust in the God who has the power to overcome everything that opposes his purposes in this world, as well as everything that threatens to harm us in any way. And he demonstrated that power once and for all by raising Jesus from the dead and giving him the “name that is above every name.”

Although we may not always see it visibly, the promise is that God’s mighty power is working right now to change all things and all people. And he is doing that precisely by what he is doing in and through the church. Paul could compare what God is doing in and through us to what God did when he raised Jesus from the dead. With the same power God exerted when he raised Jesus from the dead, he is working in and through each and every one of us right now! When we doubt whether what we’re doing is making any difference, we can look to the empty cross and remember this promise! The empty cross is a visible reminder to us that Christ is not ruling over all things from afar, but in and through the church! In fact, Paul celebrates the victory of Christ’s reign over all things as if it is something that has already been accomplished.[2] You may have noticed that today is “Christ the King” Sunday. It is the day in the church calendar when we celebrate the wonderful promise that Christ is reigning in and through us to make all things new. In a very real sense, every Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, which points us to the final victory through God’s mighty power in and through Jesus Christ.

That may not make much sense when you look at things. Life seems to go on just as it always has. Those who are willing to stop at nothing to gain wealth and power are still getting away with it. Those who use violence to control and oppress others are still wreaking havoc in people’s lives. And it can seem like our gathering here to sing the songs of the faith, and hear the Scriptures read, and pray the prayers that have been prayed for centuries isn’t making much difference. But the mystery of Christ’s reign in and through his body, the church, is that God’s mighty power is at work in all of it, right here and right now. Everything that we do in this church, even that which may seem “ordinary” and “insignificant,” is a part of that hope. The risen Christ who reigns at God’s right hand over all things is working even now, though it may seem frustratingly hidden and subtle. Though all has not yet come to the place where “every knee” bows and “every tongue” confesses Jesus Christ as Lord, everything we do here today, and as a church, is a part of what he is doing in and through us to reach that final goal.[3] May we continue to serve Christ faithfully in that confident hope!

[2] Ralph P. Martin, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, 23: Paul offers the “assurance that there is no part of the created order which is capable of effectively and finally thwarting the divine purpose, since Christ the head of the universe has already been installed in place.” Cf. Pheme Perkins, “The Letter to the Ephesians,” New Interpreters Bible, XI:384-85

[3] Cf. A. T. Lincoln, Ephesians, Word Biblical Commentary 42, 79-81.

Monday, June 08, 2020

The Lord Reigns

The Lord Reigns!

Psalm 93, Ephesians 1:15-23[1]

I think many of us have trouble with our image of God. It’s difficult to imagine the creator and sustainer of the whole universe as “someone” to whom we can actually relate. How do we even begin to wrap our heads around having a personal relationship with the “Most High God,” the “Lord God Almighty.” At the same time, many of us may have the opposite problem. We may be able to imagine God as one who is as close to us as the very air we breathe, one to whom we can bring all our joys and concerns. But in real life, when it comes to doing something to help us out, it may be difficult for us to believe that God is willing and able to act on our behalf.

The Bible consistently holds these two amazing concepts of God together: God is both “high and exalted,” and God surrounds us with constant love and care. And the loving and powerful God who both sustains the whole universe and cares for each of us individually can and does act on our behalf in all kinds of ways. Unfortunately, we overlook the ways in which God acts on our behalf. We also tend to forget the ways God has worked in our lives in the past. And so, we continue to wonder whether the God who is “Most High” and all-powerful is truly able make a difference in “my” life.

Our Psalm for today begins by celebrating God’s reign over all things. God reigns by the exercise of his great power, which is evident in the fact that he “established” or created the world. From the massive mountains standing firm and tall, to the breathtaking power of the oceans, to the infinite beauty in the heavens, God’s power is on display for us in creation. The Psalmist uses the awe-inspiring strength of the oceans to illustrate the amazing power of God’s reign. As mighty as the waves of the ocean may be, the Psalmist celebrates that God is even more powerful!

