Stand Firm Against Evil

Based on Ephesians 6:10-20

First delivered August 26, 2018

Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr

            Over the past few weeks, we have been reflecting on the second half of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. It is a letter he wrote to a church that was showing signs of dividing. So he wrote them this letter to help them focus on what unites them and how they can strengthen the unity they have. Paul encouraged them to build up one another in love, using the gifts God had given them for that purpose. He challenged them to live a life of love, setting aside anger, wrath, and malice and instead to treat each other with kindness, tenderheartedness and forgiveness. In other words, to live a life of love. Last week we saw how Paul instructed them to sing songs and give thanks for everything in Christ Jesus: two ways to manifest unity, especially when going through times where there doesn’t seem to be much to be thankful for. All the way through Paul keeps going back to the central focus of claiming the unity that God has given us, having called us together as the body of Christ, and to manifest that unity by living a life of love, building each other up instead of tearing each other down.

            We come to the end of this series by reflecting on this well-known illustration of putting on the whole armor of God: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes that make us ready to proclaim the gospel of peace, the shield of faith to quench the fiery darts of the devil, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. It’s a great image. Can’t you visualize yourself wearing God’s armor and holding that sword representing the Word of God?

            Paul makes it clear why we need to put on God’s armor. It is because we must stand against the forces of evil. Verse 11, “stand against the wiles of the devil.” Verse 13, “withstand on that evil day…stand firm.” Verse 14, “Stand therefore.” We can’t miss Paul’s point! Paul is very clear that there are evil forces in this world whose intent is to knock us down, break us apart, to ruin our community. And these are forces we can’t run and hide from. They are always coming after us. So we have to stand our ground against these forces and not back down.

            These forces of evil that Paul is talking about are not some general forces. Paul identifies specific kinds of evil forces that are manifested in real life ways. He speaks of rulers, authorities, cosmic powers of this present darkness, and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. What are these? Well, they aren’t people. Our struggle is not against people but against forces. The rulers and authorities he is talking about are not human rulers or human authorities. These are spiritual entities. The cosmic powers of this present darkness are forces that emerge in the world while spiritual forces of evil come from outside of this world, the heavenly places. Now there is a lot of confusion over exactly what Paul had in mind as far as what these specific evil forces are. But the main point for us is that they are specific and diverse. And they manifest themselves in real life ways. These forces are present and active in society, in systems, in institutions, in people, sometimes in us. How can this be?

            Back in 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi, there were three young people sitting at a lunch counter in a drug store. They were a white man, a white woman and a black woman. Behind them were a large number of mostly young white men, although there is also an old man standing in the back. The crowd is jeering this trio sitting at the lunch counter. The white man has had a bottle of catsup emptied on his head. The black woman looks to have had some kind of white powder poured over her head, maybe coffee creamer. When the picture is taken, a young white man is in the act of emptying the sugar jar on the head of the white woman. These three young people, their backs to the mob, sit there and take the abuse. Wearing God’s armor they don’t run away or lash back, but they stand their ground, making evident the presence of the forces of evil. It is the evil embedded in Jim Crow segregation, the evil that motivated such hostility in the crowd of white men to action. It is a demonstration of the forces of evil being resisted by those three young people sitting at the lunch counter. We also see one other person in the picture who gets what is going on. He’s an older white man, sitting at the end of the counter. He is looking down and away from what is happening. His face has a look of shame. These young people standing their ground against the forces of evil prompted in this man the need to acknowledge that the evil of segregation was not right. His heart was opened a little that day. For him, this experience became a small transformation. He was not the same.

            The struggle is real. There are threats to unity and peace all around us. We see it in our political life here in the United States, with so many voices of division. Racism and fear of the stranger manifests itself in so many ways, not only through rhetoric but through policy. Our food systems separate us from where our food comes from, so much of it heavily processed in some factory somewhere. Our urban way of life separates us from the land. We see it in our churches that are moved to divide over all kinds of issues, including our own United Methodist Church, which has been confronting a spirit of divisiveness around matters of human sexuality for forty years. Misunderstandings and quarreling put stress on families to divide, relationships to come to an end.

            With so many manifestations of evil in the world, we must engage. Love requires it. We don’t need Paul to tell us to. How can you and I not engage with the forces of evil that seek to divide and destroy? We know that we must engage. But how are we to go about engaging these forces, which, again, are not people, but something spiritual?

            Well, I would say the first step in engaging with evil forces is to be determined in your will to do it rather than turn a blind eye. And I know how tempting it is to look the other way. There is a temptation to stop reading the papers or tune out the news, to cocoon ourselves the best we can with our friends and family in an attempt to shut out those forces from our awareness. But that’s a fool’s game. These forces are everywhere and can’t be avoided. We are tempted to rationalize what we see, and interpret the situation as something that happened without any evil intent. Every police department has a few bad apples. It’s unfortunate that Sue had to be cut off of her life saving treatments because of insurance. The work of evil forces is all around us. The first step is to acknowledge this and be real about it rather than turn a blind eye or rationalize evil away.

