The City of Ephesus sat on the western shore of what is now Turkey. It had been, in its glory days, an important trade center. By the time the epistle which I read a few minutes ago was written, Ephesus was little more than a tourist stop. But what a tourist stop it was. Ephesus was the site of the Temple of Artemis, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world—the best of all seven some have said. Ephesus relied on the tourists who came to see and worship at the Temple of Artemis for its survival.
Now imagine if a group came along and threatened the very tourism on which the city existed. Of course that would be the Christians—followers of Jesus who do away with idols and false gods. It’s like someone in San Francisco wanting to straighten out Lombard Street, get rid of Coit Tower and reduce Fisherman’s Wharf to, well, to a wharf for fishermen. It wouldn’t be popular. And neither were the Christians.
It’s a pretty standard story for early Christians—followers of the Way as they were known. They threatened the status quo. The worshiped not the emperor, as all in the Roman territories were supposed to do, but this other guy, this Jesus. They were aligned with the Jews who were another odd lot. At this point Christianity was still decades away from being accepted by the emperor as the official religion of the realm. Christians were still a persecuted lot.
And so we find the state of things as we read today’s words from Ephesians. The lectionary has brought us a bit of Ephesians for the past 7 weeks. If you’ve been paying attention to the lectionary readings we’ve covered most of the book. And today’s reading is right near the end of the book.
The authorship of Ephesians is doubted. Though it begins and ends with greetings and salutations from Paul, it wasn’t uncommon in those days to create writings that pretended to be by someone else. Thus there are several books in the epistles that purport to be by Paul though scholarship doubts that authorship and attributes it to one of his followers. Scholars have decided that Ephesians is one such book.
Now this doesn’t make it any less worthy of our attention. Obviously, if the lectionary is going to cover it in such depth over 7 weeks, it must be worth looking at. The book itself is short—only 6 chapters long and easily readable in one short sitting. Our reading this morning is the culmination of the book—the ending except for some personal salutations.
The book of Ephesians brings in many of Paul’s frequent themes—the grace of God, gifts that we are given that are to be used, assiduous avoidance of the ways of the secular world. But today’s scripture caught me because it was a little different. It’s a discussion of how to live the Christian life but with a military metaphor.
I’m not one to be hooked by a military theme. I’ve never served in the military and though I respect those who have served and do serve, the words by this unknown author which dress the Christian in the military clothing of the day both engage and repel me. If we try to update the reading to modern day, we might be talking about the Kevlar vest righteousness, the combat boots of peace and the AK-47 of faith. That’s very jangling to my ears.
But I think the author of Ephesians has a point. We aren’t up against flesh and blood enemies, but against cosmic forces of evil that would bring us down. And we can ignore those forces only at our own peril.
It’s tempting to live a Christian life that does not recognize the existence of evil. It’s tempting to just assume that God will take care of us and that no wrong will come to us. But it just doesn’t always work that way.
There is evil that is always around us and it needs to be faced. It needs to be acknowledged and reckoned with. The problem of evil is a long-standing one. There are those who would wish to deny its existence; those who would have us believe that all is well.
Our author of this morning’s reading clearly believes that evil exists and that it’s part of the Christian’s job to face it. But not just acknowledge it and move on but deal with it in some way.
Why else would we need all the protective and battle gear that the author describes? If we were allowed to turn and just run away from evil, averting our eyes from it, we would need none of these things that were depicted.
I am adverse to war—I think most of you realize that. That is part of my trouble with this passage. But I assure you, if I suddenly, somehow found myself in battle I’d be wishing for the Kevlar vest, the helmet, the combat boots and other ways to protect myself. The battle imagery is not entirely to my suiting but it may just be the right imagery to speak of our battle with evil. For if Santa Clara County for some reason suddenly decided to march north and attack, we would be in desperate need of gear that would first protect us and secondly help to repel the attack.
It is no different when we deal with evil—evil attacks us whether we are prepared or not. And the point this author is making is that it’s best to be prepared. That’s all. Be ready for the fight against the evils that surround us.
And there are plenty of evils alive and well in our culture: the evils of racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism and…and…and. And that’s not to mention the evils of greed and idolatry that seem to be quite alive and well, not only in our culture but also in the time that Ephesians was written, according to the author if you read the whole book.
