A
homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given
at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon,
Illinois on Sunday, August 19, 2012.
“LIVING
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE: IN THE WORLD, BUT
NOT OF THE WORLD”
(Homily text:
Ephesians 5: 15 – 20)
Not long ago, I was chatting with
someone I know, who said to me, “I don’t understand the young men I work
with. They are all in their early 20s,
and all they talk about is the party they are going to attend this weekend, the
women they will meet there (and go home with afterward), and the big trucks
they drive. That’s all they seem to be interested in. Mind you”, he said, “They are all good
workers, but the things they really live for are foreign to me.” He then added, “I try to witness to them
about Jesus Christ, and about the new life that could be theirs, if they would
only listen and accept it.”
His comments struck me, in part
because that particular fellow is, himself, in his late 30s, and so he seems
quite young. (I guess things like a
person’s age is relative to your own age and perspectives.)
But his comments struck me for
another reason: The behavior and the
attitudes he was describing are a good description of the attitudes of much of
our contemporary American culture. The
attitude can be boiled down to a phrase we used in last week’s sermon: “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may
die.” Or, we could state this widespread
attitude another way: “Grab for all the
gusto you can get.”
Before we immerse ourselves in
today’s passage, from Ephesians, chapter five, let’s take a moment to remind
ourselves of the things we talked about in last week’s homily.
There, we came to the conclusion that living the Christian life is a hard and difficult thing to do, given the surrounding culture that the early Church in Ephesus found itself living in. We remarked that our surrounding culture today isn’t all that different from the one of 2,000 years ago, the one in Ephesus. We came to the conclusion that St. Paul’s address to the believers in the Church was motivated by the fact that pagan attitudes and pagan ways surrounded those early believers much like a raging sea that surrounds a ship…the dangers of being overrun by the waves of pagan practices was, for them, an ever-present reality. Those same dangers threaten believers today, too.
If we analyze the report that we
began this homily with, we could easily come to the conclusion that the values
of first century Ephesus are the values of much of our American culture
today….”Eat drink, be merry, grab for all the gusto you can.” It seems as though everything in our culture
has to be fun, or entertaining…yes, even Church.
Now in today’s reading, St. Paul
reminds the early Ephesian believers that they are not to behave like the world
around them. He does so by means of two
statements that begin with the words, “Do not be…”, which is conjoined to the
conjunction “but”.
Thus, we find Paul saying, “Do not
be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” He then adds, “Do not get drunk with wine,
for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.”
Here, Paul picks up on some specific
things he’s just mentioned in the verses which fall between last week’s reading
and this week’s. For clarity, we ought
to examine some of these.
The short list of things that Paul
mentions in chapter five, verses three through fourteen, read like a lesson in
Ephesian culture and behaviors….Let’s look at Paul’s list:
He mentions fornication, impurity, covetousness,
and adds that no one must take part in
these “unfruitful works of darkness”.
All of these are descriptions of the
pagan ways of Ephesus, indeed of the entire eastern Mediterranean world of the
first century.
Instead, Paul encourages the
Ephesian Christians to be children of light, as he adds that “the fruit of
light is found in all that is good and right and true.”
All along the way in this passage,
Paul has used the word “walk” three times.
Here are those three statements:
“Walk in love, as Christ loved us
and gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Verse two)
“Walk as children of light, for the
fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.” (Verse eight)
“Look carefully then how you walk,
not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days
are evil.” (Verse fifteen)
Essentially, Paul is drawing a
contrast. Paraphrased, we could
summarize Paul’s exhortation thusly: “Don’t be like the pagan Gentiles among whom
you live, but live according to the way of Christ.”
I think this is a fair description
of Paul’s intent.
As we noted last week, living
according to the way of Christ will be a constant, never-ending struggle. It will be, as we said last week, a continual
slap-in-the-face to the Christian believer.
We, ourselves, are much like a ship
which sails the hostile sea….the forces which seek to destroy or to swamp our
ship of faith constantly beat against the vessel. Seams that should prevent the foreign waters
of pagan belief and practice separate slightly, and allow seepage inside,
destabilizing the ship of faith.
It will also be seductive.
Here we come to a reality about the
nature of sin that is as old as Adam and Eve:
Sin appeals, quite often, to some naturally-occurring desire or need
that is deep within us. For Adam and
Eve, it was the natural desire to eat good food. It was also the naturally occurring desire to
be in control, to be like God.
The desires of the young men that my
friend described to me are all naturally-occurring ones: The desire to have a good time (nothing wrong
with that), to be in relationship (nothing wrong with that, either, under the
right circumstances), and the desire to do things that feel good, and which
avoid hardship (nothing wrong with that, either, under the right circumstances).
But the Lord also knew how to walk the walk of a Godly life, allowing God’s truths to inform all other truths and all other choices. That is true spiritual maturity.
One final comment is in order: Many Christians yearn for the time when the Lord will take all believers out of this challenging world, either at the time of death, or when the Lord’s purposes for us and for the world are complete. Such a reality takes place when the believer departs this life and enters into eternity. Such a reality is one that we affirm each Sunday as we recite the Creed, acknowledging that the Lord will come again to judge the living and the dead.
But until that great and final day
comes, it is our task to walk the walk of faith with the Lord, carefully
seeking His will, carefully weighing every choice that we are forced to make so
that we may walk as children of light.
AMEN.