            The second step in engaging with evil is to be set in our minds not to lash out. A violent response is not the go to move. I think again of those three young people sitting at the lunch counter. If any one of them turned around to lash out at a single one of that mob it would have been an all-out beat down and nothing redeeming and transforming would have happened. That man with the shameful look on his face may have then thought to himself, “Ah, just some troublemakers.” They would have lost the moral high ground by lashing out. Remember, our struggle is not against people. It is against spiritual forces. Lashing out at people is aiming at the wrong target. Violence is destructive by its very nature.

            We set in our minds that evil forces are real and need to be engaged. We resist lashing out at people. Third we use the armor God has given us. We speak the truth. We represent righteousness. We proclaim the gospel of peace. We exercise our faith in the power of God when evil forces send out the fiery darts of discouragement and the sense of futility when struggling against these forces. We trust in our salvation. And we ground our resistance in the word of God, the word that comes to us from the Spirit. By word Paul does not mean only what is on the printed page of scripture. He is talking about Spirit inspired messages. Sometimes people say in times of need, can you give us a word? It is just the thing we need to hear in times of struggle. That’s the word that cuts through the noise, the doubts, the hurts and confusion so that we are clear about what is happening and what we need to do to resist these forces. This is the armor, God’s own armor, that God has given to us to use to struggle against these forces that seek to divide and destroy community.

            Finally, engagement with evil forces is done through constant prayer. That’s what Paul wrote after describing the armor. He instructs us to pray in the Spirit at all times. Doesn’t that make sense? If we are engaging evil spiritual forces, should we not be tuned in to the Holy Spirit that works through us to vanquish these forces? We want to be a conduit through which the Spirit can flow. This happens by being aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit within us and allowing ourselves to be directed by the Spirit in our thoughts, words and deeds. Dare I say it, we must intend to be possessed by the Holy Spirit. It beats being possessed by an evil spirit. We receive so many different influences in every moment of our lives, influencing what we see, what we feel, what choices we make in responding to a particular situation. What Paul is saying is to give the highest priority, zero in on, the influence of the Holy Spirit. Let this influence be the guiding one throughout our day. This grounds us and directs us so that we can engage the evil forces effectively so that we can stand our ground.

            And remember that the struggle against evil is not your struggle alone. We do it together as the body of Christ. This is a community struggle, not the uncoordinated efforts of individuals. In this struggle we truly need each other. There really is strength in numbers. And the body of Christ has numbers! There are over a billion of us on this planet right now and when you add in the billions more that are now in the church triumphant that’s a lot of members in the body of Christ. We don’t often think about how massive the body of Christ is. We buy in to the rhetoric of division within the church, another evil force that we need to engage and resist. Remember that the unity we have in the body of Christ is not something we create. It is what God has given us. Our challenge is to acknowledge the unity God has provided and build on that. But as long as the body of Christ buys into and even adds to the rhetoric of division we are less effective in the struggle against the evil forces that seek to divide and destroy. See every Christian you know, no matter what church they belong to or what their theology or views they have on social issues as a brother or sister in the struggle against evil forces. That alone is a struggle. We have a lot of work to do to realize unity in the body of Christ even as we engage in the forces that are seeking to rip apart human society and to disrupt the cycles of nature that sustain life on this planet. This engagement with evil forces is way bigger than any one of us can do. It has to be an entire group effort.

            In the end, we have reason to be confident in this struggle. Even though we don’t always win the battle, even though many times we are complicit by being influenced by these forces and do harm, even though we fail to maintain that spirit of unity in the bond of peace, this is ultimately God’s struggle. The power we have at our disposal to resist evil in all its forms is divine power. And we know the end game. God will bring unity out of the chaos. Love will conquer all. The world will be mended. This is God’s determination. You have heard that phrase, maybe original to Martin Luther King or maybe he got it from someone else: the arc is long but it bends toward justice. This is truth. Our struggle, haphazard, faltering and frustrating as it is, is not in vain.

            So I close with the prayer Paul offered to the Ephesians. Please pray with me.

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. It is in this name, the name of Jesus, that we pray. Amen.

Realizing Unity in Song

Based on Eph. 5:15-20

First delivered Aug. 19, 2018

Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr

            We are continuing a series of messages taken from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. He is writing to a church that was experiencing strain, and the potential to fracture.  This letter is intended to remind the church of what they have received from God. It is a reminder of who they are in Christ. We began this series by focusing on Paul’s teaching to build up the body of Christ in love. Each of us has been gifted by the Spirit for the purpose of building each other up so that we can do good in the world for God’s glory. Last week we looked at some specific instructions Paul gave that helps us live a life of love. We have been called to a specific way of life, which is the way of love. Because God has brought us together, we ought to love each other. So far in this series we have seen one of Paul’s primary emphases, which is unity. God is the source of our unity. The unity we have has been given to us by God who has brought us together. In spite of what threatens to break our unity as the body of Christ, there still remains one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God of all. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are bound together by the Spirit of God. Our challenge is to not only acknowledge it, but be grateful for it and do everything we can to maintain that unity that has been given to us by God.

            Today’s passage is also about unity even though the term in not used in the passage. It calls us to do a couple things that realize the unity we have in Christ. The two things that Paul encourages us to do are to sing together and to give thanks to God in every situation. So let’s take a look at these two activities that we do together as the body of Christ, particularly when we gather together on Sunday morning.

            First, let’s talk about singing. Paul invites us to have the Holy Spirit fill us as we sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs among ourselves. As United Methodists, that’s right down our alley! The Wesleyan tradition of which we are a part has always had an emphasis on the singing of hymns. Hymn singing has been and remains a vital tool, not just to express our hearts to God but also to teach what we believe. If you wanted to study the theology of John and Charles Wesley, you go to John’s sermons and letters and you go to Charles’ hymns. He literally wrote thousands of hymns. Over six hundred hymns on Holy Communion alone.

            Wesley’s hymns are a great tool to teach theology, without the use of technical words but with the rich language of poetry. But hymn singing is also a powerful group experience. It is something our tradition has always treasured. Any of us who have gone to a hymn sing know what I mean. And when you get a couple thousand Methodists together at Annual Conference to sing hymns, spirituals, contemporary worship music, it uplifts the soul.

            Group singing is a necessary expression of unity. Each person participates with their own unique vocal sound. Some voices are deep, some high, some in between. Some are soft and some are strong. Some are right on pitch and others are a little off. And some aren’t even in the ballpark. But it’s ok because in the act of group singing, especially when the song is well known and loved, it all comes together. The other great thing about group singing is that there is always room for one more voice. You never have too many singers. The singing circle can always be opened wider. In fact, the more people who sing, the easier it is for those who are less confident in their singing to join in. Their uncertain voices blend in with the stronger voices around them. And one more thing about group singing as opposed to singing solos or smaller groups: there is a lot of grace. You can flub up the words, take a breath whenever you want, stop singing for a bit, it doesn’t matter because the whole group is carrying the song. Truly, group singing is a unifying experience. The Spirit does fill our hearts and fill the space when a group of people are singing together.

            Think of the experiences you have had of group singing aside from church on Sunday morning. Circled around the campfire. Singing Happy Birthday to a friend. Participation in a mass choir. Some of the experiences I have had will always stick with me. I remember attending a Promise Keepers convention in Dallas, Texas back in the 1990s. Thousands of men were gathered at Texas Stadium for worship and to hear speakers who challenged us to live lives that honored God and cared for our families and communities. I will never forget the experience of joining over 6,000 other men singing with all our might. We would have lifted the roof if the stadium had one! I will also never forget seeing the Indigo Girls in the early 2000s over at the Newport. The place was packed. And the 400 or so of us gathered there knew all their songs. It became one big group singalong and it was so cool. It was the greatest bonding experience I’ve ever had at a concert. The unity and good feeling in that space was palpable. What memories come to your mind of those experiences of group singing in which your heart was filled as you felt that spirit of unity? Paul tells us not to get drunk on wine but instead to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Wine can cheer your heart, but music does a much better job, especially group singing.

            Music does have the power to help us make real the unity that we have and it can lift us up, fill our hearts and souls with the Spirit. Music can also help us give thanks to God at all times for everything. Now this is one of those teachings of Paul’s that doesn’t look to be taken literally. How do we literally thank God at all times for everything? There are some things that we go through in which there is nothing to be thankful for. I am thinking of health crises, the loss of someone too soon, a natural disaster, a freak accident, a vicious assault. I could go on and on. Come to think of it, there are a lot of experiences that we can’t thank God for. So what is Paul talking about?

            Well, I think we all agree that there are things that happen which we can’t give God thanks for. But maybe that’s not what Paul is asking us to do. Maybe what he means to say that we are to thank God in every situation. It’s not about thanking God for the situation but to thank God in the situation. Now this makes more sense to me. In any situation, even difficult ones, we can, by the help of the Holy Spirit, give thanks to God.

            But what are we thanking God for? We can thank God for a lot of things. We can be thankful that God is with us in the situation. We can be thankful that God has given us brothers and sisters in Christ who will support us, encourage us, help us through. We can thank God for grace. We can thank God for love. We can be thankful that God will never, ever abandon us.

            This being thankful to God in hard situations is not being Pollyanna. It’s not about having a grin on your face or being sentimental or any of that. Some things happen that are just plain ugly. There are times when grief and lament are necessary. What I am saying is that in some difficult situations, giving thanks to God is an act of resistance. It is resistance to despair. It is resistance to hopelessness. It is to affirm that God’s power is greater than anything that would stand against it.

            There’s this song by Chris Tomlin which has a lyric that expresses what I’m trying to say. It goes: Every blessing You pour out I’ll turn back to praise; and when the darkness closes in Lord, still I will say blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be Your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be Your glorious name.

            And this is where music comes in. Music helps us give thanks to God, especially when facing difficult times when there’s not a lot to be thankful for. I have found that music lifts my soul when I am feeling down, frustrated, or anxious. Music puts me in a different frame of mind where I can see through the murkiness of whatever is going on and be able to affirm that I am still loved, that God is still with me, that I have a family and friends that love me and are there for me, that I am a part of the body of Christ, that I am not alone. And I can be thankful for all this.

            And this gets me to Aretha Franklin, who passed away a few days ago. A lot has been written and said since her passing about the difficult life she experienced. She had a rough childhood. She became a mother at a young age. Being a black woman in the music business and to not only survive but to thrive as she did brought with it indignities, betrayals, stuff that you and I can’t even imagine. In fact that’s what someone who was very close to her for many years said about her life when he was being interviewed. He said that Aretha went through some stuff that he didn’t even want to know about.

