No Longer Strangers The Holy Shift
Ephesians 5:15-20
Sermon preached at
Skyline Presbyterian Church
Sunday, August 19, 2018
Guest Preacher, Cari P.
Thank you, Pastor Robyn, for giving me the opportunity to preach here today, and helping me prepare to worship with you all. It is always a special joy to connect with a fellow woman in ministry, and I’m grateful to meet you.
One small thing can make a big difference-
Holy Shift- take away one small letter in the sermon title, and you have a different expression altogether!
Those of you who are grammar nerds (I used to be an English teacher) know that one comma added to a sentence can make all the difference.Maybe you’ve seen those memes that say “Punctuation saves lives!” Without a well-placed comma, “Let’s eat, Grandma,” becomes “Let’s eat Grandma.” And without a comma in the middle, “I’m sorry, I love you” comes out “I’m sorry I love you.”I cringed at this magazine headline that left out necessary commas:“Rachel Ray finds inspiration in cooking her family and her dog.”
Yikes.
On a more serious note, a small shift can also wreak havoc on an ecosystem. Yesterday as I walked around Capitol Lake in Olympia, I was struck by the signs warning not to get in the water. It looked kind of stagnant, so I wasn’t really tempted to get in anyway, but I read the signs more closely to find out why the stern warnings.It turns out that one small mollusk shifted everything: the non-native New Zealand Mud Snail. You never know what will show up from New Zealand!
These invasive, miniscule snails eat algae and microscopic organisms that are important food sources for aquatic insects, invertebrates, fish, and birds.Not only that, it reproduces by cloning itself! A single snail can create a new colony that can quickly dominate river and lake habitat, wiping out native species at the bottom of the food chain. And ultimately, animals further up the food chain—bald eagles, river otters, migrating birds—will not be able to find food there. These little buggers are only an eighth to a quarter of an inch long but can pass through the digestive systems of fish and birds unharmed, and can live for weeks out of water, which is how they can hitch a ride on people’s boots and pets and then invade an entire lake.Now back home in New Zealand, these snails are probably doing fine, happily doing what they do, living out their own calling in the universe.But down in Olympia, they caused the whole lake to be shut down for use since 2009.
One small thing can lead to a big shift.But is there such a thing as a holy shift? That is, a shift that leads to more life, more goodness, more love, more glory to God?Is there an invasive species, if you will, of well-being?
“Holy Shift” is a term I borrow from author and speaker Rob Bell, whom I got to see when he stopped through Brooklyn on his “Holy Shift Tour.” He talked about the Hebrew term for holy: kabod, and the way holy moments can take us by surprise in the unlikeliest of places. The way Jesus’ idea of “holy” had very little to do with “being good” and “going to church.”In the scripture for today’s lectionary text, the writer is calling for a holy. shift.
I understand you all have been going through the book of Ephesians this summer- one of the letters of the Apostle Paul. Paul never met Jesus in person, but he had this incredible encounter with God on the road to Damascus, in modern-day Turkey. Within a week, Paul had a new name, new friends, and a new mission: to take the message of Jesus’ life and love all around the Mediterranean. His passion was to help form these little communities of people who met together in homes: they ate and prayed and sang and studied scripture; they gave to anyone around them who had a need.And so these early gatherings of Jesus people were called “Followers of the Way,” they were the first iteration of what we now call church.
Sometimes we forget how simply it all began. No big structures or staff or budgets or buildings. Just people getting together, wanting a different way to live.
This short letter to the Jesus-followers at Ephesus was one of a number of letters Paul likely wrote from prison in Rome. He was jailed numerous times by governing authorities who refused to tolerate the notion that anyone other than Caesar- the Emperor- was Lord.
But no jail bars could keep Paul from his work. The same fierceness he brought to persecuting the Christians, he turned toward encouraging them. So around 62 AD, Paul sends this letter to the believers at Ephesus.
I’m reminded of letters my favorite aunt used to send me from all the places she lived far away from my childhood home in Kansas. I remember flying to visit her in Portland after I graduated high school, and all those letters she’d written me about faith and family and the splendor of the Pacific Northwest came to life when I got to spend a week with her- hiking Multnomah Falls and picking berries.
I imagine Paul hoped to rejoin these Christians in Ephesus, too. This letter is a word of hope even coming from the dark cell of imprisonment- to keep going, to forge a family of love, to believe in the grace of God to sustain them in struggle.
In this letter to the Ephesians, Paul is calling for a holy shift:
- from unwise to wise
- from foolish to understanding God’s will
- from getting drunk on wine to getting filled with the Spirit
What does that wiser, Spirit-filled life look like?A holy shift to gratefulness:Gratefulness in time, in song, and in struggle.
First, a shift to gratefulness in time.
A grateful heart makes the most of the time given in this short life. Paul says, “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.”
Whoa. It’s like a carpe diem – seize the day – message, combined with a warning that these times are bad. We’re not always comfortable with the word “evil.” But it’s hard to deny when turning on the news or looking around us and in us, that the world isn’t exactly in a steady place:
Paul wrote this letter from a place of being unfairly imprisoned, so he knew a thing or two about the evils humans are capable of:
Systems of oppression that require resistance, the mass incarceration of black men in this country, global networks of human trafficking, sexual exploitation and assault in every arena from the newsroom to the boardroom to the rooms of churches. Environmental destruction that leads to an ever-warming climate and exquisite orca whales that can’t feed their young.
