Believe week 16 “Christian Community February 19, 2017 Reinbeck UMC

Believe week 16 “Christian Community

February 19, 2017 Reinbeck UMC

Just a word about today’s Scripture reading. This scripture has received a lot of criticism. It is often abused by preachers and teachers on the one hand, and it is outright condemned by others.

Don’t let the words, “Wives submit to your husband” keep you from hearing the rest of the scripture. I am going to address those words, but they are not the focus of today’s message. There is something else going on here. See if you can figure out what it is.

(Ephesians 5:21-35)

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I guess, the good news is no one got up and walked out. I can’t blame you for being a bit skeptical. I admit I had to work very hard on the passage before I was convinced my thesis was correct. I’m glad you are willing to give this scripture a chance and I pray that God gives me the right words to communicate what I believe is Paul’s deeper message.

First, let’s get rid of the distraction.

Paul seems to have written the letter to the Ephesians during his first imprisonment in Rome, which would be about 62 AD. In those days, every culture, including all of Rome and Israel, was very patriarchal and women were considered property of the father then the husband; and not even very valuable property.

It might not look like it to you but I believe Paul was a radical feminist for his day. In Galatians Chapter 3 he writes, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, …(He could have quit there, but he didn’t) there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” That was radical.

In I Corinthians, he writes, “For the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does; … (That is the traditional view, but he continuers) likewise the husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does.”   That was radical.

Paul is not the misogynist or woman hater, that some have made him out to be.

On the other hand, he knew his audience and he also had to walk a thin line of using language that will not alienate too many people while being true to himself.

Yes, Paul wrote, “wives submit to your husbands,” but he also sticks his neck out and says, “Husbands love your wives.” That was radical.

Yes he writes, “The husband is the head of the wife,” but he also adds that a “husband should love his wife like his own body.” That was radical.

Paul is trying to cut off the diseased limb of patriarchy, but he is trying to make sure that he does not go down with it.

Paul might not have accomplished that to everyone’s liking, but I believe that Paul is trying very hard to say that, in God’s eyes, women are just as loved, and just as valuable as men, but he is trying to say it in a way that people won’t just turn him off and walk away.

I don’t know if that makes you feel any better or not, but I don’t want to be stuck there.

I said there is a deeper meaning in this passage, let’s get to it.

This passage from Ephesians is a little hard for our modern minds to follow. In Western literature we are used to the first sentence of a paragraph, telling us what the paragraph is going to be about. That is Journalism 101. If we read it through those western eyes, we have to conclude that this is about family relationships.

Paul’s readers, however, would have seen something different in this passage. It was very common to put the most important part of the thought in the middle and surround it with parallel thoughts before and after. It is called a “chiasm.” The first phrase is balanced by the last phrase. In this case, “wives submit” is balanced by “wives respect” and so forth.   It is like building an arch adding one stone to each side until you get to the keystone: the one that holds it all together. Just like the keystone, the midpoint of the passage, the thought that does not have a counter point, is the real subject of the passage.

 So what is the keystone of this passage? If we look right in the middle, we read

“Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for her. “

 Oh, now we understand that this passage is not really about marriage as much as it is about the church. Paul is saying if you want to understand the church, look at a healthy marriage. When marriage is done well, it can teach us some important messages about the church.

What better message on this day that we renewed our wedding vows.

We renewed ___ wedding vows today. If your marriages are like Robyn’s and mine, you have not done it perfectly. There have been good times and bad. Times when we have worked harder and when it has come easily. So maybe none of our marriages is a great illustration for the church, but if we take all of our experience and add them together, there are some things on which we could agree.

First, we can all agree that when marriage done well, the couple is one in love. That is exactly what the Bible means when it says, “the two shall become one.” Saying we are one in love. That is not to say that we lose our individuality, but rather that the things that make us different are not as strong as the one love that holds us together. To be one in love is to be so close and so in-sync with our spouses that, like the blur of a couple’s figure skating team in a fast spin we can hardly tell where one starts and the other stops. Marriage means that our hearts, our hurts, and our hopes are one with our spouse.