Many throughout the centuries have seen God’s power in the created order. But when it comes to the idea that God actually uses that power to work for good in our lives, many have found that difficult to grasp. God’s power is at work at the level of the universe, but since the days of space exploration, we have become much more aware of how small our place in all things can feel. Given that feeling of “smallness,” it can be too much of a reach for some to believe that the God who created and sustains the universe in all its beauty and vastness actually makes a difference in our lives.

I think our lesson from St. Paul addresses that question. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul prays that they may know the amazing hope to which God had called them. It is a hope for new life, and for a love that would never let them go, and for a future that might be hard for them to imagine. But he also prays that they may know the immense power with which God was at work in their lives. And in case they were wondering about that, Paul gives them an image with which to grasp that power: Easter! Paul says that God demonstrated the power with which he is at work in all of our lives in Jesus when he raised him from the dead. For those who may have doubts about whether God is working in their lives, all they have to do is remember that Jesus is alive!

That’s a stunning image! The same power that God exerted when he raised Jesus from the dead is the power with which he is at work in our lives. In fact, St. Paul takes it a step further. In the verses that follow our reading for today, he reminds the Ephesians that they, too were “dead,” in a manner of speaking. And just as God brought Jesus back to life, so God gave them new life. And God works in that same way in each and every one of our lives, both now and forever!

I fully understand why some people have doubts about God’s ability to make a difference in their lives. Life can be so full of twists and turns, ups and downs, successes and failures, surprises and disappointments, that it can be hard to see any plan or purpose. While we will probably never be able to recognize fully what God is doing in our lives (at least in the present moment!), we can be confident that God is nevertheless working in and through us. All the love and mercy and joy and peace and freedom that we could ever hope for: that is God’s purpose for us. We may not always see it clearly, but in Jesus’ new life on Easter we see a glimpse of what the God who reigns over all things has in store for us!

[1] © Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D., on 5/24/2020 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Saturday, September 05, 2015

God's Strength

God’s Strength

Ephesians 6:10-20[1]

If you’re a devoted follower of the news, it can be easy to conclude that the world in which we live is full of evil. To some extent, this is a matter of perspective. A ‘random act of kindness’ only rates a mention at the end of the news, while the headlines tend to focus on the tragic side of life. On the other hand, I think a person has to go through life with “eyes wide shut” not to recognize that we live in a world in which evil is very real. All I have to do is simply mention Auschwitz, Hiroshima, My Lai, Tianenmen Square, Bosnia, Tibet, the Twin Towers, Sandy Hook, or Charleston. And those are just the ones we may remember.

One of the challenges we have with evil is that it can be so deceptive. Some of the most evil deeds in human history have been perpetrated by those who claimed to be serving a greater good, or even insisted they were doing God’s will.[2] That makes evil incredibly difficult for us to recognize. But one of the other challenges is that evil is so widespread. I don’t believe that our world is defined by evil, unlike some people in our day. But the influence of evil affects human life all around us every day.[3] Some of the ways evil shows itself are obvious. Others are more subtle, and harder to recognize. But it is there, nevertheless.

Our lesson from Ephesians for today reminds us that we can rely on God’s strength as we face evil in our world. One of the problems with the way the New Testament approaches evil is that the language is influenced by the worldview of the day. The general idea in that time was that the air—literally, earth’s atmosphere— was the place where evil spiritual powers lived.[4] Our text says it this way: “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). As you can imagine, made people feel like they were constantly vulnerable to their influence.

I’ll have to say that I don’t buy into every detail of that worldview. I don’t believe we have to live our lives in constant fear that some “evil spirit” will attack us. I don’t “believe in” Satan or demons. The way some people talk sounds like give the Devil and his minions too much credit! I “believe in” God the Father almighty, and in his only Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit. Whether there is or is not a being named Satan is a difficult question to answer, but if there is, he is not the object of my faith! My faith is in God our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer!

