Ephesians 4:25-5:2. Theological Perspective

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1 Page 1 of 10 Ephesians 4:25-5:2 25 So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth 26 to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry 27 but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and 28 do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, 29 so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace 30 to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of 31 redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and 32 anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as 1 God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, 2 as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Theological Perspective At first glance, this passage looks like a list of rules for the new life of being a Christian. Echoing the Decalogue, Paul lists acts that are prohibited before he enumerates the behaviors Christians are to embrace. However, the key to the passage is at the beginning. The new believers are to "put off" or "strip away" the old self so that God can give them the new. This verb is also used in verse 22 of this chapter: "You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self." This fundamental repentance and renewal comes at baptism and is a prerequisite to doing these tasks. The behavioral changes coming from that conversion is the theme of this section. We go from the old self to the new creation in baptism. As we go under the waters of death, the old self is killed off and we are raised with Christ into newness of life. In the first liturgies of the church, the baptismal candidates faced the west and renounced the forces of darkness. They then turned to the east at sunrise and proclaimed their allegiance to the light of the world. They

2 Page 2 of 10 literally stripped off their old clothing and put on the new garments of being adopted by Christ as children of God after they were baptized. They were then brought into the community of faith. In baptism the old self is killed off, and the new self is raised. The Episcopal liturgy expresses this process in the following prayer: "We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit."[1] Because we are reborn, the habits of the old self have no dominion over us. The Holy Spirit enables the baptized to put off the "evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God" as well as giving the inclination and will to "put your whole trust in [Jesus Christ's] grace and love."[2] Therefore, the works described by Paul are not merit badges set out for us to achieve. Rather, they are marks of the new life given to us in baptism. If we are a thief, we are to turn away from stealing and turn toward "working honestly with their own hands" (v. 28). We are to strip away all "bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice" and instead we are to put on being "kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another" (4:3132). We are to do these things for at least three reasons. First, we are a new creation. We have come through the waters of baptism and are commanded not to go back to Egypt. Once the baptized person puts on the new white garment, the old clothes are cast away. In like manner, Paul is calling for the new Christians to remember who they now are in Christ and to focus on the way to life, instead of turning back to the ways of death. As we recollect what Christ has done for us, we remember the continuing work of the Holy Spirit, who enables us to stay focused on the light. God gives us the capacity to turn around as well as to refrain from turning back. Of course, we have free will, but we no longer make our choices alone. Again, the Episcopal baptismal liturgy reads: "by the sealing of your Holy Spirit you have bound us to your service. Renew in these your servants the covenant you made with them at their Baptism. Send them forth in the power of that Spirit to perform the service you set before them."[3] Second, we are now part of the body of Christ, and that membership gives us strength to do what is set before us. As part of this body, we encourage one another and help one another to live out our baptismal promises. Paul says, "Let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another" (v.

3 Page 3 of 10 25). That is, we all are in this enterprise of being church together. Therefore, we are to learn from each other and help each other. Christianity has yet to grasp the full implication of the incarnation: the Word has become flesh and dwells all around us. Paul is calling for these early Christians not merely to worship God in Christ, but through the Holy Spirit to imitate Christ in their own behavior, for the sake of the Christ's church and the sake of the world. They are to forgive as they have been forgiven. They must turn from wrangling and slander and turn instead toward kindness and forgiveness for Christ's sake. We imitate Christ in hopes that through the Holy Spirit we will grow into the likeness of Christ and that God will use us as instruments to bring in God's realm of peace, justice, and mercy. Finally, Paul calls upon them not to "grieve the Holy Spirit of God" (v. 30). Christianity is an ongoing encounter with the living, loving God in Christ Jesus. The nature of love is to love and to grow in that love. No one willingly disappoints the beloved; certainly no one makes the beloved grieve. While this verse seems out of place in this catalog of forbidden and prescribed behaviors, in a certain sense it is quite fitting. We do not wish to do anything to grieve God, because of our love for God in Christ. Therefore, we joyfully turn toward those acts that bring God joy and away from those that do not, because our individual and corporate focus is to serve Christ by pleasing him. Therefore, while at first glance this passage resembles a long list of prescribed and proscribed behaviors, in actuality it is centered on the converted life of the baptized. G. Porter Taylor Pastoral Perspective The passage lists virtues and duties that mark the transformed and transforming community. It begins with a gentle irony: we do not lie to ourselves, do we? Because "we are members of each other," we must be as truthful with each other as we are with ourselves. The call to truth as a hallmark of community is a call to honesty about the individual and corporate self. Amazon.com currently lists more than forty thousand religious titles that touch on the subject of anger. That number testifies to the level of difficulty we have with this emotion. Each pastor knows the damage that suppressed and

4 Page 4 of 10 denied anger does, and each knows that there is no aggression quite like passive aggression. It is enough to say here that our passage acknowledges anger. "Be angry" (v. 26) is not an imperative; it is an acknowledgment that anger will be present. The ways to deal with anger without sinning begin with dealing with it today (before sundown). The demonic mischief that unresolved anger can wreak on the community puts it high on the writer's list of issues. The reconciled community must practice reconciliation especially when this frightening emotion is raised, and that reconciliation begins with naming it. A similar concern for community drives the next instruction about stealing. Hearers will perhaps be startled to note that here honesty and hard work are not recommended to preserve the sanctity of private property. Former thieves are to invest their time and energy in self-support so that they may be in a position to join the community's care for the destitute. The work ethic itself is transformed into participation in Christ's ministry. The contrast continues. We might cheer when thieves are told not to steal and then be surprised when they are told to do some positive good. Similarly, we can agree when Christians are told to cease speaking evil. The transformation of speech goes farther too and brings us back to the question of unresolved anger. For the author of Ephesians, truth is not sufficient warrant for speech. What is spoken is to be for building up, for occasioning grace. There is no one for whom these words do not represent a challenge and opportunity. That thought is perhaps best emphasized in terms of possibility. We all know in an instant how we are judged by the passage. Do we understand the power of the slightest of our words to be creative acts? Isaiah 63:10 warns God's people that their rebellion has "grieved his holy spirit." The consequences Isaiah sees flowing from that act are terrible. Another translation of the Isaiah passage uses "afflicted" instead of "grieved." Either way, there is a sense of God's vulnerability that is appealed to here, whether or not there is a threat implied. How might the life of the contemporary Christian community afflict the Spirit? Both the ends and the means of our endeavors are questioned here. The motivation for not grieving the Spirit is organic. Christians are to tell the truth to each other in verse 25 because they are members of each other. Similarly, here they are told not to grieve the Spirit because it is the Spirit that seals them. The seal (sphragis) of the Spirit appears in ancient baptismal texts;

5 Page 5 of 10 the Spirit marks us as Christ's property as surely as the tattoos of slaves or soldiers marked them. There is a contradiction in rejecting that which attaches Christians to their primary identity. "Brand loyalty" is more than a pun here; it is an existential position for those marked for Christ. We tend to repeat ourselves when we are not sure that we are heard, and verses 31 and 32 expand on the thought of verse 26. The emphasis cannot be unintentional, and the echoes of situations in Corinth and Galatians are difficult to miss. The preacher's temptation to moralize here is strong, but is to be resisted. It is not pastorally useful to dwell on guilt here, although stocktaking is certainly called for. Instead, in consonance with the rest of the passage, the author repeats that it is precisely when aggression is the customary path (as with lying or stealing) that tremendous effort is required for reconciliation. In making it, Christians have the opportunity to participate in the work of Christ. The text warns against the vices that destroy the baptismal community and simultaneously holds up a difficult but transforming path. A final motivation for inhabiting the virtues that protect and deepen community is the writer's understanding of Christ's work as sacrifice. The ancient world believed that offerings had an olfactory quality that pleased the deity. Christ's surrender to God was motivated by love, and Christians are here invited to follow suit, understanding their own lives as pleasingly sacrificial. There has been much quarreling in Christian circles over whether we have anything to offer God, whether Christians should ever speak of any sacrifice except that of Christ. One may wish to fence the word in such a way as to exclude the idea of sacrifice as motivating God to act or to be well disposed toward those who offer, but the idea of offering one's attitude and behavior from a desire to respond pleasingly to love of God seems inescapable. Here Christians offer themselves in imitation of the divine rescuing love, the sacrificial love of Christ. Deliberate imitation sounds insincere or blameworthy in some ears. But putting on Christ and imitating God are phrases that Pauline thinking repeats out of the knowledge that we grow into the identities we choose to have. Only in the matter of the spiritual life does one hear the charge that actions coming out of a state one does not fully possess are phony. One would never argue with anyone's attempt to "become" possessed of the traits of a successful lawyer, rock star, or world leader. The invitation here is to assume the discipline of saint in a deliberate way. The text invites us to do what comes

6 Page 6 of 10 unnaturally as a means to making it natural, or second nature. Paul V. Marshall Exegetical Perspective Ephesians 4:17-24, excluded from the lectionary, calls the Ephesian converts to discard their old nature and don a new one, moving from debauchery and dissolution to righteousness and holiness. Living into holiness involves specific kinds of behavior, namely, those that enhance relationships and enrich Christian community. If 4:1-24 provides the theological basis for unity, then 4:25-5:2 prescribes particular practices and prohibitions. Ephesians 4:25 (which quotes Zech. 8:16) may strike us variously as idealistic, hyperbolic, scary, or excitingly challenging. "Let everyone speak the truth with their neighbor." Why would we risk such a thing? It is not polite behavior, it is a huge investment of time, and it is potentially troubling. The author insists that we need to speak truth because we actually are all part of one another. Not speaking truth to each other is tantamount to not speaking truth to ourselves, and vice versa. We could dispense with this verse as some sort of temporary insanity on the part of the author, were it not the case that he repeatedly returns to the themes of speaking truth (vv , 21) and our connection with our Christian brothers and sisters. Without truth, authentic community fails. Much has been made of verses (which quotes Ps. 4:5), and many pastors have deployed this verse in premarital counseling for better or for worse: "Do not let the sun go down on your anger." The text does not say, "Do not be angry; anger is not Christian." Rather, it warns against the dangers that tend to accompany anger. Anger agitates us and agitation can cloud our judgment, making us susceptible to the wiles of the devil. According to Scripture, the devil traffics in deceit, leading people astray (into sin), and destroying relationships. Brief anger may bear fruit, but sometimes it is attended by enmity, selfrighteousness, tearing one another down, haughtiness, and the hard, desiccated ground where we believe we are "right." This author never imagines that Christians are inoculated against sin. If they avoid it, it is through practice and the crucible of Christian community, not through conversion or some new state of "goodness." Christian thieves must abandon their thieving (v. 28). All of the moral

7 Page 7 of 10 exhortation in Ephesians is directed to those who are already Christian; the author expresses no interest in modifying the behavior of unbelievers. Why should Christians give up thievery? So that one might escape a fiery eternal hell? Because it is debased or unjustifiable? No, because it does not allow for contributions to the needy. By now we should not be surprised by this reasoning. The author does not argue from the Ten Commandments or natural law or some such; rather he is acutely concerned about actively authentic, deep community where everyone contributes. Christians should have jobs primarily so that they can help those in need. The author challenges us to imagine what it would it be like if we made our decisions based not on whether choice A or B would bring us the best paycheck, highest status, and most comfortable life, but whether it would allow us to serve those in need. Verse 29 is a literary thunderclap. Let no evil talk come out of your mouth? Only that which imparts grace to the hearers? I daresay that (a) it takes no great exegetical work to figure this out; (b) if we took this to heart, we would think before we spoke far more often; and (c) we would speak far less often. Again, it is tempting to write this author off as an extremely unrealistic stick-in-the-mud, but again, concern for evil speech runs throughout Scripture, particularly in the Wisdom literature of both Testaments (Jas. 3:5-10; Matt. 12:33-37; numerous times in Proverbs). Like the other behaviors spotlighted, speech matters, because it can either build or destroy community. Verse 30 ups the ante regarding behavior negative behavior not only harms the one doing it and the Christian community to which he or she belongs, but it actually grieves the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is an essential part of the community: without the Spirit there could be no worship, no community, no virtue. Believers know this Spirit because the Spirit was active in our conversion and baptism, marking us as God's own with a view to the final glorious unfolding of the future that God has promised believers in Christ, what the author calls our "day of redemption." Ephesians is generally considered to exhibit a realized eschatology, as Christians have already been raised with Christ and seated with him in the heavenly places (2:6). So certain is this outcome that it can be spoken of in the past tense this is the power of the gospel. Christians still reside for the moment, however, in a time when "the days are evil" (5:16) and the devil looks for opportunities (4:27). Throughout our passage, the author has set up contrasts: avoid doing

8 Page 8 of 10 destructive behaviors (lying, stealing, evil speech); rather, do edifying behaviors (truth telling, working to contribute, edifying speech). Verses 31 and 32 follow suit: the former enjoins us to discard spiritual clutter to make room for the spiritual collectibles enumerated in the latter. The six discards cause discord: wrath, bitterness, anger, clamor, slander, and malice. They act as a suit of armor protecting the real flesh-and-blood us. But church is not a gladiatorial event. In contrast, kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness facilitate unity and cooperation, the way a flesh-and-blood body works (4:15-16) or a healthy family. Armorless, we are more vulnerable, but we finally have a real shot at intimacy, at knowing and being known. There is no doubt that intimacy will involve hurt; hence, the necessity for forgiveness. This theme runs through Scripture like a red thread. No meaningful relationship can function without it. Why should we forgive? We could make a list of possible psychological and sociological benefits, but it comes down to the fact that this is what God does in Christ (4:32). As God's "beloved children" (5:1), we do not just love God, praise God, worship God, thank God. We also aim to imitate God (5:1), minding and then closing the gap between God's behavior and our own. To imitate God, only one thing is needful: kenotic love (5:2), love that sacrifices for the good of others. If we get that, we get it all. Jaime Clark-Soles Homiletical Perspective If your congregation has not been singing "They'll Know We Are Christians by Our Love" for a while, this is a good time to dust it off and give it voice. You can think of that chorus as a musical midrash on John 13:35, but it picks up on some key themes in Ephesians oneness in the Spirit, walking and working together "side by side," and praise for that unity as a gift of a gracious God. Singing a song or hymn like this is but one of a variety of gestures the body of Christ uses to perform its unity in sanctuaries set apart for worship. Many congregations join hands as they pray the Lord's Prayer together; some leave their seats to surround the Lord's Table where the elements of the messianic banquet are spread; many drink from what is a common "cup of salvation" and eat of a common loaf; and in some smaller congregations, members step into the aisles at the close of