            But that was the thing about her music. Someone said you can sense her pain through her music. It was this black man who was saying that the collective pain of being black in America was something that infused her music but in a way that gave you strength, fortitude, even a little joy. It wasn’t just her voice, but her very presence, that filled up the space she was in. She refused to be held back from being herself. Her music was the way she expressed the power of the Holy Spirit, I would say. And the Spirit that filled her blessed so many people, filling their hearts and lifting them up.

            So here is a homework assignment for you. Go on YouTube and search Aretha Franklin Amazing Grace. Listen to her rendition of that hymn or go ahead and listen to the whole album. I thought about playing the song for you but it’s too long. So check it out for yourself. The way Aretha sings that well-loved hymn is so powerful. Not only does she sing in a way that expresses her pain and her hope, but she takes the congregation with her, a congregation gathered together in California in 1972, a time of great unrest and hardship throughout the nation. I think it was the hardness of the times that provided the context for Aretha Franklin to take that pain and redeem it through the music. And that congregation was lifted up with gratitude and thanksgiving, not just to Aretha, but to God. Listening to the record and imagining yourself there, you can’t help but have your soul stirred. That’s why she is the queen of soul. She demonstrates what Paul was saying when he told the church not to get drunk on wine but to be filled with the Spirit, as we sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in our hearts, and giving thanks to God at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Living a Life of Love

Based on Ephesians 4:25-5:2

First delivered Aug. 12, 2018

Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr

            Today is the second in a series of sermons taken from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. The letter has a strong emphasis on the central place of love in the church. Last week, we were challenged to build up the body of Christ in love. I talked about how our being in the body of Christ is a given. Just as your arm didn’t volunteer to be a part of your body, so you and I didn’t volunteer to be a part of the body of Christ. It is our calling. God has brought us together. The unity we have is given to us by God. Our challenge is to maintain, even build up, the body of Christ which has been brought together by God.

            This week’s teaching relies on the givenness of our being the body of Christ. Again, one of the big points Paul is making is that the baseline of our relationship as Christians is unity. Paul calls it the spirit of unity in the bond of peace. This is the foundation upon which we can trust. We have divinely ordained unity. It is not something we achieve by our own actions. This means the unity we have received is not dependent on us, which is what makes the unity we have so precious and durable. This must be our hope because it is our tendency to strain unity, break off into factions, do our own thing. Left to our own devices, there would be no unity at all. The only unity that is dependable is the unity that God provides. We can be assured that we are united to God and that we are united with each other, whether we acknowledge it or not.

            Perhaps you have heard of the concept of Ubuntu which comes from South Africa. It basically means “I am because we are.” If it was not for a community, I would not exist. My very existence depends on the existence of the community. What I am saying is that the community we have is given to us by God. That is, the community which is the body of Christ. And because the body of Christ exists, you and I exist in the body. Our connectivity to each other simply is, in spite of the fact that we are not always mindful of our connectivity or sometimes even try to rip ourselves apart from each other. I’m stressing this point because it is so important in making sense of what Paul teaches about how we are to live together. If we can grasp how we are bound together by God’s action, then it is only natural for us to love each other and to turn away from anything that would try to pull us apart.

            So, by keeping this in mind, that we are united by the sheer will and grace of God, Paul challenges us this morning to live a life of love. By accepting that God has joined us together, loving each other becomes more of a natural action. We are joined together in the bond of peace so of course we love each other, build each other up, live a life of love together. Doing otherwise makes less sense if we accept that God has already bound us together.

            So, what are the practical ways to live a life of love? Paul starts by telling us to put off falsehoods and speak truthfully to one another. People who love each other are honest with each other, even when it’s a hard truth. Now we know how challenging this can be. I remember this commercial a few years back that showed what appeared to be honest Abe Lincoln with his wife who asks him, “Abe, does this dress make me look fat?” Abe didn’t answer right away, giving us the impression he was calculating the cost of being truthful with his wife! Yes, we need to be honest and truthful with each other. But we need to think about how we are truthful, or how fully honest we will be. There can be a cost. The truth needs told in a way that it can be understood and received. Maybe not the whole truth needs to be shared. There’s nothing wrong with using discretion when we tell the truth to each other. I remember one time when I was young, our youth group was having some kind of devotional. I can’t remember what we were asked but I said something to someone in the group in all honesty and with the best of intentions. But how I said it hurt her feelings. What I said was true but I said it in an unintentionally hurtful way. So, telling the truth instead of lying to each other is the way to go. That’s what people who love each other do. But how we go about telling that truth needs to be considered so that our truth telling doesn’t do harm but can be heard and received.

            What next? Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, lest you make room for the devil. There’s that old truism for couples: never go to sleep mad at each other. It’s fine to be angry for a while. But it’s the holding on to that anger that becomes like a festering sore in our minds and hearts. Carrying a grudge is a real thing. I still carry a bit of a grudge with some experiences I had several years back. Holding on to anger from past slights, a misunderstanding, a poor choice of words, whatever it is…this really does harm the community. I see anger and truth telling as going together. If someone makes you angry, tell them. Don’t stew about it. Don’t tell everyone else about it. Don’t suppress it. Tell it to the person that made you angry, and do it quickly so that the anger doesn’t fester in your heart. Otherwise, it can just build up and build up until something happens that just lights the fuse and you have a big mess on your hands. So it’s ok to be angry, but don’t stay angry for long. Talk it out with the person who has angered you. Say your peace and then let it go. Holding on to that grudge or plotting your revenge doesn’t do anyone any good.