Nevertheless, it seems obvious by what we can see around us that there is a power at work in the world that seems to be beyond simple human selfishness or cruelty.[5] And that evil affects us all. That’s why the Scripture lesson calls believers to be alert and to protect themselves against the “schemes” that evil throws against us to trip us up, to confuse us, and to discourage us.[6] When you look at some of the events that happen in our lives, it can be difficult to understand why something so tragic would happen to someone who is trying so hard to live for God. The effects of evil in our world can be truly disheartening.

But I think that is the reason for this passage. The Scriptures encourage us to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power” (Eph. 6:10). I think part of the idea behind this is that we have to realize that what we’re up against in this life as we seek to follow Christ is bigger than we can handle on our own. We’re not up to the task in our own strength. We need the strength that only God can provide in order to “stand” firm despite whatever may come our way. We are also encouraged to “take up the whole armor of God” (Eph. 6:13) in order that we might be able to withstand the onslaught. When you look at the pieces of armor mentioned here as a whole picture, what stands out to me is that every part of the body is protected.[7] And since it’s God’s armor, we can be confident that it is more than sufficient to keep us safe from whatever may come our way.[8] All we have to do is “stand firm” in it.

To some extent, however, this protection isn’t quite that automatic. We do have to make the effort to take up the protection God offers us. As we “put on” the virtues like truth, righteousness, and faith, we are “taking up the armor of God.” And yet I think it’s also important for us to remember that the Scriptures view these powers as already defeated.[9] In the beginning of this letter, we find the statement that God raised Jesus from the dead and “seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.” (Eph. 1:20-21). His exaltation far above all powers implies that he has already won the victory over them. Since these evil powers have already been defeated by what God has done through Jesus Christ, then we have nothing to fear from them.

I don’t pretend to understand fully the existence of evil in this world. It would seem that there are forces at work in our world that are evil to a degree that surpasses our human ability to conjure. And they are almost always deceptive and manipulative. While I don’t believe we are living in a world in which evil powers have the upper hand, they still have the ability to wreak havoc in our lives. For that reason I think the Scriptures remind us that the life of faith is more than we can handle on our own. We need God’s strength to protect us as we seek to be faithful to him in our lives. And the promise is that God’s strength is ours for the asking.

[2] Cf. Blaise Pascal, Pensees, no. 892: “Jamais on ne fait le mal si pleinement et si gaiement, que quand on le fait par un faux principe de conscience” (People never do evil so totally and so gladly as when they do it from false religious conviction).

[3] Compare a different approach in John Caputo, On Religion, 118, where he speaks in terms of “the tragic sense of life” that is “an anonymous and loveless force” that exerts itself in our lives even when we try to hold on to faith. He explains (p. 122) that according to this “tragic view” that some have set over against faith, “both the cruel indifference of natural disasters and the malice in the human heart are of a kind, equally innocent, equally the outcome of impersonal and unknowing forces of nature.” He adds that while he remains haunted by “this specter of a heartless world of cosmic forces,” he ultimately does not give it “the final word.”

[4] Cf. Pheme Perkins “The Letter to the Ephesians,” New Interpreters Bible XI:463: “The initial depiction of humans armed against forces that are more than human, against spiritual powers, fits an established pattern in apocalyptic texts. Ordinarily, the conflicts of the evil times at the end of the world are described as demonic in inspiration. Angelic figures like Michael do battle against the spiritual forces that the faithful righteous ones struggle against on earth. This scenario understands the sufferings of the righteous as part of the testing that belongs to the last days.”

[5] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.2:230, where he opposes both the idea that in using the language of spiritual forces of evil, Jesus either merely accommodated himself to the prevailing view or that he himself was limited by them. He says, “Like all other Jews therefore, but in a way which was incomparably more exact than all others, He saw and experienced what there was actually to be seen and experienced: an abyss of darkness which was not merely supposed or imagined or invented or projected into the sphere of being but was actual and concrete; the presence and action of nothingness, of the evil in the background and foreground of human existence.”

