"Truth, Love, and UNITY"
Ephesians 4:1-16
Andy King
Seminary Intern
August 2, 2009
Ephesians 4:1-16 NRS 1 I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. 7 But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ's gift. 8 Therefore it is said, "When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people." 9 (When it says, "He ascended," what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) 11 The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 14 We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. 15 But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.
During Urban Mission Camp, our campers had the chance to serve and eat a meal at the Waterfront Rescue Mission, a rehabilitation center down the street. They stayed after for worship and a lesson with the men at the Mission. Over the course of the summer, I was privileged to hear the opening lesson of the Christian rehab program several times. The chaplain, a man named Rev. Tuck, could go with any number of approaches that first night in order to convict the men in attendance to begin kicking their addiction. I imagine it would be easy enough to stand up and begin listing horrifying statistics and facts about addiction. The percentage of fatal car accidents in Alabama linked to consumption. The likelihood of alcoholism being passed genetically. The average amount of money spent on substances annually by American addicts. Reports about families torn apart by narcotic abusers. Pictures of destroyed livers, the faces of long-time meth addicts, recent obituaries. The “scare them straight” method, if you will. Facts can be very convincing and shocking, if presented properly. Surely some of the men would be drawn in out of fear of becoming one of these statistics.
Or the Rev. Tuck could stand before the room, stroking his salt-and-peppered goatee, and preach a menacing sermon on how evil and misguided these men are. How their personal choices have driven them out of God’s favor and their addiction is God’s judgment. He could tell them that their self-centered decisions throughout life have caused them to lose their lives, that if they had only tried harder, been stronger, they could have said “No” long ago. Convince them that their addictions are signs of inferiority. He could simply alienate each man through guilt and hope they would stick around to get some help after they are sufficiently beaten down.
Instead, Tuck begins the series with the first step of a Christian 12-Step Program. Step One is, “To admit we are powerless over our addictions and dysfunctional- behaviors, that our lives had become unmanageable.” He lifts up several passages of scripture that resonate with this step. One he consistently turns to is Romans 7:18-20. Here, the Apostle Paul writes, “18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.” Rev. Tuck proclaims this passage with responses of “Amen” coming from the chapel pews. He explains that Paul is relating a truth all humans experience, that our lives are bound by sin. While we mean to do the right thing, we fall short and are unable to do good at all. He tells the men stories from his own life, about his own weaknesses, his own powerlessness in the face of sin and evil. The men in the pews could all tell similar stories from their lives, moments when they wanted to do good, but found that they were unable to. Tuck’s approach is not to bombard the men with scary facts, nor does he batter them with their guilt. He does not sugar-coat the message, either, coddling them to feel like their addiction isn’t such a bad thing. Instead, he presents them with a truth that is common to them all, that we are more prone to do wrong than right, and that we must admit that we are powerless and turn to God for help. Rev. Tuck is adept at speaking the truth in love to a group of men who are often denied love and whose notions of truth are skewed by their addictions.
Speaking truth. It is not an easy thing to do. The letter to the Christians in Ephesus warns us about the winds of doctrine, the trickery that blows strong and leads people away from God and away from worthy lives. These winds still blow today. The prevailing wind of our time, one that has pushed strongly for a couple hundred years is the one that tells us, “If you hold all the facts, you know the truth.” Information is available at the fingertips of almost everyone today, more facts and figures than would have been conceivable in the First Century. And we have been conditioned by everything from “true and false” tests in 2nd grade to quiz shows and broadcast news on television to equate facts with truth. But, presenting facts and presenting the truth look very different. Facts and statistics arranged in the right sequence can elicit fear or comfort or indifference from people. But they can also be incredibly misleading. As Mark Twain once wrote, “There are three types of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.” Studies have shown many times that the “information” available to many of us is often flat-out wrong. But we buy it; we eat it up, because we are taught to crave information, even the false kind. Truth is something beyond the facts, something deeper, something which bears universal relevance.
