Sermon: "More About Power" (Ephesians 4:1-16)

I was listening to the radio, to a music program I hadn’t listened to in a long time, hearing a bunch of songs that were all new to me. One song came on, and I don’t know who was singing it, but I did find out later that it was a cover of a song originally written and sung by a band called the Flaming Lips.

The lyrics of the song caught my attention. They went like this:

“If you could make everybody poor so you could be rich would you do it? If you could watch everybody work while you just lay on your back would you do it? If you could take all the love without giving any back would you do it? With all your power, what would you do? With all your power, with all your power, with all your power, what would you do?”

I listened to the song… and I thought of Nathan, the prophet who confronted King David.

If you were here last week, you may remember that my sermon was about Nathan confronting King David over his misuse of power.

God had given King David power, anointing him as king, so that he could use that power to lead God’s people. But instead, when it came to Bathsheba, David used his power for his own pleasure.

Then Nathan confronted King David over this misuse of power, and basically asked him, “What have you done, King David? With all your power, with all your power - with all the power God has given you - what did you do?”

I was amazed at the parallels between that song and my sermon. “With all your power, what would you do? How would you act?”

Now, last week, when some people on social media found out that I was preaching on this, they said I was being too political, and that I shouldn’t preach politics, I should just preach what’s in the Bible. And I thought: “Huh. The scripture is about God sending a prophet to the ruler of the nation, to confront him and tell him that he has misused and abused his power.

That’s political. The Bible is political. The Bible is very concerned with the behavior of the rulers of the nations, and especially how their behavior affects the poor, the outcasts, the “least of these.”

It’s political. It’s not about “right” or “left,” but it is political. I don’t try to preach right or left. I don’t try to preach liberal or conservative. But I always do my best to preach the gospel.

And I know I’m not perfect. Which is why I am so thankful that, in my ten years as your pastor, I’ve received nothing but support from the people of Bixby Knolls Christian Church. You have guided me and encouraged me in a way that let’s me know: we ARE in this together, and together we are struggling to understand and apply the gospel to our daily lives.

And a part of that gospel message, as I understand it, is knowing how power is appropriately used, and how power can be abused.

And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that today’s lectionary reading, from the letter to the Ephesians, is also about power, and how power is used.

The book of Ephesians appears to have been written by Paul. It appears to have been written by Paul, but it is more likely that it was written by one of Paul’s followers, who wrote in Paul’s name and inscribed what he believed were Paul’s thoughts. That was a common literary practice in those days.

Because the letter to the Ephesians contains Paul’s thoughts and was written in Paul’s name, we often say it was written by Paul, especially since it is a letter that was greatly influenced by Paul.

So, a little background about Paul.

Before Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, he was a man with a fair amount of power. As a Pharisee, he held great influence over the lives of faithful Jews. He helped determine what the proper behavior was for those who were faithful, and he helped determine who failed to meet those standards. And if the failure to meet those religious standards was egregious enough, Paul had the power to authorize harsh punishments.  Including stoning.

That’s power.

Paul had power in other ways. He was a Roman citizen. He was literate, able to read and write. Both of these things gave Paul a measure of power that many in that time did not have. And I’m sure Paul took advantage of the power he had.

But when Paul encountered Jesus in a blinding light, Jesus completely transformed Paul’s understanding of power, and completely transformed Paul's understanding of how power is to be used.

After that Paul was never the same. After that encounter, Paul understood that power isn’t given to a person for that person’s own benefit, that power is to be used to help those who are vulnerable and oppressed. Those who have power are to use their power to help those who have had power taken away from them.

When David took Bathsheba for himself, he was using his power for his own benefit. When he exercised his power by taking Bathsheba for himself, other people were hurt.

Likewise, when Paul enforced strict, cumbersome rules of religious behavior on others, he was using his power for his own benefit. Paul used his power to reinforce his own sense of importance, his own feeling of moral superiority. He used his power to enhance his own reputation. And other people were hurt.

