Sermon for 10/1/23: Seventeenth Sunday After Trinity

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Worthy

Ephesians 4:1-6

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

There is something in the human heart that responds to a challenge. When St. Paul appeals to us in the opening words of this text to “walk in a manner worthy,” there may be a quiet stirring of restless energy as we prepare for the challenge. We want that challenge to be something that is noble, something that will lend a glory to what is all too often the routine weariness of our lives.

But then Paul goes on to give the details of the challenge. This walk, he says, is to be done with humility, gentleness, patience, and the willingness to bear in love with others, whatever their weaknesses and failings may be. Perhaps when we hear this, the eagerness that accompanied the original challenge begins to subside a bit. Our walk of faith does not seem to be a matter of high spirituality—at least, not like the disciples experienced with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, for example. Like them, we would like very much to never have to descend again to the valleys of daily life with its disappointments and frustrating relationships.

But that is the point, isn’t it? It is in the very ordinariness of everyday life that faith matters. And in those everyday lives, it is the human relationships that end up making all the difference. We are bound together in a common humanity which is meant to mirror that unity of the Spirit, God’s great gift to His Church, to which He calls us to walk in a manner worthy of that calling.

God’s eternal purpose was a free and harmonious fellowship of His people, united in His love for them and their love for Him. Each of God’s creatures is a unique personality, but we are not meant to stand alone. We will only develop properly in close fellowship with others. This is really the essence of the family. But even more than that, we are not to be separated in this life from fellowship with God Himself. That is the most unnatural thing that can happen to us. The true life of every human creature is found only in a life of complete harmony with God.

But something has gone wrong. Each of us puts himself or herself, individually, at the center of the universe where God should be. That is what sin does. By making ourselves into little gods, we not only separate ourselves from God but from each other. For example, many of us get married so that we will not have to be alone; that’s what God designed marriage to be. And yet, so often, the moment marriage restricts what we think should be our freedom, we want to rebel. We try to force our will upon our partner, and when that fails, we rush to the divorce courts. It’s like that in all human relationships. Man rebels against his God-given nature and ends up making a tragedy of his life.

But God has never given up on us, and He won’t as long as time runs its course. God has always had His purpose: that all of mankind might be one unified body in Him through Jesus Christ. And that is what St. Paul is addressing in this text and throughout his Epistle to the Ephesians. God has done what is necessary to realize His purpose. In Jesus Christ, God became Man to give Himself into suffering and death so that all might have that new beginning in the forgiveness of sins. In the cross of Jesus Christ, our God has broken down every wall that man’s sin and selfishness has erected between himself and his neighbor as well as himself and God. In His resurrection, Jesus has become the Head over all things in heaven and on earth, all for the benefit of the Church. And now, through faith, we are identified with all that God has done in Christ.

If we have comprehended anything about God’s purpose for mankind, then we must realize that there comes to us no greater purpose, no higher challenge, than this one in our text. This challenge is bound up with who we are in Christ in that call God has extended to us through the Gospel. It touches on everything we are: husband, wife, father, mother, widow, widower, child, student, employer, employee—you name it. The challenge falls to each of us: “Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace...” We are not asked to create this unity any more than we are asked to establish our own peace with God. Christ is our peace; He is the foundation of our unity with one another and with God.

What a wonderful challenge He has set before us. And He equips us to walk in that worthy manner. Joined through “one Baptism” and the “one faith” to this “one Lord,” we have been gathered into this “one body.” This is God’s great doing. For us there remains only the great endeavor of doing all within our power, under the guidance and strength of the Holy Spirit, to keep this unity which is God’s gift to us in the one Lord Jesus Christ. And we have no better means for this than the blessed Holy Supper that is offered to us: its gifts of the very body and blood of that one Lord, offered and given for the remission of our sins, given to strengthen us as we walk together worthily in Christ. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.