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Ephesians 4:1-16

    I’ve heard the story and maybe you have too of a pastor who could not – try as he might come up with anything to say as he worked diligently throughout the week on his sermon.  This is every pastor or preacher’s worst nightmare.  Each time I prepare a sermon I pray that the Holy Spirit might gift me with the words I need, or more particularly, the words the church, myself included, needs to hear.  And more often than not, God is abundantly gracious.  However, as the story goes, during this particular week of this particular pastor’s life of ministry the words did not come.  Friday, Saturday, Saturday evening, Saturday night, Sunday morning on the way to church and the words still had not come and so when the preacher stood up in the pulpit, he opened his bible and he opened his mouth and began to read the letter to the Ephesians.  It seems these were the words that the Holy Spirit wished for the congregation to hear and no one will forget that Sunday or the impact of those words on their hearing.

The Letter to the Ephesians is a precious and powerful letter to the church of Jesus Christ and we, the preaching team here at TUMC are confident that in a Spirit inspired conversation with each other, we felt called to share with you the words and thoughts and contents of this letter.  I will begin our series with an overview of the letter and some thoughts on leading a life worthy of the calling to which we have been called.  Next week Jodie will address the tension between the particularity of the congregation to which this letter is addressed and the cosmic nature of this letter.  Aldred will ask the following question: “what in our particular Mennonite Heritage and our relationship with this letter has sustained us for 500 years?”  Some of you may be familiar with the book, The Naked Anabaptist – written by Stuart Murray, a member of the Anabaptist Network, an organization in Britain and Ireland that are interested in being a resource for others in the world who are interested in Anabaptism.  In the Naked Anabaptist they purpose to set out the core convictions of Anabaptists.
In our preaching team meeting we thought that by looking at the Mennonite wardrobe (themes in the letter of Ephesians that we have emphasized in the past) we asked ourselves what might it look like to re-clothe the Anabaptist with a fresh reading or hearing of the text.  Tim Schmucker will approach the text from that perspective.

I begin today with an overview of the letter.
The letter to the Ephesians is the only letter that does not appear to have been written in ad hoc response to a particular problem in the church, which has caused some to surmise that the church of Ephesus must have had no problems, conflicts or tensions and therefore it could be viewed as the ideal to which all churches should aspire.

The external references to the church in Ephesus found in other New Testament books allow no such illusion.
From the book of the Acts of the apostles, we know that Paul spent three years at the church of the Ephesians (Acts 18-20) and we get a glimpse in the stories of Acts of the tensions that existed between the Jews and the Greeks in that town. In the 1st letter to Timothy, Paul encourages Timothy to remain in Ephesus and instruct people there not to occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies or other meaningless talk, making assertions about things they do not understand. Rather Timothy is to instruct the Ephesians with a love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience and sincere faith. (1 Timothy 1:3-6) And in the book of the Revelation to John, Ephesians is the first of the seven churches to whom John is instructed to write.  The letter to the church in Ephesus in Revelation begins with commendations for their work and toil and patient endurance, but John is also supposed to tell them that Christ has this against them, “you have abandoned the love you had at first … Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” (Revelation 2:1-7)

And so if we use external references to the Ephesians as our guide we know that the church there struggled in ways similar to many other churches of the first century and since then.  It is safe to say, there was no golden or ideal period of the church to which we may strive.  But we have the letter to the Ephesians for what it is, written either by Paul himself at the end of his life while he was a prisoner in Rome or sometime later in the first century by a disciple of his who carefully and conscientiously built on the foundations of the apostles and prophets.

 
     This letter bears witness to God’s action in the world and through Christ and by extension through the church. Its theology is cosmic in scope and personal in address. It talks of God’s blessings and gifts of grace. It is full of hymnic poetry and doxology, prayer and exhortation. In this letter we hear about the lavishness of the grace of God that is made known to us in Christ and how that same Christ through his death demolished the dividing wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles.  It is from this letter that we have become familiar with the phrase: Christ is our peace.  In this letter we also hear words like, “by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing: it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” (2:8,9)  Ephesians also gives us the “whole armour of God” language.  “Fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness.  As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.” Along with these there is ….the shield of faith, ….the helmet of salvation ….and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.” (6:13-17) For our battle in this world is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities against the cosmic powers of this present darkness. But we are assured earlier in Ephesians that the power of God that raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, has also put all these rulers and authorities under his feet and has made him, Christ, the head over all things for the church which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.  And where would the church be without the following doxology found in Ephesians 3:20,21) “And now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to that one be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ev
er. Amen.
 
      Precisely because this book does not address specific problems in a church, but rather paints a broad strokes picture of all (or everything) that God intends and invites the church to be, it can then function as the ground and the soil out of which every different type of expression of church can grow.  From the church gathered in Cathedrals or house churches, neighbourhood outreach groups or Mennonite churches, wherever and however the people of God find expression, this letter is our invitation to grow to full maturity in Christ. i 
  
     The two main sources of my own study of Ephesians are Tom Yoder Neufeld who wrote a Believers Church commentary on Ephesians and Eugene Peterson whose most recent book Practice Resurrection is a also a commentary of sorts on the book of Ephesians.  I have deep respect for these two authors and their decades of deep commitment to Christ and to Christ’s church.  At some point in their lives and careers as pastor/scholar and teachers the letter to the Ephesians became a source of lasting and sustaining inspiration to each of them.  