[6] Cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.2:675, where he describes the powers that attack believers as “the power of nothingness lashing out wildly in its final death-throes in this last time which is the time of the community, the violence of chaos which knows that its hour has come and, knowing that it cannot hurt the One who has trodden it underfoot, makes its last and supreme attack on His human attestation in an attempt to suppress and falsify and destroy it

[7] Cf. Perkins “Letter to the Ephesians,” NIB XI:460: “Though the concrete details of the armor are biblical, not Roman, the audience probably envisaged the fully armed Roman soldier when they heard these words (Judith 14:3).” She refers to the description of the armor of Roman Hastati, Principes, and Triarii in Polybius, Histories, 6.23 as a comparison.

[8] Cf. Ralph P. Martin, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, 76, where he say that since the armor is God’s , “no provision is lacking. No part of the body is unprotected. … , the believer’s protection as he faces the enemy is complete and sure.” Cf. also Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians: 442: “Despite the fact that not every piece of the armor will be listed, the emphasis is on the full protection it provides.”

[9] Cf. Perkins, “Letter to the Ephesians,” NIB XI: 463; cf. also “The Confession of 1967,” in The Book of Confessions, 9.25: “our strength is in the confidence that God’s purpose rather than human schemes will prevail.” I think that confidence also applies to any other schemes as well.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Trial and Error

Ephesians 5:8-20[1]

There is a tension in the Scriptures regarding the moral standards for the life of faith. In some places, the “precepts” of the Lord about right and wrong are presented as absolute. It would seem that what Scripture teaches on how we are to live our lives is clear and unchanging. On the other hand, there are other places where the Scriptures seem to speak with a different voice. In those passages, the will of the Lord is expressed in general principles more than clear-cut rules. Indeed, those of us who embrace the New Testament are used to hearing that we are set free from rules and regulations. It can be confusing to try to know just what it is we’re expected to do.

That tension translates into two basically different approaches to the Christian life. Some of us believe that all the teachings of Scripture are indeed rules for living, with all the authority and finality of the Ten Commandments. Therefore, to depart from any of them is to depart from God’s will. Unfortunately, life tends to be messy, and we all make mistakes. And so that has led some of us to embrace the opposite extreme: we cannot possibly keep all the commands the Bible presents, so we think we are free to live as we choose. In the process, however, we can go so far as to abandon the Scriptures entirely as the basis for our life and faith.

Our lesson from Ephesians for today presents us squarely with this problem. On the one hand, in the preceding verses St. Paul speaks about the behaviors that must be avoided, indeed must not even be mentioned, as well as those which prevent any who practice them from having an “inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God” (Eph. 5:5). In our lesson, he speaks in seemingly absolute terms of the contrast between those who are “disobedient” because they are in the darkness and we who are “children of light.” If you only pay attention to what our Scripture lesson negates, it would seem that the matter is clear and unambiguous. Those of us who practice the Christian faith are to separate ourselves from the behaviors of those who walk in darkness.

But the problem with this is that it’s hard to make such an absolute separation when it comes to human behavior. Whether we like it or not, we all contain both darkness and light, and there are times when our behavior reflects one or the other.[2] Those who cannot accept this typically have not had much experience with the brokenness of life. And even if they do, they only cinch up their resolve even tighter and refuse to admit that they might ever “fall short of the glory of God.” But the attitude that sees the speck in the other’s life and is blind to the log in one’s own is itself a part of the darkness in us all. We just cover it up with a veneer of piety.

Despite our best efforts at avoiding this difficult truth, the fact of the matter is that we all fall short. We all make mistakes. We are all human, which means we are all fallen and flawed and fallible. And oftentimes we fail precisely at the point where we think we are invulnerable. I think that’s what Jesus’ saying about the speck and the log is about: recognizing that none of us holds the moral “high ground,” and if we think we do, it should be a warning signal that we are headed in the wrong direction.

