Two Ways To Live. [Eph. 5]
Ephesians 4: 17 – 5: 21
When is imitation not imitation?
We live in a very divided world? There is a fundamental divide between good and evil: God and humankind. That means we are faced with choosing between one way or another. Jesus said that one couldn’t serve both money and God [Mt 5: 24]. In the book of Revelation our Lord spurns those who are lukewarm: neither hot nor cold [Rev 3: 15-17].
Divisions rack humanity. Divisions between rich and poor, homeless and housed, refugee and citizen undermine peace. Ideological differences threaten our harmony and progress and not least concerning energy resources and climate change. Our confidence has been shattered by the greed and selfishness exhibited by our banking and financial institutions. Morality seems to have slipped to a low level of selfishness infecting all walks of life. We live in a world that challenges us to decide how we want to live our lives. Basically do we want to serve our own interests or are we going to serve the interests of the community and our environment? There are two-ways to live. We can live by the law of loving our neighbour as ourselves or just loving ourselves and what is ours. Indifference, ignorance or luke warmness is not a moral response.
Those of us studying Ephesians could not help seeing our world in the text. Ephesians describes the common world as darkened in their understanding, having no part in the life that God gives, for they are completely ignorant and stubborn. They have lost all feeling of shame; they give themselves over to vice and do all sorts of indecent things without restraint. [4: 18-20] Our world happily separates itself from God. We seem to have little shame about our greed and the breaking of a moral code. If anything we are embarrassed if we are caught.
In contrast Paul writes, No more lying, then! Each of you must tell the truth to one another, because we are all members together in the body of Christ. If you become angry, do not let your anger lead you into sin, and do not stay angry all day. Don’t give the Devil a chance. Those who used to rob must stop robbing and start working, in order to earn an honest living for themselves and to be able to help the poor. Do not use harmful words, but only helpful words, the kind that build up and provide what is needed, so that what you say will do good to those who hear you. And do not make God’s Holy Spirit sad; for the Spirit is God’s mark of ownership on you, a guarantee that the Day will come when God will set you free. Get rid of all bitterness, passion, and anger. No more shouting or insults, no more hateful feelings of any sort. Instead, be kind and tender-hearted to one another, and forgive one another, as God has forgiven you through Christ. [4: 25-32]
The Ephesian Christians are challenged to imitate Christ. [5: 1] The challenge is appropriate. They are Christian now. They follow Christ. They are to live the life that Christ leads. But they have come to Christ from the world. That means they have to put off the old life and put on the new life in Christ [4: 22-24]. Christ Jesus’ way is not the way of self-indulgence, greed, stubbornness, or ignorance of God. What was true then is true for us today. We spend most of our lives working and playing in an environment of self-interest, competition, acquisition and greed, which rubs off on to us. We are infected by the ways of our culture. We must put off the culture of the world and take on the culture of Christ if we are to be true to Jesus Christ.
Treating coming to ‘church’ like a tonic that we take once a week to inoculate us from sinfulness is not the Christian life. On the contrary it is precisely this view that has led the Church to the position where we have organised our structures like the world’s and entered a downward spiral.
Those first Christians understood what imitation meant. Today we tend to hear imitation as mimicry. We look to our heroes and copy their dress and hairstyles. Paul, Philo and early Christian writers expressed what the Roman-Greek culture understood about imitation. Imitation was living one’s life by the values and beliefs of the hero they followed. They understood that the rulers were to imitate their gods, and the people their ruler. That is why Paul could write to the Corinthians saying, “Imitate me, then, just as I imitate Christ. I praise you because you always remember me and follow the teachings that I have handed on to you, but understand Christ is supreme”. [1 Cor 11:1-3] This same thought is expressed in 1 Thessalonians [1:6-7] and 1 Peter [2:21]. And in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us to be perfect – just as your Father in heaven is perfect [Matthew 5:48]. Indifference is amoral.
Ephesians rightly does not give us a moral and ethical code to follow, but correctly points us to Christ Jesus whom we are to follow. That is the choice with which we are faced. There are basically two ways in life: God’s and the World’s. Which way are you choosing, for to choose you must. Only nobodies sit on the fence.
History provides us with many stories of people who chose Christ, took up their cross and let the light of God shine in this world. Christian Reger was one such Christian. He survived four years of Dachau Concentration camp in Germany during the 2nd World War. Reger was not a Jew he was a German. His crime was that he was a minister of the Confessing Church led by Martin Niemoller and Dietrich Bonheoffer. The Confessing Church stood against the Nazis. Reger’s organist had betrayed him.
In prison he faced torture, starvation, the death ovens and awful cruelty done to others. Some Christians lost their faith. Reger nearly did. He said he had abandoned all hope in a living God in his first month in Dachau. With the cruelty and suffering all around him the odds against God’s existence seemed too great. He started to give up on God being a living God.
The authorities allowed a prisoner only one letter a month from home and then only after careful censorship. Exactly one month to the day of his incarceration, Christian Reger received his first letter from his wife. She mentioned news of the family and friends and assured him of her love. At the bottom of the letter, she penned a Bible passage Acts 4: 26-29. Reger had smuggled a Bible into the camp and was able to look up the reference. It comes from a speech delivered by Peter and John after their release from prison, when they prayed.
The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers have gathered together against the Lord and against his Messiah.’ For in this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness. Yes, in the face of danger they prayed for boldness to speak God’s word. Thank God for their choice.
He appreciated his wife’s concern but he was preoccupied with what lay ahead. He was to be interrogated by the SS that afternoon. He would be asked to name other Christians in the Confessing Church. If he did, they would be arrested and possibly be killed. If he refused, the soldiers would probably beat him with clubs or torture him with electricity.
Reger waited nervously outside the interrogation room. A door opened and a fellow minister whom Reger had never met came out. Without saying a word or changing the expression of his face, the minister walked up to Reger, slipped something into his coat pocket, and then walked away. Seconds later SS guards appeared and ordered Reger into the room for the interrogation.
The interrogation went much better than Christian Reger expected. He was sweating despite the cold when he arrived back at his barracks. He crawled into his bunk to rest. Remembering the strange encounter with the other minister, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a matchbox. When he opened the box he found a folded slip of paper. He opened the paper and read Acts 4:26-29. The exact same verse he had read in his wife’s note. It was not possible for the other minister to have known that. His heart pounded hard against his chest. Reger realised that this was a sign from God to him. He had received the same message from two entirely different sources this day. He knew that if he was thinking of giving up on God, God had not given up on him.
For the next four years Reger encouraged other Christians and formed an ecumenical church made up of Catholics and Protestants. In the presence of unmitigated human brutality, they bore witness to the power of God to forgive.
After the war Reger became a chaplain at Dachau with a mission to tell the world that God’s love is deeper than the depth of human depravity. [Philip Yancey]
I pray that we can sing this next song, ‘I want to walk as a child of the light, I want to follow Jesus’ as our prayer of commitment. And I pray that Christ’s light will transform our lives as we lead a life of love, compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation.
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Peter C Whitaker, Leighmoor UC: 14/10/2018
/ www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org
