New! Listen to this Sermon<\/font><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n\n
Text: Ephesians 4: 25 \u2013 5:2<\/font><\/h5>\n
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<\/strong><\/font>Introduction<\/font><\/strong>
<\/font>Some momentous events occurred this week.\u00a0 On Monday, US President Obama gave his State of the Union Address to a packed Congress. Perhaps the most significant was to see Democrats and Republicans sitting inter-mingled together, rather than in groups where they could taunt each other.\u00a0 On Wednesday, Prime Minister Harper arrived in Morroco and got a first hand education on what the citizen uprising in Tunisia meant to people in the Arab world, one that has spilled over to Egypt.\u00a0 It remains to be seen whether these events will improve any of our foreign policies in that part of the world.\u00a0 And, on Saturday, right here in Toronto, a group of TUMC men demonstrated that they could keep the house clean.\u00a0\u00a0 The TUMC Men went curling \u2013 and, well, the rocks had a habit of coming up short \u2013 or sailing right through \u2013 the house, that is (for the uninformed, the \u2018house\u2019 in curling is the \u2018target\u2019 where you seek to place your rocks).\u00a0 What we missed in expertise, though, we made up for with a good time.\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>While any one of these events could provide a jumping off point for a sermon on Mennonite affinity for Paul\u2019s letter to the Ephesians, my focus is on a broader event with a longer time frame \u2013 the Christian church in change, and where the Mennonite voice may fit.\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>That the church seems to be in a time of change is something sensed by many, and written about by a number.\u00a0 Phyllis Tickle, in her book, talks about this as \u201cthe great emergence\u201d i<\/strong>.\u00a0 She argues that about every 500 years the Church cleans out its attic \u2013 it tosses out old and outmoded ways of thinking about how to understand the Scriptures and how it organizes itself, and adopts new ones.\u00a0 It\u2019s now 500 years since the Reformation.\u00a0 The signs of the times, she argues, is that we are in the throes of another emerging reformation where we\u2019ll see significant changes in denominational structures \u2013 where, most importantly, the central question to address is \u201cwhere is now our authority for interpreting how we remain faithful to our Christian commitment, for how we read the scriptures?\u201d\u00a0 Emergent Christianity, she argues, would do well to draw on the Anabaptist practice of seeking understanding through quiet engagement with God and with each other in community. ii <\/strong>This is not dissimilar to Stuart Murray\u2019s view in his book, the Naked Anabaptist<\/em>, as mentioned by Marilyn last week.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>And, of course, we have experienced some such interest here and other congregations of Mennonite Church Eastern Canada (MCEC).\u00a0 In Eastern Canada, this Sunday, we have sister churches worshiping in 13 languages \u2013 quite different than a generation or two ago. It is from out of this diversity in MCEC that this sermon emerges.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>An insightful question<\/font><\/strong>
<\/font>A question about faith and culture was raised last fall from some of our newer churches. More than 300 participants from congregations throughout MCEC met in 7 area groups to discern where God\u2019s Spirit is calling us in the 21st century. We had vigorous discussion on our theology, and how we are to interpret the growing interest in Mennonite Anabaptist understandings of how faith relates to right living.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>In the midst of this, a question was posed by a leader from a new congregation \u2013 the kind of question that causes one to re-think previous assumptions \u2013 not just once \u2013 but twice \u2013 raised in different words by two different people, in two different places, each from a church where the members come from quite different cultural traditions than those of the earliest Mennonites.\u00a0 The question was: \u201cwhat was it in your culture that enabled you to sustain your faith for 500 years?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n<\/font><\/p>\n
My first instinct was to think back on an early learning about what it means to be Mennonite.\u00a0\u00a0 My father\u2019s younger brother had joined the army, and died when I was about three.\u00a0 I recall my father\u2019s grief, but also the ambivalence in our small rural church as to whether he should have been part of the military.<\/font><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/font>That early experience said something about the culture I came from, as well as theology, I suppose, but it really was just a glimpse.\u00a0 The question bears much more thinking.<\/font>
<\/strong><\/font>Faith and Culture<\/font><\/strong>
