Ephesians 6:10-17
David A. Davis
October 23, 2016

Just before Cathy and I were married thirty years ago, the congregation gave us a wedding shower one Sunday after worship. I started as pastor there in Blackwood on July 1. We were married on August 2. One Sunday in July in the Fellowship Hall during coffee hour they surprised us with a wedding shower for the both of us. The men of the church gave me gifts and the women of the church gave Cathy gifts. Yes, it was an unapologetic nod to gender role stereotypes. Cathy’s gifts were all kitchen related. The men gave me tools. Lots of tools. Not all of them were new tools. That’s a big deal, for a guy to give you one of his tools. Some of the tools, I didn’t even know what they were. But we were just starting out, just starting life together, and the folks knew I was going to need some tools. I still have those tools and the toolboxes they gave me. Both of our children have started out now in new seasons of life. First apartment. Getting settled. Almost immediately, from us and the parents of roommates they have enough plates to feed a baseball team (which would never fit in their apartment). And we gave them a small toolbox. When you’re just starting out, you need a toolbox.

It has been suggested that the end of Ephesians has the rhetorical flair of a baptismal sermon. Here at the end of chapter six, the Apostle Paul is tacking on the exhortation, part of the oration, a section of the sermon given at the time of baptism. With the newly baptized drying off, the congregation gathered, when joy is in the air: “Be strong in the Lord and the strength of God’s power!” When the baptismal garment is still fresh: “Put on the whole armor of God so that you may stand against the wiles of the devil.” With those new to the faith front and center and their now fellow citizens of the household of God gathered around: “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness.” A word for those just starting out. The belt of truth. The breastplate of righteousness. Shoes that proclaim the gospel of peace. The shield of faith. The helmet of salvation. The words of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Fasten. Put on. Take up. For those just starting out. Truth. Righteousness. Peace. Faith. Salvation. Word of God. A toolbox for life in Christ.

Of course for Paul, it’s not a toolbox. It’s the armor of battle. I have shared with you before that New Testament commentators, weekly preachers, and devotional writers spend quite a bit of time with the armor metaphor. There is the one that suggested providing a labeled sketch in the worship bulletin of a Roman soldier all decked out in battle attire. Another catalogued the armor with such detail that it seemed important to note which part of the armor Paul left out (something to do with shins). Many have pointed out that all of the armor pieces are defensive except for the sword, and the sword is the Word of God. Defensive rather than aggressive or violent. Folks work really hard to make all the military gear more palatable to the gospel.

One of my own reactions when it comes to gun violence, and the horrifying statistics about teens and children and gun violence, is to be more aware of the use of language. I am trying to not use the term “bullet points” when referring to talking points on the page. When we move ahead on an idea or a program around here I am not going to say “it’s time to pull the trigger.” I’m not going describe a sporting event as a war, or a battle, or a bloodbath. Yes, maybe it’s all kind of silly. But I also never imagined having to arrange “active shooter training” for the church staff I work with. The words, language, and images we use are worth paying attention to. So, yes, speaking only for myself, I don’t find a biblical dissection of body armor to be all that meaningful when it comes to truth and righteousness and peace and faith and salvation and Word of God. When it comes to a toolbox for life in Christ.

To be clear, an aversion to arming the language of faith in no way minimizes the reality of the struggle or denies the existence of worldly powers that seek to pull us away from God. Whether one calls it the wiles of the devil or the spiritual forces of evil or the cosmic powers of this present darkness, or the magnitude of institutional sin or the impact of total depravity or the ugly underbelly of the human condition that never goes away, there is a reality to that which eats away at your attempt to lead the Christian life and works against the in-breaking of the kingdom of God pretty much every day. And it can make life, the Christian life, difficult some times. That kind of experience is less about defining it, labeling it, and more about acknowledging it, experiencing it.

John Calvin has this great quote from his Institutes of the Christian Religion as he is trying to define the real presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. “Now if anyone should ask me how this takes place, I shall not be ashamed to confess that it is a secret too lofty for either my mind to comprehend or my words to declare. And to speak more plainly, I rather experience than understand it.”  That’s Calvin on the mystery of God’s grace at the Table, Christ’s presence at the Table, something holy, something godly. Well, the same logic goes for the struggle, the worldly challenge, the powers and principalities that you know try to tear you away from a life in Christ. We shall not be ashamed to confess that we can’t wrap our minds around it. We may not have the words to describe it. We experience it rather than understand it. It’s what the Paul calls “our struggle.”

Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, Word of God. The toolbox is not just for those starting out. It’s there for our struggle. Paul’s final exhortation to the Ephesians begins with “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of God’s power.” Be strong. It may be better translated as “Be made strong in the Lord” or “Keep being made strong in the Lord.” The verb in Greek is imperative and passive. Strength be done to you. It’s not your own strength. It’s the strength of the Lord. Or as one translation puts it: “Be strengthened by the Lord and the Lord’s powerful strength.” It’s similar to what Paul writes to Timothy in II Timothy: “You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Imperative. Passive. Better translated, “Take strength from the grace of Christ” or “Draw your strength from the grace of Christ.”

You see the difference. It’s not just parsing words here. The words, language, and images we use are worth paying attention to. The strength Paul’s talking about here belongs to Christ. The strength is not yours, it’s his. This isn’t Paul standing before the newly baptized and proclaiming, “Be strong, hike up your britches, pull up your bootstraps, buck up, suck it up!” It is Paul telling the baptized that the strength of Christ is theirs for the journey. “I pray that, according to the riches of God’s glory, God may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through God’s Spirit” (Eph 3:16). It is Paul telling the newly baptized and the citizens in the household of God and the church, and you and me… when this all gets really difficult (and it will), know that the strength of Jesus Christ is for you. God’s strength. God’s power is there for you, for the struggle. “The immeasurable greatness of God’s power for us who believe… God put this [same] power to work in Christ when God raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places” (Eph1:19-20). It’s that kind of strength. “Keep being made strong in the Lord.”

A really long time ago I was sitting with someone in my office whose heart was just broken with grief. The person’s spouse had died months before and it wasn’t getting any easier. The struggle. Through some laughter and tears, the person said to me, “If you tell me I just have to take it one day at a time, I am going to punch you in the nose.” So I didn’t say that. We talked about how really hard it was. The struggle. At this point the memory of that visit in my office morphs into a collage of all the similar conversations I have had over the years. Time and time again I have seen people draw on a strength they never knew they had. It’s his strength. Not ours.

I can’t explain it, but I sure have seen it, and I bet you have too. Yes amid grief, but in so many other ways. Caring for a spouse whose mind won’t come back. Figuring out life with a new baby and no sleep. Stepping through the muck of a lost job. There is this strength. Walking into an AA meeting for the first time. Discovering how lonely a crowded campus can be. Juggling the needs of aging parents far away and the needs of the young children at your feet. Finding a way when the marriage ends. The strength isn’t yours, it’s his. Wondering if a job after college will ever come. Wading into a season of more questions than answers, more doubts than assurances, longing to know once again a peace within that passes all understanding, realizing one day that money wasn’t the answer or maybe the promotion wasn’t worth it, figuring out a bit too late that the world can be pretty nasty, discovering one day that maybe you can’t do it all by yourself. It’s our struggle and there’s this strength.  I’ve seen it… at work… in you. “Keep being made strong in the Lord.”

A word for those just starting out. A word for all of us. Truth. Righteousness. Peace. Faith. Salvation. Word of God. When this all gets really difficult (and it will), know that the strength of Jesus Christ is for you. God’s strength. God’s power is there for you.

© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

Ephesians 5:21-6:9
David A. Davis
October 16, 2016

In worship this fall here at Nassau Church, we have been working our way through Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians in our preaching life. If you have been keeping track, or keeping score at home, or reading ahead in preparation, today we come to Ephesians chapter 5. Two challenges have become obvious in my sermon preparation this week. The first challenge is that the beginning of Ephesians 5 pretty much continues with the call to a holy and faith-filled life that I preached about last week using the text from the end of chapter 4. Ephesians 5 begins like this: Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Live in love. And a few verse later, Live as Children of light and Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord and be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So the first challenge with Ephesians this week is to not offer a repeat of last week’s sermon. Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. The first part of Ephesians 5 follows from and repeats the end of Ephesians 4. Challenge #1. Challenge #2, the second obvious challenge, the challenge, well, it’s the second half of Ephesians chapter 5. Without a doubt, the more common approach to Ephesians 5:21ff would be to skip it. As you are about to hear, there may be good reasons for a kind of Thomas Jefferson approach (snip, snip, snip). My guess is that if you were born and raised Presbyterian, you will have a hard time remembering ever hearing a sermon from the second half of Ephesians 5. I have never had a couple request Ephesians 5 to be read for a wedding. A more common approach would be to skip it. Ignore it. Pretend its not there. But we’re not going to skip today. We’re not going to cut and paste around. We’re working our way through Ephesians so we’re going to wrestle with it. We’re going to chew on it. So hold on, we’re going in!

