The Gospel is so, so beautiful, and it was very tempting to preach on that this morning, but Ephesians has been running through my head.
And a certain theme has been running through our Sundays for a few weeks now, as we’ve been reading our way through the letter to Ephesus. It’s a letter that’s long been attributed to Paul, but actually scholars these days believe was most likely not written by him. But the letter to the Ephesians might be better described as fan fiction rather than fraud. It was written, in its time, as a way to honor the writings of Paul, and to teach the churches of its day how to be church, drawing on Paul’s ideas and theology. The letter to the Ephesians was really a letter to all churches, even if it’s addressed to Ephesus. We’ll be continuing to read from it over the next few Sundays, through the end of August.
The fact that the letter is addressed specifically to Ephesus, by whoever did write it, centuries ago, is actually kind of audacious in itself. Ephesus, at the time, was a crowded, significant metropolitan city. It was the city where the worship of the goddess Artemis or Diana was centered – she was the goddess of hunting, of wilderness and wildness – she carried a bow and arrow and was associated with the moon. Ephesus, like most Roman cities, was built on wealth and debt and hierarchies of power, and its people worshiped many gods, including the emperor.
But the letter to the church in Ephesus is about a different kind of society, a different kind of city. Over and over, Ephesians talks about what church is – what community is. It proposes a church that is built out of relationship, not on the foundations of wealth or obligation. In its six brief chapters it describes the church as different things – as the body of Christ, as the dwelling place of God. Ephesians describes church not as an institution or a bureaucracy, but as a people, as a household or a city whose people are citizens with the saints and all equally beloved, members of one family bound together in the love of Christ.
That’s a bold thing to say to the people of Ephesus, who are living under Roman political and social rule. It’s as if the writer is saying, consider another kind of city – not a city built on human ideas of power, but a city of God, a new heaven and a new earth, built on love.
Today’s reading, from the fourth chapter of Ephesians, seems an appropriate one for this point in the year, and particularly this year. I was thinking of Ephesians when I was pondering three areas of our civic and human life that are not far from many of our minds right now – school, politics, and sports. Specifically, of course, the spots that are happening over in Paris right now.
When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people.
The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,
some writers, some doctors, some gymnasts and surfers, some singers, some coaches, some Rubik’s Cube solvers…
How many gifts can we add to that list?
Some would be gardeners, some cooks, some weavers, some painters, mothers, and fathers … all gifts, and all having gifts and giving gifts
to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.
The writer of Ephesians describes the church of God as being a community of people with a rich, rich diversity of gifts that build the body of Christ, the household of the church. The church of God is unified by that diversity, strengthened and deepened by the different work, and personalities and voices and stories of its many individuals – all gifts building the whole.
This past week, catching bits of the Olympics this past week kept drawing me back to this passage from Ephesians – seeing the joy of athletes living into their gifts and talents; celebrating the achievement that comes from years of focused, exhausting practice; witnessing the miraculous strength of the human body; all of us, I suspect have been moved by the inspiration and mentorships and friendships we saw that transcend national boundaries. Such a diversity of gifts brought to the international community.
And Ephesians also spoke to me also as I was thinking about what is happening closer to home. In just a few days, many of us will be returning to school – as students, as staff, as teachers, or as families.
And those teachers among us know that there’s something wonderful, and perhaps a little bit daunting, about walking into your classroom at the beginning of the semester and seeing a sea of unfamiliar faces. You don’t know their names yet. You don’t know their stories, their voices, their quirks – which ones will challenge you, which ones will break your heart, which ones will struggle and struggle until suddenly a light bulb goes off. But by the end of the semester or the year, you’ll know them. You’ll know who loves country music. Who’s the star on the track team. Who writes poetry. Who has a parent going through cancer treatments. Who can’t afford lunch. Who reaches
out to the new kid. Who laughs the loudest. Who loves to sing. Who can’t sit still. Who is afraid to speak up in class. Who has a brother or sister in the army. Who loves math. Who has dogs. Who has cats. You learn what gifts each one of them brings to the community.
And those gifts that we discover behind the faces that were once strangers to us, whether they are in the classroom, or in the church, or out on the sidewalks, are important to remember always, and perhaps especially this year, as we continue to move through what’s turning out to be an unprecedented election cycle. We need to hold onto the lessons of Ephesians, to remember to see each other as equally beloved, to look for the gifts in all others, to recognize them, to listen to the stories we tell so we can better understand each other.
We are, each of us, beloved, and we are each of us given gifts – not gifts that we must prove ourselves to receive, or do anything to receive, but we are given simply because we are beloved. And those gifts build the church, and build our common life together as human beings.
Because on Sunday mornings, after the sermon, after the hymns, after the breaking of the bread and the dismissal, we don’t really leave church. We may walk out of the building, but we continue to be the church. We carry with us all the spiritual teachings, the prayers, the music, the grace, the blessing – but none of that is solitary – we do not carry it alone. We leave as the church, as the body of Christ, as Ephesians tells us, as a new city of God, out in the world. We take the gifts we are given and we keep building the church in whatever we do, by loving through our work, whether our work is teaching or preaching or evangelizing, or nursing, or coaching, or surfing, or synchronized swimming.
Every meal we cook for those who are hungry, every card we write for those who are sick or grieving, every prayer spoken and candle lit, every choir rehearsal, Sunday School class or vestry meeting; every moment of time spent with a student or a patient or a neighbor or a rival, every word of peace we speak, every kindness we extend in the course of our everyday lives, we exercise our gifts from God in the world. By using our gifts, and looking always for the gifts in others, we build the dwelling place for God, learning to lead lives worthy of the calling to which we 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.
Amen.
Sermon preached by The Rev. Cara Ellen Modisett at Trinity Episcopal Church, Staunton, Va., on August 4, 2024.