But after his encounter with Jesus, Paul began using his power in a whole new way.

In fact, even though he still valued his reputation as a Pharisee, he said he considers the power he had as rubbish. He said “I think of that kind of power the way I think about what goes into the sewer. It’s all a great big pile of skubalon,” to use the Greek word Paul used.

Remember me talking about that a few months ago? Skubalon. That’s what Paul thought of the worldly forms of power, and how he had used them before his life was transformed by Jesus.

After his encounter with Jesus, Paul received a new kind of power, and a new understanding of how power is to be used. It is the power of the Spirit. It is the power given to an apostle of Jesus Christ. It is the power that is used to empower, equip, and enable others. It is the power that lifts people up, and helps them use their own power, to find wholeness in their own lives, and to contribute to the ministry of the church.

This power manifests itself in some unusual ways. This power manifested itself in Paul, even when Paul was locked away in prison.

This power manifests itself in weakness and humility. It is the power seen in Jesus when he refused to fight back, refused to draw a sword or harm a single one of his accusers, and instead allowed himself to be arrested and crucified. According to Paul, Jesus could have grabbed hold of power, and gone straight to a throne at the right hand of God.

But instead of ascending to that place (to use Paul’s language), Jesus descended to the lowest parts of the earth. Jesus went where kings and rulers and high priests and Pharisees dared not go: among the outcasts and the unclean. They thought that mingling with such people would deprive them of power, but Jesus shows that humbling oneself and loving the least of these shows the greatest of all powers, because love is the greatest of all powers.

In a different letter - the letter to the Philippians - Paul talks more about the kind of power Jesus had, and how he exercised that power. Paul writes

“Though he was in the form of God, he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit. But he emptied himself by taking the form of a slave and by becoming like human beings. When he found himself in the form of a human, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Paul says that the cross appears foolish to the world, because the world looks at the cross, looks at the crucifixion, and sees the victory of Roman power over Jesus.

Yet in that death on a cross, believers come to recognize a very different, very powerful kind of power. An amazing power… and an amazing grace.

And according to Paul, this power and this grace has been given to each one of us.

We don’t all receive the power in the same way. As Paul says, some of us receive this power to be apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers. To put that in a more modern context, some receive the power of the Spirit to be ordained pastors and preachers, some to be elders and deacons, some to lead and organize VBS and other programs, some to extend hospitality and welcome, some to take care of legal and financial matters, some to devote themselves to prayer, some to engage in acts of compassion and care… all these ways of exercising power contribute to the ministry of the church. All these ways of exercising power demonstrate the power of God’s Spirit. All of these demonstrate love, the greatest power.

We see this in the gospels. Read any one of the gospels as a story, and you’ll see that one way to describe it is as a story about power. Specifically, the contrast between the power of Jesus and the power of Rome. Demons try to exercise their power - and the demons are often associated with Rome - and yet it is the power of Jesus that triumphs over them.

All the conflicts between Jesus and his adversaries have to deal with power. Who has the power to forgive sins? Who has the power to declare people clean or unclean? Who has the power bind or set free?

And, time and time again, Jesus demonstrate that such power belongs to him. Or, more accurately, belongs to the one who sent him: God the Father.

I don’t know how often you read the Bible, but the next time you do, read the story, and ask yourself: how is power represented in this story? Who thinks they have power? How do they exercise their power? And at the end of the story, where does power really lie?

Yes, how we use our power is important to God. That’s true of rulers and politicians. But it is also true of each one of us. Because God has granted power to each of us. Each of us has the power to forgive or not forgive, the power to welcome or cast out, the power love or to hate.

Every day, we get to choose how we use that power. And it is important.

Sermon: "What's Real, What's Not" (Ephesians 4:11-15, 25)

In my family, we love the Harry Potter books. When my boys were young, we went to midnight book release parties, joining hundreds of others for an evening of fun activities, then being the first to purchase the next Harry Potter book when it went on sale at midnight.