[Ephesians 5:21-6:9]

They call it “the household codes”. This part of Ephesians, along with other similar verses from others of Paul’s epistles; “household codes”. Writings that both describe and instruct regarding primary domestic relationships; husband, wife, parent, child, master, slave. Household codes. Paul’s attempt to address humanity’s fundamental relationships in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ, in light of the mystery of salvation made known in Christ.

The term isn’t all that helpful, actually. “Household Codes”. Though it is a kind of technical term in literature or in archived material not limited to scripture or to the first century. “Household codes”. It’s not like a puzzle to unlock or figure out or decode. It’s not really an extensive list like some kind of “code of ethics” signed in a contract or in an agreement with the human resources department at the time of hire. It’s not like Paul defines the term house, or household here (or even uses the term for that matter). “Household” for Paul, earlier in Ephesians is a powerful and compelling metaphor. Something far beyond a domestic term. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens but you are citizens of the household of God built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. Household of God. Household for Paul is something greater. To refer to the second half of Ephesians 5 as “household codes”, or as it is described in my study bible, “The Christian household” isn’t very helpful.

Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Paul’s initial call for mutual submission in relationships out of reverence for Christ would certainly seem to apply far outside the house. I bet I am not the only one who can remember a bible study curriculum or a devotional that took a kind of “thesis statement approach” to Ephesians 5 that privileges v.21. Be subject to one another. The argument is then made that if human beings are being subject to one another out of reverence for Christ, everything else from Paul here shouldn’t be a problem. It’s sort of “a stop and affirm v.21 and don’t’ worry about the details, the specifics that follow” method. The method breaks down pretty quickly when you start to do the math in what follows, when you sense the imbalance in what follows, when you figure out it actually isn’t about being subject to one another, it’s about wives being subject to husbands, children being subject to parents, and slaves being subject to masters. Its all about one-sided subjugation, hierarchy, dominance, and gendered power.

Last spring I attended a talk at Mathey College next door here on Princeton’s campus. The speaker was Daniel Linke, the University Archivist and Curator of Public Policy Papers at the Mudd Library. He was working on a Woodrow Wilson exhibit in the aftermath of the robust conversations about Wilson’s legacy related to race on campus and beyond. At one point he challenged a commonly held opinion that Woodrow Wilson was simply a product of his time, place, and culture. He shared with the gathering his own conclusion informed by pretty much his life’s work that when it came to race and racism Wilson was more than likely worse than his time. And no, it wouldn’t be difficult to find historians and biographers who might hold a different, and yet informed opinion on Wilson.

In fashion similar to Daniel Linke’s work, there are scholars who could share their informed opinions about the Apostle Paul on marriage, parenting, and slavery. Was he a product of his culture? Ahead or behind? And, of course, just as one could find historians who disagree with Linke’s opinion on Wilson, it wouldn’t take long to find folks who disagree on Paul. The conclusion that the household codes of Paul are “culturally and historically bound” and therefore of little contemporary use as a living word for the church certainly supports the skip it, ignore it, and pretend its not there approach.

Though scholars may disagree on Paul and first century domestic roles, there can be very little disagreement about how these specific verses have been used throughout history to subjugate women, to justify abuse, and to defend the existence of slavery. There can be no disagreement about the church’s sin when it comes to how the second half of Ephesians 5 has been used to sanction violence and justify evil and maintain the status quo for the ones who hold the power. Any discussions of Paul’s intended first century meaning here ought to be drowned out by the volume of the church’s lament for those whose voices have been long silenced (as it says in the Brief Statement of Faith), those whose voices have been long silenced by these verses and those who sought to impose and justify their power and position while skipping and ignoring and forgetting that Jesus said whoever wants to be first among you must be a servant of all.

You know its not just a matter of history, right? Of historical interpretation, of how these verses were used back then, back when? A skip it, ignore it, pretend its not there approach to Ephesians 5 takes away the opportunity for the church to be honest about its past and its present.

For those of us who take the name of Christ to look into the eyes of an abused woman and tell her we know you heard from a preacher this was somehow okay. To welcome back with tears the young man whose father quoted scripture to him every time he reached for the belt. To stand with the African American community in this town and on these campuses and offer a collective shout, a groan about how the bible was used to justify slavery, and Jim Crow, and the toxicity of racism in relationships in Princeton pretty much forever. You can’t just pretend the second half of Ephesian 5 isn’t there.

