Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“Simple Wisdom”
Rev. Brent Gundlah
First Reading (Ephesians 5:15-20, NRSVUE)
Gospel Reading (John 6:51-58, NRSVUE)
Our family recently converged in the Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park for vacation. It may seem to you like a strange choice for a summer getaway (I mean the South Side of Chicago in August ain’t exactly the French Riviera), but we opted for this location because it has meaning for us: one of our daughters currently lives there, and all four us resided there during our respective college years.
I haven’t been back to Chicago since February of 2020, and I remember this date quite vividly since it was only about a month before the pandemic began and everyone’s travel plans got put on hold for a while. The subsequent four plus years have gone by slowly in some ways and quickly in others (I’m sure many of you can relate to that feeling); but, when I stopped to think about it, I was surprised that I hadn’t been there for so long. I guess just I figured I’d get around to going at some point; I mean, Chicago wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
The experience of this journey was kind of strange for me, and I mean that in a Rip Van Winkle kind of way. Sure, I’ve been back to Hyde Park several times over the years (mostly during the period that my daughters were in college) but, for the most part, that neighborhood and I went our separate ways when I left it more than three decades ago.
And so whenever I go there to visit, after having been away for a while, I feel overwhelmed and nostalgic as I take in all that’s the same and all that’s changed: Some buildings that look exactly the way they did when I lived there, and other brand new buildings that have taken the place of ones that I used to walk past every day; restaurants that Valerie and I frequented when we were dating that still have the exact same menus they did way back then, and others that didn’t even exist when I was there four years ago; and, of course, daughters who will always be my babies, but who also seem to be a whole lot more grown up than I remember them being. I guess what I’m saying is that as much as I might want everything to be exactly as it was, it never is.
This time, though, I was also acutely aware of how much I’ve changed: how much my back hurt after being on my feet all day, how I couldn’t help but fall asleep by eleven o’clock every night, how set in my ways I’ve become over the years, how much I loathe humidity — all things I wouldn’t have even thought possible about myself thirty five years ago.
As we were walking around one afternoon in the Chicago summer heat (and humidity), I suddenly felt the need to complain out loud to my family: “I’ve never felt so old in my life.” Thankfully, one of my daughters was there to put things in perspective for me: “Well, that makes perfect sense because you’ve never actually been as old as you are right now,” was what she said — which, while factually accurate, didn’t make me feel any better. In retrospect, I realize that I was kind of contemplating my own mortality in a roundabout way.
And so as I sat there on the plane during the long flight back to Salt Lake City, I found myself musing about two truths that might not seem to be connected in any obvious way, though they most definitely are.
The first truth, as I’ve already mentioned, is that things are always changing; even what we might think of as being stable is always evolving: A gigantic, well-established city; a university that’s been around for many years; buildings and businesses that have existed for decades; my family; and, of course, myself.
This brings me to the second truth, which is this: With the notable exception of God, nothing lasts forever — including, but not limited to, us.
And so the question with which I’ve been wrestling with ever since my recent vacation drew to a close is this: In a world where permanence is delusion and change is reality, what should we be doing with the limited time we have, to change the world for the better? This is a question not only for individuals but also for communities — for the churches that were the initial recipients of the Letter to the Ephesians, and for churches like ours today.
“Be careful, then, how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of God is.” This is what the writer says to these early congregations of Christ-believers in first century Ephesus.
Make the most of the time, carpe diem, seize the day; this is advice that I’m sure we’ve all heard before in one form or another, but the exhortation to do this “because the days are evil” adds an interesting twist. You see, in first century Christian-speak, the term “evil days” was a reference to the oppressive and coercive, unjust and unfair systems that most people were living under back then — ones that needed to be resisted and overthrown; ones that desperately needed to be changed.
This was an important idea for these early Christ-followers to hear and to understand. They believed that time was running short (and by that I mean very short); they believed that the end of days was imminent; they believed that Jesus would be returning any minute now to sweep them all up to heaven. And so they tended to live their lives in light of these beliefs.
The problem, though, was that they were taking the easy way out; they were behaving like the clock had already expired and were just waiting for the medals to be handed out — that what had happened in the past (that whole Jesus rising from the dead and promising them eternal life thing) guaranteed them a bright future, so they didn’t really need to care about what happened in the present.
So when the writer of this letter tells the Ephesians to “not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery,” it’s because that’s exactly what the Ephesians were doing. And this shouldn’t be too surprising; after all, it’s way easier to numb oneself to the problems of the world then it is to work to change the world.
The whole point here is that these Ephesians ought to be doing something else, that God wants them to be doing something else, that they should seek to be “wise,” to “understand what the will of God is,” and to “be filled with the Spirit.” And, from the sound of it, our author also really seems to want people to go to church, to “sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among [them]selves.” I, for one, don’t really see anything wrong with that.
But it’s important to understand that the act of gathering to worship isn’t the end in and of itself; it’s a path that leads towards something else, something greater, something transcendent; it’s a way in which the Ephesians — and we — come together as a community to begin to give “thanks to God… at all times and for everything.” Yet, giving thanks to God isn’t just about singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs amongst ourselves; it isn’t simply about hunkering down in here to do the things we’ve always done in here.
No, giving thanks to God actually takes us right back to the beginning of today’s passage: We truly demonstrate our gratitude towards God, we make “melody to the Lord in our hearts,” by being careful — that is not to say, fearful but, rather, intentional — about how we choose to live;
making our way through this life not as unwise people but as wise — people who understand that God’s will is for justice and love and compassion not only in heaven but also right here on earth;
making the most of the time, because the days are evil: recognizing the world’s inherent capacity for change, and using the limited days we have in it to get out there and make it better.
Look, I’m sorry to have to be the one to say these things, but I’ll say them anyway: None of us is going to be here forever, and this church community isn’t going to be here forever either. And while the details may have changed over the past two thousand years, the days are still evil, which is another way of saying that the world continues to be a difficult place in which to live. At the end of the day, the combination of these truths leaves us with a pretty short list of options:
We can try to escape the realities of life in this world by intoxicating ourselves with all sorts of things, even though that ultimately won’t either change anything or do a lick of good.
We can try to convince ourselves that, for better or for worse, what having been will always be, despite the fact we know, deep down inside, that this isn’t the way things actually work.
Or, knowing what God’s will is, and understanding what giving thanks to God means, we can use the wisdom of the past to work with urgency in the present, to ensure that all God’s creation can experience a better future.
Live wisely or live unwisely: the choice is ours to make.