These evils, and plenty of others, are alive and well all around us. And it is our duty as Christians to confront them and do what we can to eliminate them. It takes recognition on our part first off. Hardest of all, we must examine ourselves to see how we might participate in evil so that we can eliminate it from our own behaviors and inner thoughts.
Once we can confront the evils that we participate in, we are ready to take on the evils that are part of our culture. And as the author of the letter says, it’s going to take truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation and the Spirit to protect us and arm us.
You can name the evils that surround you. It doesn’t take much reflection to know what sorts of things you are up against. I have named a few but you can certainly come up with others.
Be prepared for a fight, a mighty struggle, once you confront evil though. It doesn’t go down easily. That’s why some of these evils have lasted for centuries and centuries. But, we can be assured, God is on our side.
6 August 2006
It helps to remember last week’s Hebrew Bible lectionary reading in order to make sense of today’s reading. So a recap might be in order.
Last week, David, King of Israel, with a harem of wives, saw Bathsheba bathing from his roof. He desired her and, being the king, got her. The problem was that she was married and David got her pregnant. No problem actually; as king, David had her husband sent to the front lines of battle and killed. Then he was free to marry her as another of his wives. So David took Uriah’s wife as his own after Uriah died in battle.
And that’s where we pick up today’s scripture. Now, I have no doubt that the whole of Jerusalem knew what was going on, human nature being what it is. Tongues will wag. But who is going to confront the king? No one in the entire kingdom is going to raise his or her voice against King David.
Except one…God. God is willing to voice a complaint against the king. God knows what’s going on and will speak up. God will raise judgment against David without fear. But God needs someone to be God’s voice. God needs a prophet to speak for God. And Nathan is just that prophet.
Now Nathan knows that he has to bring the word—God’s word—to the highest power in the land. He takes his orders directly from God. But he also knows that a direct attack on the king could spell disaster. So he comes up with a story, which he tells to King David: a story about a rich man and a poor man. A rich man who is greedy and a poor man who has nothing. Yet the rich man, when faced with serving a guest a meal, decides against taking from his many flocks and instead yanks the only thing that the poor man has—a ewe who has grown up with his children and is treated like one of the family. The rich man ignores his own vast holdings and instead steals the one thing of value in the poor man’s household.
David is incensed by this story. He declares that because of his greed, the rich man should die. The rich man’s power has corrupted him, David decides. He has gone beyond the realm of civilized behaviour.
This is when Nathan must have summoned all his courage. For his words are simple and direct: “You are the man,” he says. “You are the man,” he declares before David, indicting David of his crime of stealing the wife of Uriah and then sending him to die.
It took a lot of nerve for Nathan to do such a thing. Even with the indirect assault of the story, to say, “you are the man” must have taken every morsel of strength and courage in his body. For he still is talking to the king and the king could have him executed immediately for his presumptuousness.
But he didn’t. David, after Nathan explains that God has seen David’s actions in this whole affair, simply repents. His words back to Nathan and God are “I have sinned against the Lord.” Simply yet effective words.
How often are we in the place of David—justifying our actions and thinking no one notices how off base we might be? Thinking that what we are doing is all right when we know it’s wrong? Supposing that we can hide behind our justifications?
Many of us act that way. There are a few souls who have the opposite problem—everything that happens is their fault. They take the blame for everything and don’t try to justify anything. This scripture—and sermon—are not for them. This is for the rest of us who try to hide ourselves behind our justifications.
Like David, we can be caught in the web of justifications. I’m right because I have the power to be right. No one will challenge me. We may not be king or queen or a powerful ruler, but we can still use the power we have to justify what we do.
And this justification is rampant in our society today it seems, all the way to the top of the power chain. We ignore God’s ways and think we can hide from the truth of it.
Yet God sees. And God can get behind our justifications—God knows what’s going on with us even when we can hide it from others.
Now most of our justifications probably aren’t worth the trouble that Nathan took with David. It may be that we drove a little too fast because we were late for a meeting. Or that we didn’t go back to the grocery when we found out we were undercharged. There are plenty of choices each and every day when we find ourselves justifying our way out of making the right on.
But it’s the big ones that require the intervention of our own Nathan’s—usually known as our conscience. It’s when our conscience intervenes that we know the prophet of God is at work. It’s only occasionally that we actually get a real, live prophet to come up to us as Nathan did with David.
