I Kings 19:4-8; Psalm 34:1-8; Ephesians 4:25-5:2; John 6:35, 41-51
The Rev. Candice B. Frazer
Ephesus was one of the premier cities of Asia Minor—modern day Turkey. It hosted a major economic port, a cultural and intellectual center, and a significantly wealthy population. For an ancient city it knew significant comforts like running water, clean streets, and good hygiene. It boasted a significant market place and a theater that could hold 25,000 persons leading to the belief that the population of the city was around 250,000 at the time that the Apostle Paul visited. Ephesus was also a religious center. It was dedicated to Artemis—the goddess of the hunt, wild animals, and women.
Paul understood Ephesus’ strategic importance in his evangelical efforts. He targeted Ephesus in his early travels as a jumping off point for the Christian message. He was so convincing that he threatened the livelihood of the temple artisans who sold statutes of Artemis. They caused a riot, leading the people in chanting “Great is Artemis of Ephesus” and causing Paul to flee the city.
Paul did not give up and was able to establish a few house churches in Ephesus. Tradition has it that the Apostle John and Jesus’ mother, Mary, immigrated to Ephesus after the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and an uptick of Jewish Christian persecution followed. Eventually, Christianity would outstrip the cult of Artemis as Ephesus would become a significant Christian center.
The letter to the Ephesians that we have been reading the last several weeks is an encouraging letter written to the various house churches of Ephesus to articulate the identity of the church and expressing a need for moral reform that marks Christians as children of God. It is this theme of identity that is important to the church in Ephesus and continues to offer us an understanding of our continued identity as the body of Christ.
The letter, especially the portion we read today, is more than a moral code—it instructs us in how to behave in the world as an extension of our faith and identity as beloved children of God. It’s not simply that lying is bad, but we speak the truth because we are members of one another. It’s ok to be angry as long as our anger is not allowing evil to enter into the world. Robin Hood may have stolen from the rich and given to the poor, but as Christians we are not to steal—not take advantage of another by charging too much or hoarding our own gain but laboring honestly and sharing what we achieve.
We are also not to speak evil. This has less to do with the admonition from our mothers, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,” and more to do with finding things to say that will build up one another and breathe grace into the world—especially as concerns those who we have little in common with, don’t like, or disagree. We build up one another because we are all part of the body of Christ and because when we tear one another down, we are grieving the Holy Spirit who lives and moves and has her being in each and every one of us regardless of belief, nationality, or political persuasion.
Through the work of Jesus Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit, we are marked for redemption and expected to live that redemption into this world—not just in some future date when we receive our heavenly reward. To live the redemptive life in the here and now is to not engage in bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander and malice or allow those things to drive our hearts, our minds, our words, our social media posts. To understand our words or actions in this redemptive manner is to recognize that what we say or do to one another is what we are saying and doing to ourselves. When we speak of the negatives and judgments we have for another person, we are actually speaking from the negatives and judgments we have of ourselves. We see one another as a mirror and what we don’t like about ourselves, we see in the other person. The redemptive life is not in calling out that which we dislike in bitter ways, it is about learning compassion for ourselves as well as the other.
Jesus knew this compassion when he fed the five thousand. The joy of that moment buoyed his purpose and invited an opportunity for him to reveal himself to the people. He tells them that he is the bread of life and that self-revelation leads to their rejection of him. They may have just witnessed this miracle of the fishes and loaves—even benefitted from it—but their response to him is not one of faith, it is one of doubt and questioning. They know his parents. How can he say he came down from heaven?
They question his identity because they have not embraced their own true identity. They are focused on themselves and all that they lack. They complain just as their ancestors did in the wilderness when Moses intervened for them and they received the manna from heaven. They may benefit from the gifts of heaven and even be in the presence of God yet they miss it as they are not living into the redemptive life. They are not speaking words of truth and encouragement, nor are they sharing their gains with one another, or looking for ways to build one another up. Of course they cannot see God in their midst, much less accept Jesus Christ as the living bread.
If we are members of one another, then our identity is dependent upon one another—not as a method for division but as an opportunity for unity. This is what the church is—it is not about sameness but embracing our diversity as a method for building up one another. We are to be kind to one another, tenderhearted and forgiving—not because this is the Golden Rule, but because this Golden Rule is how we grow our relationship with God; how we come to know God in this earthly plane, how we eat of the living bread.
Our identity does not exist in our race or gender or nationality or any of the other constructs that we have defined through a history of marginalization and exclusion. Our identity rests in God. As God’s beloved children, we are to live in love. How we identify ourselves and how we are identified by others impacts how we are treated, what we believe, and how we act. If we are living into anything other than love, we are not living into our true identity.
Eugene Peterson offers an easy perspective in embracing our identity as God’s beloved children and living into love. In The Message he says, “watch what God does and then do it…mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautions but extravagant. He didn’t love to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.” Our identity impacts how we act. How we act informs our identity.
The letter to the Ephesians encourages the house churches there to build one another up as they are members of one another. I can’t help but wonder if it is the building up of one another—embracing their identity as God’s beloved children—that evangelizes this community that had been so dedicated to the Greek goddess Artemis. Those who had caused riots when Paul visited, driven by their anger and bitterness and malice do not win in the end. God does. And God wins because his children embrace their true identity in Christ and live in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Amen