So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
(Ephesians 4:25-5:2)
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You may not have noticed this - but in many corners of the world and of our own society the church isn’t held in particularly high regard anymore. We could literally spend days arguing about why that is, where we went astray, what we’ve done wrong, what we’ve failed to do right, what we should be doing better. There’s really no one particular answer to why things are the way they are. But I do know (anecdotally, at least, from conversations I’ve had over the years) that one thing Jesus promised that the church isn’t perceived as offering is life. Real, abundant and vibrant life. I think about the last couple of weeks in our readings from John’s Gospel, and the focus of those passages on the image of Jesus as “the Bread of Life.” And then I wonder - how is it that the church isn’t seen as offering that bread to the multitudes of spiritually hungry people that are out there, all around us, but not with us? My own observation is that most people see the church as life-denying rather than life-enhancing; that the church is perceived to be taking away joy from life by adding layer upon layer of rules and restrictions and by seeking to control people’s lives rather than by setting them free to be the children of God and the disciples of Jesus. That’s a tragic perception, because it’s so at odds with what we see in Jesus’ own ministry and teachings. It’s a caricature, to be sure. I believe that there are lots of churches and congregations who live up to and into the teachings and ministry of Jesus very well, but caricatures tend to work their way into popular perception - and that caricature of the church as dour and joyless is very real for a lot of people, and it might well be one of the biggest hurdles we face as we try to reach out and convince people that here is a place where life is celebrated with joy.
For a lot of people, if one word could sum up their feelings about Christianity, I suspect that one word might be “don’t.” “If you want to be a Christian,” so goes this caricature, “then don’t do this and don’t do that.” And, of course, if the focus is on “don’t” then the focus is also on consequences. That view of faith easily leads to a portrait of a God who’s anxiously waiting for any excuse to punish those who do the things they’re not supposed to do. That’s not what I understand the basic message of the gospel to be about; nor is it what I take from the New Testament. Neither Jesus nor the later Christian writers were negative people who looked at the worst. Even recognizing the limitations of human nature, they took a far more positive approach than that. Somewhere along the way, that was lost. Perhaps it happened because the church gained political power and great wealth and became a behemoth striding across the landscape of the western world and - like most holders of power and wealth - it became consumed with the desire to control the lives and behaviours of its subjects, and the work of the Christian, I would say, is to return both church and faith to a more positive approach and a more life-giving perception of both God and gospel.
Of course, many have been trying to put that more “positive” feel in Christianity for decades. I can think back to well known preachers such as Norman Vincent Peale or Robert Schuller - both of whom were very big on the whole idea of “positive thinking.” Or you could even look at those secular figures who’ve tried to counter the unending fear and bad news that we’re inundated with in the world - perhaps a bit flippantly, I think of Bobby McFerrin’s old song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” which appeared and disappeared like a shooting star, but tried to make the same basic point as Peale or Schuller - think good thoughts, and good things will happen; or, at least, think good thoughts and that will get you through the bad times. I have no problem with positive thinking, I’m not at all opposed to happiness, and I do think that to an extent positive thinking and letting go of our worries and adopting happiness as a way of life is a good strategy for dealing with hardships - but from a Christian perspective I also don’t think they go far enough. Positive thinking alone is passive and largely self-centred. It doesn’t particularly encourage us to do anything. It simply helps us get through our own problems and challenges. But my feeling is that positive thinking that doesn’t lead to positive action is pointless, just as faith without works is dead. And I think Paul would agree.
In Ephesians, Paul also argued that a faithful Christian life that truly reveals Jesus to the world is not primarily negative. In each example he cited, Paul moved from a negative to a positive - he moved from a "don't" to a "do." "Don't do this" is transformed into "do this instead." And so he calls Christians to replace falsehood with truth, to replace anger with forgiveness, to replace stealing with generosity, and to replace unwholesome talk with uplifting speech. Paul understood that all too often - and it was the case apparently even in the early church, or else it wouldn't have been mentioned in Ephesians - Christians come to be known for what we're against, so that we come across as judgmental, sanctimonious and harsh. This passage is an encouragement to Christians to counter those perceptions by encouraging us to qualities and behaviours that give life and freedom and grace to both ourselves and to others. None of this is to say that there aren't certain actions that we should avoid - none of it denies the reality of sin (which is that which offends God) but the bottom line of our faith is that God calls us to a way of life that focuses not primarily on law, but on love. “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love," and, as Jesus taught and as Jesus lived out, that love is extended outward to all: Jesus taught us to love God, to love one another, to love our neighbours, and even to love our enemies. You can't do that through a series of "don'ts." To love as Jesus loved, you have to focus on the “dos!"
I suppose that to think that we could “imitate God” might seem to be the height of arrogance, but it's not a call for us to imitate God by our own efforts. It's a call to imitate God by following the example of Christ's love, and Jesus doesn't just give us an example to follow, he actually pulls us along. This is all about the power of grace. We're not threatened to take the right steps or else face punishment, we're loved into walking a path that Jesus has already cleared for us.
Neither God nor God's Word can be reduced to a mere set of prohibitions and restrictions. God's Word can never be just a negative. God's Word is by its very nature always a positive, and God's Word helps us to turn our own negatives into positives as well. God's Word - and especially Jesus, God's Word Made Flesh - turns "don't" into "do." This is simply the way God’s children live - in a positive, life enhancing and liberating way that advances the purpose of God. If we live that way, our lives will be a “fragrant offering and sacrifice” that will attract people to the One who gave his life as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
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