            The next thing Paul talks about is thievery. We are one community. But we also have to be responsible, not only in caring for our personal needs but also in contributing to the good of the whole. For example, if you have bills to pay you only have a few options: you can work and earn money, you can beg for money, or you can steal money. That would be the case in Paul’s day. For us, we have a possible fourth option which is to see about getting some money from the government, that is, our fellow tax payers. Not exactly begging or stealing. But let’s set that aside. The point Paul is making is that of the three options in his day, working, begging or stealing, stealing is the only option that is a no-no. Begging is perfectly fine. But working is the preferred option. And not just working to care for your own needs but also so you have something extra to give to those who choose to beg. Working and begging are two acceptable ways to care for your needs. Only theft damages community. So Paul tells us not to choose that option.

            “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.” This verse of Paul’s is like pure water in the swampy stench that is our body politic. From Trump’s Twitter feed and rallies to the evening opinion shows of cable news we are awash in talk that tears down rather than builds up. Friends, there may be no greater need in our time than to speak words of grace, words that build up others, to give them hope, encouragement, advice, whatever is needed. And as an aside, it would do us well to be discerning about who we choose to listen to. If someone is always tearing you down with their words, just let those words go through one ear and out the other. No one is making you watch these opinion shows on the cable news. I wish the media would stop talking about Trump’s ridiculous tweets. I’m convinced a lot of what he tweets is intended to get people riled up as a distraction. Anyway, the point here is that words do have power. Words can tear down. But they can also build up. Paul is telling us to use words that build up.

            To sum up what Paul is teaching, he gives us vv. 31 and 32: put away bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling, slander, and malice; be kind, tenderhearted, and forgive one another. Why? Because that’s how people who are united in one body love each other. People who love each other are kind to each other, are tenderhearted toward each other and forgive each other. I mean, it’s obvious right? So if it’s so obvious, why is it so hard?

            The explanation that is closest to hand for us is the reality of sin. There is something let loose in the world that twists things up, that inhibits us from being our best selves as God created us to be. I understand sin to be like a congenital disease, or like a virus, a parasite that is foreign to who we are as those who are made in the image of God. Sin is like a disease that we all have to overcome. And by God’s grace we can. This is the other thing Paul talks about, a word of encouragement for us, to build us up.

            Paul tells us that we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit. We are marked with a seal for the day of redemption. As I thought about what this means, I thought of canning. My mother-in-law makes the absolute best canned peaches. It’s not anything fancy. No secret ingredients. She carefully peals and cores the peaches. She then cuts them into bite sized chunks. She puts them in a simple sugar syrup. She fills up the mason jars, puts the seals on and then puts the jars in boiling water, making sure to get a tight seal. Then those jars of peaches sit around waiting to be eaten. We always get to take a few home with us and they sit in one of our kitchen cupboards. Then, at some point, we take one of those jars. Maybe wipe some dust off the top. Then we take a bottle opener and pry that seal until we hear “POP”. Then Noah’s usually the first in line with his bowl to dish up some of those delicious, sweet, fresh peaches. A little taste of heaven!

            It’s that tight seal that keeps those peaches fresh and tasty. It preserves them. I know, it’s a stretch, but think about the seal of the Spirit as like the seal on that jar of peaches. The Spirit preserves our souls. In spite of all around us, including sin, that seeks to corrupt and spoil us, deep inside, the Spirit of God preserves us until that day when we are set free, the day of redemption.

            This is all good news for us. The Spirit binds us together as the body of Christ. The Spirit seals and preserves our souls. God has done all this for us, assuring us that we belong, that we have a community and are not cut loose to drift aimlessly in the world, that who we are in our essence is protected and secure, all because of God’s love for us. We have nothing to fear. We have nothing to lose. We belong to God and each other and this will never change.

            If we can trust this to be so, that our lives and our community are in the hands of God, safe and secure, then we can have the confidence to be imitators of God as Jesus demonstrated for us. That is, we can take the risk to love one another. We can do all those things that Paul teaches us to do. We can be resolved to make love a way of life, that every thought, word and deed be shaped by love, just like what God does, the One who is love.

Building Up in Love

Based on Ephesians 4:1-16

First delivered August 5, 2018

Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr 

            Today we begin a series of messages that are based on the letter to the Ephesians. These messages will focus on our life together as Christian community, especially how love is at the core of our identity as the body of Christ.

            We begin with the first sixteen verses of chapter four. This passage is loaded! Paul covers a lot of material with an economy of words. He mentions the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He talks about vocation, about how our community is like a body, about spiritual gifts, the virtues of humility, gentleness, and patience…there’s a lot here.

            As I read this passage, I find Paul focusing on two topics: unity and building up each other in love. I want to talk about that this morning.