    Here at the beginning of my call to pastoral/congregational ministry I have a sense, but only the beginning of a sense for how much this text may also become a long- term companion of mine as well.  Maybe it has already become a companion of some or many of you and if not yet, I encourage you over the course of the next several weeks to spend some time with this text.
    Now that I’ve shared the appetizer with you by way of overview, I will dive into one of the first of many courses we will share together with this book in the next two months.

I begin not at the beginning but in the middle of Ephesians with today’s text.
Ephesians chapter 4:1-16:
I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to live (or walk) a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called. The Greek word for worthy is axios.  Peterson says that this is the word upon which the whole letter pivots.
In Greek an axios is a set of balancing scales.
On a set of balancing scales one puts for example one pound of lead on one side and then whatever one might choose to weigh over against that on the other side.  When the scales are equal or in balance or achieve equilibrium you know that you have one pound of each substance.  When you achieve this balance they are axios or worthy, they fit.  Like “a pair of shoes fits a man’s feet, like a dress fits a woman’s body, like a crescent wrench fits the head of a nut, like a wedding ring fits the finger of the beloved.” ii

     In Ephesians, God’s calling (expressed in Chapters 1-3) and human living (the exhortations of chapters 4-6) are the things that Paul begs us to balance or to make worthy.  Paul begs us to walk worthy of the calling to which we have been called. God calls.  We walk.  In Ephesians we are invited to measure ourselves against a living breathing relationship with a God who calls and acts and showers grace and unimaginable love on God’s people.   We do not measure ourselves against an abstract idea or set of beliefs.  When God calls as God does over and over again in scripture from Adam through Moses and the prophets and John the Baptist and Christ and his disciples and apostles, a response is required.  When God’s call and our response in living fit together we are leading a life worthy of the calling to which we have been called. We are growing up into Christ.
 
      Ephesians 4:1-16 helps us to understand how we might begin to respond.  First, we are called to respond with all humility and gentleness, bearing with one another in love – making every effort to maintain the unity of the Sprit in the bond of peace. Humility and gentleness and bearing with one another in love – we can understand these attributes with our heads, but we know that these are not always easy to live out, especially when the rubber hits the road and we are called to come to agreement on things we passionately disagree about.  No matter, the unity that is called for in Ephesians is not a suffocating uniformity but rather a unity of the Spirit that has already been made possible by Christ who has broken down the dividing wall of hostility creating the bond of peace for us. As Tom Yoder Neufeld would put it Christ’s peace actually – chains us together with our friends and our enemies – this statement gives new meaning to the idea of the ball and chain of commitment. Christ is our peace and this bond or chain of peace exists despite and because of our inherent differences. (referencing briefly an earlier part of Ephesians) It is precisely in our diversity and passionate agreements and disagreements that we create the dwelling place within which God dwells. If we were homogonous we would not be able to be the body of Christ, the church that God calls.  For God has given diverse gifts to this body.  Continuing to look at the text for today, in verse 11, God has given the church the gifts of apostles and prophets and evangelists, and pastors and teachers to equip the saints, all the members of the church, all of us are included in this definition of saints, for the work of ministry or service for the building up of the body of Christ.  
    
     Because we will always necessarily be different from one another with different gifts for the building up of the body – because of this even more so we need to be reminded to be humble and to be gentle and to bear with one another in love because we won’t always be able to appreciate the others’ gifts.
Each of us with our diverse gifts has a serious role within this body.  According to 4:13 – we are to use are gifts to build each other up so that we attain several things.
First unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God.
Second,
Maturity, and the Fullness of Christ.
At first I thought this list of the reasons why we build each other up could be divided nicely into four reasons,
Unity,
Knowledge of the Son of God
Maturity
And the fullness of Christ,
But the more I examined the way they are written for us in the text, the more I realized that the first two
unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God
And the second two, Maturity and the fullness of Christ,
could not be broken apart, because,
Right belief (unity of the faith) is nothing with out right relationship – a living breathing ongoing knowledge of Christ – the son of God .
Knowledge of Christ brings about unity in the faith.  We need to know this Christ.  It is Christ who is our unity – who binds us together by the chains of peace.  It is not something we can make happen if we assent to correct abstract beliefs.
We can only submit ourselves in humility, gentleness and patience to the process that is underway in us as we seek to know Christ – and through Christ – each other.
It is Christ who makes us one body by the one Spirit just as we were called to the one hope of our calling.
God calls to us through the power at work in the love, actions, death and resurrection of this Christ.  When we respond to that call, we walk worthily.
When Gods call and our walking are worthy we are growing up and building each other up into maturity and the fullness of Christ.
The book of Ephesians invites us to listen for and imagine a world where this building up/growing up into Christ is possible.

Endnotes:


i  Eugene Peterson, Practice Resurrection,(William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2010) p. 14.

ii  Ibid. p. 32.