Text: Ephesians 5:3-20
Introduction
Ok, we are six Sunday’s into our reading of Ephesians. And I’ve been attempting either to remind us each time of Paul’s argument, or to catch us all up. But I’m going to have to let some of that go this week and next to focus on one thread, because Paul’s words today and next week are the ones that trouble our age.
Paul’s third big point is that Christian lives – our lives – are to display the rich variety of the wisdom of God to the unseen rulers in he heavenly places. Satan and the World, the powers that be, the unseen rulers, have a principle. Grab what you can when you can. The highest good is pleasure principle. Because soon enough you will be gone. Eat, drink and be merry, because tomorrow we die. And the parallel to that is strive for domination because the powerful ones are the ones who get the most. The Christian life is one that is lived as an example that Satan and the World are liars.
Instead it is the order of God that allows us to truly thrive – to be physically, mentally and spiritual whole. That order is best understood through the 10 commandments. The fancy theological term for this is the 3rd use of the law – the rule. Having been saved by Christ, we now walk in the way God planned. And that is what Paul is doing in this section. He is elaborating, making concrete and explicit, what those 10 commandments say and how they apply to the Christian life.
Last week Paul looked at the 2nd, 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th commandments. Today, Paul concentrates on the 6th, and its very Jewish connection to the 1st.
Trouble in the World
What are the messages that Satan and the World tell us about sexuality?
I’d argue that everything in our society is structured around the glorification and attainment of sexual pleasure. The pleasure principle in our age is all concentrated around this. We are worshippers of the orgasm. We still have institutions like what we call marriage, and we attempt to maintain some boundaries and inhibitions like consent, but these are incredibly weak structures compared to the goal of that orgasm.
If that marriage – which in classical understanding is unbreakable – is what stands in the way, we have no fault divorce.
If the natural outcome of the marital act – babies – gets in the way, we have the unlimited abortion license on the back end, and every form of contraception imaginable on the front end.
And if the problem is simply other people and consent, our tech overlords are building us sexbots, as the papers breathlessly tell us every other day. And as a popular song has it, we can spend our time with Taylor Swift in the Oculus Rift – a virtual reality world.
Should the problem be the flesh itself, the pharmaceutical industry is there to help, as every commercial on radio and TV tells us in the middle of cartoons.
Dating and Mating is no longer a Jane Austen endeavor that engulfs the entire family, but merely personal swipe right and swipe left looking for the next hook-up. And if your proclivity tends to homosexual impulses, you can skip right from Tinder which might at least come with coffee and some chit chat, to grinder which will pair you up anonymously in a local park.
And all of this is spurred on by greed for the new experience and domination. I don’t know if any of you have watched the movie Don Jon – Joseph Gordon Leavitt and Scarlett Johansson are the stars. It captures the essence of this greed. The main character Jon is not a “bad guy”. We’d recognize him. We’d like him if we knew him. In many ways he might even be a standup guy. But everything in his life is reduced to being an object. My apartment, my car, my family, my church, my women, my porn. And Jon, as the story plays out, is unable to pay attention to Scarlett Johansson because the pornjust fulfills that demand for domination, objectification and new experience better. I won’t give away the ending. But Jon has just perfectly embraced everything Satan is selling. That “I” am the only true actor, and “I” am justified in treating others as objects for my pleasure. Instead of treating others and full human beings, equal in their uniqueness and deserving of being treated not as objects, but as ends in themselves. Jon has to be freed from that slavery, and it doesn’t come through rules – which ScarJo tries – but through love. Although to be honest, while the movie points in that Christian direction – it needs a follow-up, because what Jon is after is still the better orgasm. It is still in darkness, if a small bit of light has entered.
Paul’s Command
Paul addresses this directly. “Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people.”
If you are going to buy Satan and this world’s lies, “you can be sure that no immoral, impure or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of God…for a greedy person is an idolater, worshipping the things of this world.”
The sixth commandment and the first commandment are deeply connected. You have a problem with the first – you have a problem with God - you have a problem with the sixth – with adultery. Or the way it is typically seen is that if you have problems with adultery and fornication, your deeper problems are with God.
Now I know some of you are probably squirming – I’ve used words that don’t seem right for a pulpit. Some of you might be mad. Some of you might be running through what other ministers have said, or maybe just not said. And honestly – looking at the mess in the Roman Catholic communion –such squeamishness and inability to be frank is part of the problem. We are unsure enough about the God of the first commandment, that we give room and make allowances in the sixth. But the Apostle doesn’t let up.
“Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him.” Like I said last week, Satan’s big trick is to try and convince us that “God didn’t say that”. It seems so reasonable the love is love. And what about all the hard cases of marriage. And c’mon, Paul is just an old guy with lots of hangups. Or if we don’t want to slander the apostle, we take the enlightened seminary route – “he was a man of his time. We can separate out the cultural baggage from the real message.” But let me remind you how this section started – “with the Lord’s authority I say this.” And he precedes this “Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins.” Does that sound like a section that is amenable to cultural filtration?
And the Apostle is so strident for a deep purpose. “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord!” And this light in you “produces what is good and right and true”. If your purpose as Christians, if our purpose as the church built together, is to testify to Satan and the World, then we can’t participate in their lies. Either Satan is right, and we should grab it now; or God is good and right and true. If our hope is the resurrection, and our life is hidden with Christ – then we testify to that goodness and rightness and truth with our lives. We will touch more on this next week as we continue, but for now the sixth commandment is a first commandment issue. Who do you worship?
A Messy Existence
Now some of us might remember a time – call it late Christendom – when the structures of the world at least supported some of the Christian walk. That day is long gone. Our day is much more like Paul’s. We are knights of faith in the midst ofa world in thrall to the powers, deep behind the enemy lines. So Paul continues his pondering. Just living in this world of ubiquitous sex pill ads and porn means that we are confronted with it.
“Carefully determine what pleases the Lord.” Our own flesh is very likely to betray us. We aren’t too sharp in spiritual matters. And rarely are our choices between good and evil, but we are more often making choices between not exactly bad and probably worse. But we have been given the tools – the scriptures first of all. Carefully determine. Test me and my words. Am I telling you the truth. Or is the world telling you the truth.
“Take no part in worthless deeds…instead, expose them.” This is why Paul is so clear here. This is why I have been clear. Yes, it is shameful to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. But this is the light. And I want you to walk in the light. I want you to remember who and whose you are.
Arise, O sleeper, rise up from the dead. Don’t give in to Satan and the World’s narrative. Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse. Don’t slip easily into these sins yourself. But carefully determine. And in your action Christ will give you light.
No, this is not an easy existence. Did anyone say being a witness to the powers that be would be? But that is the call. And we pick up that call, we bear the cross, we walk in the light – “we sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” because we’ve been given the truth. Christ has called us out of the grave. Rightnow is just the moment before eternity. Right now is the heroic age. Not with weapons of steel, but with what is good and right and true. This is what we’ve been given. Do we keep it, or slink back into darkness away from the Lord who has brought us near through his Son into his marvelous light. Amen