When my boys were older, and Universal Studios Hollywood opened up the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, we were there. The signature attraction is a ride called Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. The line winds its way through the classrooms and offices of Hogwarts castle, past walls on which hang moving portraits that talk to you, and eventually you arrive at the Great Hall where you take a seat on a bench that, magically, begins flying.

The amazing thing is: it feels real. The first time I rode it, I could not figure out how it was that we were actually flying, rising above the floor, soaring into the air. Fantasy had become reality.

But of course, there is a secret to the magic. There always is. Just because I couldn’t see the engineering behind the ride, the apparatus hidden in the darkness that makes it seem as though we were flying, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. As much as it pains me to say this, being such a Harry Potter fan: magic spells that make you able to fly don’t really exist.

As long as we know we’re pretending… As long as we know that the magic we see is only an illusion… it can be a lot of fun. Imagination is good. But it would be dangerous and irresponsible for me to take some children up to the roof, give them each a broom, and instruct them to fly off. Right? No matter how much I may want the Wizarding World of Harry Potter to be real, it’s still important for me to keep at least part of my mind grounded in reality.

Unfortunately, staying grounded in reality is becoming harder and harder for a lot of people.

I recently read a book by Kurt Anderson titled Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History. The book’s premise is that we now have a president who makes up his own truth, and Americans accept his version of the truth even though it is made-up, in part because we have a 500-year history in this country of believing that what is fantasy, is actually real.

In his book, Anderson points out:

We are the country of people who came here believing what they were told, that the New World across the ocean was an uninhabited paradise, an Eden-like land just waiting to be settled.

We are the country of Buffalo Bill Cody, who presented his own fictionalized version of history, which many people believed was actual history.

We are the country of PT Barnum, who didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was regularly pulling the wool over people’s eyes. “There’s a sucker born every minute,” he said, and millions of people were willing to be those suckers.

We’re the country of the gold rush, in which millions of people came to California believing all the good, wonderful, fantastic things they heard about the Golden State, dismissing the more reality-based descriptions of life in the west.

We’re the country of Salem witch trials and McCarthyism, treating as real evil forces that were imaginary or harmless.

We’re the country of Karl Rove, who, in 2004, said: “Discernible reality” no longer matters, that “We create our own reality.”

We are the country of professional wrestling, which for many years tried to convince people that it was an actual sport. When the courts finally forced professional wrestling to admit that it wasn’t a real sport, that it was fake, people didn’t even care. Everyone knows now that it’s not real, that it’s a show, but they still pack in the crowds.

By the way, Donald Trump has sponsored World Wrestling Entertainment events at his casinos, and has been inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Our president has a lot of experience at passing off fiction as reality.

Here are some more ways people today make up their own truth:

Statistics show that a gun in the home is more likely to be used against a member of the family than it is to be used to protect the family, yet many believe that having a gun will keep them safer. Statistically that’s not true, but they want it to be true, so they believe it.

Science has shown that vaccines do not cause autism and other conditions, but many people refuse to vaccinate their children because they choose to believe the opposite.

Overwhelming scientific consensus is that the climate is changing at an unprecedented rate, but many choose not to believe this.

Many believe that you help the poor by cutting taxes for the rich, even though there have been communities, states and nations that have done this, expecting wealth to then trickle down to the poor. But it hasn’t worked out that way.

It turns out that the best way to help the poor is to help the poor. But many still believe the opposite.

We in the church need to recognize that Truth is important to God.

In religion, in Christianity, we talk a lot about Truth. “What is truth...The Truth will set you free.” But unfortunately, even in religion, even in Christianity, there is a lot of made-up truth.

The Bible talks about wars and rumors of wars, and how we shouldn’t believe those false rumors. The Bible talks about false prophets, those who call evil good and good evil. The Bible warns us against those who make up their own truth.

In the Bible, in Genesis, we have not one but two creation stories. Chapter one is one creation story; a few verses into chapter two, a whole separate creation story begins. And the two stories are different. They don’t match.