 The church should be the same way with Jesus. We should be one in Christ. When we are baptized and brought in to the church we are made one with Christ, we are baptized into his death so that we might be baptized into his eternal life. In Romans 6, Paul writes that in baptism “we have been united with him in a death like his, and we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.” “Though there are many parts, there is only one body.”  The body of Christ.

In the church, we are one in Christ so we may worship the one true God through Jesus Christ.

Marriage at its best means the couple is one in love.

Church at its best means that we are one in Christ.

Second, I think we could all agree that when marriage is done well there is mutual serving of one another. In a successful marriage, each person puts their spouse’s needs first.

 When church is done well there is a mutual serving one another. We put the other person’s needs first. Jesus washed the disciples’ feet and said, “Do what I have done.” The early church “Held all things in common and gave to each as they had need”

We can see that in our church. When one hurts, we gather around them to ease the hurt. When one is in trouble, we rally to their side. When a family is grieving, where do they turn? The church, because we care for the grieving very well. We serve one another.

 I talked about servant discipleship 2 weeks ago. If the church is not practicing servant discipleship, there will not be enough teachers, not enough, cooks, not enough helpers, and not enough of anything to go around. When the church is practicing servant discipleship, every person is in ministry to others to whatever degree God has given them the ability

In Marriage done well, there is mutual serving.

In church done well, the church is a servant community.

Finally, when marriage is done well, love grows. It grows beyond jus the two people who are married. In many marriages that means having children and growing love in the family. In other marriages, that means growing love with nieces and nephews, neighbors and friends. Love kept to ourselves is not a strong love. When marriage is, done well love grows.

 When church is done well, Love grows too. Not just inside the doors, but in a healthy church love is nurtured so that it will grow and overflow to the community by reaching out to the needy and serving wherever there is need. In a healthy church love is nurtured so that it will grow and overflow into world by subsidizing disaster relief, supporting seminaries and schools, bringing people to Christ in faraway places, and sharing Christ’s love even with the least of these. Have you ever been in a church where they say, “the worship is ended, let the service begin.”

In marriage done well, love grows beyond the couple.

In church done well, love grows and overflows beyond the doors of the church with the whole world.

 When God created Adam God said, "It is not good that man should be alone." (They say because there would be no one to ask directions) but I believe it is because Adam was built to be in community and so are we.

We can learn some things about the church as we examine Marriage, because it is not good that Christians should be alone.

When God created the church, he did so because the faith is best practiced in community. I believe there are no solo Christians. Historically, even those who went off to the desert to be hermit Christians learned that they needed Christian community and they ended up building communities that became known as monasteries.

I believe there are no solo Christians. Today many people think they can be Christian all by themselves, but I believe that they too will eventually realize that they need Christian community.

I believe there are no solo Christians.

•              I know I need people in Christian community with whom I can be one in Christ as we worship. YOU ARE THAT COMMUNITY.

•              I know I need people in Christian community where we can practice love by serving one another as Christ served. YOU ARE THAT COMMUNITY.

•              I know I need people in Christian community where we can nurture our love for God and let it overflow to the world. YOU ARE THAT COMMUNITY.

For me, YOU ARE THAT COMMUNITY.

In marriage, we use rings to symbolize the uniting of the man and the woman.

I couldn’t find a ring big enough to represent the uniting of God’s people in the church, so I made one. It is made of four cords and you’ll never guess what they represent.

•              Red for sharing Christ’s Love

•              Yellow for Knowing God’s word

•              Blue for growing in faith

•              Green for going to share our faith bringing others to Christ.

So, just like a wedding. Do you the Reinbeck United Methodist Church, take this as your ministry, to share Christ’s love, know God’s word, Grow in Christian discipleship and go share faith bringing others to Christ?

The answer is I do. Will you so answer?

What? I could not hear you…

Do you the Reinbeck United Methodist Church, take this as your ministry, to share Christ’s love, know God’s word, Grow in Christian discipleship and go share faith bringing others to Christ.

The answer is I do. Will you so answer…. That’s better.

I declare before God and all God’s people that you are church in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. AMEN