Rules for the New Life

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

August 12, 2018

            Many years ago when my kids were younger, we were getting ready to go on a road trip. I no longer remember exactly which trip this was – I think our destination was somewhere out west – but our road trips usually involved long hours in the car. I would always come up with activities that would make time pass a little easier. My love of listening to audio books started on these long car journeys. But no matter how hard you try to keep folks engaged, when you’re in the car for a long period of time restlessness eventually sets in. And when restlessness reared its head the trouble would start.

            In order to create a more harmonious atmosphere for our drive, and to preserve my sanity, I sat down and created a list of rules. I printed it out and read it aloud to everyone who would share space in the car. I told everyone involved that I was bringing it with me as a reminder of how we were all expected to behave. I don’t remember my rules verbatim, but I know they sounded something like this.

            1) Sibling shall not hit, tease, annoy, irk or otherwise pester other sibling.

            2) Children shall not backtalk or sass a parent.

3) All litter, including candy wrappers, paper, straws, etc., shall be thrown away at every stop.

            4) There shall be no whining.

            5) Mom will be listened to; i.e. no interrupting, no talking over or ignoring her.

6) This trip is supposed to be fun, so everyone will have fun – whether they like it or not.

I’m sure there were more rules than that. Knowing me, I probably came up with ten; kind of a Ten Commandments of a family car trip. But we hadn’t even walked out the door of our house before at least two of the rules were broken. I don’t think we’d even reached our destination before I abandoned the whole list altogether. It was a long trip.

I’m not telling you this to disparage my children; but long trips confined in a car wear on everyone – kids and adults alike. I thought perhaps my list of road trip rules might soften the edges of the journey. But I forgot how hard it can be to abide by certain rules when you’re dealing with other human beings. That seems to be a universal reality.

My title for this sermon is not my own, meaning I didn’t pluck it out of my own imagination. Although it is not in your pew Bible, it is the subheading of this particular passage in my Bible. Rules for the New Life – everything about this particular passage is summed up in the title. We have a new life together; therefore we need new rules for how to live this life together.

You may be thinking to yourself, why are you saying it’s so hard for us to follow rules? We follow rules all the time. Our society and culture is predicated upon the assumption that most people will follow the rules. Rules set the boundaries of our society. Abiding by the rules makes it possible for us to live in society, to function in society. There have to be rules, and we all follow them. If we didn’t there would be mass chaos all the time.

Since there isn’t mass chaos all the time, it would seem safe to assume that we already know the rules that help us live together somewhat harmoniously. But these rules in our passage today read differently than say traffic rules. These are rules for the new life. And abiding by these rules can be much more difficult and challenging than taking turns at a four-way stop sign.

At first reading, it seems as though if we just obeyed these rules than everything would be hunky dory. Again, it may seem as though we already obey them. Most of us don’t go around lying, and the first rule in verse 25 is “putting away falsehood, let all of us speak truth to our neighbors …”

Does that mean that Paul thought everyone was a liar or a potential liar? No, but it does mean that it can be easier to avoid the hard truths we should speak to one another. If you were here last week, think about the passage that was read from Second Samuel. Think about the hard truth the prophet Nathan had to confront David with. David broke several of the commandments with his relationship with Bathsheba, and with setting her husband, Uriah, up to be killed on the front lines. Nathan telling David, “You are the man!” was a hard truth. Maybe other people in the king’s life would have probably just told him what he wanted to hear, not what he needed to hear. Sometimes putting away falsehood is not so much about lying as it is about truth, hard truth.

Paul went on to talk about being angry. Just as Jesus addressed conflict among his followers in the gospel of Matthew, assuming that there would be conflict, Paul rightly assumed that people would get angry. Anger is a reality, but it’s how you handle your anger that can make all the difference. Not all anger is bad. When we see injustice, oppression, cruelty, we should rightly be angry. But what do we do with our anger? How does it motivate us? What actions stem from our anger? If we respond to cruelty with more cruelty, is that being angry but not sinning?

Paul’s words about thieves should be obvious. Thieves should give up stealing. However this was not just about refraining from one bad behavior; it was about turning that behavior into something that served others. Engage in honest labor, not just for your own benefit, but for the benefit of the needy all around you.

Another rule for the New Life is one that I especially struggle with: watch my words. It’s not that I try to speak evil, but how often have my words torn down rather than built up? One admonition that my mother repeated over and over was “you can’t take back words.” That goes back to being angry, but not sinning doesn’t it? How many times have I said something in anger that I regret? More times than I’d like to admit. You can’t take back words, so let no evil talk come out of your mouths. Words that tear down cause grief to the Holy Spirit.

The community that Paul addressed came together not because they were of the same birth family or the same ethnic or cultural background. They came together out of love for God in Jesus Christ. They formed a community because God loved them first, and because they recognized that love. The seal of the Holy Spirit was what bound them together, and to tear down one another in anger grieved the Spirit that formed them.

These rules for the New Life called the community to “put away bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together will all malice.” But these rules were not just about what they should not do, they were also, and even more importantly, about what they should do.

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

The Rules for New Life are not just rules about what we don’t do, but are about what we are called to do. They are about who we are called to be, and how we are called to try and live with one another. The Rules for New Life are a reminder that our lives are not our own. Our lives belong to God. The Rules for New Life are a reminder that we are not just individuals taking up our own particular space in the world. We are members of one another. We belong to God, and we belong to each other.

Just this week I stumbled upon a news video from the BBC about a Greek woman known as Mama Maria. Greece has been a landing point for the thousands of people fleeing the violence and war in Syria and other places in the Middle East. Many refugees have found shelter in other European nations, but many more have been turned away. Many of these refugees have been sent back to Greece. Yet whether a refugee is just arriving to Greece or returning, Mama Maria feeds them. She owned a restaurant in her small village, and she fed them there – by the thousands. She never charged anything, she just fed them. She saw them suffering and scared and far away from home, so she did the one thing she knew could do. She fed them.

She fed them until threats against her forced her to close her restaurant. She was told repeatedly to stop doing what she was doing. But her belief that this is her calling is so strong, she refuses to stop. She can no longer feed refugees in her restaurant, but she can feed them in her home. And she does; because we are members of one another. Maybe Mama Maria would not articulate it that way, but she doesn’t have to. Her actions speak for her. In her act of feeding, she imitates God. She loves as Christ loved us.

We are members of one another. Ultimately, this is what these Rules for the New Life are all about. They are a reminder that living together in this new life is not just about restraint or refraining from bad behavior. It is about actively seeking to do what is good and kind and tenderhearted for the other. It is about forgiving. It is about imitating God; the God we know through his Son; the Son who willingly died so that we might live a new life. We are members of one another, may we follow the rules of this new life, now and always.

Thanks be to God. Amen.