You can’t insist that this is history. You can’t, with integrity, read these stories literally. Each creation story is told to make a theological point, not to provide a historical textbook. These two creation stories come from different sources which have been placed in Genesis, one after another. It’s almost as if these two stories were placed, one right after another, on purpose, to make that very point, that you can’t read them literally, that you need to look for the deeper meaning that they contain… I mean, if the author of scripture wanted us to read these stories literally, he should have at least put them further apart, so that by the time we get to the second one, we might have forgotten everything in the first creation story that contradicts what appears in the second story. But no: They come one right after the other.

The same thing happens with the gospels. We have four different accounts of Jesus’s life. Four! Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. And they cannot be reconciled into one story. People have tried. They have all failed.

Mark was the first gospel written, and it was written at least a generation after the time of Jesus. Then, Matthew and Luke used some of what Mark wrote, combined it with another source that scholars call “Q,” and added in their own unique takes on the story of Jesus, adapting and changing and even inventing things to make the theological points that they wanted to make.

And then there’s the gospel of John, so very different…

It can’t all be historically true. How could anyone believe such a thing? There is truth there - deep, powerful truth - but sometimes, it’s like the truth found in a parable. Scripture writers didn’t believe that a story had to be literally true to contain deep truth. It’s theology. Not history.

Also: you will hear people say all kinds of things about religion, about Christianity…

For example, you’ll hear that God uses hurricanes and earthquakes to punish people for sin. But, the strange thing is, the “sin” they mention is always whatever particular “lifestyle” they themselves don’t like. A rich person who is anti-gay will always believe that the hurricane is a punishment against homosexuals, but will never believe that it is a punishment against those who hoard riches and refuse to help the poor.

You’ll hear people say that they’ve consulted the Bible, they’ve crunched the numbers, and the world is going to end next Tuesday. And many thousands of people believe them. And next Tuesday comes and goes, and they say, “Oh, wait, I meant the following Tuesday.”

And people believe them!

Come on, Christians! Let’s use our heads! Let’s stop perpetuating the lies and fantasies that make Christianity unbelievable to so many.

Which brings me to our role in all this. We at Bixby Knolls Christian Church are part of a movement called the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). One of the early events that helped form our movement was a revival that took place in 1801 at a place called Cane Ridge, Kentucky. Some 20,000 people attended, which is a remarkable number of people, equal to about ten percent of the population of Kentucky at the time.

There was a lot of heavy emotion. People wept, groaned, and fainted. Because of this, Kurt Anderson even mentions Cane Ridge, briefly, in Fantasyland, the book I mentioned earlier.

But the movement that sprang forth from there became a movement that values thought and truth. We are a movement in which it is often said, “You don’t need to check your brain at the door when you come in to worship.” We believe that scientific truth does not need to give way to religious truth.

As a Disciples pastor who values truth, I like what the Dalai Lama once said, that if science conclusively demonstrates that certain claims in Buddhism are false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon [or re-interpret] those claims of Buddhism.

The Christian faith tradition has always accepted the claims of science... eventually. Yeah, sometimes it took a century or two of convincing, but we no longer believe in a flat earth, or that the sun revolves around the earth. The Bible says that the sun rises and the sun sets, and we still use that language today, even though we know - and we believe - that, technically, it is the earth rotating and revolving that gives the appearance of a rising and setting sun.

It would be foolish to insist that the sun revolves around the earth, because science proves otherwise. In the same way, it is foolish to believe that the creation stories are meant to be taken literally, that the earth was created in seven 24-hour periods that took place just a few thousand years ago, because science proves otherwise.

We don’t need to be afraid of truth. Religious truth and scientific truth are very different, but they are both true. I can read the story of creation in Genesis and find meaning in it, even if I don’t believe that the earth was actually created in seven days, but over billions of years. In fact, not reading it literally sets me free to find the deeper truth and deeper meaning in the biblical story of creation.

In the same way, whenever I hear some statement from the White House or from Fox News or from the Huffington Post or from some guy on facebook, I should know to be skeptical of what is being said. Where is the evidence? What are the sources?