            In verse 3, Paul says we are to make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. What does he mean by unity? He doesn’t mean uniformity. It is impressive to see a military regiment lined up in rows and marching in lock step. It is mesmerizing to watch how each soldier moves in perfect unity with the rest. But that’s not the kind of unity Paul is talking about. Paul uses the image of the body. He doesn’t talk about how we are like eyes or ears, hands or feet. Instead he talks about the body of Christ, about how Jesus is the head, and how the whole body is joined together by ligaments. So we, as a community of believers, are united as a whole body is united as one, organic, growing, living, breathing body. By the way, what I mean by community of believers is not just our gathering here. I’m talking about the global community, the over one billion Christians spread all across the world. We are a big body! And that’s not even taking into consideration the billions of saints who have transitioned from this life to the next.

            What is the source of this unity that we enjoy as the body of Christ? Well, consider your own body. Did any of your body parts volunteer to be a part of your body? Of course not. Your body is one package, uniquely designed by our Creator. You didn’t assemble your body. The body you live in is given to you “as is.” In the same way, the unity that unites us as brothers and sisters in Christ is given to us by God. It is not something we assemble. Nor is it something we volunteer to be a part of. Paul is teaching us that the unity we have in Christ is a gift, given to us by God. Our unity in the body of Christ is a given.

            Now, you may be wondering, if our unity is a given, why are we as a body of believers so fractured? That is a real problem. It’s always been a problem, making actual the unity that is given to us by God. Paul wrote a lot about unity because the churches he was writing to often were becoming disunited, breaking up into factions. I’ll talk more about this, but I want to say here that the unity we have received, or as Paul puts it, “the unity of the Sprit in the bond of peace,” is something that we have to live in to and be committed to. Paul says we have to make every effort to maintain the unity of Spirit. The unity is given to us but we each have to do our part to maintain that unity, that bond of peace that we have received by being members of the body of Christ.

            Does Paul give us any guidance on how to do that? Indeed, he does. He tells us, no, he begs us to lead lives worthy of the calling to which we have been called. And that calling is membership in the body of Christ. If we are Christians, we must strive to live a life worthy of the identity of Christian. Paul highlights three virtues that mark a worthy Christian life: they are humility, gentleness and patience. Now here is where I could get sidetracked. Each of those virtues is a sermon in itself. Do you see how valuable these virtues are, especially when it comes to maintaining unity?

            Humility is awareness of your value, not thinking too highly or too little of yourself. Humility is acknowledging that you are worthy. You are not all that and a bag of chips. Nor are you just a fill in the blank. Humility is all about acknowledging how worthy you are among others who also are worthy. It’s this understanding of humility that helps maintain unity.

            Gentleness: how important when it comes to maintaining unity. To be gentle is to be sensitive to others, to try not to cause any kind of offense. It’s a key ingredient in getting along with others. And patience, oh how that is necessary to maintain unity. And for many of us so difficult! Misunderstandings, an ill-spoken word, a failure to follow through on a promise, are just some of the ways that we strain the bond of peace that holds us together. We all make mistakes. Patience, or bearing with each other, is critical to sticking together when tensions rise, threatening to pull us apart.

            I saw these virtues in action last Tuesday. Jadon had band camp last week. I chaperoned their trip to Newark to see an open rehearsal of the Bluecoats. They are a show band based out of Canton who travel all across the country. They are amazingly talented and pull off an incredible show. Watching them rehearse was fascinating. The director stopped them frequently. He would call out certain sections, and sometimes people by name, giving corrections, but also sometimes a nice dose of praise. He was gentle with his corrections, completely professional. The band members, confident in their value and ability, were able to humbly receive that correction. And the band demonstrated great patience as they stopped and started, reset, ran the section over again. No complaining. No dragging their feet. All business, but with a playful spirit. It was really cool to see. This is a band that is unified.

            What the Bluecoats do is impressive. In fact, it’s pretty awesome. But it’s also temporary and completely human created. The show directors come up with the music, the props, the choreography. The band members and flag corps learn the program and bring it to life with the best of their ability. But when the season is over by next weekend when they have the world championship in Indianapolis, they will all hug each other, say good bye, and then scatter to the winds, returning to college, their jobs, or whatever they do. Some won’t be back next season. That rendition of the Bluecoats will be over. They build up something special. But it isn’t lasting. There is an end point.

            This is not true for us. What we are building up is not of human origin. The body of Christ was not anyone’s idea. It is God’s idea. The director of this band is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And we will always be members of this band. We will never age out. We are not a part of the body of Christ for a season. Paul talks about how we are joined together by ligaments. As Christians we are connected to each other. We don’t scatter to the winds after a season. To be in the body of Christ, this is our mutual calling. And we will never be alumni but always active participants, even, dare I say, after we pass from this life to the next.

            What we are building up is also not a finished product. Next weekend, Bluecoats will perform one final time their program they have been working on and refining all summer. They will be judged against their peers and see where they place. Then, they’re done. But as Christians, building up the body of Christ, we are never done. It is a process that continues for as long as you and I have breath. Part of our calling is to never stop doing what we can to build each other up in love. That’s our never ending task. And it is a process. Our life together is always one challenge after another. Humility, gentleness and patience are always on hand as we strive to build each other up and not tear each other down. Paul talks about helping each other mature into the full stature of Christ. Can we agree that is aspirational? Certainly on this side of heaven to reach the level of maturity in which we all are like Christ is a work in progress. Every now and then we get it right. John Wesley talks about being made perfect in love, meaning that every thought and action is guided by love. We can become perfect in that sense. But the goal is to help us all get there. And stay there. And that takes effort.