It’s when your conscience is pulling you that you know you haven’t escaped God’s notice. It’s that little voice inside of you that tells you that God is present and sees through your justifications, as God indeed can do.
Of course, the way around it all is to lead a life that is perfect in every way. Most of us, I would guess, can’t do that. So instead watch for that prophet inside yourself and know that your justifications may not be truly valid.
Last week, David, King of Israel, with a harem of wives, saw Bathsheba bathing from his roof. He desired her and, being the king, got her. The problem was that she was married and David got her pregnant. No problem actually; as king, David had her husband sent to the front lines of battle and killed. Then he was free to marry her as another of his wives. So David took Uriah’s wife as his own after Uriah died in battle.
And that’s where we pick up today’s scripture. Now, I have no doubt that the whole of Jerusalem knew what was going on, human nature being what it is. Tongues will wag. But who is going to confront the king? No one in the entire kingdom is going to raise his or her voice against King David.
Except one…God. God is willing to voice a complaint against the king. God knows what’s going on and will speak up. God will raise judgment against David without fear. But God needs someone to be God’s voice. God needs a prophet to speak for God. And Nathan is just that prophet.
Now Nathan knows that he has to bring the word—God’s word—to the highest power in the land. He takes his orders directly from God. But he also knows that a direct attack on the king could spell disaster. So he comes up with a story, which he tells to King David: a story about a rich man and a poor man. A rich man who is greedy and a poor man who has nothing. Yet the rich man, when faced with serving a guest a meal, decides against taking from his many flocks and instead yanks the only thing that the poor man has—a ewe who has grown up with his children and is treated like one of the family. The rich man ignores his own vast holdings and instead steals the one thing of value in the poor man’s household.
David is incensed by this story. He declares that because of his greed, the rich man should die. The rich man’s power has corrupted him, David decides. He has gone beyond the realm of civilized behaviour.
This is when Nathan must have summoned all his courage. For his words are simple and direct: “You are the man,” he says. “You are the man,” he declares before David, indicting David of his crime of stealing the wife of Uriah and then sending him to die.
It took a lot of nerve for Nathan to do such a thing. Even with the indirect assault of the story, to say, “you are the man” must have taken every morsel of strength and courage in his body. For he still is talking to the king and the king could have him executed immediately for his presumptuousness.
But he didn’t. David, after Nathan explains that God has seen David’s actions in this whole affair, simply repents. His words back to Nathan and God are “I have sinned against the Lord.” Simply yet effective words.
How often are we in the place of David—justifying our actions and thinking no one notices how off base we might be? Thinking that what we are doing is all right when we know it’s wrong? Supposing that we can hide behind our justifications?
Many of us act that way. There are a few souls who have the opposite problem—everything that happens is their fault. They take the blame for everything and don’t try to justify anything. This scripture—and sermon—are not for them. This is for the rest of us who try to hide ourselves behind our justifications.
Like David, we can be caught in the web of justifications. I’m right because I have the power to be right. No one will challenge me. We may not be king or queen or a powerful ruler, but we can still use the power we have to justify what we do.
And this justification is rampant in our society today it seems, all the way to the top of the power chain. We ignore God’s ways and think we can hide from the truth of it.
Yet God sees. And God can get behind our justifications—God knows what’s going on with us even when we can hide it from others.
Now most of our justifications probably aren’t worth the trouble that Nathan took with David. It may be that we drove a little too fast because we were late for a meeting. Or that we didn’t go back to the grocery when we found out we were undercharged. There are plenty of choices each and every day when we find ourselves justifying our way out of making the right on.
But it’s the big ones that require the intervention of our own Nathan’s—usually known as our conscience. It’s when our conscience intervenes that we know the prophet of God is at work. It’s only occasionally that we actually get a real, live prophet to come up to us as Nathan did with David.
It’s when your conscience is pulling you that you know you haven’t escaped God’s notice. It’s that little voice inside of you that tells you that God is present and sees through your justifications, as God indeed can do.
Of course, the way around it all is to lead a life that is perfect in every way. Most of us, I would guess, can’t do that. So instead watch for that prophet inside yourself and know that your justifications may not be truly valid.
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