These are even good questions to ask when it comes to the Bible. The Bible says what? Is that just your belief, or is it backed up by the scholarship of serious Bible scholars and theologians?

As we grow spiritually and learn more about both faith and the world around us, it’s OK to change our minds on things we once believed. In the face of evidence and new knowledge, it would be irresponsible to NOT change our beliefs. Thomas Merton - the well-known, widely respected Catholic theologian, once said that “If the you of five years ago doesn’t consider the you of today a heretic, you are not growing spiritually.”

This is how we become spiritually mature. The spiritually immature accept whatever is told to them without testing it. The spiritually immature allow made-up truths to toss and blow them about.

But the spiritually mature seek out what is true, test what is true, and allow what is true to shape and guide them.

Let us, then, be spiritually mature. Let us have discerning minds, and not believe every little thing that we hear or read. Let us study scripture, let us acknowledge the truth of science, let us ask questions, and let us not try to create our own reality. Let us come to faith with our head as well as our heart. Let us grow in knowledge and wisdom and faith.

We Are One (Ephesians 4:1-6)

Thomas Campbell’s “Declaration and Address” was written a few years after Barton Stone’s Cane Ridge Revival. That revival was held in Kentucky in the summer of 1801. It lasted for five days, and attracted somewhere between ten and thirty thousand people. Today isn’t really about the Cane Ridge revival, but I can’t help but imagine how loud one must have had to preach to that many people in order to be heard in a day without microphones.

Anyway, a more important and remarkable thing about the Cane Ridge Revival (or, the Cane Ridge “Camp Meeting” as it is sometimes called) is that Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian ministers alternated preaching from the rough, hastily built platforms, and in their preaching, there was no indication of any sectarian differences among them.

Thomas Campbell wasn’t even in America at the time of the Cane Ridge revival. He arrived a few years later, and had never even heard of Barton Stone.

He arrived alone; his family remained, for the time being, back in Ireland, where he had recently resigned his ministry at the Old Light Anti-burgher Seceder Presbyterian Church.

That’s quite a name for a church, isn’t it? The Old Light, Anti-burgher Seceder Presbyterian Church. It’s a name that was the result of many divisions within the church. Somebody didn’t like something about the church, so they separated and formed a new church. Then divisions arose within that new church, which divided again.

Eventually, you end up with the Old Light (as opposed to the new light) Anti-burgher (as opposed to the pro-burgher) Seceder (as opposed to the non-seceder) Presbyterian (as opposed to the Methodist or Anglican) Church.

In America, Thomas Campbell hoped to overcome the divisions that plagued his church back home. One could say that he was hoping to bring to his fragmented world a movement for wholeness.

Arriving in American, he was assigned by the Presbyterian synod to preach in southwestern Pennsylvania. Since there were a number of believers in that region who did not have churches or ministers, Thomas Campbell welcomed them to the Lord’s Table, without requiring them to affirm any Presbyterian creed as a condition of their participation. Ooh.

In those days, that was a big deal. Most churches back then carefully guarded who could and could not receive communion at the Lord’s Table. If it was a Presbyterian table, you had to be Presbyterian—one who affirmed Presbyterian creeds, one who subscribed to Presbyterian statements of faith—in order to participate. Same thing for Methodist tables; you had to be Methodist. Or Anglican tables; you had to be Anglican.

There weren’t a whole lot of people in southwest Pennsylvania in those days; which meant that churches were widely scattered. You may have been a Methodist, but if the nearest Methodist church was a ten-mile walk or a twenty-mile horse ride, and there was a Presbyterian church just down the road, you might have found yourself worshiping there instead.

It didn’t seem right to Thomas Campbell to deny the Lord’s Supper to someone who was a follower of the same Christ he was. So he welcomed them unconditionally. It seemed to him the right thing to do.

