worthy lives

December 11, 2007

Ephesians 4:1-6

“ I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, on God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”

Up until this point the author of Ephesians has been a little lofty at times. But now, this is the getting down and dirty part. This is where he engages the practical and begins to paint the picture of what it looks like to really be a Christian and to live in Christian community. Maybe this is a good time for us to take a little self-evaluatory quiz:

1. Am I able to define my basic calling?
(Hopefully, you answered yes and that at the most basic level our calling is to
live a life worthy of Christ.)
2. Do I practice humility in my living?
Humility was a depised word in that culture. It was a word that would have been associated with slavery. But with the New Testament it came to be understood as a virtue. We are called to be slaves to Christ and thus live in his example.
3. Do I practice gentleness? And what about gentleness with patience?
If we speak in imperatives, if we instruct people with what and how WE want them to do things and with definitive ideas as to how things SHOULD be done, we’ll need to downgrade ourselves on this one!
4. Do I tend to react and fail to hold back words that are better left unsaid?
This is forbearance. This is love. Love—true love—has the ability to not say that thing that we so want to let loose in our anger and frustration. So are we loving?
5. Do I maintain unity so as to be consonant with the Spirit? And therefore, do others experience peace in my presence?
We might have to poll others on this but by its very definition unity is love. So we can think about whether our acts or choices not to act are loving by thinking first of the consequences that will come from them. Will those consequences separate me from others or will they maintain the bond between us?
This simple test gives us the answers we need to live as one body in the one Spirit with one faith and hope in the one Lord, God and Father of us all. When answering these questions I am able to answer some of them well and others not so well but that fact doesn’t let me off of the hook nor does it let you off of the hook. It exhorts us to do everything in our power to work harder at being Christ-like. Within our church family, we are so good at affirming certain things—that our differences will not separate us—that we will admonish each other as occasion may require. Maybe we need to do an even better job of exhorting each other to be more Christ-like! Maybe with a commitment to hold each other to such accountability, we would experience the wonder of this life and the wonder of each other in ways we have yet to fathom! May unity be ours! Amen.