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110220pm Eph 6:1-20 Mark 2:1-12
So this letter to the Ephesians has been telling us about how we let the light of Christ shine in our ordinary everyday lives – how it's important not just to come to church but to go out from church and let the light shine, speaking the truth, dealing with our anger, doing useful work, sharing with those in need, no unwholesome talk, no bitterness, rage, brawling, slander, malice; and how your
body belongs to God, so no fornication and no greed.
Now we get to chapter 6, and I'm not going to preach on the whole armour of God (you've heard me before, and John has this text in a few weeks). Instead, it's more about ordinary life, but this time with a special twist. In 5:22-33 Paul deals with wives and husbands, which I mentioned last week, and now he goes on to children and parents, and slaves and masters.
Our children no longer live with us (??) but five other creatures do, one dog called Charlie, and four chickens called the white one, the brown one, the speckled one and the grey one. What is the big mistake many people make with dogs? Not being their boss. Dogs are pack animals, and they need to have a pack leader; if you don't do it, they will do it. It's not a question of being mean to them, in fact it's being mean not to be their boss.
Chickens are nice. Lots of phrases in our language come from keeping chickens. Chickens coming home to roost Some are flighty. You have to clip their wings. You don't want them to go broody (they sit on an egg to hatch it instead of laying another one). If they aren't laying you can put in an artificial egg made of china to encourage them – a nest egg. But the point I'm getting to is that they
have a pecking order. As with dogs, there is an order of authority, who gets to eat first, who says where we are going.
Paul is addressing here how we live and shine the light of Christ in the human pecking order, in situations where there is authority, and where we don't have much choice about it. Paul addresses authority and equality. In those days parents had pretty much absolute authority. Slaves had no choice about anything, you couldn't resign. And masters had absolute authority, you could buy and
sell, chastise, maybe even kill slaves. Paul doesn't argue with the authority, but he does command parents and masters to treat those beneath them with respect, he injects some equality into the equation.
What about today? We have a strong sense of equality and our 'rights', and the authority of parents and bosses is strictly limited by the law – but it's an illusion to think that there are no longer systems of authority, or that they are unnecessary or wrong.
We are constantly being told that life is about 'choices', and that we are going to be given 'more choices'. But as much as holiness is about making the right choices, it's also about getting on with things where we have no choice, living for Christ in circumstances that are given to us.
The Bible makes the very idea of 'choice' questionable. God is sovereign, life is a gift, we are created, we don't create ourselves, and salvation is a gift; we don't choose to be and we don't 'choose' to be saved. Jesus said to the apostles, you did not choose me but I chose you. There are some famous passages where Israel is told to choose. Deut 30:19 |I have set before you life and
death, blessings and curses; now choose life so that you and your children may live... Or Joshua (24:15) telling them to choose between the Lord and the pagan god: choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve... as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. But in neither case is it their initiative, it's God inviting them to choose what he is offering. God has chosen to allow us to choose him.
Think of the areas where you don't have much choice. Your family; your gender; when and where you were born; your body – colour of hair and eyes and skin, basic shape; even your basic personality – so much is either born with us or formed in our very early years. You can leave your family, you can move, you can get your body fit or let it go to the dogs, you can have cosmetic surgery, even gender reassignment, but much about you remains stubbornly just there.
And that's fine! Things that are just given to us are not just to be grudgingly put up with, but may received as a gift, as the very place where we are called to be like Christ and shine with his light.
So as children, honour your father and mother, not the ones you wish you'd had; as parents, bring up the children you have got, not the ones you wish they were! What about slaves? Well, we are not slaves, are we?! But in our daily work the idea that we can just freely choose from an infinite array of choices, and if we don't like it move somewhere else – that's a cruel deception. That's not what
real life is like for most people in the world, even in so-called developed societies. I don't know which is worse, today when we say to kids, you can become anything you want (though it's not very likely that they will – maybe that's why thousands queue up to get on X factor, to live the dream!) or in the old days when we said to kids, you'll work in the mill or down the pit like your father.
I like this from Stanley Hauerwas. [QUOTE]
Our own BCP 1662 saw things similarly. Children were asked, What is thy duty towards thy neighbour, and they learned this answer by heart:
“My duty towards my Neighbour is to love him as myself, and to do to all men as I would they should do unto me: To love, honour, and succour my father and mother: To honour and obey the Queen, and all that are put in authority under her: To submit myself to all my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters: To order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters: To hurt
nobody by word nor deed: To be true and just in all my dealing: To bear no malice nor hatred in my heart: To keep my hands from picking and stealing, and my tongue from evil-speaking, lying, and slandering: To keep my body in temperance, soberness, and chastity: Not to covet nor desire other men’s goods; but to learn and labour truly to get mine own living, and to do my duty in that state of life, unto which it shall please God to call me.”
Don't get me wrong, it's good when people have appropriate choices in where they live, who they marry, what job they do. But it's not a failure when we don't, and it's not an obstacle to living for Christ and like Christ. Slaves, obey your earthly masters... not only to win their favour when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men... I have found that if you think you are just serving people, it leads to frustration because people will always be aggravating in some way, but if you see your work as serving the Lord, almost anything can become fruitful and be done
cheerfully and with gratitude.
We live in a world where there are pecking orders, there is authority as well as equality, and we couldn't live without authority. The systems of authority and rule and order in the world are what Paul calls the principalities and powers. In this chapter he speaks of them very negatively as spiritual forces of evil, but that's not all he says. In Colossians he says that God in Christ created
them – so like the creation symbolised in earth, air, fire and water, there is an order which is just give; that he disarmed them on the cross, that he is head of them. In Eph 1 he says that Christ is seated at God's right hand far above all rule and authority, power and dominion... and in ch.3 he says that God's intent was that now through the church the manifold wisdom of God should be
made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms... In Titus 3:1-2 he says we are to be subject to them. This is complex, but he's evidently talking about the systems, the cultures, the mindsets, the worldviews, the structures of society, family, work, the state. Christ is Lord of them all, and we shine the light of Christ in living our ordinary day to day lives with his love and grace wherever we are called to be.
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