So if we cannot construct an air-tight absolute set of life laws from the Scripture that any flesh-and-blood human being can possible keep perfectly, what are we to do? Many in our day have decided that the thing to do is to ignore the Scriptures. After all, they do come from a time and a place that is very different from our world. The logical conclusion would seem to be to think of the Bible as a historical relic, one that might have some snippets of wisdom. But since it’s basically out of touch with our lives here and now, we are free to take it or leave it. Since it comes from a very different setting, we can view its teaching, especially its moral precepts, as descriptive of a way of life that no longer really applies to us. But to make that assumption would be to abandon one of the essential foundations for our faith.

What are we to do then? If we look at the positive teachings in our lesson for today, I think they may point us in the right direction. We are to “live as children of light”, which means practicing “all that is good and right and true” (Eph. 5:8-9). We are to “be careful” how we live, seeking to be wise, “making the most of the time” (Eph. 5:15-16). We are to “understand what the will of the Lord is” and seek to “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:17-18). And I think the guiding principle behind all of this is found in the appeal to “Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord” (Eph. 5:10).[3]

If you’re like me, you may be wondering just how specifically we’re supposed to do that. But that’s where the heart of what the Scriptures have to say can be challenging to us. There are indeed some very clear-cut teachings, but the Bible doesn’t tend to prescribe specific actions. Instead it teaches us principles for living, principles like “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” and “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” Our job is to “try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.” That may sound frustrating. We’d much rather have a clear-cut list of do’s and don’ts. But that’s not the way God works in our lives. The call to follow Christ is a call to live intentionally, every day.[4] It is a call to continually seek God’s will in every aspect of our daily lives.[5] In a very real sense, it is a call to a life of trial and error—figuring out how God wants us to live our lives as we face each situation, each crisis, each opportunity, and then doing our best to put that into practice.[6]

[2] Cf. Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer, 38, where he offers the suggestion that for ministers to truly offer others a way to connect with God we must “enter ourselves first of all into the center of our existence and become familiar with the complexities of our inner lives.” I think this applies generally to all, and he says that when we do this we will “discover the dark corners as well as the light spots.” Cf. also Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart, 15-16, where he says, “Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self. … Solitude is the place of the great struggle and the great encounter—the struggle against the compulsions of the false self, and the encounter with the loving God who offers himself as the substance of the new self.” Cf. further Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, 34-35, “Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self. … All sin starts from the assumption that my false self, the self that exists only in my own egocentric desires, is the fundamental reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered.” Cf. Richard Rohr , Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, 33, where he says that the “ego” or the false self “wants to think well of itself and deny any shadow material.” He continues, “Your shadow self is not your evil self. It is just that part of you that you do not want to see.”

[3] Cf. Pheme Perkins, “The Letter to the Ephesians,” New Interpreters Bible XI: 437: “Christians will be active moral agents in their world. They are to ‘try to find out’ [dokimazo, ‘discern’ or ‘test’] what is pleasing to the Lord (v. 10). This implies that believers must determine what is suitable behavior in concrete circumstances.” Since the main idea is one of “figuring out” what is pleasing to the Lord, I like Gene Peterson’s translation of this verse in The Message: “Figure out what will please Christ, and then do it.”

[4] Cf. Perkins, “Letter to the Ephesians,” NIB XI: 443: “Believers must attend to their own conduct. Ephesians never suggests that such attention requires detailed moralism and legal observance. It does require consistent turning away from the old way of life.”

[5] In this regard, it seems to me that the highest example of this approach to life is the one modeled by Jesus. As the Declaration of Faith, 1978 PCUS (adopted by PCUSA in 1991) puts it: “Jesus lived with a constant sense of his Father’s presence. He put God’s claim on his life above all else.”

[6] I think one of the best expressions of this approach to life is a prayer written by Thomas Merton, in Thoughts in Solitude, 79: “My Lord God, I have no idea where I’m going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. There for I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.” (emphasis added)

The Waking Dreamer