            So this is our way of life, as Paul sees it. This is our calling, to maintain our unity in the bond of peace by building one another up in love, helping each other toward maturing, the full stature of Christ who is our head. And this ought to be our way of life, not just because it’s the right thing to do or because the Bible tells us so. This ought to be our way of life because this is life at its best, its most excellent, its most beautiful.

            At the open rehearsal, for an hour and a half, we watched the Bluecoats practice different segments of their program. But at the end, they ran through the whole show for us. It was fabulous. Every group was doing their own parts, the pit, the brass, the drum line, the flag corps. But they were all moving to the beat, in unison. It was art in motion. It was a glorious performance.

            But immensely greater is the “performance” of Christian community. When we all play our part, moving in unison to the beat of God’s heart, it is glorious. Of course, it’s not easy. Remember patience? Remember how we must forbear with one another? For this to work we have to each do our part and support and encourage each other, building up instead of tearing down. And it’s a process. Our performance isn’t always perfect. But those moments, when the diversity of the body of Christ is manifested in the world, it is a sight to behold. When we, as a community of faith, are our best selves, building up one another in love, it is nothing less than a taste of what heaven will be like. It is, indeed, heaven on earth, a sign of God’s reign.

            So for these reasons, let us strive, make every effort, to live lives worthy of our call, with humility, gentleness, and patience, maintaining the spirit of unity in the bond of peace, until we all reach maturity, the full stature of Christ, the one who is our head, our band leader, the one who keeps the beat of the heart of God.

Not Just What, But How

Based on John 6:1-21

First delivered July 29, 2018

Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr

            I’m sure you know that the four gospels have different stories told in different ways. Mark is the shortest gospel and is told in a hurry, often with the barest of details. Matthew relies heavily on Mark, taking most of his stories and expanding them. Luke has lots of the same stories but there are a few that are only found in Luke, including the story of the good Samaritan. John is full of stories that you only find in his gospel.

            All of them of course retell the story of Jesus’s passion, crucifixion and resurrection. There are different details. But the progression of the story is the same. You have the same cast of characters. It makes sense that these stories would be in all four of the gospels since this is at the heart of the gospel. Jesus died to defeat the power of death so that we have the promise of experiencing eternal life. It is in John’s gospel that we have that summary verse, the gospel in a nutshell, “for God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”

            However, there is only one miracle story that all four gospels tell, and two of the gospels tell this story twice. It is the story of the miraculous feeding of the crowd. All four gospels have the feeding of the 5000. Mark and John also have a second telling of the same basic miracle in which 4000 are fed. So this miracle of taking a little food and multiplying it to feed a huge crowd is told six times in the gospels. I wonder why this particular miracle story is so important.

            Maybe because it suggests a prophecy in Isaiah 25:6, “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.” It’s a vision of the future reign of God over the earth ushered in by the messiah. So when Jesus performed this miracle, he is demonstrating a foretaste of this promise, suggesting that he is the messiah who is bringing to reality the promise of God’s reign over the earth. This is why the people rush forward to make Jesus their king. The crowd is thinking, “It’s happening! Our deliverance from the oppression of Rome has come! God’s kingdom is being restored!” And as we read, the disciples apparently form a human chain to hold the crowd back as Jesus alone runs back up to the top of the mountain. No one will be crowned king today. The kingdom of God is not a political arrangement on par with the other nations of the earth. As Jesus says in his trial, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

            This could be one of the meanings of the miracle story but it doesn’t have to be the only one. The stories of Jesus we encounter in the gospels can have multiple meanings. John’s tellings in particular encourage multiple meanings. This is one reason why the Bible is precious. Not only do we believe that it is the Word of God, but that there are so many meanings in the biblical stories. We can read and meditate on these stories for years and still find new meanings that apply to our lives in different ways.

            I suggest that this story demonstrates how Jesus provides for just what is needed in the moment. Whether he was engaging one-on-one or with a large group, whatever their immediate need was, Jesus would respond to meet that need. This basic fact is one reason why crowds were drawn to Jesus. In this particular story we are told that the crowd was following Jesus “because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick.” Sick people needed healing. They didn’t need a lecture, or a comedy routine to distract them from their pain, or platitudes about pie in the sky. The immediate need was healing from their sickness and Jesus did that.

            For anyone who is a business entrepreneur this makes perfect sense. If you are trying to start a new business, first you study a particular market area and identify a problem. Next, you come up with a solution. Next, you sell to the market your solution to their problem. That’s the pathway to success in business, offering a solution to a problem, meeting an immediate need of the customer. I am not saying Jesus was a business man. But he is addressing something fundamental to what it means to be human. We all have problems that need solved, needs that need addressed. And when we find someone who can meet our needs, we are drawn to them, we find them to be valuable to us. We might even consider them to be our saviors. Well, Jesus is that and more because over and over Jesus identified what people needed and provided it for them, except he did it free of charge. That made him very popular; that is until he started making demands on those who would be his disciples. John notes in 6:66, “because of this [the things Jesus was teaching] many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” Jesus knew what it was like to be unpopular.

