Ephesians 4:25-5:2
“What Comes Out”
August 8, 2021
It was the spring of 1991 and I had only been in Bennington for about 4 months when I was approached about being in the Rotary club.
Now my image of Rotary then, I’m sorry to say, was that it was a gathering of a bunch of middle-aged businessmen.
At the time I was a 32-year-old woman leading PAVE, a non-profit organization working out of a very small and dingy one-room office and totally dependent on grants and donations and the work of volunteers and I had just come from a decade of work in higher education.
What was I going to have in common with these folks and what could I offer them?
It helped that I was approached by another woman to join and was assured that the members of this group that met on Tuesdays at 7:15 a.m. over scrambled eggs and all you could drink coffee was almost half women and the members represented health care and education as well local businesses and other non-profits.
I was warmly welcomed.
The thing, though, that got my attention first and held it for the 10 years I was a Rotarian was the 4-way test that was shared in that first conversation and reinforced many times over the next decade.
The Rotary International 4-Way Test was all about what we say and do.
Its four questions are intended to help members decide if we were acting in an honorable way.
The questions we were to ask ourselves whenever making a decision or choosing our words were:
- Is it the truth?
- Is it fair to all concerned?
- Will it build goodwill and friendships?
- Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
Not such a bad credo when we are tempted to demonize or dehumanize others.
As we find ourselves awash in the toxic rhetoric of media, especially the so-called social variety today,
we desperately need this passage from Ephesians to remind us that we are one body, God’s body.
This passage is addressed to new believers who are willing to be transformed by their own baptisms.
It’s not meant to be things we add to our to-do list to then check off.
If we think of it as a way to continue to grow – figuring out how we deal with anger, for example, in a productive and not destructive way – we will come to the realization that this will probably take many of us every day we have left on this earth to get close to getting right.
Scholars are unsure whether this letter to the folks in Ephesus was written by Paul himself or one of his followers.
We do know that Paul was experienced in the concept of new birth since he came from a place of not only disbelief but utter scorn for Jesus.
He knows what second chances look like.
For those of us whose baptisms were many decades ago, we may not even have any memory of them,
we forget that these folks in the early church were adults who were consciously making the decision to follow Christ and that meant a do-over.
This is not because of anything they or we have done or not done but because we are children of a God who loves and forgives.
We got to wake up this morning and again tomorrow morning and start all over again in our attempt to say we’re becoming Christians instead of simply being Christians.
In Eugene Peterson’s translation of these words, he puts it simply – “No more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth.” (The Message)
But he also continues in his translation with,
“Watch the way you talk…Say only what helps, each word a gift.”
A way to share grace with someone else.
Boy, this concept is really hard to find if the only talk we pay attention to are the words on our various screens and devices.
We’re not hearing a lot of grace sharing.
We have a ways to go but let us not lose heart.
We can continue to try to be imitators of Christ.
If we keep at it then maybe these words from Martin Luther might help:
“This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.” (Luther’s Words, Volume 34, as translated by Charles M. Jacobs)
What comes out of our mouths is to be truth spoken in love.
Here in Ephesians the new person that each reader or listener is to speak truth for themselves.
And this is accompanied, as are each of the strivings in this passage, by a reason.
We are being instructed to speak the truth because we are all a part of each other.
We are one body, and we are intended to speak the truth in love.
So today let us go from this place speaking the truth in love and perhaps take a break from the words of those who have trouble with this concept. They’ll still be there next week or next month.
In the meantime, “let us be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.” That could be the place to start over again – in kindness.
Let us then raise this prayer titled, “Word”
O God, you are the Word among all words
That spoke words into being.
But you did not remain a distant word,
Speaking only in the language
Of darkness and light,
Day and night,
Sea and stars.
You came to live among us,
Talking in the everyday language of
All who need a word of forgiveness,
All who long for a word of love,
All who pray for a word of hope.
And now we dare to speak to you
In words of our creation.
Take our words and live your grace through them.
Transform our words, and change our lives through them.
And when our words are too deep to speak aloud,
We pray that your Spirit will speak them for us
So that all the words of our mouths
And the meditations of our hearts
Will be acceptable in your sight,
The Word beyond all words.
(from Prayers & Litanies for the Christian Seasons by Sharlande Sledge, 12)