<\/font>Faith and culture are linked, of course.\u00a0 Our faith does not grow in a vacuum. We had a series of sermons on the \u2018Jewish Jesus\u2019 last Spring expressly to help us to better understand the teachings of Jesus in its cultural context.\u00a0\u00a0 But, while it\u2019s easy to say our understandings of the Bible are influenced by the culture within which we are embedded, it\u2019s not so easy to see.\u00a0 Whatever one\u2019s cultural background, their attributes may have some attraction, but can also adversely affect faithful living. <\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>It is because some of the adverse consequences that, for the last 30 or more years, North American Mennonites have sought quite intentionally to separate off culture from faith \u2013 for good reason.\u00a0 Our peace position, our favoring of the Sermon on the Mount as a guide to Christian life, our way of reading and understanding the Scripture \u2013 not individualistically, but in conversation with others in our community of faith \u2013 these have little to do with the cultural trappings that distinguish one traditional group of Mennonites from another. We want our church to be inclusive. When talking of foods such as shoe-fly pie and borscht, or of how one group or another make decisions, it\u2019s too easy for people from other cultural traditions to feel excluded.\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>Yet, when a brother in faith says: \u201cI would like to learn what it was about your culture that helped you sustain your faith over the last 500 years,\u201d one has to take it seriously \u2013 to stop and think anew about how culture and faith are linked, and what it is of value that we may learn. These brothers and sisters have no interest in emulating the cultural traditions of \u2018Dutch\/Russian\u2019 or \u2018Swiss\u2019 Mennonites \u2013 the people in their congregation come from and have pride in their own ancient cultural roots, and know their convoluted complexities and shortcomings.\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>In thinking about how cultu
\nre helped sustain the Mennonite\/Anabaptist faith through the times of being a persecuted minority as well as better times, and that conceivably can sustain us in facing the allure of temptations in today\u2019s post-Christian society, it\u2019s not a question about foods eaten, though food undoubtedly plays an important part in sustaining a community of any kind.\u00a0 Rather, it taps into much deeper attributes.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>What was it, for instance, about the culture out of which Maeyken Wens emerged in the 16th century?\u00a0 She was the wife of a lay minister in Antwerp, and along with several other women was apprehended in 1573 as they were studying the Bible.\u00a0 They were bound, confined to the severest prison, tortured, and eventually brought to the public square, tongues screwed to their palates so they couldn\u2019t testify, and burned at the stake for refusing to turn from their faith. During her imprisonment she wrote several letters recorded in the book Martyrs Mirror<\/em>, with the last written the night before she died.\u00a0 To her husband she says: \u2018\u2026 I\u2019m tolerably well according to the flesh, also according to the spirit I trust I am doing my best, but my best is nothing special\u2026\u201d\u00a0 To her 15 year old son she says: \u201c\u2026yield yourself to that which is good … heed the Lord\u2019s chastening\u2026call to the Lord for help\u2026.hate that which is evil\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Here she is, knowing she will die a painful death, and finds the strength to encourage her family to remain steadfast.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>Or what was it about the culture of Conscientious Objectors who, during World War II, worked in decrepit and dismal conditions of large insane asylums as then called. These were mostly farm boys with no training who, in ones or twos, served as the only staff on wards of 80 to 100 or more people.\u00a0 Where Quakers gained a reputation for publicly advocating change in hospital treatment, untrained young Mennonite men, and later some young women, gained a reputation of improving mental health simply by giving patients respect and love, on a one to one basis.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>Or what about the mid-twentieth century Mennonite culture in Canada when a brother sold his remarkably successful potato chip making business because he was convinced, in discernment with a group of men in his congregation, that the product, increasingly used in bars, was not the best way to witness for his God?<\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>As I think on these and other touchstones, a number of cultural attributes come to mind that are sustainable over time.\u00a0 From testimonies and written accounts, we have some confidence in saying it was common amongst these and other Mennonites to understand that: <\/font>
<\/font><\/p>\n\n- \u00a0\u00a0 The image of God is in every person.\u00a0 One accepts others as a child of God,\u00a0 no matter how disagreeable.\u00a0 <\/font><\/li>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0 One\u2019s relationship with others is based on mutuality, not on differences of power or wealth or any other basis<\/font><\/li>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0 Scripture is central to right living \u2013 as read, debated and interpreted within a community of believers.<\/font><\/li>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0 One attends Church regularly \u2013 not as an obligation, but a joyful reflection\u00a0 of one\u2019s commitment to a life of faithfulness and the importance of Christian community.<\/font><\/li>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0 Work and worship are one.<\/font><\/li>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0 Faith is expressed by what you do more than by what you say.\u00a0 <\/font><\/li>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0 If God is the creator, then everything we\u2019ve earned in life God owns<\/font><\/li>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0 Our certainty of God means life can be lived in joy and serenity<\/font><\/li>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0 Christian community means to be supportive of every member.<\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/font>It seems to me these are the kinds of cultural traits that our two brothers were asking about in their question: \u201cwhat was it that sustained you?\u201d\u00a0 There may be other traits you can think of.\u00a0 I would invite you to mention them to me. <\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>These are not superficial traits.\u00a0 They begin with an identity grounded by God.\u00a0 They are shaped by scripture, and by dialogue with our historical and theological tradition; and, they emerged within and are sustained by the context of the church community.\u00a0 In this, these cultural attributes echo the aspirations of the Apostle Paul as set out in today\u2019s text.<\/font>