We may bristle at the term “evil,” but it’s hard to argue that things aren’t bad. And during this, Paul says to be wise. To make the most of every day. To act on behalf of the small shift that you can make, that might lead to a bigger shift for others.
One of my friends in Tacoma attended a women’s leadership conference and felt intensely troubled by the presentation there on oppression of women worldwide and the high percentage of girls and women who’ve been abused and robbed of their full potential.
She decided she couldn’t do everything, but she could make a small shift that might lead to a bigger shift down the line: she joined the board of Rebuilding Hope- the Sexual Assault Center of Pierce County. She can’t do everything, but she is making the most of the time given her, using her skills and passion to be a voice for the voiceless.
This shift to gratefulness of time means we don’t want to numb out to all the bad news because it scares and overwhelms us.That’s why Paul warns here against drunkenness. He knows that we as humans tend to self-medicate when life feels too hard. The challenges of being a world-changer feel too daunting, so we turn to things like shopping, smart phones, substances, storing up our money instead of sharing it.
The sad thing is that not only does this distract us and drain us, it keeps us from tuning in to the will of God and experiencing what it means to fill up on something better than drink—TheSpirit.
God knows we need more than self-discipline and force of will to live grateful lives and maximize the days we have to make a difference. We need a higher power of love.So, Paul directs us to another surprising shift…that of song.
When scientists study our neural pathways relating to music, they discover that something special happens when we sing.Especially when we sing together.You know this from going to concerts and hearing live music that you love- singing along with strangers in this transcendent moment of collective joy. You know this from going to Seahawks and Mariners games, or whatever teams you support, when you sing those team chants and cheers with a whole stadium of fellow fans.
And in church, for 2000 years, friends of Jesus have been gathering to chant psalms in monasteries, to sing hymns in traditional services, and to praise God with new spiritual songs in more contemporary worship. I think Paul includes all three here for a reason- we need all forms of edifying music to lift our hearts up in prayer. And yes, we can do it privately in our kitchens, but how much more fun around a campfire, around a small group, around a house church, or before the table of holy communion?
A couple years back, my neighbor and church member, Carolyn, was suffering from later-stage Alzheimer’s disease and I went to visit her at her home. She must have asked me a dozen times, “Who are you?” “Why are you here?” Each time I answered her- “I’m Cari. Your neighbor, your minister. I’m here to say hi and pay you a visit.” Worried that I might be agitating her, I thought about leaving.
Then it dawned on me, since she seemed to have no concept of what I meant when I said, “I’m from the church” – I started singing the doxology “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…”
Without missing a beat, Carolyn chimed in “Praise him all creatures here below…” Her face lit up and we sang the whole thing together word for word, followed by the Gloria Patri, and Holy, Holy, Holy and Amazing Grace. She laughed and threw her head back and said, “We should go on stage!”
Carolyn died a few weeks later, but I still give thanks every time I walk by her house, and chuckle at the idea of she and I hitting the road for our vaudeville act of good old Presbyterian church songs.
A holy shift in song, makes a difference. It takes us to a place beyond reason, a place beyond worry, and researchers say if you start your day singing, it changes the vibration in your brain for the better- setting the neural pathways in tune for the rest of the day.
A shift of gratefulness in time.
A shift of gratefulness in song.
And lastly- a shift of gratefulness in the struggle.
Could Paul possibly mean what he says next, to “give thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything”?
As a pastor I have prayed with people who lost their entire homes in a hurricane. I have met with families as they sent their teenager to rehab for the 3rd time. I have sat in silence with mothers after they buried a child. Does God really call us to find a way to be grateful in the struggle? That is a lot to ask. Sometimes the most grateful thing you can do in a chronic illness, a crippling loss, or a crushing heartbreak- is to choose to get up and breathe for another day.
To choose to say, “I am still here taking up space on planet earth. We are all interconnected, and this world still needs me. There is still love, somehow some way.”
I think of my new friend, (I’ll refer to her as Lisa- not her real name) whom I met this summer. Lisa and her husband are a beautiful young couple in their 30’s, but their teeth are rimmed in black because they are recovering meth addicts. When they became parents- now with three darling kids, they vowed to God and each other to give up the drugs and be there for their children.
But it is not easy. Lisa struggles with depression, self-worth, and sometimes suicidal thoughts. She is choosing gratitude in the struggle, and it is a hard act of courage. But she believes that even in her darkest moments, where memories haunt her, and the challenge of parenting overwhelms her, God is there. And so, she makes the most of the time. She sings those Jesus songs. And she presses on in the struggle, serving as a volunteer at a suicide hotline so she can be a lifeline to others who know that pain.
She sends me praise songs now over email, songs that have easy chords to learn, because she knows I’m taking up guitar again. This morning she sent me the song “You’re a Good, Good Father.”
Here’s the most important shift of all in Paul’s message:
“Give thanks to God the Father in all times for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
We don’t do all this grateful shift stuff on our own. We do it together, and we do it in the strength and grace of the one who came down to forgive and heal and feed and touch and welcome in the sinner and hoarder and outcast and lonely and forgotten.We do it because in Christian theology, we look to Jesus to get a picture of God. And in the same way one snail can shift the ecosystem of a whole lake, the organism of Christ’s love can shift the whole world.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen.