2011-02-13-pm Sermon Ephesians 5

110213pm Eph 4:1-17 Mark 1:40-end

The next four Sundays leading up to Lent are 'Ordinary Time'. During Epiphany we focused on 'Light in the Darkness', using candles to emphasise the light of Christ in different ways. That theme is still here, very clearly in the Ephesians reading, but just to change the focus slightly we're combining that with other symbols. The ancient world thought of the world as made up of four elements, earth, air, fire and water, and for us these symbolise God's good creation. In particular they can symbolise how much we ourselves are part of creation. Our bodies are made up of the same stuff as the earth, dust you are and to dust you shall return, we are mostly water, we are dead without air, we are full of the energy of life. And of course three of these elements are symbols of God's Spirit – the wind, breath of life, the fire, and the water of life, baptism etc.

And this reading tells us more about what God says about what we do with our bodies. There is a kind of religion/spirituality that thinks that the body is irrelevant, even a hindrance to the spiritual, but in the Bible the body is really important to God.

So Paul says be imitators of God – doesn't pull any punches! Be like God – a tall order! But he immediately shows us both the reason and the resources: as dearly loved children – not as oppressed slaves, like the Hebrews forced to try to make bricks without straw, but liberated into the freedom of the Spirit, with his love and his help. And the way we do it is in ordinary, everyday bodily life: v.2 live a life of love, literally walk in love. That word walk (same word in v.15 be careful how you walk) implies steady, normal progress through life. It's a walk not a sprint. And we do it just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. What's your favourite smell? Smells are powerful and evocative. I like fresh bread, fresh coffee, Playdough, Wright's Coal Tar Soap. Smells often catch you unawares and powerfully remind you of something. A life yielded to God is fragrant. The image is of the smoke of a sacrifice rising to God, but in this case it's not a dead sacrifice but a living one. Our life is meant to smell of Christ, both to God and to others – in other words the ways we behave and talk should make people think, '[Sniff] what does that remind me of? I know, Jesus.'

There are also foul smells of decay and death. Paul goes on to warn us very severely about things that would make our lives reek offensively. He's already listed a lot, which we looked at last week (lying, holding on to anger, stealing, idleness, unwholesome talk, bitterness, rage, slander, malice, unforgiveness). Now he focuses on two more, and they are both about misuse of our bodies.

v.3-6. So fornication and greed. This is so counter-cultural! The world of the media which bombards us incessantly with bodily pleasures, sex and possessions. Paul discusses this in 1 Cor 6:12-19. So your body belongs to the Lord. And in terms of sex it belongs to someone else as well: 1 Cor 7:4 the wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband, in the same way the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. This ownership can't be there in casual or uncommitted relationships. This is why Biblical Christianity insists on sex as part of marriage, not before marriage, not instead of marriage, not outside of marriage, not with anyone except the one person of the opposite sex that you are committed too for life. So in the rest of Ephesians 5 he compares marriage to the relationship between Christ and his Body the Church, his Bride. We belong to him and he is faithfully committed to us for ever.

So he says in Romans 12:1 present your bodies as a living sacrifice (there's the picture of a sacrifice again). Christ recognises that this is a struggle. When the disciples were dropping with sleep instead of watching with him just before he was arrested and killed, he said of them the spirit is willing but the body is weak. There is understanding and forgiveness when we fail. But that doesn't mean we can just give in, we have to glorify God with our bodies. Paul say his ultimate aim is that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or death (Phil 1:20). In the end our body is not going to be discarded but transformed, as I read at every funeral: he will transform our lowly bodies that they may be conformed to his glorious body.

But it's not only sex, its also greed. I don't know why people emphasise one rather than the other: very conservative Christians get all 'Daily Mail' about sex, and very liberal Christians get all 'Guardian' about greed. The Bible addresses both. Greed here can mean literally greed for food and drink, gluttony – v.18 specifically says do not get drunk. More generally it's greed for more of anything. We've now found a new name for this: aspiration. Sounds good, doesn't it, even admirable. Charlie Booker recently did a wonderfully miserable TV programme about how TV ruined your life, pointing out how advertising used to say, Buy our tea because it's, er, tea. But it's become increasingly glamorous, portraying a life of luxury and excess; Dallas came along with the super rich, and dramas are full of only beautiful people with perfect bodies, perfect clothes, perfect homes, perfect cars, makeover shows, Grand Designs, which show a world that's nothing like reality, but makes us want it and think we can have it, and feel inadequate and ashamed if we don't – and we dignify it with the title 'aspirational'.

These things easily become a trap and a snare. There is nothing wrong with material things, they are good, just as sex is good – in the right context. But in excess they easily take our thinking away from God , away from his kingdom, from building up his Body.

There's a strong connection in Paul between the Body of Christ meaning the Church, the Body of Christ meaning the bread which is his body sacrificed on the cross, and the Body of Christ meaning your body which belongs to Christ. To present your body as a sacrifice means to give him your eyes and what you look at, your ears and what you listen to, your hands and what you do, your feet and where they take you, your stomach and what it yearns for, your sexuality and what it longs for.

How do we do it? Our bodies are made of earth, air, water and fire the same as other living and non-living things, but there is something more. We have our heart and mind and will and soul. We have conscience. That's the focus of v.15-17. Literally see how you walk, don't be unwise but wise, don't be unthinking but understand. The way we think about these things is really important. With God's help we have the capacity to make decisions to do the right thing.

This is not just our weak will on its own – that's like making a new year's resolution, and we know what happens to most of those. It's the light of Christ's resurrection power. v.8-14. We see what is right as we let the light of Christ shine into situations. From him we get power to resist wrong and to go the right way. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is at work in our minds and our bodies.

The world says, my body is telling me that I want this – this thing or this person – and my body is telling my mind that it feels so right, how can it be wrong, why shouldn't I if I want to? The Christians says, Christ is telling my mind that my body is misleading me, and I am its master not its slave, and the loving thing is not always to give my body what it wants but to do what is right and good.

I'm not going to ask you to discuss this around the tables! Maybe I should, but instead I want to have a meditation using the rocks. Take one and hold it. Get quiet and still, shut your eyes and come before the Lord. Feel the rock, its weight, its texture, its shape. It could stand for lots of things, and we'll explore some in coming weeks. Tonight I suggest it might represent the earth, the dust of which we are made, our earthly bodies... fornication and greed are idolatry, Paul says, and the Bible is very scathing about taking stone and making an idol from it... it could be the hardness of our hearts, the hard centre of self-will, greed, lust, or things we just won't give up... God said to Ezekiel I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you and move you to follow my decrees... We spend some time recognising where our heart is of stone, and asking God to break it, soften it, make it new and pliable and responsive to him...

Almighty God, take away our heart of stone. You gave your Son as a fragrant offering out of love for us, your beloved children. Make us imitators of you; shine your light into the dark parts of our lives, raise us from the dead, rid us from impurity and greed; make us wise to understand your beautiful will, and give us the power of your Spirit to glorify you with our bodies; through Christ our Lord. Amen.