<\/strong><\/font>Applying the Apostle Paul\u2019s lens on Christian living\u00a0 <\/font><\/strong>
<\/font>It\u2019s easy to see why our early Mennonites felt an affinity for the writings of Paul, and in particular the book of Ephesians.\u00a0 Where many of his writings involve long, convoluted sentences, the book of Ephesians uses straight forward, plain language \u2013 particularly today\u2019s text.\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>The Apostle knew something about life in hostile environments \u2013 he knew about the possibility of being martyred and of being misled by various temptations of the body and spirit.\u00a0 His letter to the church in Ephesus demonstrates that.\u00a0 When Paul writes his letter, he is a prisoner \u2013 quite aware that both he and the believers in Ephesus might well be killed for their expression of faith.\u00a0 He\u2019s also aware that the church in Ephesus and surrounding areas is very young \u2013 perhaps no more than 10 years old at the time of this letter.\u00a0 The people to whom he\u2019s writing aren\u2019t schooled in Biblical thought \u2013 they\u2019re not seminary graduates \u2013 and, at least for the most part, they\u2019re not even familiar with the Jewish Bible.\u00a0 They live in and come from a pre-Christian cultural context, dominated by beliefs in mystery religions, magic and astrology \u2013 and, no doubt, some of these new Christians are fearful of evil spirits and uncertain about how to think about their faith in Christ over against these.\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>In the verses before those that are part of today\u2019s text, Paul begins with a caution: <\/font>
<\/font><\/p>\nSo I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.\u00a0 (Eph. 4: 17 \u2013 19).<\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/font>\u201cDon\u2019t get caught up in the sensuality around you, or the greed \u2013 that is not the way of life you\u2019ve learned\u201d, Paul says, \u201cthose are counterfeit desires.\u201d\u00a0 This sounds very much like the words Maeyken Wens used in the letter to her son.\u00a0 Rather, Paul says:<\/font>
<\/font><\/p>\n\n- \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.\u00a0 <\/font><\/\nem><\/li>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.<\/font><\/em><\/li>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, <\/font><\/em><\/li>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need. <\/font><\/em><\/li>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.<\/font><\/em><\/li>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. <\/font><\/em><\/li>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. <\/font><\/em><\/li>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. <\/font><\/em><\/li>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Follow God\u2019s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. <\/em>(Eph. 4:25 \u2013 5:2).<\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/font>These words are designed to lift readers from an earthly, worldly point of reference to a heavenly, spiritual one.\u00a0 At the same time, these rules of Christian life are immensely practical.\u00a0 In a sense, they echo the sentiment of the 10 Commandments from the Old Testament as well as of the Beatitudes as set out by Jesus in his sermon on the mount in Galilee \u2013 but the words are new, and stated in every day plain language.\u00a0\u00a0 These are the kinds of plainspoken admonitions that have had appeal to Mennonite communities over the course of our 500-year history and, in our better selves, have become an integral part of daily life. <\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>What an aspiration to live up to!\u00a0 There, with God\u2019s help, is a culture to sustain one!<\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>Amen<\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>Endnotes:<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/font>i <\/strong><\/font>Phyllis Tickle (2008).\u00a0 The great emergence: How Christianity is changing and why<\/em>.\u00a0 Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>ii <\/strong><\/font>Tickle speaks particularly of Quaker practices, but her argument can be extended to that of traditional Mennonite practices as well \u2013 an argument advanced by Stuart Murray in the Naked Anabaptist<\/em>.<\/font>
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\u00a0 \u00a0 View Archived Sermons\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 New! Listen to this Sermon \u00a0 Text: Ephesians 4: 25 \u2013 5:2 IntroductionSome momentous events occurred this week.\u00a0 On Monday, US President Obama gave his State of the Union Address to a packed Congress. Perhaps the most significant was to see Democrats and Republicans sitting inter-mingled together, rather than in groups where they could taunt each other.\u00a0 On Wednesday, Prime Minister Harper arrived in Morroco and got a first hand education on what the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3980,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246\/revisions\/3980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}