            As Jesus saw the crowd follow him and the disciples up the mountain, he asks Phillip where he and the disciples can go to buy bread to feed all these people. Why does Jesus assume they are hungry? Here’s a larger question: why were all these people out here? Didn’t they have somewhere to be? It’s true, all those people may have had the freedom to take a day or two off from their jobs to go follow Jesus out into the wilderness. But is it possible that all these people didn’t have a job? What if the majority of these people were jobless, landless, homeless? It’s just something to consider, how it is that this massive crowd of people had the opportunity to go follow Jesus around instead of working some job or having other responsibilities that kept them closer to home.

            Whatever is the backstory of this crowd, Jesus knew that their immediate need was food and Jesus was determined to feed them. But notice how Jesus goes about this. The feeding of the crowd was not going to be an assembly line approach where the people stand in line, file past the food table to pick up their tray, and then go find some place to sit. They won’t line up to be handed a sack lunch and then head for home. No, Jesus has the crowd sit down on the grass. The food will be brought to them. The crowd will be served as if they are at a banquet.

            What does this say about the dignity Jesus extended to this crowd? If we assume that this is a crowd who had the opportunity to follow Jesus out into the wilderness because they were poor, jobless, perhaps landless, to have the privilege of lounging on the ground and being waited on would be a real blessing. I am thinking of past experiences I have had feeding the homeless. I think every time I have done it, we bring the food in and set it up. The people walk through, telling us what they want on their tray, then they take their tray of food and go sit somewhere. But then there is this restaurant that was started by Jon Bon Jovi called Soul Kitchen. It is a nice restaurant with linen table cloths, a nice table setting, real forks and knives, you get the picture. And the homeless or those who are enduring grueling poverty order off a menu. You pay what you can. You also have the option of pitching in to pay off your meal. The whole idea is to extend a greater sense of dignity toward folk who are going through tough times. And that’s what Jesus is doing for this crowd. Not only will they be fed with as much food as they want, but they will be served. And there will be more than enough. If dessert would have been offered the people would have said, “Sorry, I’m stuffed.”

            Imagine you were one of them, that every time you saw a barley loaf you remembered this experience. Barley is an inferior grain for bread. I’ve never had barley bread, have you? It would have been a more common staple among the poor in those days who couldn’t afford wheat bread. But after what happened on that mountain that day, I wonder from then on, whenever you took a barley loaf, broke it and ate it, that memories of that day when you had a banquet in the open air, would come back to you. That simple loaf of barley bread became for you a symbol of a miracle.

            Imagine what your next meal was like, with the memories of that banquet fresh in your mind. I bet before you ate you offered a prayer of gratitude. You probably ate your meal with a joyful heart. Perhaps the simple food you were eating tasted just a little better.

            For the crowd gathered on the mountain, the menu was bread and fish. They were hungry, and Jesus met their immediate need. But this banquet would remain imprinted in their memory the rest of their days. The way Jesus orchestrated this miraculous banquet in the open air was a transformational experience for those blessed to participate in it that surely generated a feeling of gratitude, so much so that the crowd was prepared to make Jesus their king by force. The miraculous multiplication of the bread and fish aside, it was the way the people were fed that is so powerful. Not only were their bellies filled, their need for recognition, for respect, for dignity, Jesus met that need as well. Jesus didn’t meet needs in a patronizing way but with respect toward the one he was addressing. I wouldn’t be surprised that while the people were eating that Jesus was mingling, going from group to group, and having some great dinner conversations.

            Can something like this happen in the ordinary times of our lives? I know it’s extremely unlikely that any of us will experience a small amount of food multiplying to fill the bellies of five thousand people. But in a broader sense, can’t we also, like Jesus modeled for us, meet the immediate needs of others and do it in a way that honors and dignifies the recipient of our aid?

            Recently, a police officer was caught on camera doing a good deed. He was outside a carry-out giving a homeless man a shave with an electric razor. The backstory was that this man saw a McDonalds with a sign that they were hiring. So he went in to apply. The manager said that if he could get cleaned up, including shaving off his beard, that he would be hired. Well he was having trouble getting his razor to work. So he came up to this officer and asked him if he could help him out. So he did. He got him some fresh batteries and shaved him right there in the parking lot. They both then walked over to the McDonalds and the guy was hired. He’s still working there and getting himself set up so he can have his own place and no longer have to live on the streets. It was a simple act, one person helping another in a practical way, but it made a big difference in this man’s life.

            When Jesus asked Phillip where to buy enough bread, Phillip basically said, “Nowhere.” Andrew pointed to the boy with the bread and fish and said, “This boy has some food, but what good is it among so many people?” The disciples were making a logical observation. Observing this huge crowd of hungry people and considering their own resources, the need was overwhelming. What could they do with so little resources? And as we consider the needs of people who live all around us in our community and consider our own resources individually and as a church, the need is overwhelming. What can we do with so little? We can easily relate with Phillip and Andrew.

            But the lesson here is to start with what you have to meet the immediate need of one person: even if it’s as simple as buying them a tank of gas, getting them a sandwich, or giving them some of your time and a listening ear, or a shoulder to cry on. Following Jesus as our model, start by meeting the need of another, treating them with dignity and respect. And then see what happens next. Who knows? That person you helped may remember that moment when you were there for them. It might be a turning point in their life. You may never see that person again, but for the rest of their days they will never forget that moment. They may even offer up a quick prayer of thanks for you, the way you treated them and helped them. And God will smile.