9 Page 9 of 10 worship, encircling the sanctuary, and offer a choral benediction with joined hands upraised. Powerful moments these, especially when those congregations are made up of persons of different ages, races, genders, classes, theological positions, sexual orientations, or nationalities. But are Christians these days known by the rare shows of unity in the liturgical assembly? In the public square, things seem different. Fault lines in the foundation of Christian unity show up all the time. The church is shaken regularly by scandal, ecclesial warfare, fear of the other, difference, and change. The pastor with an ear pressed down to the ground of congregational life hears the plates shifting underneath. The phone call complaining of a stance the church has taken, the angry tone of the one outvoted, or the diatribe by one threatening to withdraw a pledge on a "matter of doctrine" make liturgical handholding in worship seem silly and naive. So pronounced are these divisions that these gestures toward love and unity we Christians make in the relative privacy and safety of our sanctuaries come off as empty ones. The wags who watch us would hear our prayer that "all unity will one day be restored" and snicker. The ethical practices that the writer of Ephesians proscribes in the appointed passage today can save our ditties of devotion to love and unity from becoming sentimental schlock. There is nothing wounding the body of Christ today that this writer has not already seen in an earlier version. Understandings of the Christ event born within Judaism and "pagan" cultic practices are in conflict behind this text, and the bitter fruit is evident: lying (v. 25); anger that festers in the heart (v. 26); stealing! (v. 28); evil talk (v. 29), bitterness, wrath, wrangling, and slander (v. 31), all of which grieve the Holy Spirit of God (v. 30). What a picture! Who would want to join First Church of Ephesus? If you were going to preach to a congregation like that, where such behavior was evident, what on earth would you say? What theme would you choose? The writer chooses "forgiveness" as a theme. This is a word for the church, not just for individuals in it. For this writer, to be "forgiven" is to be "pardoned." God has done something "in Christ" that forgives or pardons all those who take this letter to heart, and in recognition of that action, recipients of God's forgiveness and pardon freely offer it to others in kind. This is harder to pull off than it first appears. The writer of Ephesians seems to be a lot clearer about what "sin" is than most contemporary Christians are. You have to reach back into the passage before this one to get the sense of what the author means by it. "They [meaning

10 Page 10 of 10 the "Gentiles"] are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart" (v. 18). It is from this state of being in the world (insensitive, licentious, greedy, impure) that "they" are "forgiven" and set free to live a different way of life. The sign of this alternative ethic, at least according to this part of the text, is the virtue of kindness. The preacher would do well to follow this writer's lead to offer this writer's view of "sin" and then set forth this ethical vision to the church both as a challenge and a rebuke to the culture it finds itself in. The practice of kindness draws one away from "hardness of heart" and into the "life of God." Now then, is this "tenderheartness" the kind of soft, banal ethic that turns the Christian into "a nice person" who slips through a world of hurt barely noticed? Not if you see how the writer raises the stakes in 5:1. Here a bold statement, a command really, rises off the page and into our hearing: "Be imitators of God." What? "Imitating God" means putting our focus on the actions that flow from God's character. Teachers in the world that the writer of this epistle inhabited thought human beings to be mimetic beings, that is, those creatures who felt the urge to imitate their vision of the real through their actions in art and culture. "Real life" was that which was being "shown forth" in all of its dimensions through the "actions" of the poets, the playwrights, the orators, and the actors. Actions deemed worthy of imitation were "grand" ones by noble, even heroic individuals played out on stages in front of the gods and the gathered community for the instruction of all. The writer of Ephesians sees such an action performed by God in the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is a grand gesture of love played out on the stage of Creation for the instruction of the human community. Those who are baptized are called to be imitators of that action, not just in the sanctuaries we find ourselves in, but on the stage of a global village and on the front lines of human relationships. Richard F. Ward