The household codes in Ephesians….it is the Apostle Paul’s (or one of his followers thereafter) attempting to address humanity’s fundamental relationships in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ, in light of the mystery of salvation made known in Christ. Last week, as we read the end of chapter 4, it was the “so then” and the “therefore” of a Christian life marked by the holiness of being kind and tenderhearted, forgiving another as God in Christ has forgiven you. Paul, then, takes the step toward the relationships that bind us together, the relationships that form a foundation of life, the institutions that set the parameters for who we are, how we live. The trajectory of Paul’s thought. Paul broadening, widening the impact of the gospel. The gospel’s reach, not just in your own devotion, not just in the body of Christ, but the gospel’s reach to the intimate and tender spaces of your life, to the institutions that shape you…in order that the glorious riches of your inheritance in Christ might infuse the fullness of your life; that God’s grace and mercy, and the love of Christ, and the inward power of the Holy Spirit might not just trickle down, but might spring forth into every corner of life, that you and I, we might be a part of how God’s kingdom breaks in and transforms and turns upside down and makes new and heals and saves the world.

Household code. It’s just not very helpful when it comes to grappling with Ephesians 5. But verses of scripture that lead God’s people to confess and lament and reconcile? Verse of scripture that challenge God’s people to discern what it means for the very promise of Christ to shape the very core of our existence in the world….the yes, this is the Word of the Lord.

And the house, the household… it’s not Paul’s, it’s not yours, it’s not mine. The household belongs to God and you and I are called to serve in it and bear witness to the living Word of the Gospel made known to us in Jesus Christ. Citizens of the household of God!

© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
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Genesis 26:17-25, 32-33-22
Stephen Heinzel-Nelson
September 25, 2016

© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
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Ephesians 2:1-22
David A. Davis
September 18, 2016

“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which God loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” It’s a difficult piece of scripture to read out loud. It’s a long sentence. The sentence actually continues one more verse: “so that in in the ages to come God might show the immeasurable riches of God’s grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus… But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which God loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in in the ages to come God might show the immeasurable riches of God’s grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” The length isn’t the tough part; it’s that abrupt insertion, that phrase that interrupts the grammar, that affirmation that Paul seems to blurt out in the text. How are you supposed to vocalize that?

By grace you have been saved. Stuck right in there in the middle of that long sentence. It’s not just awkward to read out lout, it’s kind of awkward period. Clunky, jarring. “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which God loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” The New Revised Standard Version that I read to you uses punctuation marks for assistance to the reader. A dash before and after to set the phrase apart. Other translations use parentheses. One breaks up the long sentence, uses an exclamation point, and makes it an imperative: You have been saved by God’s grace! One of my living, breathing sources down the street assures me that that grammar in Greek doesn’t make it any easier. While it doesn’t seem to be the case that some later author or scribe came along and inserted the phrase or transcribed it in the wrong place, it is nonetheless abrupt in the Greek text as well. In fact the Greek has the dashes as well. By grace you have been saved (with a yell). By grace you have been saved (with a whisper). By grace you have been saved (slowly).

Think how a composer, a playwright, a novelist, a poet may tag or foreshadow something important early in a piece of work. An image is casually introduced only to become fraught with meaning as the play moves on, the narrative develops, the poem peaks. The cellos play just a few bars that stand out early but that tune comes back to dominate the melody and moves through the orchestra the rest of the way. Perhaps what we have here in Ephesians is Paul’s offering of a theological foreshadowing. It’s a tag, a teaser for what comes more beautifully, and a whole lot smoother, a verse later: For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God… It’s just that there’s nothing all that subtle or artful about how Paul introduces it here in Ephesians 2. By grace you have been saved.

Imagine the father who takes his child along on a shopping trip to prepare for mom’s birthday. Cards, a cake, some presents from both husband and daughter. On the way home they talk about keeping the secret until the birthday dinner the next day when Grandma was coming over. That excited four-year-old doesn’t get two steps into the house before she shouts out, “Mommy, mommy we got you a watch for your birthday!” Excitement can be better than surprise. Maybe the Apostle Paul just couldn’t hold back when it came to that theological exclamation that rests at the core of the gospel. By grace you have been saved.

Or think of two falling in love. It’s one of those “O.R. conversations,” as in “our relationship.” Amid the back and forth and circling around and attempts to clarify feelings and stomach knots and butterflies in the heart, one of the two says it, kinds of sneaks it in, less like a blurting out, more like air squeaking out of a balloon: “I, I love you.” Maybe Paul was searching for the right phrase, stumbling for the right way to say it, trying to describe all that God has done for us in Christ. By grace you have been saved. Yes, yes, I said. That’s right. So he comes back to it with confidence. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.

