Ephesians 4:25-5:2

25 So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another. 26 Be angry but do not sin;[a] do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not make room for the devil. 28 Those who steal must give up stealing; rather, let them labor, doing good work with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. 29 Let no evil talk come out of your mouths but only what is good for building up,[b] as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. 31 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.[c]

5 1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2 and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

 

For me, sermon writing is a process. First comes research. In this case, what kind of place was Ephesus?  Who lived there?  What sort of commerce did they engage in?  What was the political and religious situation?  Who wrote the epistle?  Why did they do it?  What problems were they trying to address?  There are always a lot of questions, and some of the answers never appear in the finished sermon, but they’re important nonetheless. 

I learned things I didn’t know and some things I had forgotten. Did you know that Ephesus was founded in the 10th century BCE?  Did you know that before Greeks settled the area that the place had been inhabited for about 10,000 years?  Ephesus was on a major trade route and it was attacked frequently. A nearby river silted in the harbor and the city was moved several times in response. Today, the ruins are about 2 miles from the sea in part because of deforestation, and overgrazing that left the land vulnerable to washing away. 

I knew that most of the 13 epistles in the New Testament weren’t written by Paul. In fact, only 5 were his authorship.  Ephesians wasn’t one of them. It was written probably 10-15 years after Paul’s death in Rome. I had forgotten that. 

All of this is to say that I take the preparation part of sermon writing seriously. The problem with this preparation is that I’m easily led down one rabbit hole after another. It’s all interesting stuff, at least to me, but it isn’t helpful in addressing the subject at hand. 

In this case, there’s a very large elephant in the room contained in the center of this passage.    

   Be angry, but do not sin

   Thieves, stop thieving and get a job

   Quit gossiping

In my family of origin, anger wasn’t allowed. We weren’t allowed to even have anger, much less express it. It was well into adulthood that I learned to get angry and not explode like a volcano when the pressure got to be too much. Anger scares me. It means the end of relationships. The reality is, however, that anger is normal. When someone does you wrong, it’s ok to be angry and it’s ok to express that anger. But what about the “do not sin” part?

To answer that, first we have to understand what sin is. We tend to think sin is something that we do—lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery. What all these disparate things have in common is relationships. If I lie to you, I’ve damaged our relationship. If I’ve cheated you, I’ve damaged our relationship. You can say the same for everything on that list. Doing any of them will damage your relationship with the one to whom you’ve done harm, moreover, you have damaged your relationship with yourself. In some respects, damage to your relationship with yourself is more of a problem than damage to relationships with others. If we are to be whole, happy people, we have to be able to express our feelings in such a way as not to do damage to our relationships. 

It all comes down to this:  Love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself. 

So be angry if that’s how you feel, but speak the truth in love. 

If you are stealing—by that I don’t necessarily mean robbing banks or convenience stores or picking pockets or embezzling from you employer or any other overt criminal activity. Maybe you think it’s smart not to pay taxes or you think it’s ok to to finagle a bit so you pay less than the going rate for something, or borrowing without paying it back. In any of these examples, and many more, you are stealing. Many people do things like this and think nothing of it. The point here is that is you are doing anything that takes from the community or the people within the community, you are stealing. The writer of Ephesians says stop doing that and give back to the community. 

It all comes down to this:  Love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself. 

And then there’s gossip. This is another place I’m easily sucked in. You know, did you know that Chris and Tony are getting divorced?  I hear that Chris did X Y Z and Tony is devastated. I know you’ve heard and participated in such conversations. The question is does this sort of conversation lead to community uplift?  Is it helpful?  Is it loving?  Or is it a way for you or me to feel like we’re better than others because we know something the others don’t—even if we don’t actually know anything at all. 

These are 3 large elephants and we can’t ignore them, nor can we ignore any of the other elephants this passage mentions. If we are to be the Body of Christ, we have to build loving relationships, empathetic relationships, real relationships where we can authentically be who we are. 

Some time ago, Bishop Karen Oliveto posted something that stuck with me. She quoted Sheryl Strayed saying,

How do you build empathy?  You risk vulnerability. Tell the truth about yourself as often as possible. We have to revise the ways we think about the soft things like empathy and vulnerability and love if we’re going to create a more compassionate world. 

Hold others in unconditional positive regards. Say I accept you for who you are. I’m going to hear your story compassionately. I’m not going to try to assess whether I think you’re good or bad. I’m    going to decide that I like you, I believe you, and I find you worthy of love. 

That can be hard work, to be vulnerable, to tell the truth about ourselves, or to simply tell the truth rather than glossing over something to make it easier. It’s hard, necessary work if we are to live peacefully in community with each other.  

In the end, it all comes down to this:  Love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself.