Ephesians 4:1-16
Growing up in Christ is living our ‘One’ Calling – Week 8
Introduction
Remember our cake analogy we’d been using to describe the structure of the book of Ephesians? It reads sort of like a recipe,
The first half is like the ingredients, the second half is like the method. Today, we’re moving into the second half, and things are getting more practical, grounded, and fleshed out in our experience.
But the transition isn’t too abrupt. We’re not grinding gears here through the change. We don’t jump into a harsh list of oughts and ought nots.
The author, whom we’re calling Paul, starts with another of his “Therefore’s”
Because of everything I’ve just written and prayed about, he says, I now beg you. I beg you… to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
Paul isn’t commanding, he’s making an appeal to the power of God’s story and action.
An appeal for the Ephesians and the church down through the ages to walk our calling, embrace the gifts God has given to equip us for this walk, and in so walking, mature into the full measure of Christ. That in all, followers of Jesus would live out our One calling.
If we think about today’s reading inthe context of our analogy of the baking of a cake. This is the part after we’ve got the ingredients out of the pantry, before we start mixing, where we take a moment to organise and group things.
Our Calling to the One v1-6
What ‘calling’ is Paul talking about? We often talk about someone’s calling to a role or task, We may say someone has found their calling when we observe that they are doing something that brings them great joy, meaning or fulfilment.
We can use the word calling this way. Although in reality, a calling is more than a job. Another term for calling is vocation.
Where a job usually has a beginning and an end, a vocation is something that is more expansive. A vocation is a way of life.
I know our modern job environment is always changing, but farming is a good example of a vocation. Someone who works the land and cares for livestock may have weekly rhythms, but their vocation is comprehensive; It’s not a 9-to-5 job, and there is likely no part of their life that is not shaped by their vocation as a farmer. There is no time when they are officially ‘off the clock’. The seasons continually cycle through, the weather takes no notice of preferred times for operation.
We would say that farming, as we typically imagine it, is a way of life. A vocation.
Of course, there are other examples of vocations, but the vocation Paul is talking about here is not one we may tie to some particular work, like farming, or teaching, or a call to ordination.
This calling is wider, something foundational.
It is the Good News of God at work in the world in Jesus.
This calling is a summons, to each and every person to hear the call of who God is and what God is doing and to come under the reign and rule of Jesus, ruler and sustainer of the cosmos.
A calling to follow in the way of Jesus in everything. Not just 9-to-5, but with everything of us.
This vocation is a lifetime of dedication, of complete loyalty to Christ.
A high and beautiful calling for us all.
Paul pleads, live a life worthy of this calling.
You may remember that Josh, in his introductory sermon, spoke of the axios, like a set of old merchant scales. That when a known weight was put on one side, and then an amount of (say) flour was put on the other side, until they came to place of equilibrium. One measure was deemed worthy of the other. In our case, Paul urges the Ephesians for their response to be worthy of the call. In tune, in keeping with grace, generousity and grandness of the call of God.
God’s calling and human living, in balance in harmony with each other.
Jesus has already done everything to bring together people who have heard this call and responded to it, those who wish to live into this vocation. We looked at this earlier. The boundaries the walls between Jew and Gentile, have been brought down in Jesus.
But Paul says to live into this vocation, worthily, we have to make every effort to maintain this unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace.
He reminds us that there are not many callings. Just One.
One Hope
One Lord,
One Faith,
One Baptism,
One God and Father of all, above all, through all, and in all.
We are so used to our different divisions and denominations, and different theological leanings, that we sometimes doubt this is true. Sometimes I’ve come away from conversations or expressions of worship and wondered if indeed we worship the same God.
When we come to baptise Adrianna and Charlotte in 11 days, we baptise them in the name of the One Lord and One God, One Spirit. It is not just a sign of welcome and belonging to our Village Community, but to God’s BIG community. It is not a belonging to a particular brand of Christianity or a strand of theology. They are responding to the One call, living into this vocation in The Church.
Paul isn’t expecting uniformity in our faith. We will believe some things quite differently from each other.
But he is insisting on unity. We cannot diminish one part or another.
We must replace arrogance, harshness and hurry with humility, Gentleness and Patience.
By living into this One calling, this vocation, by working for unity in and for the church, we give the world a foretaste of God’s dream — a reconciled and renewed creation.
Equipping for the One Call v7-14
Paul also sees that God not only calls, but that God also equips the Saints for this vocation of Good News.
There are two things that are interesting as Paul is talking about this. He paraphrases an extract of Psalm 68, adapting it to Jesus, to make the point that Jesus in his victory over death, and enthronement in his ascension, gives his people gifts to help them in this calling.
Paul then talks about the Jesus ascending and then descending into the lower parts of the earth.
This verse is mysterious. Some have thought it could be where part of the Apostles’ Creed finds its inspiration. The part that says between his burial and resurrection, he descended to hell.
But scholars from all theological persuasions agree that our verses from Ephesians are not talking about. As an aside, even well-known conservative scholars don’t see any good biblical support for that particular line of the creed.
Translations like the NIV and NET steer us in a good direction here, when they talk about Christ’s descent “To the lower regions [of the cosmos], namely, the earth”
A way of talking about either Christ’s incarnation, or perhaps more likely the descending and sending of the Spirit of Jesus at Pentecost.
So all to say, that in receiving the Gift of the Spirit, it is the Gift of Christ we are receiving.
And, in this receiving of the Spirit, there is Grace for all and also specific gifts for the building up of the church.
Much has been made of this list, which is often termed as the Five-Fold Ministry after the five gifts mentioned. But that terminology can give the impression that these five things are ministry, and everything else is perhaps, well, something else.
However, Paul is clear that these gifts, Apostles, prophets and evangelists, teachers and pastors, all present in the early church, don’t exist for themselves, but to help the wider body grow, and to equip the saints for Ministry.
These things are not more important than other parts of Christ’s body; they just have a specific role to play in this One Calling of Maturity in Christ.
We see an expression of this in the way we, as the Presbyterian church, organise ourselves. We have a Parish Council, which used to be organised as a Session of Elders, and the minister, as pastor and teacher, is also an Elder, sometimes called the Teaching Elder. They are part of the body, no higher or lower, but they have been commissioned for a specific role to play in nurturing faith and care for others.
Our decision-making as a group is done by collective discernment together.
The Church’s mission and pastoral care is the ministry we work at together.
That is not to say those in these roles necessarily “know” the “right” answers, whatever they are. It is often our weaknesses that the Spirit uses to shape us and others to be more like Christ, who made himself weak.
The other thing is that this list is not exhaustive, as Paul lists other gifts elsewhere in his letters. We shouldn’t get fixated on just these ones, or allow ourselves to forget that the Church itself is God’s gift.
The church is an appointed time and place for the meeting of two beings, divine and human, in conversation. Obviously, we can converse and be present to God at any time and any place. But the gift of church is a protected time and place, made available for communion with the Divine.
In this conversation, we can ask ourselves, what Gifts has God given us as a church to help us grow into the fullness of Christ? Remembering that they may not always be gifts of strength or talent, either.
Maturing into the One v15-16
As we practice this unity, the humility, gentleness and patience, as we learn to discern what is good and what is bad, what is wise and what is foolishness, what is faithful and what is disloyal, we are maturing, learning to speak truth in love.
In Jesus, we discover the truest form of our humanness, of what we were always meant to be. Paul doesn’t want us to rest until we attain it, not that any of us yet have.
But one of the fruits, the abilities if you like, that living into this One Calling nurtures in us is speaking truth in love. The truth about God and of God cannot be properly represented by words or actions with no love. If I have not love, Paul says my words and song are a noisy gong or clanging cymbal. Without love we are an orchestra hopelessly out of tune.
However, we become more and more tuneful as we grow up into Him who is the head, into Christ.
Growing into the head is a funny way of speaking about a growing body. Although our heads are a bit bigger at birth ,we don’t grow into them. Any metaphor breaks down eventually. But Paul seems to say that as we grow, we are growing along the lines that the head intends.
Like when we are recovering from an injury, say we’ve hurt our hand or our knee. There is a disconnect between what our head wants to be able to do, what our limbs can perform. What our head knows it is capable of and what our limbs can sustain.
As we recover, as our limbs are growing healthy again, they are brought into line with what our head intends. A cohesive and capable whole.
As we know, the road to recovery from injury takes time, sometimes a very long time. We don’t expect to do our exercises one day and be fully functional the next. Although that’s what we’d probably prefer.
It’s the same in our growing into Christ, as the body of Jesus, coming into line with what our head, Jesus, intends.
We are Jesus’ apprentices, on the journey of becoming more like our Lord. More human. More like God.
While Sunday church is one point in our week for conversation with God. Showing up doesn’t guarantee we will grow. Simply putting all the ingredients for a cake on the kitchen bench doesn’t mean you’ll get a cake.
But if we commit to doing our exercises, if you will, if we open ourselves to God and the realities of life in this body, God will use these rhythms of faith to shape and grow us.
We are all at different stages of renewal and growth or, if you like, the recovery of our true humanity.
Sometimes we may think of maturing or growing in our faith as something like moving from what we might call a more literal faith to a questioning faith, or from a questioning faith to a faith that is comfortable with uncertainty.
These things are more are not so much what we believe, they are more how do we believe. How do we relate to our faith. One is not necessarily better than the other.
Christ is found in all these spaces.
Maturity in Christ is not a race to a set of beliefs or a particular expression of our faith.
It’s about growing in Jesus where we are and learning to walk in step with Him.
Not ahead of Him, not behind Him, but beside Him, in tune to Jesus’ desire and calling.
Closing
As we walk beside Him, we learn to keep the bonds of unity with each other who are called together into this one all-encompassing totally absorbing Call, this one vocation.
We learn to look around for the gifts God has given to help us grow, maturing into this one Calling.
We grow up, into the mind and intentions, into the heart of Christ, the One who is Truth and Love.
Growing up into Jesus is living our One Calling. It is the life we were made for.
Amen.