Sermon
Imagine if you will, a giant clear bubble in which the world sits. Outside that giant clear bubble there are future historians already at work watching us and writing everything down. Then when the future comes, they will use those notes to write about us in their history. What will they say?
“In her book “The Great Emergence,” (originally published in 2008 along with author John Sweeney), Phyllis Tickle argues that Christianity is currently undergoing a massive upheaval as part of a regular pattern that occurs every 500 years, in which old ideas are rejected and new ones emerge. Ultimately, the old expression of Christianity is refurbished and revitalized, while a new, more vital form also is created, she says.
She identifies these periodic upheavals as the Great Reformation, the Great Schism, the Great Decline and Fall, and the Great Transformation, and says they stretch back into Jewish history as well."1 This includes rituals, behaviors, beliefs, and viewpoints. A good example is how what we call the Dark Ages gave rise to the monastic life as people began to live a more interior life, with minimal contact with the world as a response and reaction to the times.
In what turned out to be her final book, in 2014 Phyllis Tickle published “The Age of the Spirit.”2 This book is her description of the age she feels that we are in now.
These changes are only marked in hind sight and they take something like 100 years. The pandemic however is shrinking that 100ish year process into more like 30! Not just for churches, but for societies and the world's population in general.
I don't see myself as a history buff, and not really a fan. Too many names and dates and events to remember. Maybe it's because I've lived enough years that I realized that I have a history, that I have been finding myself really fascinated by the past, especially it's relationship to the present. Everything we know about the past is dependent upon those future historians outside the giant clear bubble of whatever present world they were viewing, and what they wrote down.
Here we are today, reading a letter written to the people of the city of Ephesus. Watching from outside the bubble, we don't have much information about the early days of Ephesus. There are some legends that say it began to be a real city in eleventh century B.C. Archaeological findings have helped us know some things though. About 600 years before Christ, the city was under Persian rule, later fell to Alexander the Great, was later under Egyptian rule, and about 100 years before Christ, King Attalos of Pergamon king left the city of Ephesus to the Roman Empire in his will!
Some of the greatest times in the city of Ephesus happened during the rule of Caesar Augustus, and the rule of Tiberius. These are names you and I know, from reading letters about Jesus and the impact his life and message had on those living in those days. And then just about 45 years before Christ, in Ephesus already known as a busy port city, “a business district was opened to service the massive amounts of goods arriving or departing from the man-made harbor and from caravans traveling the ancient Royal Road. According to some sources, Ephesus was at the time second only to Rome as a cosmopolitan center of culture and commerce.”3
These times of great advances under the Roman Empire refers to the same Roman Empire that was causing some of the greatest threats to Jesus during his lifetime, and to the people, because we know that even great governments can be like magnets to power that blinds them to the people they serve. The audience for this letter of Paul would consist of people living in as well as traveling through this busy cosmopolitan port city. Maybe even a little like San Francisco's early days.
I mention all of this history because it helps us see that we in our community are in so many ways just like the people of Ephesus. We are in a relatively busy urban cosmopolitan area, complete with the varieties of economic, social and religious backgrounds and lifestyles. In a way, we even share the fact that our way of life and our land once belonged to another time and another way of life, because we too are living on land taken from Native Americans.4 Into this type of setting comes the apostle Paul, who recognizes that there are gentiles who are worshipping ancient gods, people who are not living their lives with the best integrity, who are making bad but convenient decisions, and not being very wise about their purpose in life.
In this letter to the Ephesians, Paul's main emphasis is to remind listeners that their identity as Christians is tied to their personal behavior. Earlier in the letter Paul begins by reminding his listeners that following Christ has given them a new identity. With this new identity, he explains in Ephesians 4, 5 and 6, they are invited into a new God-created reality. Paul wants people to take off their old selves and put on their new selves. Doesn't this sound familiar?
Paul speaking primarily to gentiles throughout his missions, is constantly reminding people that following Christ is new. Living wisely refers to paying attention. Living wisely has to do with living into that new life. When I first came in January of 2020, life here was kind of new – totally new for me, kind of new for you all. And then the pandemic came and it was the same kind of new for all of us.
Now that we are moving to another unpredictable phase of the pandemic, we have to face a different kind of new. New means never before imagined, so how are we to make plans? How are we to make loving, safe, careful, well thought out decisions? A few weeks ago I mentioned Father Richard Rohr who said we can't think ourselves into a new way of living; we have to live ourselves into a new way of thinking.
The pandemic has meant that this thought is not optional. We can't think ourselves into a new way of living, because we aren't sure what to think. We can see why it would be so easy to slip back into the easiest ways of doing things at the first opportunity. Just think of the things we have started to do ever since things started opening up. When we were individually comfortable, we ventured out; we saw a few more people; we exchanged a few hugs; we travelled; maybe we even went to the grocery store in person for the first time in a very long time; musicians have held rehearsals in person. The symphony had all 80 members on stage for the first time in 18 months, at Stern Grove a few months ago.
In the big picture of history, and all the periods historians have named as I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon, the Great Reformation, the Great Schism, the Great Decline and Fall, and the Great Transformation, those changes have all taken place over maybe 100 years. But the pandemic has pushed that 100ish year time frame up to more like 30 years before our next big societal shift.
We are in the middle of a huge shift trying to navigate it wisely day after day after day.
Paul says “Be careful then, how you live.” The translations we have make this line sound like a warning. But there's no “or else” that follows. The translation should really be as a bright encouraging word to the Ephesians, and us. It's more like “pay close attention to how to live.”5
We don't live in isolation. We are individuals collectively each one of us a part of the body of Christ. The best way to live wisely, says commentator Richard Carlson “means allowing the Spirit to work the will of Christ in all aspects of life so that who we are as Christians is integral to how we live as Christians.”5
Pay attention because you have a new identity now. For us, we may not have a new Christian identity now, but as we have grown as Christians we are reminded that we are living a life of faith. Our uniquely Christian viewpoint is one of hope and faith. We pay close attention to how we live as individuals personally, but our decisions affect our surroundings. “Wise living is personal but never private.”5
Our context matters just as much as discovering the context of scripture. During this pandemic our context will forever consist of having to pivot our lives dramatically and how we were able to live wisely with and for each other. I leave us asking ourselves individually, how will we allow the Spirit to work the will of Christ into our lives? And as a community, how will we allow the Spirit to work the will of Christ through our lives, into the service of God's will in our community?
Let us pray….
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1 Phyllis Tickle: Like an anthill
2 Phyllis Tickle: The Age of the Spirit
3 Ephesus
4 The Ramaytush Ohlone (See map below) The Ramaytush (pronounced rah-my-toosh) are the original peoples of the San Francisco Peninsula. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the Ramaytush Ohlone numbered approximately 1500 persons, but by the end the Mission Period only a few families had survived. Today, only one lineage is know to have produced living descendants in the present. Those descendants comprise the membership of the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone (ARO) today. (Every SF Presbytery Meeting begins with a statement of Land Acknowledgement.)
5Working Preacher, commentator for Ephesians 5:15-20, for 8/15/21, Richard Carlson.