But to others in the synod, it was not the right thing to do, and they formally rebuked Campbell. He was allowed to continue preaching, but by the end of 1808, Campbell had withdrawn from the synod, and—with a few other like-minded individuals—formed the Christian Association of Washington, Pennsylvania. It was in the following year—1809—that the Christian Association published what Campbell called his “Declaration and Address.”

Historians have called the Declaration and Address the most influential document in Disciples history. Some have hailed it as “one of the great milestones on the path of Christian unity in America.” It was in that document that Campbell wrote the words that I hope are now familiar to you, that “the church of Christ on earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one.” The Declaration and Address also affirms that every person who professes their faith in Christ and who seeks to follow Christ is a part of that one church.

In an age of fierce denominational differences and rivalries, this was a bold statement to make.
An entry on Wikipedia states that Thomas Campbell was a man before his time. His ideas, which attracted some attention in his own time, would only become more popular in the years and decades to come. His ideas helped give birth to three distinct Christian movements: the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Church of Christ, and the Independent Christian Churches.

However, as inspiring and significant as Campbell’s words are, we are, in fact, three separate movements today. We know that we still have work to do when it comes to recognizing and living out the truth that is the oneness of Christ’s church.

The good news is that we are, in fact, doing that work. On this bicentennial celebration of Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address, these three movements are coming together in worship, this morning, this afternoon, in thousands of congregations and cities throughout North America and the world. Several of us will be attending (and I will be participating in) one such celebration taking place at 5:00 today, at First Christian Church in Bellflower. We will reaffirm the oneness of the church, a oneness that we recognize despite the historical differences that have divided us in the past.

We will, as the scripture says, make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit, recognizing that there is one body and one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.

For we who are Disciples, this is an excellent opportunity to live out our identity as a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world. When Thomas Campbell’s son, Alexander, arrived in America a few years later, they discovered that their thinking on church unity was the same. They began a new movement, which they called “Disciples.” Alexander became the prominent leader among the Disciples.

Eventually the Disciples joined with Barton Stone and his growing movement, the members of which called themselves “Christians.” In 1832, the Disciples and the Christians came together, and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) was born.

Ever since, we have proclaimed that “unity is our polar star.” The open table that is at the center of our worship gives witness to the unity of the church. Every Sunday, we gather around the Lord’s Table. Every Sunday, the invitation is extended to all, to gather at the table and partake of the body and blood of Christ.

It certainly is fitting that this bicentennial celebration of the “Declaration and Address” coincides with World Communion Sunday, a day on which we recognize our oneness with all those who gather around this table around the world; all those who, in various languages, in various styles of worship, in nations rich and poor, partake of these same elements.

It is fitting that this bicentennial celebration also coincides with the 2nd Sunday of our reconciliation emphasis. For us, reconciliation ministry is about overcoming divisions; specifically, divisions caused by race and racism. Like World Communion Sunday and our Great Communion celebration, reconciliation emphasizes that we are, indeed, one.

We are one in Christ, whether or not we agree on every issue that comes along. Even when we disagree, we are one in Christ. Remember that.

When some of us like one type of music and some of like another type, we are one in Christ.
When some of us see the government’s role in society a little differently than others do, we are still one in Christ.

When we speak with different accents, or pray in different languages, we are still one in Christ.

When personalities clash, we are still one in Christ.

When we are separated from one another due to travel or illness, we are still one in Christ.

When we hurt one another and are in need of forgiveness, we are still one in Christ.

When we celebrate together, we are still one in Christ.

When we mourn together, we are still one in Christ.

When we worship together, we are still one in Christ.

We are one in Christ with each other. We are one in Christ with other parts of the body, around the world.

We are one church—one church in Christ.



Sources used for background historical information:

Lester G. McAlister & William E. Tucker, Journey in Faith: A History of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). St. Louis: CBP Press, 1989 (third printing).

Mark G. Toulouse Joined in Discipleship: The Shaping of Contemporary Disciples Identity (revised and expanded). St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1997

“Declaration and Address,” Wikipedia entry.