Another challenge to speaking truth is speaking it in a way to be heard. Our story from 2nd Samuel is a perfect example of that. God taps the prophet Nathan to confront King David about the wrong he has done in taking Bathsheba and having Uriah killed. Nathan has options for approaching this calling. He could barge into the throne room, guns ablazin’, convicting David of the sins he has committed through his lustful power trip, proclaiming God’s displeasure with the man he anointed. Of course, the examples of many other prophets tell us that this method is a quick road to having your head served on a platter. Or Nathan could go spread the news of the King’s infidelities throughout Jerusalem, undermining his credibility as a righteous leader among the public before coming to David personally. Public embarrassment is a familiar method in our political world to get to a ruler. Instead, Nathan approaches his calling with compassion and truth, with an understanding of what God has commanded and of the moral and emotional traits of David. Through a parable, Nathan stirs David’s righteous indignation toward the selfish, greedy, and wealthy man who took the poor man’s lamb. Then Nathan reveals the truth behind the parable, that David is that man. The man. God had favored David, lifted him from a shepherd to a king, protected him from enemies. Now, Nathan proclaims, David has done evil in God’s sight, evil he thought he had kept secret through his own deceptive means. His sentence will be public humiliation for his deeds and a sword in his household. David probably doesn’t need the reminder of what God has done for him to make him realize his sin. And at the end of our story, he repents, confessing the wrong he had done. Nathan spoke truth to David. The truth is David was favored, a man anointed by God. But, he was still a man, and prone to the evil that sin led him to. These are hard truths, but Nathan manages to present them in a way that David will hear them. He speaks the truth wrapped in love and compassion for a man who God still cared about, even in his worst moment.
Speaking the truth is hard enough for us to do, and especially when we take into account that we want the truth to be heard. We can throw the truth in someone’s face like a weapon, and that is how it will be perceived, as a hostile attack. We can speak the truth in a desire to be right. That can be a dangerous habit, as the truth we speak becomes despised by those who hear it. We can speak the truth to do harm to another’s reputation. Doing it in love is an ability that can easily elude us. But without the love, the truth will not be accepted for what we should intend it to be, a gift. Nathan’s message to David saved the King from the full wrath of God. It probably saved the kingdom of Israel as well. His message is one that has been passed through the generations, read and reflected on by people of every era since that time. He sets a powerful example for how to handle difficult truths, especially in the face of potential harm to himself.
So, why does the letter to the Ephesians call us through the centuries to speak the truth in love? According to the passage, this action is vital to the unity and the growth of the Body of Christ, of the Church. The letter is addressing a group of Gentiles who have felt distant and separate from those Christians with Jewish heritage. They have been encouraged that in Christ, the dividing wall of hostility between the two groups has been torn down. Now they are called to reach across that removed boundary and be united as one body bound by the Spirit in peace. And to do that, they must speak the truth in love to one another. This truth is that the gifts of Christ’s grace have been poured out on them as well as Jewish Christians. The truth is that they have been called into the same service to the ministry of Jesus Christ as a Christian from Jerusalem, or Rome, or Corinth. And it is in this service that they can work as one to build up the body of Christ in love. Speaking the truth in love is one part of this service.
We find ourselves in a similar boat to the Ephesians. We are faced with differences and individual tendencies that make it easier to be a loose conglomerate of individuals than to be one body, bound closely together. We are in a time when the Church is split over matters of what the truth is and members are more eager to cut ties and run than to sit down and speak the truth to one another. Unity is not one of the obvious qualities of the Church. It can be easier to silently disagree with each other, keep out of the conversation altogether than to speak the truth as we know it. But speaking is what we are called to do. In loving, truth-filled conversation, the Church finds its common bonds and the work of Christ increases. The truth each of us speaks will sound a little different from that of our neighbor’s, but that is how we learn how to be one. In the exchange of speaking and listening of the truth, the bonds of unity and peace bring us closer and help us to work in Christ’s ministry more completely. Rev. Tuck’s ministry at the Rescue Mission forms the men in the program into a supportive family working toward the rehabilitation of one another. The Prophet Nathan’s words maintained David’s relationship with God and held together the kingdom of Israel in an event that could have torn it apart. For us, speaking the truth of God’s love in our lives, of how we are trying to live lives worthy of Christ’s calling, brings us into unity.
Amen.