Paul drops it in here in the middle of that thought, that long sentence about the great love with which God loved us. But he could have interrupted a whole lot of other places too. God has put all things under Christ’s feet and has made Christ the head of over all things for the church — by grace you have been saved — which is body, the fullness of him who fills all in all… But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ — by grace you have been saved… For Christ is our peace… In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord — by grace you have been saved — in whom you also were built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. Maybe Paul was introducing the memorable phrase as a refrain of the faith, a rallying cry, a chant to pass on to your children. Like “USA, USA” or “JETS” or “Bruuuuce,” as in Bruce Springsteen. Passing that kind of stuff on to your kids. It’s just good parenting. “Saved by grace. Saved by grace. Saved by grace.” Of if your texting, “SBG”!

You remember that the Apostle Paul is the one who crafted the most complex and coherent of theological arguments in Romans. And the Apostle Paul is the one who created the beautiful ode to love in I Corinthians (though it had nothing to do with marriage). Paul made those list of spiritual gifts and the sins of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit. And he so artfully describes his own struggle, and his own faith, and his own conversion. In the annals of New Testament criticism, scholars have debated whether Paul wrote Ephesians or whether it was one his followers. Here this morning the intrigue is much simpler. It’s about these awkward, dropped in, abrupt, urgent, parenthetical few words that ought to at least give us pause. By grace you have been saved.

Presbyterians have forever run their meetings and process discussions and decision-making by Robert’s Rules. When calling for the vote, the moderator says, “All in favor, please say, ‘Aye.’” It’s a simple way to offer an affirmation, to say yes. “Aye.” It’s a common answer in a crossword puzzle that links saying yes with Scottish, Celtic heritage. There’s nothing like several weeks on the Island of Islay in Scotland to change forever how you think, how you hear, how you experience a simple “aye.” To say that it is a common expression among those we talked to on Islay would be an understatement. To conclude that it is a synonym for “yes” is just not enough. It is “yes” and “excuse me” and “you bet” and “of course” and “what” and “awesome” and “dude” and “mate” and “I can help you” and “over here” and “please” and “thank you” all rolled into one. Whenever I was struggling to understand in a conversation after church or at the pub or in the checkout line, I always knew what someone meant when they said “aye”… even though it means so much and so many things. Maybe I’m all wrong but it seems like an expression that comes from a deeper place, deeper within, deeper in culture, deeper in context.

I was standing with the funeral director next to the open grave as the bap piper started to play. He had led us from the church up the hill to the cemetery as we followed the casket. Now the committal was finished and he was playing again as folks shared hugs and tears all around. He was a very young piper and close to the family. I learned later it was his first time playing at a funeral. As I watched and listened, I realized he was crying. He was playing the bagpipes through tears. I said to the funeral director in a soft voice, “Have you ever seen a piper cry like that?” He shook his head no, never took his eyes off the young man, never looked at me, and said, “Aye.” It was like he was saying “my, my, my” or “Lord have mercy.” Aye.

God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which God loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. An affirmation for Paul that wells up inside, comes from deeper, ignores the rules of grammar. Rather than blurting it out, or sneaking it in or dropping the mic, what if it’s more like a surprising groan, a kind of guttural affirmation about God’s love and mercy that comes from deep within, one of those expressions that leaves the lips and someone says, “You know I can hear you, right?” By grace you have been saved. Kind of prayer-like. Aye.

Princeton, West Windsor, Montgomery, Bucks County, the University, the Seminary. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but you and I live in communities where there is no shortage of opinion about pretty much everything. When we first moved to Princeton, I coached Little League with a guy who told me “Princeton is a town where people have lots of opinions and the time and inclination to express them.” Most of us, if we’re honest, fit right in. And we could all benefit from a rule-breaking, grammar-shaking reminder that it is only by God’s grace, that it is nothing other than God’s grace, that without God’s grace… by grace you have been saved. Aye.

It’s not only the new students around here that bask in the glow of an admissions office stamp of approval. Every one of us walks the campus of our lives trying to be smart enough, rich enough, connected enough, fit enough, hip enough, liberal enough, conservative enough, organic enough. We could all benefit from an abrupt, guttural reminder that it is only by God’s grace, that it is nothing other than God’s grace, that without God’s grace… by grace you have been saved. Aye.

An urgent, interrupting, intrusive, disturbing, awkward groan that attests to God’s mercy and love for you. You don’t have to understand it, or figure it out, or explain it. You don’t have to be right, or particularly pious, or sign on the dotted line of beliefs A to Z. For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. You and I, living to God’ glory. And it is only by God’s grace, it is nothing other than God’s grace, without God’s grace… by grace you have been saved. Aye.

© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.