Sermon 8/12/12
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Ephesians: Building Up
This week I was finishing up my homework for my latest
Doctor of Ministry class, which was titled “Preaching and Change,” taught by
retired Bishop (and real role model of mine) Judy Craig. Our final assignment
was to write about our Five Tenets for Preaching – in other words, our five
main themes, main points that we strive to hold to in our sermon preparation.
We talked in class about which tenets we might use, and then had to write about
them in detail for our final paper. My five ended up being: 1) Be yourself when
you preach, rather than trying to preach like anybody else. 2) Let the
scripture text speak to you before you try to tell it what it says. 3) Preaching is about relationships,
relationships, relationships. Our relationship with God, our relationship as
pastor and congregation, our relationships with the community and one another.
4) Tell the truth. Sounds easy, but in practice, is sometimes harder than we
think. And 5) Don’t shortchange the process of sermon preparation.
I share these tenets of preaching with you first because
I want you to know what I’m doing when I’m off at my classes, or what Aaron is
doing when he’s working on his DMin project, because I want you to know that
this whole back-to-school thing is, above all else, a way to better equip
ourselves to serve in ministry. If what we were doing didn’t have anything to
do with the places we were serving, we wouldn’t be spending our time doing it!
But more specifically, I’ve shared my whole assignment with you because as I
was reading over and over our text from Ephesians for today, I couldn’t stop
thinking about how similar the text and my preaching tenets were! I started
wondering if the tenets I chose, with maybe some modification, weren’t really
some good discipleship guidelines, beyond good guidelines for preaching. Be
yourself. Let God’s Word speak to you, instead of you trying to make it fit
your life. It’s about relationships, relationships, relationships. Tell the
truth. And be prepared. Not a bad list, right?
In our lesson from Ephesians, “Paul” seems to be giving
out several snippets of advice for how to live in community with one another. Put
away falsehood, and speak truth, because we are members of one another. Be
angry, sure, but don’t let your anger cause you to sin: resolve your anger
before the sun sets. Everyone should work hard, in order to be able to serve
the needy. Don’t let evil words come out of your mouth, but make sure
everything you say is about building up, so that your words are grace to your
hearers. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, a word which literally means to
be knotted up in your stomach with care for each other, and forgive, just like
God forgives you. Imitate God, and live in love, like Christ loves us – sacrificially.
I love this vision of community. “Paul’s” words seem so simple and
straightforward. But I suspect we all find them challenging to follow. Confession
time: how many of you have avoided speaking the truth, not to deceive,
necessarily, but perhaps because the truth was hard to hear? How many of you
have found yourselves holding on to anger over a situation for a very long time? How many have let words
exit our mouths that caused hurt, and not grace, to the ones who hear us?
“Paul,” I think, tries to give us a clear foundation for
this way of being with one another. I don’t think he thinks it is easy. But he
thinks it is necessary for the Body of Christ to be just that – the representative
of Christ in the world. We are meant to speak truth to one another because we are members of one another,
part of each other in Christ, so a lack of honesty is a lack of honesty with
ourselves and with God. We’re called to speak with love because our words are
carriers of the good news of Jesus – or not
– depending on how we speak to one another. Your words are the gospel that
others hear. We’re meant to live with kindness and tenderness because God has
forgiven us, and we, created in God’s image, show that best when we imitate
God, our Creator.
We are still just weeks into our time together as pastors
and congregation. Aaron and I are so excited about the possibilities we see,
ready to unfold in our midst. Everywhere we turn, things are happening, people
are dreaming and hoping and planning for our future. We are going to have a lot
going on here, and we have potential just oozing out of every nook and cranny
of this congregation, waiting to be acted on. As we embark on this adventure
together, we have the opportunity to see things go very well, or to see things
go very poorly! We’ve got a lot of
folks here working in ministry together. And if there are four hundred plus of
you who are regularly active and involved in what is happening here at
Liverpool First, then there are four hundred plus opinions and plans for how
things should be done. So, it is absolutely essential that we are on the same
page when it comes to our purpose, our mission, and our vision. We will have
many different expressions of purpose, and mission, and vision, but our
foundation must be solid, and must be the place where we all stand, where we
all start from.
We have to agree to tell the truth, because we are members of one another. As I
said before, it isn’t always easy to tell the truth. One of the major reasons
that Jesus was always getting into trouble with the religious leaders is that
he was just telling the truth. When
he saw injustice taking place, when he saw religious folks putting more energy
into being religious than into being faithful, Jesus said so. Do you know the
story of the Emperor who had no clothes? The leader of the people ended up
parading down the street without clothes because no one was willing to speak
the truth, until finally a child broke the silence. We have to agree to tell
each other the truth. Yes, we can speak the truth with kindness, with gentleness.
But a foundation of our life together must be truth telling, because we are a
part of one another, and for the whole body to be healthy, we have to speak
truthfully.
We have to speak in ways that build each other up, so
that our words give grace to those who hear them. I remember as a child attending
our church camps, a camp rule was that there were “no put downs.” And if you
did put someone down, you had to apologize by giving “two put ups and a hug.”
In other words, you had to find two ways to build the person back up that you
had just knocked down. I think you will agree with me that you can find places
to be put down and knocked down about everywhere you turn in this world.
Lately, you’ve probably heard a lot about anti-bullying campaigns, because it
seems like young people bullying, harassing, ridiculing, hurting one another
online and in schools has developed into a huge problem. But this culture of
tearing each other down doesn’t come from our young people. It’s being modeled
for them by the adults they see in politics, in entertainment, in the media,
and yes, in their communities, homes, and churches too. How do you speak to and
about one another? How often do the words you speak act in a way that builds
another person up? In my preaching class last week, after we preached for each
other, we spent some time providing feedback to each other. After some
wrestling with it, Bishop Craig decided she only wanted us to share with each
other positive feedback. We didn’t
have to say anything that we didn’t believe. But she wanted us to highlight for
each other the areas where we really had strength. What could have been a very
competitive, critical process was turned into an affirming process that still
helped us to grow, to experiment, to risk, and to learn about our preaching
process. “Paul” says what we say to each other is so powerful that when we
build up, we give the gift of grace to one another. How can we withhold such a
precious gift by tearing each other down? Our foundation must be building up
and up.
We have to act with forgiveness, as we are forgiven by
God. We know we are not perfect. We will try and sometimes fail, sometimes
struggle, sometimes still hurt one another. Part of our foundation must be
knowing what to do when that happens. “Paul” says, “Put away from you all
bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all
malice, 32and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving
one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” We cannot accept the gifts
that God wants to place in our hands if we are holding onto hurts and
grievances and wrongs. Forgiveness involves repentance and reconciliation, but
if you have been wronged, you don’t have to wait for an apology to be ready with
forgiveness. God certainly offers it to us without waiting for our apologies,
knowing that forgiveness is more likely to change hearts than bitterness and
resentment.
Speak the truth in love. Build each other up. Forgive, as
we’re forgiven by God. These are “Paul’s” tenets, you could say, for laying the
foundation for a community that is seeking to be imitators of God, no small
goal. What are your tenets, your guidelines? As we set about this journey
together, as we dream together, as we act with purpose, mission, vision, what
would you put at the root of our work? I’d really like to hear from you, and
know that as we set out, we set out together. Friends, beloved children of God,
let us live in love, as Christ loved us. Amen.
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